Temple of the Dragonslayer (23 page)

“What is this place?” Jax whispered. “Have we descended to some realm of demons?”

“Not unless goblins count as demons,” Catriona said. She
pointed toward a partially collapsed building, in front of which a group of goblins were playing some sort of game. They were laughing as they kicked a ball back and—

No, Davyn realized with sudden nausea. It wasn’t a ball they were kicking; it was a head. A hand of ice gripped his heart. Please, don’t let it be hers, he prayed.

Davyn turned to Elidor. The elf’s eyesight was far better than his. “Is it …”

“It’s one of their own kind,” Elidor said.

To make matters worse, Ugo sat close by, watching the grisly game, laughing and clapping for the players. Davyn had hoped the ogre would prove too large to travel through the tunnels, but he obviously wasn’t.

“I imagine that this was once a surface city,” Elidor said. “And after the Cataclysm, it ended up down here, still partially intact.”

“It must have been a mighty city indeed to withstand the Cataclysm as well as it did,” Jax said.

“I wonder what it was called?” Sindri said.

Elidor shrugged. “None of us are scholars, but even if we were, it’s quite possible that there are no longer any records that exist of this place. Perhaps only the gods know its name now.”

They fell silent for a moment, as if feeling the weight of antiquity suddenly settle upon them.

“Let’s go,” Davyn said. “The longer we stay here, the longer we risk getting caught.”

“Go where?” Catriona asked. “Can you read tracks on solid rock?”

“No,” Davyn admitted. “But we don’t need a trail to follow. Not when we have a city full of goblins to question.”

Elidor gave Davyn an incredulous look. “You aren’t seriously suggesting that we walk up to one of those loathsome creatures and say, ’Pardon me, but would you mind telling us where you’re keeping the blond human girl who was abducted two days ago?”

Davyn laughed. “Not we. Jax.”

The minotaur tightened his grip on the haft of his axe and slowly smiled.

The entrance to the chamber was flanked by two large stone columns that rose so high, Davyn couldn’t see where they ended. Both columns tilted inward slightly and cracks covered the stones. Large pits, where whole chunks of column had fallen out, met Davyn’s gaze at eye level. Davyn had the impression that it wouldn’t take much to bring the columns down.

The companions passed between the columns and began to make their way through the underground city. They kept to the shadows and hid behind piles of rubble to avoid being spotted by goblins—and especially by Ugo. Though Davyn knew it was a sensible precaution, he thought they needn’t have bothered. The goblins were so preoccupied with drinking, eating, bickering, and fighting that the companions could have walked around in full view and likely gone unnoticed.

“There!” Catriona pointed to a broken statue of an armored warrior missing its head, arms, and legs. The statue rested on its back, and sitting on its chest, guzzling drink from a wineskin, was a lone goblin.

“He’ll do,” Davyn said. “We need a way to lure him—”

But before Davyn could finish, Jax stalked over to the statue, grabbed the goblin by the neck, and threw him onto the ground. The goblin screeched in outrage, but when he saw who had pulled him off the statue, he began whimpering.

“Please don’t hurt me!” The goblin’s lips and chin were smeared with wine and his tunic was dotted with stains. He held up the almost empty wineskin. “There’s still a bit left, and I’m willing to share. After all, we’re one big, happy, mercenary family here in Underfell, eh?”

Elidor frowned. He turned to Davyn and whispered. “Why isn’t he raising an alarm?”

“Probably had too much to drink,” Davyn said.

“We have a question to ask you,” Jax said. “If you answer truthfully, you can go back to drinking. If not …” He gave his axe a shake.

The goblin’s eyes widened in terror and he held up his hands in a placating gesture. “Of course, of course! You have only to ask!”

“A Theiwar and an ogre brought a human girl to this place not long ago,” Jax said. “Where is she being held?”

The fear didn’t leave the goblin’s eyes, but now it was joined by suspicion. “Are you new here? I don’t remember seeing you five in Underfell before.”

“Whether you’ve seen us or not doesn’t matter,” Jax growled. “If you don’t tell us what we need to know, you won’t be seeing anyone ever again!”

The goblin’s gaze darted back and forth as he sized up each of the companions. Davyn knew the goblin was trying to decide if they were allies or enemies. If he decided they were the latter, the goblin might get out a warning cry before Jax could silence him. And from the nervous way the goblin kept looking at them, Davyn doubted the creature was going to decide they were allies. But the creature clearly wasn’t very bright. Maybe if they just played along.

“Maddoc hired us,” Davyn said, trying to put a rough edge into his voice.

“Oh. You must be the mercenaries from the west I heard about.” The goblin’s eyes narrowed as he glanced at Sindri. “I never would have thought the wizard would hire a kender …”

“This kender is a wizard as well,” Davyn said. Sindri struck a mystic pose.

The goblin shrank away from Sindri’s outstretched arms. “Stay away from me, wizard. What business do you have with the human girl?”

Davyn felt a surge of hope. It wasn’t exactly a confirmation that Nearra was being held captive here, but it was a good sign.
Before Davyn could think up another lie, though, Catriona jumped in.

