Bodies littered the floor. Regdar found himself balancing atop a dead man. Though the soldier's body provided little stability, the extra few inches of height were an advantage. Bashing aside one blade after another, Regdar leaped from the dead man and brought his sword down in a heavy chop. Two swords hit the floor in a tangle, their wielders' hands still gripping the hilts.
The soldiers stepped back, gripping the bleeding stumps where their wrists used to be. Regdar kicked out to his right and lunged forward with his greatsword to the left, like a dancer performing for the duke. Both men fell to the floor, where Regdar quickly finished them off.
At that moment, the room fell silent.
Breathing hard, Regdar looked up toward the far wall of the chamber. Not a single black-clad soldier remained in his way. He glanced back at the closed portcullis. Clemf was pulling his longsword from the body of a fallen soldier, Whitman was down on one knee, having a hard time breathing, and Tasca was seated on top of a bleeding but still-living soldier.
"Where have they gone?" quizzed the elf. He held the tip of a dagger at the soldier's throat.
The man shook his head.
"I said," repeated the elf, pushing his blade deeper into the warrior's skin, "where have they gone?"
The man reached up, obviously in pain, and grabbed Tasca's wrist. The elf realized the man's intent too late. Before he could wrest the dagger away, the soldier plunged it into his own neck up to its hilt. Blood frothed out of the wound and the man's mouth, then the soldier's head slumped to the side.
Whitman had watched the suicide with calm exhaustion. "It's all your fault, elf," he said, almost coughing on the words. "If you'd been a better shot, she wouldn't have gotten away."
9
Tasca stowed his rapier, uncorked a silvery flask, and handed it to Whitman.
"If you hadn't been so ugly, she probably wouldn't have wanted to leave so quickly."
The dwarf downed the potion in one long gulp. The wound on his forehead immediately stopped bleeding, and the blood dried into a scaly scab. He dropped the empty flask and slapped Tasca on the arm.
"Who says I wanted her around anyway." The dwarf smiled. Hefting his hammer over his shoulder, he stepped over a dead soldier and headed for the other side of the room.
He looked back over his shoulder. Regdar and Clemf were downing potions of their own.
"Well," said Whitman in a rather gruff voice, "are you two going to stand there and drink all day, or are we going after the bitch?"
Clemf tossed away his empty flask. "That's not a very nice thing to say about Regdar's woman."
Whitman stopped altogether and turned around. He leaned forward, toward the tattooed human, and narrowed his eyes.
"Not Regdar's woman, you oaf. The blackguard." He shook his head and continued climbing over the dead. "If you weren't so enormous, I'd have no use for you." He flung his head back. "You know that?"
Tasca grabbed Clemf's arm as he passed. "Welcome to my own personal plane of Hell," he said.
Regdar, Clemf, and Tasca followed the dwarf to the shadowy end of the room. There they discovered that the black bricks and the darkness had concealed from them a narrow passageway that led deeper into the fortress. Whitman proceeded into the pitch-black hallway, but slowly as if looking for something.
"Hold up there, you sewer rat," chidedTasca. "The humans can't see in the dark."
"You can't see in the dark," replied the dwarf, and he continued searching in the darkness.
Tasca turned toward Regdar and Clemf. "Hold on," he said, nodding.
The elf walked a short distance back into the room, along the wall. Above him, suspended about twice his height in a black iron sconce, hung one of the lit torches that lined much of the chamber. Squatting down on his haunches, he leaped into the air. Easily passing the torch on his way up, Tasca shoved on its shaft to knock it free. Pushing off the wall at the height of his jump, the elf grabbed the tumbling torch on his way down before landing softly on both feet.
He handed it to Clemf with a bow.
The tattooed human accepted the torch. "How do you do that?"
Tasca winked. "I'm part frog."
Regdar grabbed the elf's right hand and lifted it up. "He has a ring of jumping," indicating the plain-looking band on Tasca's finger. He let go of the elf's hand and grabbed the torch from Clemf. "Come on."
Regdar headed into the dark corridor, following after Whitman.
The hallway continued in a straight line deeper into the mountain. The passage was much smaller than the grand entrance hall, and any resemblance this building had to other, more regal palaces stopped at the end of that enormous chamber. Water seeped through cracks between bricks to run in rivulets across the floor. Where the water collected in small puddles, slippery algae grew in patches matching the shape of the puddle above it. The damp corridor gave off a musty, stagnant smell.
Ahead of Regdar, Whitman crouched, his hammer on the floor beside him. He was examining the base of the wall.
Regdar came up behind the squatting dwarf. "Find something?"
"Yep." Whitman's hand disappeared into a depression in the brick. The wall slid away, grinding against the stone floor as it did. As the wall opened, light creeped around the brick, flickering weakly into the hallway.
Whitman stood up and retrieved his hammer.
Clemf and Tasca stepped up behind Regdar, their weapons at the ready. Whitman looked at each of them in turn, nodded, then headed into the room.
The chamber Whitman had revealed was small, maybe large enough for twenty to twenty-five armed and armored men to stand side by side without bumping into each other. The ceiling was perhaps the height of two dwarves, one standing on the other's shoulders.
On the far wall, two lit torches flickered in heavy, iron sconces. The flickering light played through masses of cobwebs along the walls, revealing the bony remains of perhaps a dozen long-dead soldiers on the floor. Dust and bits of cobweb covered the exposed bones and rusted armor.
Whitman took a step inside the room, kicking up a plume of dust as he did. The dwarf sneezed. The booming noise echoed around the small room, bouncing from the stone walls and rolling down the long hallway.
Tasca whipped his bow around, pointing down the dark passage. He cocked his head, listening.
Whitman lifted his arm and wiped his face with his sleeve.
He looked back at Regdar. "Sorry. Dust."
The big fighter nodded. "Your sneezes could wake the dead."
As if on cue, the chamber began moving. Rusted armor clanked and scratched as the bones of dead, human fighters lifted themselves off the floor and prepared to fight.
Regdar stepped into the room to stand next to Whitman. He heard a twang, and an arrow whipped over his shoulder. The projectile passed directly through a skeleton's ribcage, flying harmlessly between the exposed bones and shattering against the stone wall behind.
The animated bones shambled forward. Whitman swung his hammer with a pounding blow. His target's skull, encased in a rusted helm, collapsed like brittle parchment. The hammer traveled on, unslowed, crushing ribs, spine, hip, and femur. Spiked bits of shattered bone flew all over the room as the creature exploded from the force of Whitman's attack.
Regdar swept his greatsword overhead in a one-handed strike. The sharp blade clove through a skeleton's shoulder with a sharp, cracking sound. The monster shambled on, minus its right arm.
A mass of rusted blades and sharp finger bones jabbed at Regdar and Whitman. Harsh scraping noises filled the chamber as the attacks scratched down the fighters' armor. The rattling of bones and the shuffling of feet continued as the undead pressed on.
Regdar stepped farther into the room, simply shoving three skeletons back with his extended arm. Clemf stepped in behind him, taking the spot directly beside Whitman. His longsword cut right through one skeleton at the waist and knocked the head from another. The thing continued lurching forward, unfazed by the lack of a skull.