"My thanks to you," the soldier whispered to Cadderly, all the while eyeing the charred mass of his dead allies. The pile fell apart then, resettling upon the floor, as Cadderly's strange enchantment dissipated.
"Where is Aballister?" the young priest demanded. The man's lips seemed to tighten into thin lines,
Cadderly leaped past Danica, grabbed the man by the collar, and slammed him hard against the wall. "You are still a prisoner!" he growled in the surprised man's face. "You can be an asset to us, and we will repay you accordingly.
"Or you can be a detriment," Cadderly went on grimly. He looked back to the pile as he spoke, and the unvoiced threat drained the blood from the captured man's face.
"Lead on to the wizard," Cadderly instructed. "Along the most direct route."
The man glanced at Danica, as if pleading for some support, but the monk looked away impassively.
That gesture did not reveal the turmoil in Danica's heart Cadderly's move and threat against the prisoner, a person he had just declared was not an evil man, had surprised her. She had never seen Cadderly so calculatingly cold, and while she could understand his determined actions, she could not deny her fears.
The prisoner took them through a door to the side, halfway around the circular room. They had only gone a dozen steps when Cadderly grabbed the man again, pushed him up against the wall and began roughly stripping off every piece of his noisy armor, even to the point of removing the man's hard-soled boots.
"Quietly," he whispered to the man. "I have but one battle left to fight, a battle against Aballister."
The man growled and pushed Cadderly away, and found Danica's silver-hiked dagger at his throat in the blink of an eye.
"The wizard is powerful," the prisoner warned, wisely keeping his voice soft
Cadderly nodded. "And you fear the consequences of your actions should Aballister win out against us," he reasoned.
The man's lips went tight again, and he made no move to respond. Cadderly eased Danica away and again put his face close to the man's, his jaw firm and unrelenting. "Then choose," the young priest said, his voice low and threatening. "Do you take the chance that Aballister will not win out?"
The man glanced about nervously, but again said nothing.
"Aballister is not here," Cadderly reminded him. "None of your allies are here. It is just you and I, and you know what/can do."
The man started off again immediately, his bare feet making little noise as he padded along the corridor with appropriate caution. They crossed several side corridors, often hearing the sounds of other soldiers rushing about, probably in search of them. Each time some group was about, Danica looked nervously to Cadderly, as if to say that this man, who could betray them with a simple call, was his responsibility.
But the man held true to the terms of his capture, moving with all stealth as they worked their way past one guard position or patrol group after another.
When they entered one long corridor, though, a group of goblins entered it simultaneously from the other end, and they found that they had nowhere to run. The goblins, six of the beasts, advanced cautiously, weapons drawn.
The prisoner addressed them in their own croaking language, and Cadderly understood well enough to know that the man had concocted some lie about being on a mission for the priests, going to Aballister with some important information.
Still, the goblins eyed Cadderly and Danica dangerously, exchanging a few quiet remarks - doubts, Cadderly knew - amongst themselves.
Even the cooperative prisoner looked back, his expression showing sincere worry.
Danica didn't wait for events to take their obvious course. She leaped out suddenly, punching the nearest goblin in the throat, circling about her leg flying high to connect on the next one's chest, and whipped a dagger into the face of yet another. She ducked low under a sword swipe and sprang up high from her crouch, double-kicking the sword wielder in the face and chest
Two goblins rushed by her, more concerned with escape than with tangling against Cadderly and the soldier, but Cadderly got one with his walking stick, shattering its knee, and the soldier tackled the other.
Danica spun about and again kicked, sending one goblin flying into the wall. The creature smacked hard against the stone and bounced back, and Danica, timing her spin perfectly, promptly kicked it again. Again it bounced out again it was launched backward by a perfectly timed kick.
The fourth time, the goblin was allowed to fall to the floor, for Danica sprang away, leaping over the prone prisoner at the back of the goblin that had slipped his grasp. One hand reached around to cup the goblin's chin while the other grabbed the hair on the back of its head.
The goblin squealed and tried to stop and turn, but Danica rushed right beside it, twisting her arms viciously, snapping the wretched thing's neck.
"Down!" Danica called, coming around behind Cadderly. The young priest fell to the floor and the goblin facing him was caught fully by surprise as Danica rushed by, connecting with a heavy punch into its ugly face. It flew backward several feet, hit the stone with a groan, and Danica ran past
The goblin she had hit in the throat was up to its knees again, trying to find its footing. Danica leaped high into the air, coming down with her knees driving against the skinny creature's back, slamming it down fiercely. She pulled her second dagger from her boot, grabbed a clump of hair with her free hand and pulled the goblin's head back, cutting a neat line across its throat
She did likewise to the helpless goblin that had her other dagger sticking from its face, ending its misery. And then she turned back, to see Cadderly and the prisoner staring at her incredulously.
"I do not parley with goblins," Danica said grimly, wiping her blades on the nearest monster's dirty tunic.
"You could not outrun her," Cadderly remarked to the prisoner, and the man, in turn, gave the young priest an incredulous look.
"I just thought I would mention that," Cadderly said.
They set out at once, Cadderly and Danica anxious to put some distance between themselves and the scene of the slaughter. The prisoner said nothing, just continued to lead them at a swift pace, and soon the tunnels became quieter and less filled with rushing soldiers.
Cadderly sensed that the walls in this region were not natural, though they were lined by uncut stone. The young priest could feel the residual energies of the magics that had been used to make this place, as though some powerful dweomer had pulled the natural stone from between these walls.
The sensations sent a mix of emotions through the young priest. He was glad that the captured soldier was apparently not leading them astray, glad that their search might soon come to its end. But Cadderly was worried, too, for if Aballister had created these tunnels, had magically torn the stone from these halls, then the storm at Night-glow only hinted at his powers.
Something else assaulted Cadderly's thoughts then, a fleeting, distant call, as if someone was summoning him. He paused and closed his eyes.
Cadderly.
He heard it clearly, though distantly. He felt for the amulet in his pocket which he'd acquired some time ago and with which he could communicate with the imp, Druzil. Now it was cool, indicating that Druzil was nowhere about
Cadderly.
It was not Druzil, and Cadderly did not believe that it was Dorigen, either. Who then? the young priest wondered. Who was so attuned to him that they might make telepathic contact without his knowledge or consent?
He opened his eyes, determined not to get sidetracked. "Keep going," he instructed his comrades, taking his place beside them.
But the call remained, fleeting and distant, and what bothered Cadderly more than anything else was that it somehow sounded so very familiar.
Dwarven Stealth
We must move quietly," Shayieigh pointedly instructed her dwarven companions, what seemed to her an obvious precaution. Still, Shayieigh soon came to understand that her definition of "moving quietly" was apparently very different from Ivan and Pikel's. The clomp of Ivan's boots echoed loudly off the stone walls, and Pikel's sandals double-slapped - once against the floor and once against his foot - with every pumping stride.
They rambled along several long, dark corridors, the only light coming from widely spaced torches hanging in iron sconces. Around a bend and through an archway, the three companions found the walls lined by fonts, filled with a clear, watery substance.
Ivan, needing a refreshing drink, paused and moved to scoop up some, but Pikel quickly slapped his hand away, waggling a finger in his startled brother's face.
"Uh-uhhh," the green-bearded dwarf implored, and he hopped up high and pulled a torch from its sconce. Still waggling the finger tucked under his arm, Pikel touched the fire to the liquid. The stuff hissed and sputtered, and a noxious gray cloud arose, making Ivan pinch his nose. Pikel hung his tongue out of his mouth and muttered, Tuck"