Bazil Broketail (45 page)

On the far side of the room there was a screaming mass of men and women clustered beneath the windows. Several were attempting to climb through.

Lagdalen was at Lessis’s side now as they darted down the service corridor and entered the main kitchens through a large doorway with the doors propped open.

More chaos greeted them. Imps and pot boys were climbing the walls. Chefs were crouched beneath the tables.

At the far end Thrembode had opened a low set door that led to the wine vault. First he pushed Besita through, then he slipped in and closed the door with a mocking wave to Lessis.

She reached it a second later and heard a heavy set of bolts sliding home. Her attempt to hold them with a spell was thwarted; the magician broke the spell as she said it and hammered the bolts down.

Her heart sank, the locks inside the door meant that the vault had another exit and was designed as a bolt hole. She looked around herself with desperate eyes. No magic could loosen those bolts in less than an hour or more now. They would have to break the door down with physical means.

The dragons were there. Unfortunately, the door was too low for a dragon to really get a shoulder to it. The Broketail made one intensive effort, but the door was either too stout or he was simply unable to bring enough force to bear. Nesessitas tried a kick and raised some splinters from the surface but little else.

Then Relkin gave a shout from the butcher’s block. He slid two enormous cleavers across the floor to the dragons. These cleavers just fit into the huge forehands of the dragons, and now the wood chips flew fast and furious.

From the main entrance to the kitchen came the sound of the pursuit. A horn blared and a dozen armed imps burst in.

The men of Marneri met them with drawn steel and the battle renewed itself. More and more imps began pressing in and Lessis realized they would overwhelm them unless they were held.

“Nesessitas,” she cried, “block the doors!”

The green dragon dropped her cleaver and picked up a long kitchen table and used it as a ram to catch up a dozen imps and hurl them bodily back into the service corridor through the door. Then she jammed the table into the doorway. There it remained, forming a barrier to the kitchens.

Over it the battle was rejoined, but the men of Marneri with Kesepton and Duxe at their head were in a much better position now. Their swords rose and fell as they hewed down the imps and troopers that were pressed up against the table outside the door.

Meanwhile Bazil had broken through the vault door, the timbers were fairly splintering under the cleaver in his huge hand.

A trumpet was blaring in the corridor again. Voices shouted in excitement. Lessis knew that some dread reinforcement had arrived for the enemy.

She signaled Bazil to stop, then reached through the broken door and undid the bolts.

The little door swung open.

A voice beyond shouted, “Make way for the Hogo!” and she felt a chill go down her spine.

She grabbed Lagdalen and drew her in after her. Relkin followed.

“Hurry, girl!” she snapped to Lagdalen as she stepped into the wine vault.

At the front entrance to the kitchen a group of imps wearing elaborate face masks pushed a metal box on wheels up to the overturned door.

Kesepton and Duxe exchanged puzzled glances. Lieutenant Weald shrugged.

“What the hell is that?” said Subadar Yortch.

“Leave it, follow me through this door!” shouted Lessis, but she knew it was already too late. Relkin hesitated and Lessis shoved him roughly inside.

“Run!” she hissed, and began to sprint down the length of the wine vault.

At the front entrance to the kitchen the metal door to the box popped open and a stumpy thing, like a black pumpkin with vertical red striations, crawled purposefully forth.

The men stared at it in amazement.

The head was narrow and curved back over the shoulders like a cucumber. A green tongue flicked in and out of a wet looking hole at the front. Red eyes glowed like glossy buttons on the top.

“Disgusting!” said Cowstrap in a loud voice.

And then the thing’s pumpkin body swelled suddenly to twice its previous size. The skin grew taut like a balloon and then it burst with a weirdly soft thud.

A grey cloud of vapor emerged that seemed to flow into the kitchen like a living thing. And with it came the most incredible stench any of them had ever had the misfortune to smell.

It was a combination of the foulest things imaginable and it struck with a stunning force. Men toppled to their knees, gasped, retched uncontrollably, and lay still.

