CHAPTER SIX

Mumchance swung his lantern around. The tunnel opened into a room from another long-buried level of the city. Everyone moved cautiously into the dark new space, listening for the sound of kobolds barking or the patter of little skeleton feet. But only silence filled the shadows. None of them feared a fight; but, as Ivy reminded them in her fierce whispers, each battle cost them time. They needed to find a way out so they could complete their mission and collapse the wall before Enguerrand's charge.

Although they only had Mumchance's lantern to light the gloom, the ceiling was low enough that they could see a delicate mosaic of shells and blue waves.

"How pretty," said Gunderal. She loved shell patterns and had painted similar waves all around her room at the farm. Then she coughed. "What is that smell?" A sharp metallic odor surrounded them like an evil fog. "It smells like a butcher's shop," she said. "Please tell me it is very old blood."

"Fresh blood," said Kid, his nostrils quivering. "I wonder what died here?"

There were no signs of fire, just the awful smell of blood, underlaid by a moist smell of moss and mire. Wiggles whined and then whimpered. Mumchance patted the little dog on the head, trying to quiet her, but finally scooped her out of his pocket and set her down on the tiled floor. Yipping high enough to make Ivy wonder if her ears would start bleeding, Wiggles raced away into the darkness, with Kid trotting quickly behind her.

"Come quick, come quick, my dears," cried Kid. "Here's a fresh kill."

"More kobolds?" grumbled Mumchance, swinging the lantern toward the sound of Kid's voice and Wiggles's barking.

"Bigger. Much bigger," said Kid, sounding pleased.

A freshly killed bugbear lay at Kid's feet. The bugbear's head had been chewed off, and one arm was missing. When it had walked upright and had had a head, it had been taller than Zuzzara. Scraps of black leather armor bound together with heavy chains decorated the bugbear's body, but its hairy legs were bare, and rope sandals covered the sole of each hairy foot. The stench rising from the corpse was nauseating.

"Look at that blood trail," Zuzzara said, pointing at a mixture of slime and blood that led into another dark tunnel entrance. "Something took the missing arm that way!"

"Well, they can keep it," said Ivy. "Let's see what else that he's got."

"It's a she, not a he," said Zuzzara, looking more closely at the curved leather breastplate and studded leather skirt.

"Well, whatever it is, it is dead," said Ivy, leaning down to search the body. She tried breathing through her mouth to lessen the impact of the mildewed smell. Ivy ran quick hands down the bugbear's bulky body, liberating a leather pouch tied to the creature's weapons belt. She opened it and saw with satisfaction that it held a number of cheap tallow candles, well wrapped against damp. "More lights," she said, and she tied the pouch to her own belt. She fished out a handful of candles, shoving them at Sanval.

"There's a torch under the body too," said Mumchance, pushing at the bugbear. "Here, Zuzzara, roll it over and let's get that." Zuzzara leaned down and flipped the bugbear over.

"You are looting the dead," said Sanval. He sounded troubled and a little disgusted, and was still holding the candles in one armored hand.

"Of course," said Ivy. "Stow those candles somewhere. If you get separated from us, you'll need them." Reluctantly, Sanval tucked the candles behind his breastplate, while Ivy questioned the half-orc. "Zuzzara, what have you got?"

"Torch dropped over here, and two more fastened to its back."

"Excellent. Any food?"

"Just a water bottle, and that's almost dry," said Mumchance.

"So the bugbear came down here from the city, do you think?"

"It came with others," said Kid. "There are more tracks here, back and forth: human or two-foot at least, my dears."

"Bugbears? Orcs? Humans?"

"They all wear boots," said Kid. "But big. No little feet like Gunderal."

"I am not little," squeaked Gunderal. "Ivy, somebody has been casting spells in here."

"Whatever killed the bugbear?"

"No." Gunderal sounded puzzled. "It feels more like light or fire. Not my sort of spell. Complicated, arcane, sort of a seeking spell."

Sanval looked doubtful. "Can she tell that?"

Ivy nodded. "It comes from her mother's side of the family. She's got a good sense for magic. When it has been used, how it has been used. She can usually tell if something has been warded or laid with magic traps, which is useful when you're sneaking into places that you don't know."

Gunderal sighed. "I can't tell you more than that, Ivy. But whatever it was, it happened not long ago. Not even a day. It is very strong, much stronger than that room that we just left. That was old magic. This is new."

"Wonderful," said Ivy. "That means that there is someone else down here." She passed out the candles and the torches, spreading the lights around so that Mumchance could wander off with his lantern and not leave the rest of them stranded in the dark. Zuzzara relit the bugbear's torch and held the light over the blood trail leading off toward the dark entrance of the tunnel.

"Funny marks in the dirt," she said.

"Footprints," speculated Kid. "Big four-foot with round, flat fleet."

"Hope whatever it was is off enjoying lunch," said Ivy, "and will take a little nap afterwards."

"Just so long as it doesn't wake up hungry for a snack," said Mumchance.

"Lovely thought! Anything else worth taking?" said Ivy, poking the bugbear's recumbent body with her toe.

"Nice rope," said Zuzzara, unwinding the coil of rope from the bugbear's shoulder.

"The weapons are trash," replied Mumchance with a dwarf's contempt for shoddy metalwork. "Worse than ours. The sword is blunt, and the knife has a notched blade. The scabbard's not bad-it's better work than the rest, gilt on leather and some nice stitching."

"Loot then, picked up here and there," said Ivy, knowing the signs. "Making do with what the others don't want. Fancy scabbard kept after someone else has taken the good blade."

"Fottergrim's raiders were so armored," said Sanval. "Carrion crows, picking what they can out of other's misery." Ivy wondered if he was still describing Fottergrim's troops or delivering a bit of a rebuke. She decided to take his comments as referring to the former.

"There might be more of Fottergrim's people in the ruins," he added.

"Must be more," answered Ivy. "A bugbear like this wouldn't come down on its own."

"Maybe they were countermining us," said Mumchance.

"Countermining?" asked Sanval.

"Digging under where they think we are digging," Ivy explained, "to collapse our tunnel. Except we did such a very good job of collapsing it ourselves and saved them the trouble. Mumchance, they are pretty far off the line if they were looking for our tunnel. And the bugbear doesn't have any shovel or pick."

"Maybe the others took the tools with them," suggested the dwarf.

"And left the weapons and the torches?"

"No, my dears, they did not stop to take anything. When this one was killed, the others kept their distance," said Kid, who was circling back and forth, peering at the tracks on the tiled floor. "They started forward, stamp, stamp, stamp, not running, just walking, but then they stopped very quick, shuffle, shuffle back and to the side. Two of the big ones tried to turn back again, but the other one, the one with man-sized feet, drove them away."

Silence fell on the group, as they realized what Kid meant.

"They moved out of range and let whatever it was chew on the poor bastard. Or their officer ordered them not to attempt a rescue," said Zuzzara, voicing all their thoughts. "Remind me not to fight for Fottergrim's pay, if that's the way that they treat their mercenaries."