The long awaited, hugely long next installment:It was near dark before Diesa stirred from her place by Ulfgar's body.
"We will bury him now," she said hoarsely. It was not a suggestion. It was a command.
"Its...err...its getting dark," Mathonwy said, somewhat timidly. "Do you think we have time to build a cairn...we have to make camp, and..."
Diesa pierced him with such a baleful, bloodshot glare that he gulped and fell silent.
So a cairn it was. Grunting and sweating, Math carried a pair of 60 pound rocks under each arm, while Diesa used her pick to break up the boulders around them. Mathonwy pitched in as well, rolling boulders down the slope to where Ulfgar lay. Even Nystyra pitched in, although it was making a shambles of even her tough, wool-and-leather travelling dress. Eliad attempted to move a small stone, gave up, sat down, and then jumped up and began working again when Diesa gave him a sharp rap with the flat side of her pick.
Nystyra was fuming at Diesa's high-handed treatment of them, but she supposed she would react much the same way to the death of a comrade. Math and Mathowy were also angry, though they took pains not to show it, Nystyra could see them muttering under their breath. Eliad was far too cheerful to be angry. Ever.
It was dusk by the time the cairn was finished. Math and Mathonwy gently placed Ulfgar's body inside, then hoisted a capstone onto the cairn. Diesa changed her robes to a priestly black, and passing her stone-carved holy symbol over the cairn, chanted a warrior's death-song in Dwarven. Everyone stood around the cairn and listened to Diesa's prayer. Though they could not understand the words of the hymn, they could feel the weight of sorrow behind it. Nystyra saw a tear coursing down Math's stubbly cheek, and even Eliad fell silent, the smile gone from him face for once in his life.
When the prayer ended, Diesa changed back into her travel-stained clothes and chain shirt, but lingered by the grave while the Elfblood Wanderers began unpacking their gear to make camp.
"Good-bye, Ulfgar," she said softly. Then she shoudlered her pick and strode over to where the Wanderers were setting bedrolls and gathering firewood.
"We will not camp," she said decisively. "We move on."
"What?" all the Wanderers said at once. They didn't mind terribly helping to bury Diesa's dead friend, but what was the point in trying to track him in the dark? He was dead and buried, which Mathonwy - not unkindly - pointed out.
"We must find his killers," Diesa replied.
"How d'yer expect me to track them in the dark?" Math rasped.
"I can see in the dark," Diesa said smugly.
"That's lovely. I can't," the Druid growled back.
"Light a candle, then. We must find Ulfgar's killers. Not only do they richly deserve Dwarven justice, but they have taken Smedir," Diesa replied brusquely.
"Diesa, this has gone far enough. We didn't mind helping you find Ulfgar, and we didn't complain when you told us to build a cairn instead of make camp, but we can't track his killers in the dark. The trail will wait," Nystyra said. As de facto leader of the Elfblood Wanderers, she decided to put her foot down. After saying her piece, she strode off to her bedroll. Math and Mathonwy gratefully followed. Eliad also went to his bedroll, but not without giving an apologetic look to Diesa.
Muttering furiously to herself, Diesa shouldered her pick and strode off into the night.
The next morning, she was back in camp, sitting by the fire.
"I thought you were going to hunt down Ulfgar's killers?" Nystyra said.
Diesa mumbled something to the effect that she couldn't find them, looking very embarrassed. Because Diesa had a somewhat prickly attitude, and because Ulfgar's death had only made her even more prickly, Nystyra wisely didn't bait her any further.
Meanwhile, Math, Mathonwy, Silvercoat, and Quickfeather returned, Silvercoat with a dead pheasant clutched in her mouth, and Quickfeather with a squirrel in her beak. Eliad, brandishing an enormous butcher's knife almost taller than he was, skinned and plucked the game, and then set them on spits to roast. After much prodding, Eliad finally convinced Diesa to share the small keg of Dwarven mead she had brought with her, and Math produced a flask of Fire Brandy, a strong drink made from distilled apples and pears, spiced very strongly. Then Eliad revealed his hidden talents as a cook.