Bazil gazed on all this with amazement until the smell reached him a second later. Then his eyes opened wide as his nostrils were seared, and he became conscious of a roaring sound in his ears. Relkin was looking back at him through the door as he sank to the floor, and a blackness swelled up and overwhelmed him.

The secret exit from the wine vault was through a false barrel. Fortunately, Thrembode had been in too much of a hurry to shut it properly behind him. It fell open as Lagdalen went past and brushed against it.

Lessis gave a prayer of thanks, the Mother of them all was indeed keeping an eye on her servants. With the way things had been going lately Lessis had begun to have doubts.

“Quick now, into it. Relkin, don’t breathe!”

The youth’s eyes were troubled.

“Please, my lady, what was it back there?”

“Get in, we’ve no time. ‘Twas a Hogo—everyone out there is done for, they will be taken.”

“The box for it seemed small, I don’t—”

“Will you get on, Master Relkin!”

He went through and she scrambled after. Imps were already coming towards them with torches and drawn steel.

The barrel masked a narrow door which lead to an equally ungenerous passage with stone walls and floor. Lessis forced the bolt across to shut the secret door. It was difficult to get it through the hasp, the reason no doubt why Thrembode had failed to close it. There were imps pounding on the inside of the barrel; someone started to try and pull it open.

Relkin had seen the difficulty, the lady was not strong enough to force the bolt home. He pulled her aside and slammed the heel of his hand against the bolt.

It rammed home and the barrel stayed shut.

Lessis was fighting down the shaking she felt in her whole being. Another moment and they would have faced imp swords and pikes.

“Thank you, Master Relkin, that was well done.”

He was clutching his hand, bruised by the bolt, and trying not to cry out with the pain.

“It was my fault—I was slow before. I didn’t understand.”

She got her breath back and examined their surroundings. There was no time to dawdle.

It was pitch black and cold, and smelled of damp. Lessis lifted the ring on her right hand and muttered the words of power. A small light was ignited within the small blue stone and their shadows were thrown down the long dark adit. There was just enough light to see their way.

“A Hogo, my lady?” said Relkin.

“A new deviltry from the Doom’s laboratories. It emits a stench so foul it causes most men to faint. Dragons will not be proof against it either, although trolls apparently are.”

At the look on Lagdalen’s face Lessis grew Impatient.

“No time now to explain. A most awesome responsibility has now fallen upon the three of us. It is up to us to catch the magician.”

“We’re all that’s left?” said Relkin, still questioning the obvious.

“I’m afraid so.”

Lagdalen knew better than to say anything. But she was wondering how they alone were going to overcome the massed power of Tummuz Orgmeen.

Behind them they heard the sound of axes working on the hidden door. The imps were after them.

“This way,” said Lessis with what sounded like complete confidence, and she headed down the passage.

Relkin and Lagdalen followed. They came to a junction with another corridor. The sound of axe on wood behind them rose to a crescendo.

“Hurry,” said Lessis.

They turned at a corner; after a second to consider, she led them on down another passage.

Somewhere ahead they heard a woman’s voice raised in pleading. A harsh male voice responded loudly.

Lessis’s heart lifted.

“It is them.” Lessis quickened her stride. They rounded another corner. The voices were nearer yet.

Behind them there came a loud crash and a triumphant roar of brutish voices.

Then they turned another corner and saw a man in a white shirt and black tights forcing a woman in a green evening gown up a ladder and through a trap door from which yellow light flooded down.

Even as they ran for the foot of the ladder, Thrembode gave the woman’s posterior a mighty shove and she disappeared with a shriek.

Lessis jumped onto the ladder and scrambled up it, her dirk clenched between her teeth.

The magician would not escape her this time!

But he was already halfway through the trap door. He looked down and saw her and went white with terror. He jerked his shoulders up and began to lever himself through the trap.

With a little shriek Lessis grabbed the dirk from her teeth and stabbed him through the heel of his boot.

Thrembode gave a cry of agony and lashed out with his ether foot, knocking Lessis off the ladder and almost falling back through the trapdoor himself as he lost his balance. For a moment he teetered there, and then his scrabbling fingers found Besita’s ankle and he held on to her long enough to get his other hand back on the ladder.

