Depths of Madness

by Erik Scott De Bie

  The tide seemed to be turning—the seven could escape. The worm’s cries multiplied as the spellslingers inflicted blow after stinging blow upon it. The shrieks wreaked havoc upon the grimlocks’ ears. Those that remained winced and moaned with every roar. Distracted as they were, the companions could defeat their numbers.

  Facing the last grimlock she saw on his feet, Twilight ducked under a slashing sword blade and came up inside the creature’s guard, wrist swinging. A grimlock with a sword—a steel one?

  This grimlock must have seen her trick and caught on. It released one hand from the sword to keep his balance and put his right knee into Twilight’s stomach, sending her reeling.

  Liet darted in to strike, but the grimlock brought his blackened sword around and dealt his head a glancing blow with the flat of the blade. Liet fell helpless beside Twilight, who struggled madly to catch her breath. The grimlock rose over them and spun the sword over his head, the blade dripping with a green liquid that hissed like acid.

  Then the creature stopped.

  Twilight looked up, blinking, and saw Gargan holding the grimlock’s arm in his powerful hands. The two strained against one another, exerting all the force of their tightly corded muscles, and barely budged. The eyeless creature looked to be some kind of royal guard, wearing strings of gems around his neck. The grimlock wielded a masterfully crafted sword of steel, surely taken from another sacrifice. A black lacquer crossbow—drow construction, perhaps—hung from his belt.

  Hissing, the grimlock shot out a hand to catch Gargan by the throat. The goliath released one hand from the monster’s sword arm to lock his stonelike fingers around the creature’s wrist in an attempt to break his grip. Without both arms holding the sword back, Gargan could do little but watch as the grimlock slowly forced the keen edge toward his face. Acid dribbled on his chest.

  Twilight cried out and lunged, blade stabbing. The grimlock stiffened and released a little hiss. The sword slipped from his fingers and clattered to the ground. Twilight’s rapier speared his side, leaving a small hole that spurted gray-red blood.

  Panting, a trickle of blood coming from the corner of her lip, Twilight stepped aside to let the grimlock fall. She relieved him of the crossbow almost unconsciously.

  Gargan spoke words Twilight did not understand. “Gol maula kae.”

  The appreciation was clear enough, and the elf gave him a smile that was suitably winsome, considering the circumstances. Her belly ached in all sorts of ways. The goliath helped Liet to his feet, and without flinching, wiped the acid off his stony skin.

  Unsettling strength, that.

  Then Twilight remembered their surroundings. The grimlocks were dead, but the worm yet lived. “Away!” Twilight shouted up to Asson. Taslin, Gargan, Liet, and Slip dashed toward the exit. The old man threw another lightning bolt at the worm and swooped toward the tunnel.

  Taslin hung back, gazing up at the old wizard with fear on her face. Twilight caught her arm and pulled her around. “We have to go. Now.”

  The priestess struggled, but Twilight insisted. “He can fly—we can only run,” she said. “Let him wait until the last—he has the best chance to escape of any of us.”

  From the furious, confused look Taslin burned into her face, Twlight gathered the priestess objected to Twilight’s reasoning. Taslin shrugged her off and rushed at the worm, sword in hand.

  “Taslin!” Twilight snapped, but it was too late.

  Gargan was faster, however. He bounded in front of Twilight and caught up Taslin, slinging her over his shoulder like a sack of grain. The priestess screamed and beat at his back, but the goliath did not reply to her cries.

  Together, they fled toward the others.

  The shadowdancer let out a sigh of relief, just as Davoren’s words rang out. “Fall, damn you!” the warlock shouted. Then, half a beat later, “Fall!”

  Twilight heard something in his words that made her blood run cold—or perhaps it was something she felt—some bit of magic, a touch of compulsion.

  Asson picked just that moment to plummet from the air. The wizard didn’t even flail as his spell failed and his body slammed into the ground with shattering force.

  Within a heartbeat, the hissing purple worm snaked forward and crushed the old wizard beneath its coils.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Taslin’s heart shattered. It all happened so fast. One moment, Asson had been flitting about, unscathed, borne on the wings of magic. Alive. In the next instant, he became little more than reddish paste spread along the ground under the worm. He couldn’t have dodged—couldn’t have escaped.

