Paks felt a burst of anger. “Sir Felis, if you have cause for that—”
“No. All right, I’ll admit you’ve done well so far—I said it earlier. But you’re all young, and like any young fighters, you’ve got the sense of a clatter of colts. Wait for the Marshal, Ambros. Don’t drag others into your romantic dream.” Sir Felis pushed himself up and made for the door, pausing beside Arvid. “And you, master thief-not—a-thief, if you push that boy into rash action, I’ll not forget who started it.”
“Sir Felis,” said Arvid coolly, “I’ll not forget who was unwilling to root out the deepest evil.” He moved aside from the door, as Sir Felis spat where his feet had been and went out.
16
Arvid’s black-clothed form seemed to melt into the shadows as they moved farther away from the stairway, where dim light came from above. Paks felt a tightness in her chest. She did not like dark underground places, and wondered for a moment why she had agreed to come. Ambros nudged her in the back. She waved a hand at him, and took another careful step. Another. Surely it was ridiculous to come on something like this with only six, one of them an untried junior yeoman, an eager girl who would be all too likely to do something silly trying to prove herself. Arvid signalled, a wave of his arm, and Paks moved lightly toward him. He was the scout, accustomed, he said, to noticing traps. Paks, the most experienced sword fighter, came second.
After her, Suli and Ambros together. Paks hoped the yeoman-marshal would be steadied by steadying the junior yeoman. Mal brought up the rear with Jori, a friend of his.
“Door,” said Arvid quietly in her ear. “I’ll try it. Hinges right. Swings out.” Paks flattened herself to the left of the door; she saw a gleam of teeth as Arvid smiled. He ran his hands over the door for a moment, then did something Paks could not see to the lock. A nod of satisfaction; he drew his own blade and slowly pulled the door open. Paks waited, ready to strike. Nothing happened. She craned her neck and looked. Even deeper blackness. A sour smell wafted out, a stench like old rotting leaves and bones. Arvid put his sword through the door. Nothing. With a shrug, he leaned around the frame, poking at the darkness as if it were a pillow.
“Light?” asked Ambros softly. He had come quite close.
“Not yet. It makes a target of us.”
“Yes, but we aren’t cats—”
“Quiet. Wait.” Arvid had told them their main danger would be haste. Make a noise, he had said, clatter around like a horse fair, and our quarry will be ready for us. Paks waited, trying to see into the darkness by force of will. Spots danced before her eyes. Gradually she found she could see a little better. The room ahead was clearly a room—all shades of darkness, but smaller than the banquet hall above them. She tried to see if anything lurked in it. It seemed as if something—a pile of something—obscured the floor, but without light she could not tell.
“Go now,” said Arvid, in Paks’s ear. Together they moved under the lintel, separating at once on the inside to flatten against the inner wall. The others waited outside.
In here the smell was stronger. Paks wrinkled her nose, trying to decide what it was. It smelled—meatier, she decided. Rotting straw, bones, meat, and something like the inside of a dirty boot. She shook her head, trying to clear it, but the smell seemed stronger every second. Arvid sniffed, a tiny sound she could hear clearly.
“That smell—” she heard from outside. She thought it was Mal.
“Quiet,” said Ambros. Paks stood still, trying to hear anything past the pulse in her ears.
“We’ll go forward five paces,” said Arvid quietly, “and then if nothing happens, we’ll try a light.”
Paks heard the scrape of his boot on the stone flags as he took the first step, and moved with him. One step. Two, three—and she stumbled over something, staggering on soft, springy, uneven footing. A yelp got out before she closed her throat; Ambros behind her scraped flint on steel at once. As the spark caught, that little light showed that she’d caught her foot on the edge of a pile of garbage. Dirty straw, old clothes, bones chewed not-quite-clean, a broken pot—she started to laugh with relief. Ambros’s candle seemed brighter than she’d expected. She turned to Arvid; his eyes were wide with surprise.
“Just trash,” she said, waving her sword at the heap. It was half her height, and easily three times her length. “They must have—”
Part of the pile heaved up—and up—a vast hairy shoulder topped by an equally vast hairy face. A rheumy eye glared at her from under shaggy brows. Then the mouth opened on a double row of very sharp teeth. By reflex, Paks struck at the arm that swiped down from the darkness. Her sword bit into it, slicing deep, but the arm’s strength nearly cost her the grip. A deep bellow split the air, and the entire pile shuddered. Paks nearly lost her footing as the creature trampled its bed and attacked.
She had no time to wonder what it was. Taller, broader, than any human, it had a roughly human shape. Heavy pelt over thick skin—it turned Ambros’s first stroke—long arms ending in clawed hands, and a surpassingly ugly face—Paks noticed these without trying to classify them. Its deep-voiced bellows shook the air around them.
“Get back, Ambros!” cried Arvid. “Keep the light—this thing can see in the dark.”
Ambros made a noise, but moved back. Suli had come up beside Paks, and was doing a creditable job with her sword—except that she couldn’t penetrate the thick hide. Paks had wounded the creature several times, while dodging raking blows from its claws, but it was still strong. Arvid, she saw in a quick glance, was trying to attack its flank, but it moved too fast—he couldn’t seem to get a killing blow in. Paks had just begun to wonder where Mal and his friend were, when she saw him working his way around the creature to its back. Once there, he swung his big axe in a mighty arc and sank it into the creature’s back. It screamed, a hoarse, high-pitched sound, deafening in that space.
“The axe does it,” he yelled. “It’s got—” But the creature heaved backwards; Paks heard the axe-haft smack into something, and Mal grunted. She jumped forward, unsteady on the piled trash, and sank her sword deep in its belly. Now it lurched forward, bending. She dodged. Arvid got a stroke in on its left arm. Mal pulled the axe out of its back and swung again, this time higher. It went to its knees, moaning. Paks aimed a blow at the neck, and blood spurted out, drenching her arm. Still writhing, it sank to a heap, its eyes filming.
“So much for silence and caution,” said Arvid tartly, when they had caught their breath. Mal and Suli had lit candles now as well, and they all took a close look at what they had killed. Half again as tall as Paks, and heavily built, it was like nothing she had ever seen.
“What is it?” she asked, wiping the blood off her hands and face. The blood had an odd smell, and tasted terrible. Ambros shook his head. Arvid looked at her.
“I’m not sure, Paks, but it might be a hool. I’ve never seen one myself, but I’ve heard.”
“A hool?”
“Big, tough, stupid, dirty, likes to lair underground. If you can imagine a solitary giant orc—”
“I thought hools were water giants,” said Ambros.
Arvid shrugged. “Maybe I’m wrong. Whatever it is, it’s dead. And we have just announced ourselves to the entire underground.”
“I never did think trying to sneak in was a good idea,” said Ambros. “Gird is not subtle.”
Arvid raised one brow, and smiled. “No. That’s why I’m not a Girdsman. But don’t worry—now you’ll have every chance for a suicidal frontal assault.”
Paks had been poking gingerly through the trash heap that the creature had laired on. A copper armband gleamed; she picked it up. “Look. This is human-size.”