A moment later he slammed down the hatch and sat on it while clutching his leg and howling with pain.

In the passage below Lessis fell heavily atop Relkin and they both slammed into the stone floor. Neither was seriously hurt however, and in a second or two they had regained their feet with Lagdalen’s help. Above they could hear Thrembode’s cries.

It meant only another failure to Lessis. She felt a dangerous sense of confusion closing in around her. This was becoming an exceedingly tight spot.

“They are coming,” Lagdalen said.

It was true, there were a great many imps somewhere close, their terrible cries echoed down the stone passages.

Lessis had heard the hatch slam and with it had gone most of her hope. Thrembode was forewarned that she was still after him and yet he was safe from her. The entire mountain would awake in pursuit of a Great Witch known to be trapped there. How could she hope to escape?

She would kill herself before she’d let them take her— she could not countenance surrendering her secrets to some horror like the Doom, or worse, to its creators in their chill cloisters far away. But she was not alone; she had two young people, virtually children, in her custody and she could not simply abandon them to die.

They fled on, Lessis leading with the faint light of the rings tone. Behind them the sounds of the horde of imps drew steadily closer.

They reached a junction and were about to turn right when a door exploded open a few yards ahead and light burst in. With it came a couple of men with drawn swords.

“They’re here!” roared one of the men, and several imps came through the door with cutlasses held high.

“Run!” shouted Lessis, pushing Relkin in the opposite direction.

They ran, but the imps were close behind when the passage curved suddenly and descended slightly, then ended at a short rail and a precipice that fell into a dark abyss.

“Trapped!” groaned Relkin, turning back with his sword out.

Lessis stopped by the rail with her heart sinking towards that abyss. She felt ready to give up. It was an impossibly strange feeling. She had never been so completely defeated before. “Jump!” said Lagdalen. “Must be water down there.”

The girl was right. Hope flashed in her heart, small hope but hope nonetheless.

“She’s right.” Lessis prepared to climb over the rail. Relkin was still looking back with his blade in his hand. “Lagdalen is right, young man—we jump.”

But then the imps were upon them, and Relkin’s sword flashed against a cutlass, parried another and raked across its owner’s neck. He felt another imp at his side, and he dodged out of the way and slipped and fell backwards over the rail and down into the abyssal dark.

As he fell he retained the image of the Lady Lessis being cut down by another imp whose sword was buried in her side. Then darkness swallowed him up until with a terrific blow he landed in deep, cold water.

He went down a long way, feet first, and then struggled to the surface. It had been a hard landing, his body ached.

On the surface he gasped and spluttered for several seconds before he could heave a breath of air into his tortured lungs. Suddenly a hand fell on his shoulder and he struggled around. It was Lagdalen.

“Where is she?” she said.

He couldn’t speak; he was still fighting to get breath into his lungs.

But Lagdalen had seen something—the light from the ring; it was coming to the surface nearby. She turned away from him and swam towards it. In a moment she was holding Lessis above the surface. The lady was unconscious.

Relkin finally had enough breath to speak.

“I saw her cut down, she must be wounded.”

Lessis gasped. “She is bleeding, badly. From her side.” Lagdalen held her up. “We have to get her out of this water.”

Suddenly there was a tremendous splash nearby.

“The imps, they’re throwing down rocks.”

“Follow me.” Relkin struck out in the direction of a ring of faint green luminescence he had spotted about fifteen yards away.

More heavy splashes sent waves washing over them from behind as they pulled slowly away from the foot of the cliff, towing the lady behind them.

High above, lanterns were being lowered, and when she looked up Lagdalen could see many figures clustered on the narrow ledge. But before the lamps could expose them to the watchers above, Lagdalen felt her heel ground on something solid. Then she was standing on a slimy stone floor and Relkin was helping her pull Lessis out of the water and into a circular passage that was filled with a faint phosphorescent glow from a slime weed that grew thickly on the walls and ceiling.