Descent into the Depths of the Earth (24 page)

“Come on!
Gotta go!”
Her whisper hissed above the whir
of busy little wings.
“Beholders!
Run like hell!”

The monsters moved, drifting slowly up and down. Hovering
silently and lost in their own thoughts, the three beings stared off into the
caves, having failed to catch sight of the tiny faerie. With her friends hidden
safely in cover two dozen yards back in the caves, Escalla reappeared, plastered
flat against the rocks and looking in fright toward the tunnel mouth. The girl
worked the slide of her battle wand.

“Oh man, oh man! Paranoid xenophobic homicidal maniacs that
shoot killer spells from every eye!” The girl looked left and right, trying to
see a route past the lurking terrors up ahead. “We are dead!”

Jus stood up, tugged his armor straight, and settled his
dagger in his belt. He strode straight down the passageway with his usual
irresistible tread. Escalla could only gape in horror for a moment, then flew
off madly in pursuit.

“Jus, get down!”

The three monsters were still there in the cave, circling and
maneuvering slowly in the still air. Jus levered himself down a terrace and
walked into the tunnel, marching over to the monsters and standing directly
beneath the nearest one. He scratched the stubble of his chin, betraying
amusement by shooting a sly look sideways to make sure Escalla was watching him.
Intensely annoyed, Escalla emerged from behind the cover of a rock outcrop.

“Why aren’t you dead, you shaven-headed git!”

Unconcerned, Jus stood beneath one of the monsters and cut
himself a piece of spider meat, which he crammed into his mouth. He motioned to
the monsters with his dagger, supremely unconcerned.

“Beholders are solitary psychopaths. Did you think there
might be something weird about seeing
three
beholders together all at
once?” The man spat a piece of spider chitin toward a nearby slug. “They’re gas
spores.”

“What?”

“A type of fungus. Dead ringers for beholders, except
beholders are waaay too paranoid to ever be this close to one another.”

Wings whirring and a disgusted scowl on her face, Escalla
came out of the caves to glare at the floating gas spores. From a few inches
away, she could clearly see that they were fakes—just blobs of fungi. Escalla
aimed a kick at the nearest one, only to have Jus snatch her foot and tug her
hastily away.

“Leave ’em be!”

“Why?”

“Poisonous. Touch it, and die young.” The big man tugged
Escalla’s makeshift dress straight as he released her into the air. “They’re a
trap. Puncture the skin, and they explode.”

“Oooh.”
Escalla instantly perked up her ears. “Really?”

“Really.” Jus forcibly propelled the curious girl away from
the spores. “The explosion of each individual spore is enough to turn you into a
shadow on the wall.
Three
of them would be
apocalyptic!”

“Wow. Can I have one?”

“No.”

“But—”

“
No,
Escalla.”

“Ju-uuus…”

“
No,
Escalla. Absolutely not! End of discussion.”

Jus gave a courtly bow, inviting Escalla to lead the way.
“This is where the passage turns. It heads toward the troglodytes.”

The faerie hmphed and acquiesced, but still remained
obviously unconvinced.

As the party pressed on, they saw that the spores were
growing from the body of a big lizard lying around the corner. The cadaver
stretched almost twenty feet from nose to tail and wore a harness and a brand.
Growing out of the damaged tarpaulins, packs, and rotten flesh were yet more
floating spores—perhaps half a dozen bobbing booby traps, still tethered to the
rotting corpse.

The spores remained hanging in the still, cool air, drifting
slowly forward from time to time as gas trickled from tiny holes at their rear.
Carried over Jus’ shoulder, Escalla gazed back at them until they disappeared
from view, watching past Private Henry as the boy walked nervously, cradling his
crossbow.

The narrow, slimy tunnel curved and dipped, then suddenly
opened onto a wider passageway. It was the old, familiar path that ran
northwest, at least forty feet wide and user friendly. Escalla consulted the
locator needle and pointed the way into the dim phosphorescent depths. She
escaped from her perch upon Jus’ shoulder, using her sharp ears and clever eyes
to hunt for dangers lurking far ahead.

Danger soon appeared. Escalla’s sensitive ears detected a
scratching noise far ahead. Signaling the others to halt, the faerie turned
invisible and flew softly forward down the passageway.

A few dozen yards beyond the adventurers, a dozen hideous
monsters crouched in the dark. Working with great stealth, the savage creatures
were pulling apart the rock wall with their claws.