  Silence reigned in the cavern for a split second.

  Then the priestess let out a shriek. Having been dropped by the goliath, she threw Twilight sprawling and dashed toward the worm.

  “Taslin!” Twilight shouted, but Taslin didn’t listen. What would that child know of this?

  Golden hair blazing around her, the priestess bore down on the purple worm like a wrathful goddess, her sword low at her side in a two-handed grip. It hissed along the stone. As if it sensed her coming, the monster hissed and snaked down, opening its acid-slavering jaws wide. Taslin ran, full out, directly for them.

  Then the priestess did what no sane warrior would do: she leaped into its mouth.

  And as she went, she slashed up and thrust through its upper palate. The keen elven steel bit a hand-length deep into the burning pink flesh. The worm jerked back, stung. Taslin almost lost her balance and fell, but she held to the sword and rose as the worm did, inside its mouth. Though acid ate at her boots and she could scarcely breathe amid the fumes, Taslin bent at the knees, centering her weight.

  “Corellon!” she cried, and drove up with all her strength even as it bit down.

  The elven blade gave a screeching wail as it drove through the creature’s flesh.

  The monster screamed and slammed its head blindly against the ceiling of the cavern and managed to dislodge Taslin, who tumbled free. She did not know how high she was, but she didn’t care. One of the monster’s fangs tore a gouge down her arm, but the priestess hadn’t the breath to scream. Likely, it was for the best—her lungs would have filled with noxious fumes, enough to kill her.

  The creature gave one last screech of pain and toppled, with ground splitting thunder, to earth. Taslin followed, wheeling like a leaf in the wind.

  “For you, Asson,” she whispered as she tumbled toward death.

  Twilight’s mouth opened as the purple monster screamed and rasped, whipping back and forth like a headless snake in its death throes.

  “Burn me,” was all she said.

  Gargan tossed Liet his axe and sprang forward to catch the priestess’s acid-spattered body. Taslin, miraculously alive, coughed and sputtered in the goliath’s arms. She had somehow kept hold of her sword—the half that still remained. The other half—a full two hands of steel—was lodged in the dying purple worm’s head.

  Again, silence settled over the cavern, and the exhausted adventurers stood rapt. Then a chorus of vengeful shrieks came from the exit tunnel. A score of grimlocks, all wielding stone axes, flooded in to avenge their fallen god.

  Davoren cursed in single infernal syllables as the creatures swarmed toward him. He waved his hands, spreading dark power like slime. It struck the ground in the grimlocks’ path and spread into a pool of impenetrable blackness, its gleaming surface reflecting the charging monsters. Then he fled.

  As the first grimlocks stepped into the pool, a thousand tentacles of dark energy sprang from the black matter, wrapping the limbs and bodies of the eyeless creatures. Many were caught, and they screamed against the sucking blackness. Half the grimlocks charged through the tentacles, however, and they ran toward the intruders with slavering mouths and single-minded purpose.

  Twilight saw Davoren running ahead of them, but only just.

  “Run!” Twilight shouted to the others. “We can’t fight them all!”

  “We aren’t to save Davoren?” asked Liet, drawin
g a startled look from the elf. “We need him—you said it yourself!”

  “Sand,” hissed Twilight. She had never hated being right this much. “Gargan! Slip! Take Taslin! Run!” She looked to the exit but shadows of grimlocks moved within. She cursed. “Another exit! Go!”

  The goliath and halfling nodded. “Another tunnel,” said Slip. “That way!” She pointed to a small opening halfway around the cavern from the exit. They ran for the tunnel, Gargan cradling the limp priestess like a child swathed in a wet blanket. Taslin moaned in the goliath’s arms.

  With a brutal nod, Twilight turned to Liet. “Lad, you’re with me.”

  “Uh,” said Liet, looking at the oncoming horde, “I didn’t mean—”

  “Now!” shouted Twilight, darting toward the grimlocks like an arrow.

  Liet cursed and sprinted after her, huffing and puffing as he went.

