THE LITTLE FIEND

 

They trudged through the mire for hours, determined to get out of the swamp and into the hills near Andaron's Delve before setting camp. The stink of the mire and of its reptilian inhabitants still dulled their heads, but as the sun touched the horizon they settled for a dry spot in the lowlands to make their camp.

"Tell me those dwarves didn't build their forge in this swamp," said Lidda.

"Those dwarves didn't build their forge in this swamp," Devis assured her.

"No," agreed Tordek, "but they were mindful of its value as a barrier to the south. Few armies would choose this path."

"No kidding," said Devis, flinging a particularly nasty bit of black slime from his sleeve.

Vadania nearly exhausted her spells healing Gulo, who had suffered by far the worst wounds of the day's battle. The great wolverine did not seem to mind the smell and the muck that clung to them, but Devis complained steadily until the druid promised to conjure some clean water for their morning ablutions.

They rested uneasily after the fattening moon rose up to whiten the treetops and cast the rest of the world in stark shadow. The double-watch left only Vadania enough time to recuperate from the day's trials. The elf never truly slept but merely meditated in reverie while Tordek and Lidda watched over her and the gently snoring Devis. When Lidda grew sleepy eyed, Tordek indulged her in a silent game of finger signs. He scowled each time she bested him, and she grinned in triumph as they turned away after each brief match to look outward from the banked campfire to spy any threatening movement beneath the trees.

True to her word, Vadania conjured a small pool of fresh water at dawn. After everyone including Gulo had drunk from it, Devis stripped off his clothes and made a hasty bath. Lidda joked about the effects of the cool water on his retractable bits, but the bard didn't seem to mind the teasing. He was happy to be clean again. After he was finished, the others washed quickly before setting off once more.

Vadania led them out of the wet terrain and up into rocky hills before noon. Tordek sighed in relief as he felt the firm ground beneath his feet once more. He could feel the solid bedrock through his boot soles and the topsoil. The realm of frogs and serpents was behind them, and even the rain abated as they climbed higher into the hills. They were entering dwarf country.

On the second night after leaving the swamp, the full moon soared high in a cloudless sky. Lidda and Devis slept under the shelter of a deep outcropping while Tordek kept watch with Vadania nearer the hilltop for a far vantage, careful not to climb so high as to present a silhouette against the moon.

"There," said the elf, pointing toward the northwestern horizon. "Jorgund Peak."

Tordek squinted at the point she indicated. He saw a roughly triangular promontory jutting from the forested hills like the prow of a half-sunken ship sailing southeast. It was too small to be a mountain, too sharp and conspicuous to be merely a hill. Trees covered its crest and ran down the gently sloping back of its northwestern face. Its western and eastern sides formed sheer cliffs streaked black and white with years of droppings. Tordek hoped that what flocked there were merely birds, but a cold premonition settled in his stomach. At Vadania's indication, he spied a trio of pale oval spots running along the limestone cliffs before vanishing into shadow, their alignment suggesting a regular progression around the escarpment.

"Eight of them," said Vadania. "They look as though something large was cut away from the stone."

Tordek could barely make out the spots she indicated. Judging from the distance, he guessed that each one must be around twenty feet high. He made a low, almost inaudible thinking sound deep in his chest. "Perhaps," he said.

Vadania watched him, expectant of more information. When he did not offer any, she looked back at the peak and said, "I see smoke against the stars. There is a camp near the summit."

Tordek took her word for it. By dint of his dwarven blood, he could see through subterranean blackness without so much as the light of a spark. Even so, no dwarf could hope to see so far and clearly as an elf on a moonlit night.

"Uh oh," said Vadania.

"What?"

"Something is moving among the trees up there. Something big."

"Giants?"

She nodded. "Probably. There were none in the area a month ago. I would have seen their tracks."

"He is wasting no time," said Tordek. "Already he summons an army for his champions to lead."

"You think it is Hargrimm?"

"Who else?" saidTordek.

"Why haven't you told the others about him?"

Tordek ignored the question. "Where is the secret entrance you found?"

"They deserve to know what manner of foe we face, Tordek. Your brother's was not the only soul the barghest devoured."