Breakfast was a hurried meal of sausages, eggs, and pheasant, washed down with Fire Brandy or Dwarven mead. Diesa, though no longer quite so anxious to break camp this time, was still impatient, and Silvercoat paced around and around the cairn, trying to find the trail, while Math carefully examined the rocky ground with a sausage in one hand and a mug of Fire Brandy in the other.
Math had warned that the trail would be old, and it was. Try as she might, Silvercoat could not pick up a scent. However, he found some scuffed-up rocks and a single footprint leading away north, and that was enough for him.
There was no running after Silvercoat this time, for Math proceeded at a slow and deliberate pace, examining every imprint in the ground, every scuffed rock, and every crushed twig. Once he got lucky and found a red-fletched arrow, like the one that the Ulfgar's killers had used, lying by the side of the trail, apparently having fallen out of a quiver.
So on and on they trekked. And on and on some more. Math was truly a superb tracker. At one point, all they had to go on was a single crushed blade of grass, but Math didn't even lose the trail then, and they found another red-fletched arrow a little further on.
So this thin little trail led them to the shadow of the Pillars of the Sky. And then there they were, crouched in a small copse, watching an old ruin of a holding, flying a pure red banner.
"Psst! Miss Nystyra!" Eliad called. He had been scouting the holdfast, using Gnomic cunning and stealth. "It's an old ruin, but it's still got walls. The gate an' drawbridge are both open, an' there's three or four scruffy men in the gatehouse. There isn't too many of the bandits, though. I dinna think this'll be much trouble. Come here now, slow and silent-like, that's the way..."
The former castle was so overgrown with shrubbery, small trees, and creepers that they had no difficulty creeping up to the drawbridge, within bowshot of the gatehouse. Eliad loaded his crossbow and took careful aim. Mathonwy and Math had come to the conclusion that they could beseech the vines for help if the enemy came out, using an entangling spell. Eliad waited a moment, and then his finger twitched on the trigger. The man at the gatehouse window suddenly clawed at the quarrel in his eye. Nystyra drew a bead on the second head to show itself at the arrow slit, but her arrow skipped harmlessly off the left side of the slit and shattered on the stone wall.
Then, there was the sound of shouting from inside the gatehouse. Throwing caution to the winds, Diesa hefted her war pick and charged through the open gate. Math and Mathonwy followed, as did Nystyra, but Eliad took a different path. Replacing his crossbow on his back, he began to climb the crumbling stone walls of the gatehouse, taking advantage of the ivy that enveloped the wall.
While Diesa and the Druids took the stairs up to the gatehouse, Nystyra waited with her bow bent in the shadow of the portcullis. Eliad had by now reached the arrow slits, and seemed to be considering how best to make his entrance
when an arm, a hand, and a spear thrust out of one of the arrow slits and nicked him on the shoulder. Nystyra fired again, this time hitting the hand that held the spear. The hand and spear withdrew, and she could hear a muffled curse from inside the gatehouse.
However, distracted by the nick to the shoulder, Eliad missed a handhold and fell. Nystyra caught her breath in alarm, but then, from inside the gatehouse, she could hear Mathonwy's voice chanting a spell. The ivy vines suddenly came alive and snatched Eliad out of midair, then lifting him up and onto the roof. Which immediately collapsed under his light weight. Fortune favors the fools, Nystyra thought. Now Nystyra, seeing Eliad was safe, hurried up the stairs into the gatehouse.
Pushing her way through the half-demolished door, a scene of chaos met her eyes. Math was beset by three sides, and Silvercoat was covering his back. Mathonwy was trying to hold back a scruffy-looking spearman with his sling while Quickfeather darted around the room, clawing at everyone's eyes with her talons. Diesa had just killed a man and was in the process of killing another, and Eliad was running around the edge of the room, pursued by a burly man with a rusted sword. Nystyra, summoning up the magic of her Coal, Commanded Eliad's assailant to die, and the man sprawled to the floor in a coma. Instead of thanking her, Eliad squeaked "Behind ye, Miss Nystyra!"
