Against the Giants (20 page)

Nemis laughed, but his eyes weren’t amused. “Call it lethal.”

Vlandar nodded. “Yes, I know. We go the other way, then.”

When he turned to pick up his armor, Agya cleared her throat.
“Wait. If y’ask me, we better learn ’xactly what’s there. I mean, what’s yon
sounded mad to me and prob’ly not fussy if its dinner’s still alive. Seems sense
to me if someone takes a look proper-like.”

“We have Nemis—” Vlandar began.

The girl shook her head. “Aye, and we have Mal—both of ’em
for magic. But sir, we need a real search. ’Tis no time to be trustin’ only to
magic.” She eyed Malowan sidelong. “’Member when you looked in th’ thieves
guildhall for Mobwef and nearly got skewered?”

“I did
not
,” the paladin replied with dignity, “nearly
get skewered. I merely—”

“’E had a noble’s spellstone e’d stolt,” the girl reminded
him sharply, “and it was good enough that you wasn’t aware of ’im. Someone might
’ave a thing like that ’ere.”

“And you
would
see him?” Nemis asked mildly.

Lhors thought the mage was holding back temper—but only just
from the way his eyes looked.

“No,” she replied, “but I might smell ’im. Back in th’ city,
Mobwef and ’is crew weren’t much for baths. Things ’ere ain’t either. I smelt
Mobwef and warned Mal. Any of us go search out there first, it’s me.” Her face
was a study in frustration. Probably, Lhors thought, she didn’t have use words
as persuasion very often. “Master thief Mobwef, ’e had a rule back in th’ city.
Job gets tricky so’s you maybe lose a thief or so, don’t risk th’ good ones
or
your green ’prentices neither, or them’s as don’t have experience in th’
kind of place they’re robbing. Pick so th’ loss won’t hurt yer guild, but still
use one who knows ’is job.”

“She’s saying,” Malowan added tiredly, “that she and Lhors
are the most expendable of us all, but that Lhors wasn’t raised in a city and
she was. She won’t be fazed by stone mazes.”

“That’s it,” Agya replied then settled back on her heels. She spared a glance
at Lhors, but then divided her attention between Malowan and Vlandar.

Like I’m of no account, thought Lhors, like what
she
says matters—not what Vlandar decides! His face felt hot, and he hoped his
sudden anger didn’t show. Oh, for a chance to see her out in hill country where
she can feel as lost and useless as I do, he raged internally. I’ll show the
skinny little—

He knelt and busied himself rearranging things in his pack.
It wouldn’t be so bad if she wasn’t at least three years younger, so set on
herself, and so gods-blasted self-sufficient.

Agya’s voice tightened the back of his neck. “Stone and dark
by themselves don’ scare me. I’m little, a thief, and good at it too. If not,
I’d be dead by now. And ’member you tested me back in city. I can go ’bout a
place I ain’t been afore and give you a proper map of it.”

“I’m persuaded,” Vlandar said as she paused for breath. “I
know you can help me map this place, but Mal will go with you.” He held up a
hand when she would have protested. “Do not argue with your commander. Remember
that Mal has weapons and other skills that you may want if that beast attacks
you.”

Lhors turned back as Agya nodded. She seemed pale and
momentarily beyond speech. Vlandar, the youth thought with some satisfaction,
must have done that on purpose. Wisely, too. It would do no good if any of them
went out there so overconfident that he or she died. His father had warned him
against overconfidence on the hunt.

Malowan and Nemis were already pressing aside a panel on the
north wall that the mage had found earlier. The panel slid aside, revealing a
heavy iron wheel. Khlened and Vlandar had to work hard to get it moving. Lhors
gaped as the east wall of the little chamber slowly lifted into the ceiling. The
whole system must have been recently oiled, because everything moved smoothly
and in silence.

The chamber beyond the door stretched for some distance north
and east. The south wall and most of the cavelike ceiling were lost in gloom.

Malowan gazed around for a long moment, then touched Agya’s
arm. “There is a door almost straight across. Do you see it?”

“A bit of light,” the girl agreed in a low voice, “and
there”—she pointed just north of the light—“maybe another passage.”

The paladin met Vlandar’s eyes. “Let the door down behind us.
Nemis will know when we need it raised again.”

The warrior nodded and clasped his arm. “Trithereon’s cloak
cover you.”

The two slipped from the little chamber. Vlandar waited long
enough to be sure that some guard hadn’t spotted them, then he and Khlened
lowered the door.

Faced with nothing better to do in the quiet dark, Lhors sat
and watched Nemis go through his supplies. The mage’s hands were steady and his
mien thoughtful as he brought out the bottles he’d taken in the maids’ quarters.
He seemed to be testing them, though he never removed any of the stoppers. Lhors
wanted to ask how he did that, but he felt a little foolish around the
self-contained Nemis. The man’s story about dark elves had made little sense to
him, but it sounded frightening and the tale had certainly upset the rangers.

He couldn’t ask the mage anything now anyway. Nemis had just
murmured a spell of some kind and looked as if he were in a trance, eyes closed
but lips still moving.

Lhors glanced at the watch-vial Vlandar had pulled from his
pack: a sand-shifter that marked time, much like the one Lharis had owned. The
warrior only turned the thing over once before Agya and Malowan returned.

Vlandar settled them down near the closed door and handed
them water.

