Against the Giants (22 page)

“Trusted?” Rowan protested. “They are barred from the
outside!”

“A loyal slave is still a slave,” Vlandar reminded her, “but
they are not our business. Now, down the right-hand corridor where Lhors heard
what could be a smithy, Nemis sensed… you tell them, Nemis.”

“I was aware of several sources of strong emotion: fear and
hate mixed, and in some a sense of hopelessness—also extreme heat and at least
two giants. Besides the giants, there are slaves—possibly human, perhaps elf or
dwarf—I cannot be sure, but they are not orcs or the like. That I can tell.”

Malowan’s eyes fixed on Vlandar, but he said nothing.

Vlandar looked at the paladin and nodded. “Yes, Mal, we will
go there. Nemis, have you another of your beneath notice spells?”

“Better to save those for special need,” the mage replied. “I
can create invisibility, though we will need to be as quiet as possible to pass
unnoticed by the two giants in that torture chamber. You do not want to attack
the bugbear?”

“No,” the warrior said, “not unless we are seen or heard by
that guard. Their hearing is not keen, and he is concentrating on his task
anyway. I’ve fought them before. The noise would alert every giant in the
vicinity. No, we deal with those in the torture chamber and the smithy, and
then
take on the bugbears if we must. We aren’t enough to battle enemy from
both sides. So, the west passage.”

Nemis nodded. “And move with care around here.”

“I plan on it,” Maera said flatly.

“More than usual,” the mage replied. “These walls—all this
down here—it was not built by giants, you know.” He smiled, but it wasn’t a
pleasant expression. “Something older and darker…”

“Set me at it with m’ sword, and I’ll gut it!” Khlened
snarled, but he’d gone very pale again.

“The gods grant you the opportunity and the strength should
such a chance come,” Nemis replied.

“My arms are growing tired,” Malowan added, “and we have
stayed here long enough.”

“Agreed,” Vlandar said.

Vlandar led the way, waiting at the end of the north-south
corridor while Nemis cast his spell of invisibility. He then divided his
company, placing himself at the fore with Lhors and Maera, then Nemis who wanted
to be central should he need to reinforce his spell or create a new one. Khlened
came next, then Agya and Malowan with Rowan moving silently behind, a drawn bow
in her hands and her eyes fixed on the bugbear guard.

Things went well for some moments. They could hear a faint
noise from down the east passage, as if someone were dragging stones away from
the other side of the barrier. The guard was halfway off his stool, a morning
star clutched in one hand and his whole attention fixed on the boulder wall and
beyond.

Suddenly he yelled what might have been an order, his voice a
hellish roar that echoed in the relatively narrow space.

Vlandar gestured furiously for everyone to back up against
the north wall and stay still. Before they could obey, half a dozen bugbears,
all heavily armed, poured into the hall, most of them pelting straight for the
boulder wall. Unfortunately, the last of the lot stumbled on loose rock, caught
the guards stool to right himself, and wound up on his knees, staring straight
into Rowan’s eyes. His jaw dropped and he sucked in a loud breath to yell.

Rowan loosed her arrow, which slammed into his throat. The
cry became a shrill howl of pain. The other bugbears stopped dead and turned.

“That’s torn it,” Rowan said grimly, and went to one knee,
hauling the arrow case over her shoulder and bracing it against her thigh where
she could rapidly draw shafts. Maera came up to take a place behind her, loosing
a javelin as the other bugbears came pelting toward them, swords, morning stars,
and axes ready to strike.

Vlandar edged around the rangers, bringing Malowan and Nemis
with him. The three ran straight for the bugbears, holding to the south wall of
the passage to give the rangers and Lhors, who found himself between the two, a
clear line on their targets.

“Save your javelins until they’re nearer!” Maera told him.

Lhors merely nodded. His mouth was very dry.

Malowan and Vlandar engaged the first of the hairy creatures,
Vlandar blocking the morning star on his sword. Malowan dodged the swing of a
bugbear’s axe, then swung around reversing his sword and digging in his heels as
he thrust the blade back through thick fur. The bugbear staggered back,
clutching its belly and squalling in agony. Vlandar swung his own weapon in a
full circle before bringing it crashing down on the back of the brutes head. The
creature fell with a crash.

Another set on them at once, and then more. Khlened came
running up, snarling. He brandished a sword in each hand, and he clenched a
thick, nasty-looking dagger between his teeth.

Out of the corner of his eye, Lhors could see the rangers
firing into the crowd of monsters.

The startled bugbears fell back a few paces, a few falling to
the rangers’ arrows and javelins. Lhors saved his own spears in case any of the
creatures managed to break past the three warriors. Rowan finally let Maera drag
her and Lhors back out of the way. Nemis came running up, stopping just behind
the three men who were barely keeping the creatures at bay.

“Vlandar!” he yelled. “Help me! Get them in a line!”

“What kind of a—? Are you mad?” the warrior yelled back as he
swung his sword at the nearest bugbear. Blood splurted from a deep gash on the
brute’s forearm, and its morning star fell from its hand. “Will you set them
dancing?”

“Get them in a clutch then! I have a spell readied, but it
won’t work on them all otherwise!”

“We’ll get them bunched for you!” Vlandar said as he parried
a strike. “Khlened, to that side! Mal, ease back this way with me!”

The three men formed an arc with Vlandar at the center. The
bugbears ignored Nemis—the mage wasn’t wielding a blade like the other three,
Lhors realized—and threw themselves forward. The air crackled, and a thick,
bluish fog wrapped around the shaggy creatures. When it faded, the bugbears were
simply gone.

Nemis heaved a sigh. “Apparently they weren’t fluent in
anything but their own nasty language—if that. Stupid brutes.”