Nystyra was still puzzling over that when a rusty axe traced a bloody line down her back. Eliad darted a crossbow bolt over her head, nicking her assailant in the axe arm, which failed to stop him at all. So he tried a different tack.
"PUT ME DOWN, B*TCH!" ordered the axe-man's axe. The man stared at it suspiciously, giving Nystyra a chance to call to mind another spell. In her mind, she pictured her request to the Coal, and recited the incantation that she remembered from her book. A wave of magic which she - and nobody else - could see clearly as a pulse of bright, red light, veined with the smoky blackness of an enchantment, rolled forth from the Coal, striking the axe-man squarely. His eyes suddenly popped out of his head as he stared at something fearsome that only he could see. His face blanched, his jaw dropped, his axe dropped, and he turned to hurry down the stairs, only to be blocked by his companion axeman. Pushing and clawing, the victim of Nystyra's fear enchantment tried to push past his comrade, who was trying to push his way through to get to Nystyra. Finally the axeman got tired of his frightened comrade, and, with one stroke of his own axe, cut him down.
"Yer a pretty wench, aren't ya?" the axeman said, eyeing Nystyra lecherously as he advanced lazily toward her. Nystyra began wishing her travelling dresses had higher necklines. She risked a glance backwards. There was no one to help but herself. Darting backwards to giver herself room, she cast another fear enchantment at the man, but
It had no effect. Apparently he was more strong-willed than his comrade. She would need a different spell now, a killing spell, not merely an enchantment. Adrin had taught only one such spell, and he had told her to use it only in the extremest need. She closed her eyes and began concentrating. She opened her mouth to say the incantation, but her assailant lashed out with his axe, gashing her arm. Concentration rudely broken, she stumbled backwards, holding her wounded arm.
"Now don't be tryin' yer witchy tricks, slut," her attacker said. "Just come along nice and slow like, an' don't make me use this again." He brandished his axe. "I figger I think o' somethin' ta do with yer," he said, grabbing his crotch and grinning.
It was do or die, Nystyra thought. She clutched her Coal once more and began the incantation. When the man lashed out again, it wasn't with his axe. He grabbed her dress roughly, and she felt his hands grabbing for her bodice as she finished the incantation. For a second or two, nothing happened. Then, there was a roaring like a fire, and gout of flame burst out her fingertips. He screamed and jumped away as the fire washed over him. His clothes and hair ignited. Nystyra could smell the awful stench of burning flesh. The man, now little more than a human bonfire, finally collapsed into a charred heap. Nystyra retched at the smell of charred flesh. Now she could tell why Adrin hated to use spells like that.
Turning around, she saw that her companions had dealt with their respective foes, though not without cost; Eliad was somewhat battered, Diesa was bleeding from a head wound, and Math dripped blood from a dozen wounds. One of the brigands had gotten away, however, and they decided that they did not have the time to patch each other up, although the Druids and Diesa did use what healing magic they had (not nearly enough).
Three-quarters of the bandit-occupied castle lay in ruins; one quarter, and the dungeons, was still in use. The next room the Wanderers and Diesa came upon was small room, a guardroom of some sort. When Math burnt down the door with ancient Druidic magic, they surprised three men, all wearing red armbands. Two were gambling and dicing, the third was drinking ale in a corner. They stared stupidly as the Wanderers strode in, led by Diesa, with a killing fury apparent in her eyes. None of them had weapons on except belt knives, although there was a spear leaning on the wall next to the drunkard. He lept up and made a grab for it, but Nystyra, grasping the Coal in its casket, chanted an incantation that sounded like a lullaby, and, waving her hand in slow lines back and forth, as though she were weaving a net, set out a wave of gentle, almost peaceful magic from her Coal. The two gamblers fell, but the spearman charged Nystyra. He recieved a javelin (from Math), a crossbow quarrel, a slingstone, and a taste of Dwarven holy magic for his troubles. When he fell, Diesa stooped down beside the sleeping men and raised her pick.