“Maddoc sent word that he wants us to check on the girl. He’s thinking of moving her to a different location and wants us to determine if she’s fit to travel.”

The goblin’s eyes narrowed even more. “Why would newcomers such as yourselves be given a task by Maddoc?”

Davyn cursed inwardly. It seemed that the wine hadn’t completely dulled the goblin’s wits after all.

Sindri walked up, grabbed a fistful of the goblin’s tunic, and pulled him forward until their noses were almost touching. “Because he knows better than to trust your kind with any job that actually requires a brain to perform.”

The goblin looked at Sindri for a moment, shaking as if the cavern’s temperature had suddenly dropped a few dozen degrees. “All right, wizard! I’ll tell you!”

Sindri glared at the goblin one last time before letting go of his tunic and stepping back.

Jax snorted, and Davyn guessed the minotaur was unhappy at using subterfuge to gain the goblin’s cooperation. To a minotaur, such lying wouldn’t be honorable. It was, however, most effective.

“The girl you speak of is being held captive in a place so terrible that we rarely speak of it.” The goblin’s voice dropped to a fearful whisper. “The Crypt of a Thousand Voices.”

S
he’s been quiet too long.”

“Maybe she fell asleep.”

“Maybe she’s dead.”

“You three had better pray that she’s still alive. Because if she dies, Maddoc will see to it that you do, too.”

“You mean, he’ll see to it that we
all
die.”

Davyn recognized the voices. The first three belonged to Drefan, Gifre, and Fyren. The fourth was Oddvar’s. Though Davyn knew sound could echo in strange ways underground, he thought the Theiwar and the goblins stood just around the next bend in the tunnel. Davyn motioned for the others to stop.

“They must be talking about Nearra,” Catriona whispered.

“Then the Crypt of a Thousand Voices must be nearby,” Elidor added.

“We have to draw them away from the entrance somehow,” Davyn said.

“Well, that’s easy enough.” Sindri suddenly raised his voice. “Hey, you red-faced cave-rats! We’re over here!”

Davyn groaned. That wasn’t exactly what he’d had in mind.

“Quick, against the wall!” Davyn ordered, and the companions flattened their bodies against cold stone—all except Sindri.
The kender stood in the middle of the tunnel, oblivious to the sound of goblins charging toward him.

Or maybe he’s looking forward to it, Davyn thought. He reached out, grabbed Sindri’s arm, and hauled the kender over to the wall with the rest of them.

As the sound of pounding footfalls drew closer, Davyn motioned to Jax. The minotaur nodded and crouched down in a fighting stance, though he did not draw his axe. As Drefan, Gifre, and Fyren came running around the bend, poison-tipped daggers clutched in their hands, Jax swept his arm forward and struck all three goblins in the throat. The goblins crashed to the ground, wheezing as they struggled to breathe.

Oddvar came racing around the bend. But when he saw his three goblin henchmen writhing and gasping on the tunnel floor, he slid to a stop, turned, and tried to run back the way he’d come. Unfortunately for the Theiwar, Jax was faster. The minotaur made a fist and slammed it down on top of the dwarf’s head. Oddvar’s eyes rolled white and he collapsed to the floor.

Sindri grinned. “See? I told you it would be easy!”

Davyn ignored him. “Let’s go find Nearra.”

Nearra crouched on her hands and knees, unmoving and silent. She concentrated on taking slow, shallow breaths, and even then the sound echoed back to her as loud as a howling wind. She could hear her own heartbeat pounding loud as a drum. Though it might have been her imagination, she thought she could even hear the blood flowing through her veins like a rushing river.

Stay calm, she told herself. Calm.

Her pulse began to slow and her breathing became ever shallower.

Good … that’s good.

When she’d first started screaming, the pain of the reflected sound was so intense that she thought she might lose her mind.
But then her common sense had taken over. She was the one making the sound; therefore, she could stop it. And though it had taken some effort, she’d managed to stop screaming long enough for the echoes to fade away. Now she was ready to try and find a way out of this awful place.

She moved her right hand forward the merest inch. The sound of her flesh sliding across the stone floor was amplified to the point where it seemed some large beast slid across the ground on its great leathery belly. She then moved her left hand the same distance, and again the noise was magnified. Still, it wasn’t nearly as loud or painful as her screaming had been. She could handle it.

Next she moved her right knee, then her left, and soon she was crawling forward, but slowly, inch by torturous inch. But at least she was moving.

She knew that there was almost no chance that she’d discover a way out going at this speed. She’d most likely succumb to thirst and hunger before she managed to explore more than a fraction of this cave—and that was assuming she didn’t crawl around in circles in the dark. But there was nothing else that she
could
do, and almost no chance was better than absolutely none, so she continued to crawl along the cavern floor like Krynn’s largest snail. If she were lucky—
very
lucky—she might stumble across a way out. If not, well, at least she would have tried.

She didn’t know how long she crawled after that, or for that matter, how far she crawled. Time didn’t seem to pass in this place of no sight and far too much sound. After a while, though, she became aware that her mouth and throat were parched, and her stomach was aching to be filled. She felt weak and dizzy, and she wondered how much longer she could keep going on like this. She hadn’t even come to a wall yet!