Dragons of The Dwarven Depths Part 19

"Fifteen or fifteen hundred, it makes little difference," Raistlin said. "We still have to get past them."

"Unless there's another way out." Caramon looked at Sturm, who shook his helmed head.

"Thorbardin lies that way." He pointed to the south. "Across the Plains of Dergoth."

"Yeah, I know," Caramon said. "You've told us that three times in the last five minutes. Is there another way out of this fortress? A secret way?"

"Our army stormed the gates of the fortress. We came in through the front and swept aside the defenders."

"This is the only way," said Raistlin.

"You can't know for sure. We could do some exploring."

"Trust me," Raistlin said flatly. "I know."

Caramon shook his head, but he did not continue to argue.

"We will simply wait for the draconians to leave," Raistlin decided. "They will not hang about all day. They will likely return to the fortress to continue searching for loot. Once they have gone inside, we can depart."

"We should just kill them now," Sturm said. "They are merely goblins. Four of us can handle such vermin with ease."

Caramon looked at Sturm in astonishment. "Goblins? Those aren't goblins." Puzzled, he looked at Raistlin. "Why does he think they're goblins?"

"Remarkable," said Raistlin, intrigued. "I can only speculate, but since draconians did not exist during the time in which the prince lived, the helm does not know what to make of the monsters. Thus the prince sees what he expects to see-goblins."

"Great," Caramon muttered. "Just b.l.o.o.d.y great."

He peered over the edge down a sheer wall, black and smooth, that extended for about thirty feet, ending in a ma.s.sive pile of rubble- chunks of the fortress, boulders, and rocks all jumbled together. At the foot of the rubble heap was the large patch of dry ground on which the draconians were camped and beyond that the mists and miasma of a swamp.

"I suppose we could climb down the wall," said Caramon dubiously. "Looks kind of slick though."

Caramon waited until he saw the draconian's head slump, then he pulled himself out over the ledge for a better look. The moment his hand touched the smooth, black rock, he gave a curse and s.n.a.t.c.hed his hand back.

"d.a.m.n!" he said, rubbing his palm that was bright red. "That blasted rock is cold as ice! Like sticking your hand in a frozen lake!" He sucked on his fingers.

"Let me feel!" said Tas eagerly.

The guard's head jerked up. He yawned and looked about. Caramon grabbed the kender and dragged him back.

"At least you you can use your magic to float down," Caramon grumbled to his brother. "The rest of us will have to use the ropes to push ourselves off the rock. It will be slow going, and we'll be sitting ducks on the way down." can use your magic to float down," Caramon grumbled to his brother. "The rest of us will have to use the ropes to push ourselves off the rock. It will be slow going, and we'll be sitting ducks on the way down."

Raistlin glanced sidelong at his twin. "You are in a very bad mood this morning, my brother."

"Yeah, well..." Caramon rubbed his stubbled jaw. He had not shaved in a couple of days, and his beard was starting to itch. "I'm worried about Tika, that's all."

"You blame me for the fact that the girl ran off by herself."

"No, Raist, I don't blame you," Caramon said with a sigh. "If you must know, I blame myself."

"You can blame me, too," Tas offered remorsefully. "I should have gone with her."

The kender took hold of his topknot and gave it a painful tug as punishment.

"If anyone is to blame, it is Tika herself. Her foolishness prompted her to leave," said Raistlin. "Suffice it to say, she's in far less danger returning to camp than she would be now if she were here with us."

Caramon stirred and seemed about to say something, but Raistlin cut him off.

"We had best prepare for our departure. Caramon, you and Tas go back and bring up the extra rope and anything else you can find that you think we might be able to use. I will remain here with His Highness."

The moment Caramon and Ta.s.slehoff were on their feet, Sturm thought they were leaving, and only Raistlin's most persuasive arguments could prevent the knight from rushing off.

"I hope those draconians go inside soon," said Caramon. "We're not going to be able to keep Sturm here much longer."

Caramon and Ta.s.slehoff returned with the rope and started to secure it for the trip down the mountainside. Once Sturm was aware of what they were doing, he offered his a.s.sistance. Sturm knew nothing about mountain climbing, but Prince Grallen, having lived all his life beneath the mountain in the subterranean halls of the dwarves, was skilled in the subject. His advice proved invaluable. He showed Caramon how to tie strong knots and how to best anchor the ropes.