"What are you doing?" Nystyra asked, though she had a pretty good idea.
"They are Ulfgar's killers. They deserve death," Diesa shot back. The pick began its deadly descent, arcing toward the first sleeper's forehead.
"Are you a healer?" Nystyra asked pointedly. "Or are you a killer?"
The pick stopped, inches from the sleeper's forehead.
"What would Freya, the Mother of Dwarves, think?" Nystyra asked, pressing her advantage relentlessly. Nystyra could see the turmoil on Diesa's face as she tried to sort through the situation. Finally, she stood up and walked out the doorway.
"Come, let us go," she said shortly. As they left the room, Nystyra saw Silvercoat snap the sleeper's throats. So much for that, she thought wryly.
Very few rooms in the ruin were in use, except for the armory (the armorer promptly surrendered), and the great hall, whose doors they were outside of at the moment.
Both Nystyra and Mathonwy called up spells to mind. Math wound up and took a swing at the door with his club. Diesa did the same with her pick, and Eliad loaded his crossbow.
It all went like clockwork - for the first few moments. The burst open, and both Mathonwy and Nystyra began chanting their respective incantations. Eliad killed a man with a crossbow to the throat, Diesa and Math waded in swinging, aiming for a man sitting at the head of the table, dressed entirely in red, and Mathonwy and Nystyra's spells took effect without a hitch. Half a dozen of the brigands were cought by the spells, either falling asleep or finding themselves pinned to the table by the rushes on the floor when the rushes suddenly cam alive. Both Diesa and Math scored hits, but only minor ones. Then things got ugly.
Math took a spear in the belly. Dropping his club, he clutched at the spear and groaned in pain. Then he groaned again as he spun and caught another spear square in the chest. Mathonwy dropped his sling, pulled out his healer's kit, and rushed over to his brother. Diesa was fighting for all she was worth, trying to keep a pair of men with daggers and maces from finishing off Math, and Nystyra and Eliad were trying to fend off a a swordsman and a spearman.
The man in red, the leader, was working the lock on a small door behind his great wooden chair. Nystyra drew a bead on him, shot, and missed.
Things were looking very grim indeed when they heard two very welcome sounds: an eagle's shriek and a wolf's howl. The animals, who presumably had been putting the three bodies the Wanderers had left behind in the guardroom to good use (as meals), had joined the fight. Quickfeather stooped down from the rafters and raked a man in the face, and while the man was blinded by his own blood, Silvercoat clamped onto his leg and began chewing.
When his companion turned to see his grisly fate, he, too, fell, this one to Diesa's pick. When Eliad's two opponents saw the bloody-jawed Silvercoat and the eagle who had torn a man's eyes out, they ran. By this time, the man in red had fled.
Diesa, Eliad, and Nystyra gave pursuit. They were promptly stopped by the door, which was locked firmly. While Eliad was working the lock, Nystyra watched as a slot creaked open in the door and a crossbow poked out. Eliad, concentrating on the lock, didn't notice at all.
Time, for Nystyra, seemed to slow down. She stared at the crossbow for an eternity, and then began running forward, toward Eliad. So slow, so slow! She was shouting, and she was far too late. There was a click and a hum as the quarrel shot out of the crossbow. Then there was a meaty thump as the bolt landed in Eliad's chest. He staggered, lockpicks falling out of his hands as he clutched at the spreading red stain on his chest. He looked at Nystyra, confused and bewildered.
"...Sharp..." he mumbled, and fell.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
"Eliad!" Nystyra screamed. She fell to her knees beside him, looking in horror at the bloody pool in which he lay. Tears burned her eyes. She couldn't see him die, not here, not now! Despite his kleptomania, his annoying cheerfulness, and his moments of mad courage and more frequent bouts of cowardice, he was, she realized, a dear friend, who had been with her at the beginning of her travels, and who she wanted with her at the end of her travels. Frantically, she searched her mind for a healing spell. Adrin had only taught her one such spell, and it was a weak one. Healing had not been the Emberlord's strong point. But she had to use it now. Taking a deep breath, she began saying the words -
- only to be stopped when Diesa roughly put her hand over Nystyra's mouth.
