Crypt of the Moaning Diamond (9 page)

Zuzzara pushed her sister behind her, then stood with her shovel raised over her head, obviously listening. She peered through the darkness in the direction that Kid had pointed out. “He’s right, Ivy,” she said. “Something is coming—something small and fast!”

Mumchance tapped the remaining hammer in his tool belt to be sure it was in easy reach, then lifted his lantern higher, to light the hall to its fullest extent. Ivy hissed to the dwarf, “Your sword, don’t forget your sword.” She did not have to remind Sanval or Kid about the importance of edged weapons. Sanval shifted to a position closer to the front, facing where Mumchance had pointed earlier. Two slender stilettos appeared in Kid’s hands. In a few moments, even the humans could hear the sounds of hard, scaled little feet pattering quickly toward them.

“Kobolds,” groaned Mumchance, a dwarf with far too many centuries of memories of the little lizardfolk that plagued the underground routes of the world. “Those rotten little pests.”

Kobolds burst through two entrances, attracted by the noise that Zuzzara and Gunderal had been making earlier. A few carried glowing green bones to light their way. Others

were bearing flaming torches. Still more were heavily armed with pointed sticks, wooden dubs, and looted weapons. They flowed like a river through the cave—a tumbling, angry river of small, scaly brown creatures. From their horned heads and reptilian snouts to their nasty ratlike tails and long-clawed toes, they shook with the fury of their barking. The Siegebreakers could barely hear one another’s warning shouts over the racket.

Ivy realized that their ragged line formation was about to be overrun. She bellowed, “Tight in! Tight in! Form a knot!” Sanval and Zuzzara shifted closer to her, forming the classic square position taught by military tacticians from Tethyr to Narfell. The smaller members of the party gathered close behind them, to be better shielded from the onslaught. Of course, long shields were normally used in this tactic. Any shield would have helped, but none of them had bothered to carry campaign shields to a tunnel dig. Ivy saw Sanval shift his left arm to the classic shield lock position, grimace when he realized that he was presenting just his forearm and elbow armor to the kobolds, and then use that same armored elbow to deliver a devastating blow to a kobolds vulnerable throat.

“Back-to-back?” asked Sanval. It was another classic, especially if fighters lacked shields.

“Too many,” said Zuzzara, her half-ore vision allowing her to quickly assess the size of the threat about to overrun them.

The kobolds swirled out toward the walls of the pillared great hall, then rushed inward, under and over one another. They wore ragged clothing and bits of stolen armor— armbands from humans now wrapped around kobold thighs, a human-sized elbow guard used as a knee guard—and they waved their spears above their heads. It was hard for human sight to separate them; they looked like one big scaly mass of prickly arms and knobby legs. Ivy found that when she swung

her sword at the kobolds, she was apt to bring it down on a sudden gap between them and then lift it with several kobolds clinging to the blade. They flew upward from her raised thrust, flying over one another and slamming into Ivy’s head and shoulders on the way down.

Ivy stumbled and dropped to one knee. The kobolds swept over her in a ceiling of lizard underbellies, tattered shirts, and flashing red eyes. With a death grip on her sword’s hilt, Ivy pushed herself upright, jabbing with her elbows and kicking out with her boot heels. The kobolds scrabbled to cling to her. She reached out with her free hand and grabbed a kobold by his ragged collar, swung him around to gain momentum, then tossed him back against the others. That created a momentary gap in the mass of bodies and gave her room to settle into a fighting stance. Once she regained her balance, she pivoted rapidly, her sword circling in a wide arc. The flat of its blade smacked into scaly bodies, clearing her path.

Another mass of kobold fighters flew toward her. She beat them back with her sword.

Sanval fought as Ivy had expected he would—with the absolutely correct posture of a man who had been trained by the very best tutors and then practiced every day as they recommended. The swift strokes of his sword cleaved a clear path through the kobolds. Unlike Zuzzara, Mumchance, or—it must be admitted—herself, Sanval did not scream or yell or curse as the little scaly pests swarmed around them. He just moved in perfect time with Ivy’s attacks—backing up a step when she backed up, lunging forward with her when she lunged, his dagger in one hand, his sword in the other, in a perfect fighting stance. The kobolds tried to take advantage of his upright position, ducking beneath his weapons and wrapping their arms around his leather boots. They scratched and clung and tried to climb, curling their fingers around his belt

to pull themselves up. He raised his arm, tapped his dagger on the top of his helmet to straighten it, then dropped into a lower position—all the better to hit vulnerable parts of the kobold anatomy with his shining sword and dagger.

