Instead, he was pelted by a stinging hail of gravel shards. He found himself gasping for breath as he struggled to draw air back into his lungs and marveled that he had survived.
“Rikus!” Neeva screamed.
“I’m fine,” he groaned. The mul ran a hand over a stinging cut above his ear then picked himself up off the ground, nearly fell, and put out a hand to steady himself.
It was then that he realized he no longer held the Scourge.
“My sword,” he growled, shaking his head and glaring in Patch’s direction.
“There,” Neeva replied. “It exploded.”
She pointed to the ground next to where Rikus had landed. The Scourge of Rkard lay in two pieces, still tainted gray and now disjoined about midway between the tip and hilt. From the jagged ends of the blade oozed a stream of black fluid, thicker than syrup and smelling as foul as a briny well. Instead of sinking into the dirt, the liquid drew up into glistening beads, which immediately rolled toward each other and began to form a single, much larger glob.
A cold ache rolled over Rikus’s entire body. “No!” he cried, snatching the two pieces of his sword off the ground.
The mul spattered his fingers with several drops of the black fluid. The beads quickly rolled over his hand and started up his wrist, leaving a stinging trail of blisters in their wake. He yelled in surprise and whipped his hand downward, flinging the liquid onto the ground.
“What is that stuff?” he gasped, watching the beads crawl toward the larger blob on the ground.
“What does it matter now?” responded Caelum. He pointed toward Patch, who had grabbed another boulder and was raising it to throw again. “Let’s go!”
With that, the dwarf seized the mul’s arm and pulled him into the tunnel. Patch’s boulder crashed down outside and bounced off the cliff wall, filling the mine with a resonant boom.
Caelum led them into the deep recesses of the cavern, where the three remaining companies of Kled’s militia waited safely beyond the giant’s reach. The dwarves had not bothered to strike torches. When there was no true light available, their eyes detected the ambient heat emitted by all objects. It was an ability they had inherited from their ancient ancestors, who had lived out their entire lives in the black snugness of subterranean depths. Since he was a half-dwarf himself, Rikus was also blessed with this gift.
From outside came Patch’s distant voice, deriding the dwarves as pointy-eared cowards, backstabbing thieves who couldn’t grow a hair braid among them, and a dozen other names that he considered insulting. Each time the giant uttered another indignity, the tunnel trembled with the impact of another boulder hitting the cliff face outside. Once, a stone even entered the mine and rattled around the collar for a few moments before coming to a harmless rest.
Caelum stepped over to Rikus’s side, his hand already glowing with crimson light.
“My healing magic is not as strong at night,” he said, gesturing toward the gash above the mul’s ear. “But at least I can stop the bleeding.”
Rikus pulled away. “Wait a minute. I have an idea.”
The mul looked at the Scourge’s broken blade. The black fluid continued to drip from its jagged breaks. Enough of the stuff had gathered on the tunnel floor to create a knee-high blob.
Rikus fit the two pieces of his sword together and held it toward Caelum.
“What do you want me to do?” the dwarf asked. He stared blankly at the blade and the dark fluid dripping from it. “I’m no smith.”
“If you were, you’d know steel doesn’t bleed.” Rikus pointed his chin at the oozing seam between the broken pieces of blade. “So heal it.”
“Mend steel?”
“Just try it,” Rikus interrupted. “What can it hurt?”
The dwarf shook his head then reached for the seam.
Rikus put out a restraining hand. “Can’t you do it without touching it?” he asked. “That stuff stings.”
“Pain is nothing new to me,” the dwarf replied, closing his fingers around the Scourge.
As his hand contacted the black liquid, Caelum drew sharp breaths between his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut but did not pull away. A soft sizzle echoed off the tunnel’s stony walls, and sparks spewed from between the dwarf’s fingers, filling the dark passage with fleeting flashes of orange light. Sweat poured off Caelum’s brow and his muscles trembled, but still he did not pull away.
“Is that going to work?” Neeva asked, stepping to her husband’s side.
“I hope so,” replied Caelum. “Without the Scourge, I don’t know how Rkard is going to kill Borys.”
The dwarf held his hand over the seam for several more moments. Finally, when no more black fluid dripped from between his fingers onto the blob at his feet, Caelum took his hand away from the Scourge.
The blade separated into two pieces, but the ends had ceased to drip. Disappointed, Rikus slipped the broken tip into his scabbard for safekeeping. “At least you stopped the bleeding.”
“Whatever that liquid is, it’s not blood,” hissed Caelum, staring at his hand.
The dwarf’s palm was covered with the black ooze, which now bubbled and spewed as though on fire. More grotesquely, the bones beneath Caelum’s flesh seemed to be writhing about like worms.
“Get that off my husband!” Neeva screamed.
Rikus grabbed the dwarf’s hand and used the back of the Scourge’s broken blade to scrape Caelum’s palm clean. The black fluid hit the floor with a splat. It gathered itself into a bead and joined the largest glob.
“By the sun!” gasped Caelum. “What’s happening to me?”
The mul looked back to the dwarf’s hand and saw the cause of Caelum’s alarm. Thick, pointed scales had sprouted along the outside edges of the palm. In the center gaped a fang-lined maw, with bright red lips and a forked tongue that rose up from the abysslike depths of its ebony throat.
“Release me.” Black wisps of shadow slipped from between the mouth’s lips. “Come and free me.”
Caelum closed his hand. He grew very pale and said nothing.
“What is it?” Neeva demanded. She pulled them all away from the blob on the floor.
Rikus studied his broken blade for a moment then shuddered. “It must have something to do with the Scourge’s magic,” he said, slipping the broken blade into his scabbard with the tip. “Sadira will know more-I hope.”
“Come out!” yelled Patch’s voice.
Rikus looked toward the entrance. The giant was lying on his stomach and looking into the tunnel with his one good eye. He peered into the darkness for a moment then pulled away.
“Then you can stay in there, cowards!” he bellowed.
A moment later, a huge boulder came careening down the passage. It bounced off the walls a few times, and finally came to rest twenty or thirty paces inside the portal. The huge stone filled the tunnel so completely that Rikus could not see even a sliver of pale moonlight shining around its edges.
“I guess we won’t be leaving that way,” Rikus said.
The mul turned around and waited for his eyes to adjust to the dearth of light. Within a few moments, he was viewing the tunnel in a dozen radiant hues: the dwarves and Neeva in luminous red, thick veils of broken spiderwebs in shining green or yellow, the cold stone of the tunnel walls in shimmering blue.
“So how are we going to leave?” asked Neeva, peering around blindly. As the only full human in the group, she was the only person present who could not see in the dark.
“It won’t take us long to find another exit,” Caelum said. With his good hand, the dwarf grasped his wife’s arm and began to lead her deeper into the inky depths. “That’s true, isn’t it, Rikus?”
“There are hundreds of ways out,” the mul assured Caelum. “I suggest we divide the militia into three groups. Two of the companies should find exits as quickly as possible then attack Patch or any other giant they see. We don’t want them to go for a kill. Just let them know we’re still alive, then retreat and try it again from another portal.”