The Tomb of the Dark Paladin (27 page)

With 
Morloth
 firmly in hand, he padded silently down the tunnel. With dagger enhanced sight the assassin needed no light to see. The walls and floor were plain and smooth, as before. The farther he went, the stronger the sensation of approaching prey became. He felt hungry, ravenously so, and he desperately wanted to satiate the blade. Finally, he heard voices ahead, guttural, vicious. There was another sound; it was a soft scratching like fingers clawing at a wall. He came to a stop where the tunnel opened into a small chamber. Oddly, the sound seemed to be coming from the behind the wall. He sensed a number of hearts beating behind the wall and the scratching sounds seemed to be growing louder.

As he stepped closer to the wall to listen, a particularly loud crack sounded and a piece of the rock wall fell away. Zach hopped back to a safe distance and watched, alert for danger and intensely curious. He heard some soft but very distinct voices, though he could not understand what they were saying. More of the rock wall fell away and a small creature climbed through.

Goblins!
 he thought to himself. Goblins were the mountain dwelling kin of oroks, vicious and cruel and barely intelligent. Their wild and unpredictable natures ensured the nasty creatures had no allies among the more intelligent races and they were too stupid and mean to be enslaved. As a result, no one wanted anything to do with goblins.

This one looked vaguely human, though he was barely four feet tall. His skin was scaly and hairless like a rat's tail; it seemed to peel in great flakes. Its head was hairless and its ears were long and pointed, though they seemed to lay flat against its head like an angry horse. Its long nose sniffed the air and whiskers twitched below it, giving it a distinct rat-like appearance. It was clothed in rags and the stench that wafted through the opening suggested to him that perhaps this prey was not worth the effort.

But the thirst for blood was more than either the assassin or his blade could handle. In one deft move Zach planted 
Morloth
 into the goblin's chest, all the way to the hilt. The little goblin thrashed briefly, but 
Morloth
 quickly paralyzed him. In seconds the creature was dead and the blade, and Zach, felt revitalized. Another goblin poked its head out of the hole to see where its cohort went and Zach grabbed it by the ear, yanking it through. He was surprised by the wild creature's strength as it flailed and thrashed trying desperately to get away from the unseen assassin. The goblin let out a shriek but Zach managed to get enough of the blade to penetrate the goblin's hide; paralyzed, it fell limp and died. When the second goblin had become little more than a dried husk, he removed the blade and reveled in the ecstasy of the kill. However, there were more goblins lurking in the freshly dug tunnel, and a stream of them tried to squeeze through the hole at once. Zach stood ready, short sword in one hand and 
Morloth
 in the other. He swung and parried and slashed with fevered abandon, reveling in bloodshed and death. He knew that the more he fought the more visible he would become to them, and as creatures of the Underllars, their vision would be superb in the darkness. But they were no match for the Shadowblade.

After Zach slayed five goblins in quick succession, the remaining creatures retreated quickly back into their tunnel. Zach was brimming with life and energy and rage. He truly wanted to hunt down each of the little vermin and exterminate them, but caution stayed his hand. He peered into the small tunnel and found that the retreating goblins left behind their tools, they seemed to be primitive hand picks at first glance. When he looked more closely, he noticed that the tools had all been dipped in a resin of some type. Could it be poison? Perhaps it was a magical concoction that helped muffle the noise that their tools made. If so, where did the dimwitted creatures get such sophisticated resin? 

Zach dropped the simple picks and searched the bodies of the dead goblins. He found little of interest about the corpses of the little creatures except that their fingernails were like a dog's claw and hard and shiny as metal. If these creatures could use their bare hands to claw through rock, their nails could prove to be useful weapons. He went to work on the corpses with 
Morloth
 and in minutes had a pouch full of the metallic goblin claws. His blade satiated, he decided it was time to return to the camp and he dragged one of the goblins back with him. The giddy feeling of the energy he had stolen from the goblins was beginning to fade already, he assumed the life-forces of higher beings must provide more sustenance to the dagger. When he arrived at the camp, Balzath was awake and sitting calmly next to a magically created fire.

"Had a nice walk?" she asked quietly; the others were not awake.

He grunted in response and dropped the dried out husk next to her. "There was trouble ahead."

"Trouble or trifle?"

"Take your pick," he said with a sneer, sitting beside her and staring into the cool magical flames. 

"A few goblins are a trifle, a few hundred are something more."

"A dozen," he said. "No more."

"My dear," she began, looking up at him from the fire. "Although mountain goblins fear ogres, the great ogres know enough to be constantly on guard for the little sneaks. There are probably thousands more within a day's walk of your encounter."

"Why are we here, Balzath?" he said angrily, changing the subject. After his brief battle, the assassin felt sure that the four of them could handle two thousand goblins without help. Balzath did not seem inclined to answer.

"I've never met an ogre," he said, exasperated. "What are we in for?"

Balzath smiled, "Fearsome, powerful. Ancient, ill-tempered."

"That tells me a lot," he said wryly. He sat back, staring into the fire with the witch beside him and contemplated the witch's silence.