The creatures parted before him, obviously intimidated by the fighter in brilliant armor. Sanval just smiled and dived after them. He seemed much happier now that he was confronting living things. He had lost the consternation evident during the earlier encounter with the glowing skeleton, but he did pause to say over his shoulder, very politely, “Is it acceptable to kill these creatures?”

“Not even their mother will miss them!” yelled Ivy, slicing a hand off a kobold that was making a grab for Sanval’s brightly polished elbow guard.

The beast fell down with a gurgle of blood gushing over its companions. The other kobolds seemed distracted, obviously trying to decide between looting their injured companion and attacking the warm-blooded humans before them. Two kobolds looked down at the easy prey at their feet and up again at the watrior woman with her sharp sword and stolen spear and the man in the impossibly bright armor. The half-ore was still bashing right and left with her shovel and getting nearer. The two kobolds looked at each other again and broke off from the fight, dragging their screaming former companion to a shadowy corner and snarling at anyone trying to take their prize from them.

With the kobolds distracted by the scuffle over the wounded member of their tribe, Ivy took advantage of the lull in the fight to glance over her shoulder.

Everyone was knee deep in the short reptilian fighters (except Mumchance, who was nose deep). Like Ivy, the dwarf turned in circles, to protect himself on all sides, keeping the metal lantern as high as possible to give the fighters the most

light. He kept jerking his head from side to side to see out of his one good eye.

Zuzzara—a mountain in the sea of kobolds—beat down from her height, her neat braids and big gold earrings swinging around her head, her finely tailored leather waistcoat stretched tight. The shovel became a no-nonsense club in Zuzzara’s big hands, perfect for smacking heads, breaking spears in half, and sending kobolds flying.

But for every little brute that they knocked down, more appeared.

Ivy screamed at her friends to beat a strategic retreat up the nearest tunnel that was kobold free. “Knot hold, small fall back,” she shouted.

Mumchance, whose responsibility in such formations was to lead the rear retreat, yelled that he had a tunnel. It was a narrow hole, only two or three kobolds wide and barely tall enough for Zuzzara to stand without bending.

Zuzzara was the last to leave the hall. She stopped in the shallow cave in front of the opening and tried to make a door of herself, closing the entry to the kobolds with her width and her slamming shovel. The majority of kobolds, still hungry, tried to rush around Zuzzara to follow them. Zuzzara gave a shout when one of the creatures trying to circle around her attempted to ram its spear into her backside. The spear caught on the long tails of the half-ore’s leather waistcoat, proving Gunderal right in her argument that the style was not only fashionable but good protection too. Then Zuzzara swung around and brained the kobold with her shovel.

Ivy shoved little Gunderal in front of her as Sanval defended her back. The dainty wizard turned, obviously worried about her sister. Facing the pack of reptilian human-oids, Gunderal brought her uninjured hand up to her face and blew hard, making a high whistling noise. A blue light

streaked across a startled kobolds face, and a fine icicle suddenly appeared hanging off the end of its nose. But the creature took no harm from the spell, shaking off the ice and wading back into the attack. “Go on, go on. Zuzzara is doing fine,” Ivy shouted at the obviously dismayed wizard. “Keep up with Kid.”

Mumchance swung flat against the tunnel wall, letting Kid and Gunderal scamper past. A kobold snuck past him as well, and Sanval made as if to follow, but Ivy caught his arm. Kid would keep Gunderal safe. He kicked back with his hooves, catching the kobold smartly on its scaly snout and giving it a flowing bloody nose. Another kick caught the kobold lower down, right below the stomach, and the creature folded into a small ball of whimpers.

Mumchance knocked it into its fellows with a hard blow from his fist. Wiggles gave the creature a nip on the tail in passing and then bit the ankle of another kobold trying to sneak up on the dwarf.

“Good dog!” said Mumchance, pulling the remaining hammer from his belt and braining the kobold with it.

“Use your sword!” Ivy shouted at him. The dwarf always forgot his sword.