“Giants might be,” Vlandar said evenly. “Keep that in mind if
we need to make plans on the spot, will you? Mal, you and Khlened—”

But the paladin had already moved in the direction they’d
been heading and stood motionless in the corridor. He came back, shaking his
head.

“There is at least one enormous blaze going in that chamber.
The two giants I sense may be lying in wait to catch us by surprise, but I
believe they are asleep or unconscious.”

Maera smiled grimly. She was coming back with all the
javelins she could salvage, running the shafts between her hands to test them
before stuffing them back into the case. Rowan was doing the same with her
arrows. “Better if we know for certain. That would be work for rangers, I think.
Come, sister.”

Lhors stared at the spear he held. He hadn’t even thrown one,
he realized. The creatures hadn’t come close enough for him to have been of use.
He hoped no one else had seen the panic he’d felt when those monsters came
charging.

Rowan touched his shoulder. “We’re going to make certain the
giants up there”—she gestured toward the doorless chamber and the glow of
fire—“somehow did not hear all that just now. Come help, will you?”

“I… help? Me?” He blinked then nodded. “If I can.”

“You’ll do, lad,” Maera allowed. She melted into deeper
shadow along the north wall, edging sideways toward the distant firelight. As
the rest of the party sought a hiding place away from the scene of battle, Lhors
and Rowan went after Maera.

As they neared the open doorway, Maera gestured for Lhors to
ease over to the south wall with her while Rowan kept to the north. She fit an
arrow to the string as she vanished into the dark opening that went straight
north. Maera signed for Lhors to stay where he was and watch while she slipped
partway down the angled passage.

It wasn’t quite as dark that way—enough that Lhors could tell
the passage branched again farther on. Ruddy light stained the walls down there,
and he could hear the distant sound of a hammer battering metal into shape and,
when that ceased, the loud huff of a bellows. I was right about the smithy, he
thought. He felt a little better. Maybe he had contributed something after all.

Maera was back almost at once, and Rowan came back a moment
later. The rangers exchanged rapid and complex sign Lhors couldn’t follow, then
Maera moved light-footed toward the opening straight ahead. Lhors tightened his
grip on the spear and was glad the rangers couldn’t hear his wildly beating
heart.

The chamber was a horror of bloodstained flooring,
instruments that left him sick and weak at the knees. Some had obvious uses.
Others he couldn’t begin to imagine their exact purpose. High-burning fires
licked at metal clamps or turned huge twisted branding irons a glowing red. In
the midst of all this, two giants slept heavily, back to back on a filthy mat.
The one facing out was smiling, as if in the midst of a pleasant dream.

Maera edged forward, gesturing for her sister to come with
her, but Rowan shook her head fiercely, then beckoned, drawing her sister and
Lhors back up the hall and into the shadow of the angled hallway.

“You want to kill them, Maera? Why?”

Maera sighed, clearly exasperated. “Can you even ask? They
are torturers. They deserve to die!”

“Yes,” Rowan replied sourly. “So what do we do then, murder
them while they sleep or let them waken first and
then
kill them?”

“Why let them waken?” Maera demanded. “Go in, kill them, and
be done with it! It is not sporting, but this is not sport, sister. This is
survival.”

“Do not lecture
me,
sister,” Rowan retorted. “Whatever
they are, whatever they have done, that does not justify acting in the same
fashion. Leave them. I doubt they will waken while we are here. If they do, then
death is their fate, but I will not dishonor myself with their blood, nor allow
you to do so.”

“Arrogant,” Maera hissed. “Is it not arrogant of
you
to assume we will be able to kill them if they waken?”

“If, was, could have been,” Rowan replied evenly. “It does
not matter, Maera. I will not aid you in this.”

Maera’s lips twisted, but she finally sighed and gestured
assent. “You would better serve Heironeous than Ehlonna,” she said acidly.

Before Rowan could reply, her twin was gone, moving at a
swift pace to rejoin the others.

Rowan laid a hand on Lhors’ shoulder. “I am sorry you had to be party to
that,” she said quietly. “My sister is a good person, but she has a special
grudge against giants.”

“I hate giants,” Lhors said after a moment’s thought “My
father… my village… But I could not have killed those two while they slept
However evil they must be to work in such a horrid place, it does not make it
right for me to act the way they do.”

“You speak for me,” Rowan said as she eased back into the
main corridor, “but I would not share such opinions with Maera were I you.”

Maera had apparently failed to convince Vlandar either. She
and Malowan had drawn aside and were arguing in fierce whispers as Rowan and
Lhors rejoined the company. Rowan went over to Vlandar and briefly explained
what the three of them had seen.

“South up there is the passage leading to the smithy. North
are slave pens or prison cells with bugbear guards. And there is”—she
hesitated—“a trail of blood, fresh and old both, that goes between the north
passage and the torture chamber.”

“There are prisoners that way,” Nemis said softly. “No
humans, no elves—orcs and trolls. I pity them, but I will not risk my life to
free them.”

Vlandar nodded. “Even Mal agrees we dare not try to help
them. Most of them would not thank us and might even try to kill us to win favor
from Nosnra.”

“Let us go before any other guards come out of that
barracks,” Malowan said. “There are more bugbears in the farther rooms—behind
closed doors, fortunately for us. But they are not the only enemy that might
come through here.”

Vlandar nodded and took up the lead, the rest following as
they had before, but this time Rowan moved sideways so she could both watch
where she walked and keep an eye on their back trail.

Once inside the southwest passage and out of the light from
the torture chamber, Vlandar halted again and beckoned Malowan up with him. The
two exchanged a few brief signs. Lhors could follow some of it, including
“search,” and “caution,” but some of it must have been personal sign between the
two. Vlandar held the rest of the company back with him while Malowan and Agya
stole quietly forward, stopping at the barely visible bend in the hallway. They
were back almost at once.