"Where is the entrance?" insisted the dwarf. He jutted his jaw obstinately, but there was more entreaty than warning in his tone.

The elf pointed to the base of the nearest cliff. Tordek saw the glimmer of water coursing below the promontory. Even at this distance, he saw that where it passed the cliffs its surface turned dark and unreflective.

"Can we reach it without alerting the troops on the summit?"

Vadania raised one eyebrow at the word "troops." She said, "This is no war, Tordek. We are no army."

"Can we reach it undetected?"

"Yes," sighed the elf, "if we are careful of their scouts. I can take wing tonight and try for a better look at the camp on top."

Tordek considered the offer but shook his head. "I think of those spider-eaters and do not like the thought of their catching you alone. Besides, we won't have to go anywhere near the camp. At first light we go down past the eyes and fingers of the fiend and strike at his heart, down in Andaron's Delve."

 

 

Four hours after dawn, they stood on the narrow shore at the base of the southwestern cliffs of Jorgund Peak. Thirty paces to either side, steaming trails of iron slag and some other hellish substances oozed out of narrow sluices and into the river. Already befouled by the grates on the other side of the promontory, the stream burbled and blushed as it received the noxious runoff. As much as the pollutants offended the two-legged companions, whose legs it had stained dark red as they waded across the stream, their stench drove the usually silent Gulo to whining like a kit.

"I've got nothing," said Lidda, rocking back on her heels as she squatted before the cliff wall.

"Keep looking," said Tordek. He stood on her right and peered along a hairline crack, blowing dust out here and there. "How about you, bard?"

At the other side of the door, Devis traced a faint line of dwarven characters and compared them with what he had written on a sheet of parchment. "Still the same," Devis said.

For the past two hours, Tordek and Lidda had taken turns examining the nearly invisible outline of the secret door for some sign of a catch and the surrounding wall and ground for any indication of a counterweight. While they sought a mechanical solution, Devis considered the weathered runes, which he translated literally and inscribed on parchment. Tordek did not fully trust the bard's ability with the dwarven tongue, but for a dabbler who was not fluent in the language, the half-elf had done a creditable job. The dialect was peculiar even to Tordek, and a few characters had been effaced by centuries of erosion. The bard summed it in Common: "In siege or mutiny, friends of Andaron, come silently through the secret under the mountain."

"I give up!" sighed Lidda. "Either this is a false door, or else the dwarves never finished cutting it."

"Nonsense," said Tordek. "Who would write a welcome on a door that was not finished? It would be an affront to the delve and to the gods that protect it."

"You said it yourself," said Devis. He blew one last time to assure himself the ink was dry, then rolled the parchment and put it in the bag with his other scrolls. "It sounds solid when you rap it. My spell detected no trace of magic on the wall. There must be some dwarven trick to it."

Tordek grumbled a nonspecific complaint and looked up at the sky. The sun was rising toward its zenith, and the shadow that helped shield them from view was rapidly shrinking. High above, brilliant white clouds rode high in a bright blue sky. A great, lozenge-shaped formation slowly glided past one of the flat spots pointed out by Vadania the night before, giving the illusion of steam rising from a white pool set into the cliff. The spots were smooth except for the mark of chisels and stone saws, which Tordek could identify even from the base of the cliff, thirty feet below. Each was about eight feet wide and ten or twelve feet high. They had distinct outlines that hinted at giant faces.

"What were they?" asked Vadania.

"The gods," replied Tordek and Devis in unison. Tordek gave the half-elf a sour look, but Devis grinned and winked back at him.

"You want to tell it?" he asked. His tone of voice made it plain that he hoped Tordek did not.

"Go ahead," said Tordek sourly.

"Many dwarven strongholds set the images of their gods looking out at the surrounding lands as a way of calling on their protection. Usually it's just one god, or perhaps two. Moradin is always the first one. That's probably him, there, right above us. On the other side is Berronar Truesilver, his wife and the Mother of Safety. They usually appear beside each other."

"Who are the others?" asked Lidda. "I know Clangeddin Silverbeard, Father of Battle."

"I don't know," said Devis. "It's hard to tell from the shapes that are left."