As soon as the rest of the party awakened, Balzath insisted they move on. They stopped briefly at the point where Zach encountered the goblins so that Balzath could investigate. Urelis cast a few spells and muttered to himself while Ebonaar just muttered. Zach knew the priest was capable of magic, but the man seemed reluctant to call on any of the special powers of his benefactor.

When it was clear that there was nothing to be gained from tarrying, the four moved on again. This time the dull tunnel stopped at a pair of massive stone doors. The doors were inscribed with ancient runes and designs and a great ring hung from it.

Urelis approached the ring and banged it against its metal plate. The sound was loud and it reverberated through the tunnel around them.

"What are we doing here?" whined the priest, kicking the floor. "Ogres are not--"

Just then a boom sounded so loud that Zach felt it in his chest. The doors swung outward and there stood four people. They were not human, nor were they Elvish or Orcish. They were smaller in height than Zach, but considerably more sturdy and more powerfully built than most humans. Their skin was black and their bald heads glistened in the magical lights illuminating the chamber. 

"Ogres," whispered Zach. They were impressive figures. By their stature they resembled what the legends said about dwarves. But their seemingly hairless heads and faces were decidedly unlike any dwarf he'd heard described. Each of them wore a uniform and carried a spear, but none wore armor. 

The four ogres marched out of the doorway in strict formation, more followed in a long column. Urelis whispered a word and 
darkfire
 danced on his fingertips while Ebonaar's claw hand grew pustules that oozed and formed a ball of liquid puss that hovered in the air above his hand. Zach edged away from the priest, he didn't want any of that foul stuff to splatter on him when he threw it.

The ogres squad stopped as one. Then a single ogre dressed in a robe and carrying a staff with a glowing ball atop it, walked out of the doorway and stood beside his fellows. The three magic-wielders enacted various spells or charms to allow them to communicate with the ogres. Zach waited, a hand on his dagger, ready to fight his way out if it came to that. 

Balzath stepped forward and met the leader of the ogres, her hands free but still quite capable of dealing death.

A sound heavy as the mountain they stood under barreled out from the ogre leader. 

"Who dares trespass on our lands?"

CHAPTER TWELVE

C H A P T E R

T W E L V E

~

The companions traveled for several days along a road that wound along the Myrnnish countryside, barely wide enough for a carriage. The ground was cold and hard beneath hooves of the horses. Carym hoped that the Rhi's men had given up pursuit; their last encounter with the poorly trained troops had left more than one of the unfortunate men dead. And his own recent brush with death in the Realm of Flames had weakened him considerably.  

He kept his eyes on the tree line along the roadside. He didn't know what he was looking for, but he felt like he should expect an ambush at any moment. The way things had devolved, it seemed only a matter of time before they were attacked again. The trees were still bare, and the sounds of the wild drifted more readily among the silent trunks. More than once they stopped upon hearing the sound of dead leaves crunching under feet deeper in the woods. Yet each time their alarm was unfounded, the sounds were attributed to fox or deer or squirrels. 

"Have you found us a place to stay, Bart?" asked the knight, his tone weary. The days of dogged flight from Rhi's forces had worn away at all of them. Ederick had set a furious pace and their mounts were in desperate need of rest. Now the knight and the bard had a new understanding of each other; a deeper respect grown from a common experience had formed between them. 

"I believe so," he said. "There is a village ahead. A farmer told me he would rent us his barn for the night, so he did."

"It isn't the warm bed I was longing for but it's better than sleeping in the saddle again," said the knight softly. "Thank you, Bart."

"There haven't been any signs of signs of the Rhi's men in two days, nor any of the Shadowfyr's hunters, perhaps we can risk a night of rest," offered Hala.

Carym glanced at Genn as she sat wearily in the saddle, her eyes heavy and her expression grim. "Gennevera," he began but the woman ignored him. Ever since their departure from the Tower, she had become detached from him. Other than a brief show of emotion and relief at his return from the Realm of Fire, she had barely spoken to him. She spurred her horse ahead and Carym's heart ached from rejection. Carym sensed Hala looking his way. Though he knew there would only be compassion from the warrior-princess he could not meet her gaze. 

Last in line, Carym trotted onward toward the promise of a somewhat less miserable night.

The companions were closer to the village than Carym expected. Apparently the bard had spent a good deal of time with the old farmer assuring him there would be no trouble, time in which the group did not idly sit. The village was larger than Cannok, but it was still small. There were barely a dozen homes and a few shops centered around the muddy road. According to the old farmer, whom Carym could only understand through Bart's translations, there was a smattering of other holdings nearby that associated themselves with this small community. There seemed no love for the Rhi or his men in this part of the land, though the farmers made it clear they wanted no trouble with the monarch either.

"What is this place called?" asked Genn, breaking her gloomy silence as the group walked along. Night had fallen by now and the old farmer led the companions by torch light, a few of the town's men had come out with their own torches to help and they all chatted with each other warmly in their Myrnnish variety of the Cklathish language.