Skeletal and horrific, the monsters were mere skin stretched
over bone—human-like, but with bestial faces, and spreading a vicious stink of
rotting flesh. At the rear of the pack, two of the creatures crouched over a
long bundle wrapped in rags. The bundle seemed to pain them, for none would
touch it willingly. The beasts seem to be squabbling over which of them should
drag the heap of rags closer to the new hole in the wall.

Jus moved silently beside Escalla and joined her in watching
the creatures. Escalla nodded her chin toward the beasts, wrinkling her nose in
distaste.

“Ghouls.”

Undead and carnivorous, the ghouls were also apparently
working to a plan. Within the newly opened cave, a black pit could dimly be
seen. The leader of the ghouls—a larger, wart-encrusted male—slashed at one of
its subordinates, which loped into the cave and began sniffing like a dog. It
peered into the pit then began snarling to the other ghouls outside.

The creatures crowded up to the cave entrance, the hindmost
ghouls jerking their hands away from the rag bundle until forced to drag it
closer to the cave. The bundle was unwrapped. The rags proved to be a torn
battle flag. Working with fungi stalks as tools, the ghouls began prying and
levering at the contents of the bundle, scattering away in panic as something
metallic fell to the floor at their feet.

One ghoul tripped as it fled, then screamed, flashed, and
blew apart in a choking cloud of dust. The other ghouls fled from the bundle
until forced back by vicious blows from their leader.

The ghoul leader snarled at a subordinate, shoved it aside,
then levered up something bright and golden with its fungus staff. For a brief
instant, a sword glittered in the eerie light, and then the ghoul flung it down
the pit. After a long, long moment, a faint metallic
clang
came from
below. The ghouls bellowed and capered in glee.

Escalla looked up as a black shadow loomed nearby.

Drifting quietly in the air behind the ghouls was a great,
brooding sphere. The object floated in midair—a menacing presence topped with
eye stalks and a single huge eye just above its mouth. The sphere drifted
unnoticed behind the ghouls, and Escalla felt a malicious little plan flooding
through her mind.

“Hey, guys!” she whispered sharply. “Watch this!”

She fired her magic bees toward the sphere before Jus could
stop her. The stream of magic missiles blasted into the giant sphere in a blaze
of light. Instead of triggering a titanic explosion to destroy the ghouls, the
spell set off a furious roar. The sphere whipped about to face the faerie, eyes
red rimmed and fangs gaping. The big central eye blinked closed, and from an
upper eyestalk a spell blast disintegrated ten square feet of passage wall.
Jerked out of the way at the last instant, Escalla hung in Jus’ grasp, staring
in shock as the beholder shook the whole tunnel with its roar.

Ghouls screeched, leaping onto the sphere and sinking fangs
and claws into its flesh. The beholder pounded itself against the wall, crushing
ghouls and catching one of the undead creatures in its jaws. Bleeding, the
beholder staggered as the ghoul leader jumped atop it and wrenched off several
eyestalks. An instant later the ghoul was blasted into vapor by a shot from an
eyestalk at its side.

The battle spilled back into the cave, injured ghouls falling
screaming down the open pit and plunging to their doom. Jus pitched Escalla down
the passage, grabbed Polk and Henry by the scruffs of their necks, and ran down
the tunnel as if every legion of the Nine Hells were behind them.

A sharp zig-zag hid all sight of the fight, but howls and
screams echoed through the gloom. Escalla whirred to a corner and clung to a
stalactite in fright, covering the retreat of her friends with her wand.

Catching up with her, the Justicar shouted at her, “What are
they when they’re
alone,
Escalla?” Jus was not having one of his more
enjoyable days. “They’re
beholders,
Escalla!”

“All right! All right!” The girl angrily waved her hand. “It
still worked! The ghouls are neutralized! The faerie scores again!”

Jus turned her around and pointed her northwest. “Move! If
that beholder comes after us, we’re toast!”

Weighed down by chain mail, Private Henry staggered and fell.
Jus picked the boy up with one hand and set him on his feet. The boy looked back
in terror as he ran.

“Is it coming?”

“Might not have seen us.” The Justicar put himself at the
boy’s back. “If it comes, keep running! I’ll buy you time!”

Escalla shot far ahead as they fled down the passageway.
Something thundered in the tunnel far behind. Still invisible, Escalla looked
behind her as she flew… and smacked straight into something hard.