"He's on the other side," said Tordek. "Protecting Berronar and Sharindlar the Shining Dancer. Probably keeping an eye on Abbathor, too." Tordek licked his thumb and rubbed it against two fingers as if feeling a coin. "Trove Lord, he's called. Wyrm of Avarice. He left his shadow on this delve, to be sure."

"Who's on this side?" prompted Vadania.

Tordek looked up and considered. "Dugmaren Brightmantle, Dumathoin the Keeper of Secrets Under the Mountain, and Vergadain the Merchant King, probably."

"Are you sure?" said Devis. "What about Haela Brightaxe or Gorm Gulthyn?There are others, too. Deep Duerra and Ladaguer, for instance."

"Haela is a demigod, lauded as a hero in some delves, as a goddess in others. Gorm you will never find on the surface, for he watches for those who devour from beneath the hearth." Tordek fixed his eye on the bard. "The others are not to be spoken of."

Devis looked disappointed, but he nodded. Despite the warning, there was no keeping his tongue still for long, and Tordek sighed as Devis put his hands on his hips and leaned back to look at the places where the gods had been. "Dumathoin you said. Which one is he?"

"Can't be sure," said Tordek. He pointed at one of the smooth planes. They could see the truncated edges of ears, jaws, and rippling hair. "Maybe that one, with the thin neck."

"I've heard another name for him," said Devis. " 'The Silent Keeper.'"

"That's because he never speaks," said Tordek. "Dumathoin is mute."

"Ah," said the bard, "but remember what's on the door. 'Come silently through the secret under the mountain.' That's two hints about Dumathoin."

"He's right!" said Lidda. "That's got to be important. Maybe the real secret door is under the face of Dumathoin."

"Perhaps," said Tordek, "but there's a slag drain there, and it's working. That's no secret entrance."

"Maybe the passage was through the face of Dumathoin," suggested Vadania.

"Yeah," said Devis. "In his ear or up his nose, maybe."

"Still your profane tongue, half-breed!" snapped Tordek, raising his voice enough to cause an echo. He saw his companions look around nervously and lowered his volume. "Just speak of the gods with respect, is all I am saying."

"I'll climb up and have a look," volunteered Lidda.

"Up his nose indeed," muttered Tordek, glowering at Devis. The half-elf grimaced an apology.

Lidda clambered up the cliff face as nimbly as a monkey. Tordek had seen her perform similar feats a dozen times, but he still marveled at her skill. He would need a stout rope to get up there, and to be careful he would need to haul up his armor separately. He watched as Lidda braced herself and began feeling the bare stone face for secrets. Her slender fingers probed the cliff for only a few minutes before she called down to them.

"There's something here! It's small, but I think I can open it!" Lidda grinned down at them, a fierce grin on her face. It vanished when her gaze fell upon Gulo. Big, huge, gigantic Gulo.

Vadania caught the meaning of the look and put her slim hand on the dire wolverine's massive shoulder. "I am sorry, my friend. You can surely make the climb, but the passage is too meager for so great a warrior to pass."

Tordek knew that the dire wolverine could not understand Common, but he was sure he took the elf's meaning nonetheless. With a deep whimper that was anything but ferocious, he slunk slowly away along the shore, sniffing for a spot upstream where he could cross without entering the tainted water.

Vadania looked after her animal friend with a sad expression in her almond-shaped eyes. Tordek stood beside her. "Where will he go?"

"We have walked many trails together," she said. "He will remain nearby until I call for him."

"Come on," urged Devis. He held a knotted rope and had one foot on the cliff face. Thirty feet above, Lidda sat in the mouth of a narrow opening with the other end tied around her waist and played through her gloved hands.

Devis started climbing. He reached the halfway point when Vadania hissed a warning. Devis froze, crouching low to the wall while craning his neck to look down over his shoulder.

The druid was listening intently, so Tordek did the same. He heard nothing but the gurgling of the stream behind them.

"Something's coming!" hissed Vadania. "Something that buzzes." She flapped her hands at Devis, urging him to climb faster as she grasped the rope below. "Hurry!"