Mumchance shoved his hammer back in his broad belt and pulled out his sword, waving it wildly. A number of kobolds ended up with sliced ears and nicked toes. The dwarf delayed following Kid. He still carried the Siegebreakers’ only lantern, and he knew the humans needed him to light their exit from the tunnel.

Ivy whipped around, checking behind her and cutting off a kobold sliding along the tunnel wall. She rammed her sword through the belly of the scaly attacker and grabbed its spear with her other hand. She jabbed back with the spear, just under Sanval’s arm, to catch another kobold in the throat.

Mumchance’s energetic, if less effective, fighting sent the beams of the lantern swinging wildly. To avoid being blinded by the sudden light shining in her eyes, Ivy glanced up. Above them, she saw that one of the old wooden beams holding up the tunnel was clearly cracked.

“Zuzzara!” yelled Ivy, and she gestured with her thumb at the beam. The big half-ore glanced in the direction of the beam and then swept her shovel through the kobolds as though she were sweeping dust out the door. The creatures squealed as they went rolling down the tunnel.

“See it!” shouted Zuzzara.

“Come on, Procampur,” Ivy said, dropping the kobold spear that she still clutched and grabbing Sanval’s shiny steel-clad shoulder. She shoved him in front of her, almost ramming his nose into the side of the tunnel as she swung him around. “Time to run!”

“Your friend—” Sanval sounded a little muffled as he tried to keep his face out of the dirt wall in front of him.

“Can take care of herself,” interrupted Ivy. “Follow the dwarf and stop fighting the kobolds. Zuzzara will get them!”

Falling farther behind her fleeing friends, the half-ore continued bowling kobolds into their kin using her shovel. The kobolds retreated, a bit intimidated by the tall, screaming half-ore woman with pointed teeth who was swinging an iron-headed shovel.

Zuzzara waded right into the group of kobolds. Now she swung the shovel like a scythe, a long, low sweeping motion that mowed through them. The little brown creatures ricocheted off the shovel’s flat end, bouncing head over tail onto their fellows. Thunk, whack, thunk. The shovel rang against their scaly hides and horned heads. The kobolds leader—a little taller and greener than the rest of the crew—barked something high and sharp that sounded like Draconic commands, and his

guards lowered their spears and tried to overrun Zuzzara. Most of the spear points simply bounced off her thigh guards and her wide leather belt with its big brass buckle. She was far too tall for the kobolds to reach any vulnerable points.

“Come on,” said Ivy, still propelling the rest of the group in front of her. “Run!”

Once again, Sanval swung around Ivy, obviously intent on backtracking down the tunnel to join Zuzzara. Ivy grabbed him by his sword arm, disregarding the danger of being skewered by his blade, and pulled him completely around by shifting her weight and digging her feet in.

“We must help her. What are you doing?” yelled the captain.

“No. Keep going,” Ivy shouted the order, and the tone got through to him. He blinked in confusion at her. “She’ll bring the ceiling down. She knows what she’s doing. Run, you idiot hero, run!”

Zuzzara flipped another kobold off the end of her shovel and plunged the blade straight up, catching it against the timber holding up that section of the ceiling. The half-ore bulged her muscles as she levered the shovel against the cracked beam. One brass button pinged off her waistcoat, and the kobold leader screamed as he caught it squarely in the eye.

The crack widened, and dirt rained down upon the squeaking kobolds. They raced away from the terrible giant who had wreaked such destruction upon them. With a loud splintering sound, the beam split in two. The beam’s loose end bounced upon the head of the kobold’s leader, cracking his skull.

Zuzzara spun around and raced back to her group, scooping up Sanval and Ivy as she ran. She tucked one under each arm, as if they were small children. Her shovel crashed against Ivy’s knees as she tightened her grip around Ivy’s waist. Ivy

hoped that her armor would hold and tried not to think about breathing. “Let’s go,” Zuzzara cried.

With a crash, the rest of the ceiling collapsed, sending clouds of dirt through the tunnel. Coughing, choking, and with streaming eyes, the group stumbled out into a large, hollow space. Zuzzara gently set Sanval and Ivy down.

“Thank you, Zuzzara,” said Ivy, once she had spat some of the dust out of her throat.

The gentleman from Procampur lowered his head in a quick bow toward the half-ore. “I also thank you, Lady Zuzzara, but I am sorry that I was not allowed to aid in your defense.”