  Ahead of them, the warlock panted and fought to keep running. The grimlocks were still gaining. They would soon overtake him, or drop him with a spear throw. Unless Twilight had a chance to argue the point.

  “Here!” she said, wrenching Liet to a halt.

  “What is it?” Liet stopped and leaned over, hands on his knees, his bloody sword dangling. His shield was split and would hardly withstand more punishment.

  Twilight closed her eyes. With a hiss of her will, she brought the shadows flickering about her body, ready to to cover their retreat. Then she paused, cursing. She had no energy left for a shadowdance, and little enough for manipulating the darkness. And the creatures had no eyes anyway—shadows could not save them.

  Liet misunderstood. “It only now occurs to you that we’re going to die?”

  Twilight ignored that. “I guess we’ll have to do this the energetic way,” she said. She fell back into a fighting stance, awaiting the rushing grimlocks. Davoren came roaring past, running full out, and didn’t even slow to help them.

  “Typical,” murmured Twilight.

  At that moment, an ear-splitting roar came from the entrance tunnel, drawing all eyes and ears. There stood a distorted troll with limbs of various sizes and patchwork, greenish and reddish skin.

  “Blind-dims!” roared Tlork, hefting his hammer. “They’s mine!”

  Only half a dozen paces from Liet and Twilight, the grimlocks skidded to a halt. They turned and charged Tlork, hissing with rage.

  “Run!” Twilight snapped, snatching Liet’s arm. “Come on!”

  Together, they followed Davoren back to the side tunnel, fighting the exhaustion seeping into their limbs and the fire tearing at their lungs. Gargan waited there, the last grimlock’s black sword in hand, ready to fend off any that pursued.

  He needn’t have bothered. Drawn to the troll by some unknown animosity, the grimlocks lunged at Tlork with flailing axes and the troll beat back at them. The troll outpowered the grimlocks—his muscles, fiendish body parts, and ferocity made him the perfect killing machine—but there were so many that Tlork would be long delayed.

  “Poetic, really,” said a voice at Twilight’s shoulder. She turned to find Davoren watching the battle with more than passing interest. “Playing one foe against another. Amusing to watch so much death, isn’t it?”

  Twilight kept calm. She wiped Betrayal on her thigh and sheathed it. For now.

  “Should we—ah—help?” asked Slip.

  “Help who?” put in Liet. “I’m thinking we’d best flee before—”

  A massive hand on his shoulder stopped the boy, and Twilight looked up to see Gargan there. The goliath, still holding the unconscious Taslin, did not speak, but his gaze conveyed volumes. His eyes fixed upon Tlork—analyzing, weighing, judging. He had looked at Twilight and Liet in the same way, as though sizing them up for a duel.

  “Aye,” said Twilight. “The longer we watch, the more we learn about the troll.”

  Tlork’s massive warhammer appeared awkward in his ten-foot skeletal arm, but the troll wielded it with exceptional skill and balance. Each swing of the weapon knocked two or three monsters aside, and his fiendish stinger caught those the hammer missed. When a grimlock came inside his reach, Tlork would simply flatten the eyeless wretch with his elephantlike leg or eviscerate him with a snap of his claws.

  Twilight had to wonder. Why had the grimlocks been drawn to the troll, if they could not defeat—nay, couldn’t even injure—the creature?

  As Twilight studied the foes, the assault made perfect sense. The grimlocks’ world was one of sounds and smells. The troll had bellowed loudly enough to rival the purple worm, and his stench was so pungent Twilight could catch it even at her distance, a spear-cast away. Tlork was perceived as a much greater threat than the seven of them.

  Six, Twilight corrected herself with an inward wince. She felt empty, as though something had been clawed out of her.

  Then Tlork broke through the grimlock horde, shattering a monster’s chest with a pulse of the mighty hammer. Those that did not lie dead had already fled in terror before the half-fiend, half-troll monstrosity. The path cleared, Tlork fixed his mad eyes on the six companions, and charged.

  “Time to be going!” Liet hissed.

  Twilight stayed him. “Wait.”

  Summoning her will, she wrenched the shadows to her and sent them forth. This was not the dance—it would not consume all her strength. The shadows coalesced and melted into scything blades—a wall of shadowy steel that flashed through the air—sweeping straight for Tlork and the few remaining grimlocks. She heard Liet gasp beside her, and knew it was because her gray eyes had flashed black.