As they were working, the draconian camp below woke up. Raistlin, keeping watch, noted the bozak draconian as being the one in charge. Larger and presumably smarter than the baaz, the bronze-scaled bozak was not so much commander as he was bully and slave driver.

Once he woke up, he went about kicking and hitting the baaz until, grumping and grousing, they stumbled to their feet. The bozak doled out hunks of maggot-ridden meat to the baaz, keeping the largest share for himself and five baaz, who were apparently his bodyguards.

From what Raistlin could gather from listening to the mixture of Common, military argot, and draconian, the bozak was ordering his men back inside the fortress to continue searching for anything valuable. He reminded them that he would be taking his cut, and n.o.body had better try to keep anything from him, or he'd slice off their wings.

Led by the bozak, the draconians trooped inside the fortress, and soon Raistlin could hear the bozak's guttural shouts echoing along the corridors far below the airshaft.

Caramon waited tensely, rope in hand, until the draconian voices and the sounds of tromping feet faded away. Then he looked at his brother and nodded.

"We're ready."

Raistlin climbed up onto the lip of the hole. Gripping the Staff of Magius, he positioned himself, looked down at the ground some eighty feet beneath him, and raised his arms.

"Don't, Raist!" said Caramon suddenly. "I can carry you down on my back."

Raistlin glanced around. "You've seen me do this countless times, my brother."

"Yeah, I know," Caramon returned. "It's just... your magic doesn't work all all the time." the time."

"My magic does not work all the time because I am human and fallible," Raistlin said irritably, for he never liked to be reminded of that fact. "The magic of the staff, however, can never fail."

Despite his confident words, Raistlin felt the same flutter of uncertainty in the pit of his stomach he always felt whenever he gave himself completely into the hands of the magic. He told himself, as he always did, that he was being foolish. Spreading his arms, he spoke the word of command and leaped into the air.

The Staff of Magius did not fail him. The staff's magic enveloped him, carried him downward, and set him drifting gently upon the currents of magic as though he were light as thistledown.

"I wish I could do that," said Ta.s.slehoff wistfully, peering over the edge. "Do you think I could try, Caramon? Maybe there's a little magic left over..."

"And miss the fun of scaling this sheer rock wall that's so cold it'll burn off your skin if you touch it?" Caramon grunted. "Why would you want to do that?"

He looked down. Raistlin waved up at him to let him know he was safe, then hurried over to the fortress entrance. Raistlin stayed there, looking and listening for a long while, then he waved his arm again to indicate that all was safe. Caramon lowered down their packs, including the kender's hoopak and Sturm's armor, which Raistlin wanted to leave behind, but Caramon insisted that they bring with them.

Raistlin untied the packs, set them to one side, then took up a position near the entrance, hiding himself behind a boulder so that if the draconians came out, he could take them by surprise. Caramon, Tas and Sturm began their descent.

Sturm climbed down hand over hand with practiced ease. Ta.s.slehoff found out that scaling rock walls was, indeed, fun. Shoving off the rock wall with his feet sent him flying out into the air, then he'd come sailing back. He did this with great glee, bouncing over the rock face, until Caramon ordered him gruffly to cut out the nonsense and get himself to solid ground. Caramon moved slowly, nervous about trusting his weight to the rope and clumsy with the placement of his feet. He was the last one down and landed with a heartfelt sigh of relief. Compared to that, the climb down the pile of rubble was relatively simple. They were gathering up their possessions when Raistlin rose up from his hiding place and hissed at them to be quiet.

"Someone's coming!"

Caramon looked up in alarm at the three ropes dangling from the opening. Seen from this vantage point, he understood how the fortress had come by its name. It bore an uncanny resemblance to a skull. The air shaft formed one of the eyes. Another air shaft opposite formed the other eye. The entrance to the fortress was the skull's mouth, with rows of jagged stalagmite and stalact.i.te teeth. The ropes, trailing down from an eye socket, told all the world they were here. Caramon considered hiding in the thick vapors of the swamp, but the draconians would come after them, and if that happened, he'd rather fight them on dry land.

Caramon drew his sword. Ta.s.slehoff, mourning the absence of Rabbitslayer, hefted his hoopak. Sturm drew his sword as well. Caramon hoped that Prince Grallen was as a skilled a warrior as Sturm Brightblade. Raistlin, hidden behind the boulder, readied his magic spells.