Malowan passed the water bottle to his ward. “The main room
is joined by passages, north and east. They’re as narrow as this one but longer
and unlit. They seem deserted—no one lives in either, and they are seldom used.
There is an apartment about this size just across from here, and the giant Agya
heard lives there with his two apes. All three are inside and sleeping. To the
south, a long passage ends in a cross-corridor. We did not check further, but I
sensed guards: bugbears or possibly orcs.”

“Bears?” Agya’s voice rose sharply. “You dint say nothin
’bout bears! Bears
and
apes?”

“Bugbears,”
Nemis replied. “Bears are animals. These are
different. They’re intelligent as half-witted humans and good fighters, much
like ogres, very strong and evil. They hate our kind.”

“Don’t care,” the thief replied flatly. “Long’s they ain’t
bears. Nasty things, bears. One used to juggle in th’ market and
et
’is
master. I know, ’cause I saw ’im do it. Filthy way to die. These… bugbears,
is it? Let ’em hate. I’ll hate ’em right back.”

Malowan gave her a distressed look but went on. “At the far
end of the south corridor, I could see a door. There are prisoners kept there.
Somewhere beyond that is a smithy. The whole area was quiet, oddly so, to my
mind. Still, it is daylight up there. Nosnra and his followers may believe that
we are trapped and that they can sleep the day away as they normally would, then
seek us out at their leisure.”

“Perhaps,” Nemis said. “I just completed my own search. It is
very quiet out there—except for the manticores to the west. I also sensed a
smithy southward and prison cells here and there.”

“Very good,” Vlandar agreed. “We won’t trust to our being
alone here, but it is reassuring. I think we
can
trust to this, however.
Nosnra and his fellows have no magical communication with those down here, or
else we would have had company waiting when we opened that door.”

“Maybe they wanted to lure us into the open instead?” Maera
suggested.

“Why,” Vlandar asked, “if they could surround this passage
and take us without a fight? Sensible of you to suspect such a trap,” he added
with a smile, but Maera did not smile back, “but there’s no sense in our
anticipating traps within traps. If hill giants were good at tactics, I would
never have come against them with so few companions.”

Khlened laughed. Maera gave the barbarian a dark look but let
it drop.

Nemis smiled briefly. “I found more. I am not sure what all
of it means, but I can also help you map this place. One of my own spells is a
variant on one the drow taught me: how to let the
shape
of a maze come to
you.”

Malowan puffed up at this. “That would have been nice to know
before I risked my life and Agya’s—twice now!—in scouting out this place.”

“Forgive me,” Nemis said, “but the magic works only to
determine the layout of caves and buildings. It would not help in finding guards
and such, which is what you and your ward were searching for.”

The paladin nodded, but still looked very unsatisfied to
Lhors.

“What’s done is done,” Vlandar said. “What have you found,
Nemis?”

“Two ways out, but neither is useful to us. One is at the end
of a long, black passage that leads to a pool. To reach the outside, we would
have to swim below a wall deep inside the pool. Beyond that, if you survive the
depths, is a way out.”

“I’m not one for swimmin’, way out or not,” Khlened said.

“Peace, Khlened!” Vlandar said. “All of you! Let the man
finish.”

Nemis nodded thanks to Vlandar, then continued, “The other
way out follows an underground stream, but the way soon narrows such that I fear
we would soon be forced to swim again.”

“Then it’s swim or fight our way out?” Lhors asked. He
couldn’t decide which would be a worse way to die.

“No,” the mage replied, “I think not. There is a vast complex
of caverns south and east of here, and I think they are cells and slave-pens,
which will surely be filled with those who have no love for the giants and their
allies.”

“But that does not make them
our
allies,” Vlandar
said.

“Of course,” the mage said as a mischievous smile spread
across his face, “but if we do not find those who would be willing to aid us, we
might at the least free them and loose enough chaos that the giants will have
more to worry about than finding us.”

Malowan stirred. “The plan has merit. If for no other reason
than it is the lesser of three evils.”

“Yes,” Vlandar said in resignation. “Well then, let’s be—”

“Shh!” Rowan broke in. “Do you hear that?”

Lhors sat still, not even breathing. Everyone else did the
same. At first, there was utter silence, then ever so faintly, he caught the
distant echo of picks and faint voices.

“Can you hear that?” Rowan said. “Unless I am very mistaken,
Nosnra or his underlings are digging their way down through the rubble of the
staircase.”

“All the more reason to be off,” Vlandar said. “This passage
is no longer a haven for us—if it ever was.”

“Wait.” Malowan laid a hand on Vlandar’s arm as the warrior
reached for the door wheel. “A moment, my friend. About prisoners the giants are
holding down here. If there are humans…” He shook his head. “You know I
cannot leave them behind.”

“Are you mad?” Khlened demanded.

“No,” Malowan replied steadily. “Merely a man trying to
achieve what purity of heart I can. I cannot neglect my duty any more than Rowan
or Maera would ignore an elf or a half-elf if they knew one was here.”

The barbarian sighed heavily. “What then? You’ll crawl
through all th’ pens down here? Didn’t Nemis just say there’s more’n one? And
there’ll be guards—d’ye chance us all gettin’ killed by whatever brutes are
guarding ’em?”

Nemis cleared his throat. “It will not be necessary to go
into the cells. Either Mal or I can search other ways. But Mal, I trust you do
not plan to free everything down here? The orcs and trolls you save may not
thank you.”

“A bargain,” Vlandar put in. “Mal won’t put us all in danger
to save one human captive. That would go against your code also, wouldn’t it?”