"What are you...?" Nystyra demanded angrily. "I was trying to heal him!"
"The quarrel must be removed first," the priestess said. She took out a flask of some sort of alcohol and a sharp knive from a bag that hung at her waist. Dousing the blade in alcohol, she prepared to make the cut. "Remove his shirt, and hold him down. This will hurt a great deal," she commanded.
When Eliad's shirt was taken off, the damage was revealed to be worse that Diesa thought. The quarrel had punched right through his chest, puncturing a lung and then protruding out of his back. Diesa sawed the fletchings of the quarrel off, then grabbing the head that stuck out of the Gnome's back, she pulled the quarrel all the way through the wound. Eliad squirmed and looked like he would scream, but all that came out was a stream of dark red heart's blood and choked gasp. Diesa then stared at the wound for several second, stunned by the seriousness of it.
"He will live, won't he?" Nystyra asked anxiously.
"The damage is worse than I thought," Diesa said grimly. "Nevertheless, he may live, Freya willing."
She traced a rune in the air over the wound, and suddenly, a miraculous thing happened. The wound began closing itself! Eliad's breathing, while shallow, returned to normal, as did his heartbeat, and he no longer coughed up blood with each breath.
"How...?" Nystyra asked, astonished that the mortally wounded Gnome was so suddenly out of danger.
"It was not his time to die," Diesa said abruptly, thinking of another who had been close to her that she couldn't have saved. A little worm of resentment that she could have been there for Nystyra's dear friend but not her own wanderer into her mind. She squashed it savagely, reminding herself that 'Freya gives, and Freya takes, and who can gainsay her?'
For Nystyra's part, she thought she could understand Diesa a little more, having almost suffered the same grief as the dwarf. Neither of them acknowledged this sudden understanding, but after that, Diesa was less sharp to Nystyra, and Nystyra was perhaps not so resentful when she was.
But then was not the time for philosophical ramblings. With Eliad more or less healed, though still unconscious, Diesa set to work on the door with a vengeance, hacking it to flinders with her pick. Down a long, dark hallway, they could just make out a flash of red as the outlaw's leader darted toward freedom, dodging as Nystyra's arrow followed him. They followed hot on the man's heels.
Only to be stopped in their tracks by a closed portcullis. Gasping for breath, they stared at it in disappointment for a long while. Or, at least, Nystyra did. Diesa, driven mad by the thought that Ulfgar's murderer might escape, flew into a frothing rage. With an indiscriminate shout of fury, she viciously attacked the door with her pick.
Whang! Whang! Clang! The clangor of steel on rusty steel reverbrated through the hallway. But it was to no avail. Although the portcullis was crusted with rust, it would not give, and Diesa only succeeded in dulling the point of her pick. It was then that they heard the voice.
"Chasing him, are you?" the voice was the thin and reedy, as though with disuse. "Well, no doubt you won't catch him. He's far to clever for that..." The voice trailed off miserably.
Diesa and Nystyra looked at each other, thunderstruck. The voice was apparently emanating from a solid wall.
"Of course, I don't suppose you could find me, even if you did care whether I lived or died - which, naturally, you don't. It doesn't help matters that once he's gone, no one will bring me food or water...but that's life, I suppose..." the voice went on, palpably gloomy.
"Are you...behind the wall?" Nystyra asked hesitantly.
"You could say that," the voice said. "If you cared enough (which I don't expect you do...), you could get through the wall...there's no mortar between the stones..."
"Why don't we see if we can get to him?" Nystyra asked.
"And let that crimson murderer get away?" Diesa said, in a voice as close to an outraged squeal as Nystyra had ever heard her use.
Nystyra didn't say anything, merely shot a pointed glance at the portcullis. Diesa seemed to wilt as she realized the import of that glance.
"If you do come in here," the voice continued, almost, but not quite, hopefully, "I can tell you how to get through the portcullis..."