The bozak and his five baaz bodyguards walked out of the fortress entrance, intending to have a private search through the loot the baaz had left behind to see if any of them had been holding out on him. Planning to loot the looters, the bozak was not prepared for a fight. He and the others were extremely startled to find themselves facing armed foes.

Draconians were born and bred to battle, however, and the bozak was quick to recover from the shock. He used his magic first, casting a spell on the warrior who appeared to be the greatest threat. A beam of blinding light shot from the bozak's clawed hand and struck Sturm, who cried out, clutched his chest, and crumpled to the ground, groaning.

Seeing the knight down, the bozak turned to Caramon. The creature extended his huge wings, making the bozak seem even bigger, and charged, snarling and swinging his sword in powerful, slashing arcs. Caramon parried the first blow with his sword; the force of the attack jarring his arm to the elbow.

Before Caramon could recover, the bozak flipped around and struck Caramon with his ma.s.sive tail, knocking his feet out from under him and sending Caramon to his knees. As he tried frantically to scramble to his feet, he looked up to see the bozak rounding on him, sword raised. Caramon raised his own sword and the two came together with a crash.

Raistlin crouched unseen in his hiding place near the entrance. Scattering his rose petals, he cast a spell of enchanted sleep on the three baaz who were nearest. He was not particularly confident of the results, for he'd tried this and other spells on draconians before and they had been able to resist the magic's influence.

Two of the baaz stumbled, and one gaped and lowered his sword, but only for a moment. He managed to shake off sleep and charged into the fray. The other two remained on their feet, and worse, they realized a wizard had tried to spellbind them. They turned around, swords in hand, and saw Raistlin.

Raistlin was about to hurl fiery death at them when he found, to his horror, that the magical words to the spell eluded him. Frantically, he searched his memory, but the words were not there. He bitterly cursed his own folly. He had been more intent on watching Tika and his brother last night than he had been on studying his spells.

By now, one of the draconians was on him, swinging his sword in a vicious attack. Raistlin, desperate, lifted his staff to block the blow, praying that the staff did not shatter.

As the sword hit the staff, there came a flash, a crackling sound, and a howl. The baaz dropped his sword and danced about, snarling and wringing his hand in pain. Seeing the fate that had befallen his comrade, the other baaz approached Raistlin and the staff with caution, but he kept on coming. Raistlin put his back against the rocks and held his staff before him.

None of the draconians had bothered with the kender, thinking he was not a threat and they could leave him for last. One of the baaz ran over to Sturm, either to finish him off, or to loot the body, or both.

"Hey, lizard-lips!" yelled Ta.s.slehoff, and, dashing up, he struck the baaz in the back of the head with his hoopak.

The blow did little to the thick-skulled draconian except annoy him. Sword in hand, he turned around to gut the kender, but he couldn't seem to catch him. Ta.s.slehoff leaped first here, then there, taunting the baaz, and daring him to try to hit him.

The baaz swung his sword time and again, but wherever he was, the kender was always somewhere else, calling him names and thwacking him with the hoopak. Between the jumping and the ducking, and name-calling that included "scaly b.u.t.t" and "dragon t.u.r.d," the baaz lost all reason and gave chase.

Ta.s.slehoff led the draconian away from Sturm, but unfortunately, in his excitement, the kender did not watch where he was going and found himself perilously near the swamp. Making one last jump to avoid being sliced in half by the enraged baaz, Tas slipped on a rock, and after much arm-flailing and flapping, he toppled with a cry and a splash into the swamp water.

The baaz was about to wade in after him, when a sharp command from the bozak recalled the draconian to his senses. After a moment's hesitation, the baaz left the kender, who had disappeared in the murk, and ran to help his comrade finish the magic-user.

Caramon and the bozak exchanged a series of furious blows that caused sparks to fly from their blades. The two were evenly matched, and Caramon might have prevailed in the end, for the bozak had been up carousing all night and was in sorry shape. Fear for his brother and his desperate need to finish this battle made Caramon reckless. He thought he saw an opening and charged in, only to realize too late that it had been a feint. His sword went flying and landed in the water behind him with a heart-rending splash. Caramon cast an anguished glance at his twin and then leaped to one side and went rolling on the ground as the bozak came at him.