  Twilight was used to it. She preferred it to her other powers. The shadows were another aspect of Neveren’s legacy, rather than part of her service to a god who hated her.

  The fleeing grimlocks who yet lived ignored the shadowy wall of razors—the illusion was only visual, and they had no eyes—emerging unscathed and oblivious. The troll, however, immediately fell to the important business of knocking the blades out of the air and smashing them to splinters against the ground. Not surprisingly, the hammer passed through the swords like the shadows they were.

  “Let us see how—” she started.

  “Enough of this,” Davoren snapped. With a flicker of will, he shot a pair of fiery bolts up at the ceiling. The power burst and sent a web of cracks through the stone.

  “Ah,” said Slip. “What—?” Twilight shoved the halfling down the tunnel and pulled Liet behind her as she ran. Gargan shot the warlock a glare but followed.

  Not a heartbeat later, the ceiling cracked and collapsed, sealing off the tunnel with a shattering crash of stone.

  Tlork skidded short of crushing his body against the tons of stone piled up around the tunnel mouth.

  Then a chunk of stone tumbled down from the top of the pile and smashed into the troll’s face with enough force to snap his head back and shatter his spindly nose.

  Tlork merely blinked, confused, as the carrot-shaped member straightened of its own accord and sucked in the blood dripping down his patchwork face. The troll’s regeneration left very little that went uncured.

  “Dumb them!” Tlork growled. “Dumb dims!” He hoped some of the dims had survived, so he could squish them.

  The troll turned to see the floating blades coming again.

  Those things wouldn’t give up, even after Tlork made sure they were good and dead. Or had he just run past them? He couldn’t remember.

  Tlork hammered at the first one, but his weapon went through the blade like so much air. It wavered a bit, but kept slashing at his chest. Funny, it didn’t make any noise—not even a good whistle through the air—and Tlork didn’t feel the sting.

  Any creature possessed of reason higher than that of an overripe turnip would have seen through the shadowy illusion, but Tlork had never been all that high in the garden hierarchy. Sun-baked green squash, slightly moldy, was about his level.

  Tlork kept fighting the shadow swords until they faded from view—only a few breaths. Then, unnerved at how they disappeared,
the troll set to work dispensing with the rocky barrier.

  As the dust settled, the adventurers found themselves breathless and in silence. Gargan lowered Taslin to the ground and stood ready with his blade, just in case the troll burst through the rubble. Slip moved stiffly to the sun elf’s side and murmured healing prayers. Liet put a hand on Twilight’s shoulder, though whether it was to comfort her or himself, she did not know.

  She shook him off. Why would she want to feel, right now, rather than think?

  Twilight scanned the dark corridor. It was not a worm’s corridor but one carved by hand and pick. Nor was it of the shabby, rough craftsmanship of the grimlock city. She ran her fingers along the walls, feeling the subtle symmetries and imperfections. Not dwarf work, either. Nor was it rounded and curved like the sewers. Rather, the tunnel was straight and smooth, traveling perhaps twenty paces before it branched right and left.

  A new section of the depths? The concept made her uneasy.

  “Liet,” she said.

  His eyes glazed and he did not respond for a second, seemingly lost. Twilight clenched her hands and bit her lip, uncomfortable at being patient.

  “Liet!” Twilight snapped.

  The youth started and looked over at her.

  “Did you come through these tunnels to rescue us, or another set?”

  “Can—can you not give us but a moment?” His voice was plaintive and weak. “I mean, Taslin, and Asson—he’s—well, he’s—”

  “Dead,” Twilight finished. Liet recoiled as from a slap. “As we shall be, unless we make sure no grimlocks can come after us. Sentiment comes only when we’re safe.”

  Twilight could feel them staring at her—hard. Good. It distracted her, and them.

  She continued. “Now, do those tunnels lead back to where you came from, or—?”

  The youth scratched his head. “These … are the same tunnels, I think … but they seem different.” He shrugged, and his eyes were damp. “We only got through guided by Gargan, and … and …” He trailed off.