In a few moments, Diesa and Nystyra had removed enough of the unmortared stones to squeeze into the gap.
A sea of gold met their eyes. They both gasped in awe at the same time. Apparently these particular bandits had been very successful, for the chamber, a fairly large room rough-hewn from the surrounding stone, was at least half-full of valuables of all sorts. Gold coins, silver coins, copper coins, paintings, silverware, jewelry, silks and velvets and samite, swords, armor, crystal goblets, and even casks of rare wine greeted their eyes. Eliad would have loved to see this, Nystyra thought with a pang. But what drew their attention the most was a man who was mortared to the wall.
He hung about five feet from the ground. Both his hands and his feet were solidly anchored into the mortar that held the rough-hewn walls together. He was wearing the rotted remnants of what had once been rich clothes. His hair was a cobwebby (in fact, he been held immobile for so long that cobwebs had grown on him) grey, his skin was a pallid, translucent grey, as though he had not seen the sun for decades, and his eyes were a dull, hopeless shade of grey.
"Hello," he croaked.
"Er...hello..." Nystyra mumbled, staring with a sort of morbid curiousity at this miserable creature.
"If you want to open the portcullis, the key, or one of them, is right there. Red Allen - that's the man you were chasing - liked to torment me by hanging it there, just out of reach..."
Diesa took the key, and made as if to run for the portcullis.
"No, wait," Nystyra said, grasping her by the arm. "Let's free this poor man first. We can leave him mortared up in a wall for the rest of his life."
Diesa grumbled, torn between chasing Red Allen and showing some mercy to the wretch stuck in the wall. Eventually, however, she raised her pick, and, in five swings, had freed the man's hands and feet from the wall. He fell to the ground, to weak to support himself. His muscles must have atrophied from decades of immobility, Diesa thought. There was nothing more she could do for the poor wretch, so, holding the key to the portcullis, she ran out.
Nystyra, however, lingered.
"What is your name?" she asked the grey man.
"It matters not," he said. "But I was the rightful heir to the castle when Red Allen seized it. He mortared me into the wall when I was all of 12 years old. For fifty long years, I had been stuck here. He gave me food and water (such as it was), and kept me alive for his own cruel amusement. If you do capture him, do me this one favor."
"What is that?" Nystyra asked.
"Bring me his head, so that I may have the last laugh," the grey man said, with a vicious, feral grin. "And you shall have all the treasure in this vault."
"I will be back, do not worry," Nystyra said, then, after a pause, "With his head."
The grey man nodded weakly, and Nystyra left the room.
Diesa was waiting just outside the vault, tapping her pick in her palm impatiently.
"He has probably already escaped, thanks to your dawdling," she said, with a baleful glare.
Just as Nystyra was about to reply, she heard a shout and a rattling of prison bars just across the hallway, from a cell she had supposed to be empty.
"And you'll want to rescue this one two, I suppose," Diesa snapped harshly. "Go on, then, but I'll not wait for you."
Diesa darted off through the newly opened portcullis and down the set of stairs beyond it, and Nystyra ran to the cell, quickly opening it with the skeleton key from the treasure vault.
The occupant was a fierce-looking woman, short but with the look of a warrioress about her. Her hair was black, as were her eyes, and her skin was tanned. She wore a tattered, sand-colored tunic.
"I am Damara Khaz'aar, and I thank you for freeing me. Now give me my sword. I have vengeance to wreak," she said in a rush. When Nystyra looked bemused, she lept out of her cell, scooped up a bundle on the ground near her cell, and ran off down the hall, with Nystyra close behind. As she ran, she untied the bundle, which consisted of a tan surcoat with a black falcon on the front, a shirt of glittering guilded chainmail, and a long, curved blade with a wickedly sharp edge. These she hurriedly shrugged on as she ran. Now Nystyra realized, from her name, the hawk sigil on her surcoat, and her suit of guilded chainmail, that she must be a Sandrider, a woman warrior from the deserts of Allamid.