Caramon kicked out with his boot and caught the bozak in the knee. The bozak gave a pain-filled grunt and kicked Caramon in turn, right in the gut, driving the air out of Caramon's lungs and leaving him momentarily helpless. The bozak raised his sword and was about to deal the death blow when a hideous, agonized scream coming from behind him caused the bozak to check his swing and look around.

Caramon lifted his head to see. Both he and the bozak stared in horror.

Pale, cold eyes cloaked in the shredded tatters of night hovered near Raistlin. One draconian lay on the ground, already crumbling to ashes. The other baaz was screaming horribly as a hand as pale and cold as the disembodied eyes twisted the creature's arm. The baaz shriveled beneath the wraith's fell touch and then toppled over in its stony death throes.

Caramon struggled to try to regain his feet, certain that his brother would be the next victim of the wraiths. To his astonishment, the wraiths paid no attention to Raistlin, who was flattened against the rocks, his staff held out before him. The lifeless eyes and the trailing darkness dropped like an awful cloud over the bozak. Shrieking in agony, the bozak writhed in the deadly grasp. He twisted and fought to escape but was held fast.

As the bozak's body began to stiffen, Caramon remembered what happened to bozaks when they died, and he crawled, slipped and slid in his scramble to put as much ground between him and the corpse as possible. The bones of the bozak exploded. The foul heat and shock of the blast struck Caramon, knocking him flat and momentarily stunning him.

He shook his head to clear it and rose hastily to his feet, only to find the battle had ended. Two of the surviving draconians were fleeing back into the fortress, running for their lives. The wraiths flowed in after them and Caramon heard their death shrieks. He gave a sigh of relief, then froze.

Two of the pale eyes hovered near Raistlin.

Caramon ran toward his twin, though he had no idea how to save him.

Then he saw the eyes lower, almost as if the undead was bowing to his brother. The eyes disappeared, leaving behind a bone-numbing chill and the dust of their victims.

"Are you hurt?" Caramon gasped.

"No. You?" Raistlin asked tersely.

He gave his brother a quick glance that apparently answered his question, for he shifted his gaze to Sturm. "What about him?"

"I don't know. He was. .h.i.t by some sort of magic spell. Raist, those wraiths-"

"Forget the wraiths. Is he hurt badly?" Raistlin asked, shoving past his brother.

"I don't know," Caramon said, limping after him. "I was kind of busy."

He reached out and took hold of his brother's arm, dragging Raistlin to a stop.

"That thing bowed to you. Did you summon it?"

Raistlin regarded his brother with a cold stare, a slight sardonic smile on his lips. "You have an inflated notion of my powers, my brother, to think that I could command the undead. Such a spell is far beyond my capabilities, I a.s.sure you."

"But Raist, I saw it-"

"Bah! You were imagining things." Raistlin glowered. "How many times must I tell you that I do not like to be touched!"

Caramon released his grip on his twin.

Raistlin hurried off to check on Sturm. Caramon could not remember his brother having ever been this worried about the knight before. Caramon had a feeling that Raistlin was more worried about Prince Grallen than Sturm. Caramon trailed after him, just as Ta.s.slehoff, sputtering and spitting out muck, pulled himself up out of the water.

"Ugh!" said the kender, dragging sopping wet hair out of his eyes. "What a stupid place to put a swamp! How's Sturm? What did I miss?"

Raistlin had his hand on the knight's pulse. His breastplate was scorched, but it had protected him from the worst of the blast. At Raistlin's touch, Sturm moved his hands and his eyes opened. He tried to stand up.

"Raist," said Caramon, helping Sturm to his feet, "if you didn't summon them, then why didn't the wraiths attack us? Why just attack the draconians?"

"I don't know, Caramon," Raistlin said in exasperation. "I am not an expert on the undead."

Seeing his brother still expected an answer, Raistlin sighed. "There are many explanations. You know as well as I do that undead are often left behind as guardians. Perhaps the draconians took some sort of sacred artifact, or perhaps, as the knight is so fond of saying, evil turned upon itself."

Caramon seemed unconvinced. "Yeah, maybe." He eyed his brother, then said abruptly, "We should clear out of here, before the rest of those baaz come back."

Raistlin looked at the cave's opening, which resembled the grinning jaw of a skull, and he fancied for a moment that the ruins were laughing. "I do not think the others will be coming back, but you are right. We should leave." He glanced around at the bundles of loot lying on the ground, and shook his head. "A pity we do not have time to go through this. Who knows what valuable objects they found down there?"