Stunned, Escalla tumbled back and hit the ground. She half
saw a gigantic figure towering over her invisible body—a big goblinoid creature
that stank like a sewer. Confused, the monster staggered back and looked around
for what had struck it. Squatting beside the first giant goblin was another, and
another, and another…

A vast cavern opened beyond the monsters—a cavern that teemed
with troglodytes by the score. The lizards sat in their scores at the cave
center, tearing at bleeding chunks of food. A dozen giant goblin guards cradling
huge clubs loomed at the tunnel entrance. The first rubbed its skull where
Escalla had crashed into it.

Beyond the other monsters, pack lizards and drow merchants
knelt reverently before a sinister, robed figure at the far side of the hall.
The whole image hung frozen in time as Escalla stared, and then she heard the
pounding of boots behind her as Jus, Polk, and Henry arrived upon the scene.

A hundred monsters turned to stare. Over by the kneeling
drow, the tall figure dressed in black robes turned and brushed its cowl back
across its shoulders.

There was no face, only a rotting skull with mad, staring
eyes. Escalla took one look at the thing, screamed in panic, and shot backward
past Polk and the others.

“Lich!
Run, boys! Ruuuuun!”

Used to instant obedience, Private Henry turned and did what
he was told. More bull headed, Polk and Jus stopped to judge for themselves.
They stood for one tiny split second, staring at the cavern with its horde of
enemies.

The lich, an undead sorcerer of terrifying power, stood at
the center of the hall. Rotted jaws screeched with laughter as the monster threw
its arms open, summoning a spell. Jus and Polk turned and ran.

Too late. The lich gave a vile scream as magic blasted
through the cavern and into the tunnel mouth. A blazing wall of force sealed the
tunnel shut, blocking Jus and Polk from escape and locking Henry and Escalla
away from their friends.

The giant goblins smashed at Jus with their huge clubs. The
ranger spun into the first blow and wrenched the monster off balance while
crashing his elbow into its jaw. A kick from his heavy boots sent another
monster reeling back. Jus finished by disarming the first monster and smashing
its skull with one blow of its own club. He turned as Cinders blasted flames
into the onrushing monsters and sent six of them staggering away with their
flesh aflame.

A gigantic goblin picked up Polk and tossed the helpless
teamster against a wall. He fell, was lifted by the hair, and then punched
unconscious by one of the goblinoids. With hell hound flame sheeting all about
him, Jus fell back against the force wall as a dozen monsters surged toward him
like a tidal wave.

They were too close-packed to fight with clubs and claws. Jus
roared, his rage making the whole tunnel shake as he crashed his clenched fist
down onto a giant goblins skull. His other hand crushed the windpipe of a
troglodyte, the huge creature screaming and thrashing. The fangs of a fallen
lizard snapped into Jus’ calf. He raised a boot, smashed the creature’s neck,
then fell back to thud against the force wall as monsters climbed toward him in
a swarm.

There must have been a hundred monsters, all surging into a
screaming mob that choked the entrance to the cave.

Escalla fluttered madly above Private Henry on the other side
of the magic wall. She fired a lightning bolt, the spell blasting into the wall
without causing so much as a wrinkle in its shine. Two blasts from her frost
wand stabbed into the wall and disappeared. The faerie saw Jus rock beneath the
blow of a giant goblin’s fist, and she tried prying at the edges of the force
wall with her nails.

“Jus! Jus, I’m coming!”

“Go!” The Justicar bellowed at the faerie, wrenching a claw
from around his throat and breaking a monsters elbow with one huge blow.
“Escalla, go!”

“Jus!” Weeping helplessly, Escalla hammered uselessly at the
edges of the force wall with her spells.
“Jus!”

“GO!”
Now almost buried under a wave of troglodytes, Jus
roared as Cinders fired a last vicious blast of flames. “I order you to go! Save
yourself and the boy!”

Something lanced through the screaming, ravening horde of
monsters—a gigantic disembodied fist that snatched up the Justicar and pounded
his head against the cavern ceiling. Unconscious, Jus was thrown to the floor,
the huge hand hovering above. Linked to the lich by a tendril of force, the
magic fist kept the other monsters at bay, shielding the fallen Justicar and
Polk from harm. Escalla saw the lich turn to look right at her through her
invisibility magic, saw the abomination lift up its hands to cast another spell—