They found Diesa battering at yet another small, wooden door at the end of the tunnel. As they watched Diesa batter, muttering Dwarven curses with every breath, Nystyra felt a drop of water on her nose. For the first time, she took note of her surroundings.
The arched ceiling was glistening and very, very wet. Above, she could hear the sound of slow-moving water. We must be underneath the moat, she thought. It was a discomforting thought, especially since the ceiling appeared to be held up by nothing more than a few slime covered, flimsy looking wooden pillars. As Diesa continued to batter, Nystyra heard a familiar creak. A small slot opened in the wooden door. Nystyra held her breath, fearing Diesa was to fall victim to the same fate that Eliad had. But she didn't.
Instead, the entire door opened, stopping Diesa in mid-batter. Framed inside was Red Allen, with a mocking grin on his face. As one, all three women sprang for him, but the leader of the outlaws was quicker. Hurling a large clay bottle over their heads, he waved goodbye to them and disappeared up the stairs.
All three women stared dumbly at the clay bottle, which had cracked open. A small puddle of clear liquid was oozing out of it, forming a pool of sticky, clear substance, like honey, encircling the wooden pillars that held the moat out.
With a soft roar, the liquid burst into flame, eating through the pillars like a mad dog through a bone. The pillars soon fell away in columns of charcoal. The now unsupported ceiling creaked and groaned. Cracks formed and water began seeping in steadily. With a crack and a groan, the ceiling collapsed.
And the entire moat, hundreds of thousands of gallons of water, poured into the tunnel with a bestial roar.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
All three dashed for the steps, but the water got there first. Diesa clenched her pick in her teeth and was treading water clumsily.
Nystyra was no great swimmer, having swum onlyh one or two times in her life (Adrin was aquaphobic), but her natural grace aided her as she struck out for the safety of the stairwell. It was only when she and Diesa reached the stairs that they realized Damara was nowhere to be seen.
Nystyra remembered then that Damara said she had been from the desert.
Taking a deep breath, she plunged back into the foaming maelstrom of the rapidly filling tunnel.
The water was dark and very dirty. She swam deeper and deeper, her ears ringing with the pressure and her lungs aching. Just when she thought Damara was certainly dead, her hand closed around a handful of rough wool cloth. A surcoat. Damara Khaz'aar, having come from the desert, could not swim in any case, and the weight of her chainmail had all but pinned her to floor of the flooded tunnel.
Grabbing her under the arms, Nystyra struggled to rise to the surface. Spots danced before her eyes as she slowly rose. Her lungs felt like wrung-out cloths. So close to the surface, and safety! She tried to breath; she sucked in lungfuls of water, and, coughing and spitting, broke the surface. Towing Damara behind her, she swam to the stairs, and not a moment too soon; the water, still rising, had by then swallowed the tunnel and was creeping up the stairs.
Damara lay there, sodden and unmoving. For a moment, Nystyra feared that the Allamidian was dead, but then the warrioress convulsed; her chest spasmed, her eyes opened, and she began vomiting up great quantities of water. Nystyra was thinking that she must have drunk the entire moat, when coughing and retching, she sat up.
"I will kill him," she said, a demon's glint in her eye. She brushed her wet hair out of her face, and started up the stairs. Or she tried to, at least. Her near drowning had left her legs as weak as a baby's, and she stumbled until Nystyra caught her by the arm.
With one hand, she supported herself on Nystyra's shoulder, and with the other, loosened her falchion in its sheath. With Diesa in the lead, the dampened and sadly reduced Elfblood Wanderers started up the stairs.
With a gentle tap of Diesa's pick, the rotten wooden trapdoor fell apart, and the remnant of the Wanderers burst out of the ground in a shower of splinters, earth, water droplets, and deadly intent.
Red Allen had already mounted a horse and was riding away in a hurry, amazed that these three women had escaped the tunnel. Diesa and Damara saw his escape with a mixture of fury and dismay, but Nystyra said nothing. She was concentrating deeply, her eyes glinting with Otherwordly power.
