The Nether Scroll

"No tomorrow?" Tiep broke in. "What's this 'no tomorrow' nonsense? Did you forget to tell us something, dog-face?"

Sheemzher hung his head. "Egg smell strong, good sir. Very strong."

Rozt'a added her thought, "Are you sure you can't take it down quietly? If we can get Ghistpok's goblins to the egg chamber, Sheemzher says we'll have our proof. Once we've got that, we can wait until that other passage is dry."

"Ask him what he means by 'no tomorrow,'" Tiep pressed. "And make some more light so we can see his lying face when he answers."

Druhallen said nothing to Sheemzher, but he did cast another light spell and held it at a single candle's brightness. He drew the sword he'd taken from yesterday's swordswingers and approached the shimmering ward.

Rozt'a reminded him, "A goblin spear is longer."

"But this is the Beast Lord's sword. There's a chance it won't bring the Beast Lord down around our heads." And, anyway, Dru didn't plan to be holding onto the sword when it pierced the ward. He envisioned hurling it like a javelin, but such heroic moves demanded years of practice. The sword tumbled after Druhallen threw it. Ghistpok's goblins chuckled at his awkward effort; he should have asked Sheemzher's help, at the very least. The sword struck the warding lengthwise and the resulting flare blinded them all.

"You meant to do that?" Tiep asked when they'd once again adjusted to the dim light of Dru's spell.

"I meant to clear it."

Dru's voice was shaking and so was his hand as he picked up the sword. The hilt was charred, the steel blade was pitted. The warding had been more potent than he'd imagined.

"Why here?" Rozt'a asked. "Why here in a spidery tunnel when there was nothing around the egg or the empty pools?"

"Yesterday we were above the Beast Lord. It doesn't worry about attacks from above. Ghistpok's goblins worship it and act as wards—a sentience shield. The enemies it fears—the ones it wards against—come from below."

"What would that ward have done if you hadn't broken it?"

"Killed the first man foolish enough to touch it." He fished out a larger bit of beeswax and shaped it around the sword's tip. A basic spell for the detection of magic was enchanted into the wax, not Dru's memory. The spell needed only the warmth of his breath to kindle. "Come on, Sheemzher. Let's keep moving. We've tripped the Beast Lord's wards. If it's paying any sort of attention, it should send someone to investigate—or come itself."

With Sheemzher at his side and the wax-tipped sword thrust before them, Dru led the way. The warding got thicker quickly—every ten steps they stopped and Sheemzher threw rocks discarded by long-dead dwarves into the webbing.

"He's hung enough stuff to stop an army,"

Tiep made the comment, but the truth, which Druhallen kept to himself, was that any army—any serious, sentient enemy with a halfwit's understanding of defensive strategy—would be doing exactly what he and his companions were doing: moving slow, tripping the wards before they did any damage, and giving the Beast Lord ample time to track them down. He was almost relieved when the tunnel ahead of them lit up with a burst-ward flare.

"Company's coming," Rozt'a said. "Get ready for swordswingers." She drew her own weapon and tested the range of movement she'd have between the tunnel's walls.

Dru plucked an ember from his sleeve. "Don't make assumptions—it could be anything, even the Beast Lord itself."

Rozt'a reminded her partner of an obvious constraint: "Not unless it chooses to fight from its knees. It was at least a foot taller than me."

Rozt'a proved prophetic. They faced eight swordswingers, guided by a light spell and armed with a bit of fire magic. The best defense against the swarm of fiery streaks headed their way was a ball of flame Druhallen used to clear the tunnel. It consumed their arrows but was largely spent by the time it reached the swordswingers. There were a few screams, not as many as he'd hoped. The survivors charged, howling as they approached.

Druhallen expected Ghistpok's goblins to turn tail and run. He'd forgotten the antipathy between Sheemzher and Outhzin, and Amarandaris's assertion that the goblins would fight to the death under the right conditions. The insults Sheemzher hurled at Outhzin created those conditions. Ghistpok's goblins howled and surged in front of the humans, meeting the swordswinger charge with their spears.

"Not much of a sentient shield," Rozt'a shouted from her unaccustomed place in the rear.

"Not much sentience," Dru shouted back.

He was being unfair. The goblins were as clever as they needed to be, and their thick- shafted thrusting spears were better suited to close-quarter fighting than swords. Rozt'a never raised her blade. He and Tiep never unsheathed theirs.

Ghistpok's goblins were scavenging the swordswinger corpses as Dru, Rozt'a, and Tiep moved unnoticed through them toward Sheemzher, who stood alone and aloof where the swordswinger charge had begun.