Red Allen's horse suddenly reared up, whinnying in terror as it saw its worst fears right in fron t of its eyes. Red Allen swore and tried to calm the panicked horse, but the horse would have none. Bucking and plunging, it screamed its terror and lashed out in all directions with its hooves. It was all Red Allen could do to hold on. In a few moments, he could do even that.
The three women watched him get thrown off his horse, perform three or four revolutions, and descend to the ground in a lazy arc. He landed hard, and they heard the snap of bone breaking. Diesa, Nystyra, and Damara ran toward the prone outlaw, drawing their weapons as they went.
"You are an outlaw and a murderer," Diesa said. "For the death of Ulfgar and the theft of Smedir, our Clan's mightiest relic, you die." She raised her pick.
Damara raised her falchion wordlessly. The outlaw, seeing the two grim faced warriors standing over him, began to whine and plead.
"No please, don't kill me, it wasn't my fault, I..."
Nystyra turned away as Dwarf-pick and desert sword made an end of Red Allen, outlaw, highwayman, and murderer. When it was over, Damara brought Nystyra a present - the dripping, bloody head of Red Allen. He wore an expression of sheer terror permanently branded on his face.
"I believe your friend in the treasure vault wanted this," she said with a grim smile.
Nystyra didn't really want to carry the gruesome thing back to the castle, but she hardened her heart, reminding herself of the treasure that the wretch would trade for the death of Red Allen.
And trade he did. When he saw the head, the previously gloomy prisoner began laughing. And laughing. And laughing. There was madness in his laughter, Nystyra could hear it. Unnerved by his insane laughter, and the way he fondled the severed head, she quickly began gathering all the treasures she could lay her hands on. She piled gold and jewels into her cloak, tied it into a bundle, did the same with Damara's and Diesa's cloaks, and left quickly, with the mad laughter of the grey man echoing through the empty tunnels behind her. In the Great Hall, she met up with Mathonwy, trying to drag his huge, unconscious brother out of the castle, and Eliad, who was barely conscious.
Despite his reduced state, however, as soon as he heard of the treasure, he bolted for the vault. Or rather, he was carried to vault by Diesa. He came back staggering under the weight of all that he had looted. Diesawho had been seemingly looking for something very important, was carrying a great, shining warhammer in her hand and an expression of awe in her eyes.
"Smedir, our Clan's most sacred relic," she declared, holding it high.
Behind them crawled the grey man, too weak to stand and still clutching the severed head under one arm.
"Don't leave me!" he cried, dragging himself to where Nystyra was trying to help the semiconscious Gnome carry his plunder.
In the end, Damara rooted around in the stables until they found an old cart. Damara also discovered her pony, a shaggy tan thing of Allamidian extraction named Sandstorm.
Because they couldn't find any pack animals, Sandstorm ended up pulling the cart, and he wasn't happy about it. Neither, for that matter, was Damara, who insisted that it was below such a noble animal to pull a cart.
We must look an odd procession, Nystyra thought as the cart rumbled back toward Urglath, with Damara, their newfound Wanderer, driving. Their cart, an old and battered one, held a gravely wounded man in the robes of a Druid, another Druid tending to him, a battered, semiconscious Gnome and a Dwarf tending to him, a woman in guilded chainmail and a drenched surcoat with the look of the desert about her, a shrivelled-looking grey man clutching a severed head and giggling hysterically, Nystyra, and a large bundle made from several cloaks, containing 125,000 gold crowns. The Wanderer's fund.
Nystyra counted the coins again and again. She already knew what she was going to buy with her share. She was tired of trekking all around Avalon for days on end, sleeping on hard ground, eating little, nursing sore feet, and rarely bathing. She was going to buy herself a keep. The future, anyway, looked bright.
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So, you see, Eliad possesses an annoying knack for surviving - not that I would want to kill him anyway, he's too cool
But let the dice fall where they may...
In the next installments, life takes na interesting turn for the Wanderers, who seem to want to settle down early...
they still live up to their name though, don't worry..