Tordek hesitated only a second before snatching up his bow and setting an arrow to the string. By the time he had the weapon ready, he heard the buzzing that had alerted Vadania. A moment later, he spied the first of them.

The thing was like a hornet the size of a boar, with four dangling red meat hooks for legs. The creature's body was a suit of lacquered yellow armor with black splotches, its wings a dark leathery blur. Its eight multifaceted eyes reflected a hundred tiny images of the sky, the cliff, and the ground beneath. A crude harness encircled its fat abdomen, securing a saddle between its wings. There perched a lean goblin resting a short bow across its knees.

The rider spotted Devis crawling into the hole where Dumathoin's eye once lay just as Tordek raised his bow. As the goblin lifted an arm to point at the climber and opened his mouth to shout, Tordek's arrow shot through its chest and slammed it out of the saddle. The goblin tumbled backward over its gigantic mount and dangled, already dead, from one leg still trapped in its stirrup.

Even without its rider to goad it on, the spider-eater flew toward the secret entrance. Devis was already inside the shelter of the stone, but Vadania still climbed frantically toward it. Even while Tordek reached for another arrow, he knew she would never make it in time. As he fired at the monstrous insect, two more of the things buzzed around the promontory.

On one of them rode another goblin, already rising in its saddle to shoot at Vadania. On the other, Tordek caught a brief glimpse of a creature even smaller than a goblin, knotty and twisted like an old piece of moldy wood. Before he could identify the wretch, it vanished. When he heard weird, piping laughter from atop the flying insect, he realized its rider had turned invisible.

He cried a warning to those above, but they were already too busy to heed him.

With its hanging rider forgotten, the first spider-eater descended on the druid. Devis reached down to help her up into the secret passage, but just before their hands met, the gigantic insect bumped Vadania and glided gently away to hover over the poisoned river.

From Tordek's perspective, it seemed like such a gentle blow that he didn't realize the peril until he heard Vadania's painful cry. She clutched at her thigh and lost her grip on the rope. Before she could fall to the ground, Devis lunged down and grabbed her with both hands. Behind him, Lidda held onto his ankles and jammed her feet and shoulders against the walls of the tiny passage for support.

Unable to help them from the ground, Tordek fired at the second goblin. The first arrow from his mighty longbow passed completely through the goblin's right arm, severing the bone and leaving the limb and the weapon it still clutched hanging by a ragged strip of flesh. A bright stream of blood blew into a dull mist in the wake of the spider-eater's droning wings.

Tordek spared a quick look up to see that Lidda and Devis had dragged Vadania into their shelter. That was a relief, but it left Tordek alone to face three furious insects and their invisible commander. He bellowed curses at them, hoping to draw one close enough to test his axe against its shell. Before they got within axe reach, he fired two more arrows at the one that stung Vadania. One glanced off the insect's chitinous hide, but the other cracked the surface and sank deep. Thick ichor dripped down the arrow shaft and blew away in black streamers.

The attack had its desired effect. The insect flew straight toward Tordek, followed closely by its companion with the invisible rider. The dwarf barely had time to drop his bow and reach for his war axe. As he gripped the weapon's haft, an icy thrill gripped his spine and shot out through every nerve until his body trembled with ineffable fear. He gritted his teeth against the unmanly emotion, but still his weapon shook in his grip. The spider-eater closed and struck at him, and he turned away to run. He felt the monstrous stinger scrape across his armor. The metal saved him from the foe he could not face. Tordek bit his lip and cursed himself for cowardice as he ran. That the terror undoubtedly came from a spell cast by the invisible foe did nothing to cool the shame.

Despite the fear, fury rose up from Tordek's belly, filling his heart with gleeful hatred. It routed the magical fear and drove it from his body. With a roar, he wheeled around and heaved his axe up in a powerful overhand arc, cutting through the tough sinew connecting the insect's membranous wing to its body. The spider-eater hurtled past him, spinning out of control, until it crashed on the shore of the polluted stream. Its remaining wing beat uselessly against the pebbles.

Tordek whirled again to face his unseen enemy, but the invisible rider was too cagey to be lured close. The spider-eater hovered well out of reach. The drone of its wings barely covered the nervous muttering of its unseen master. Before the monster could complete whatever foul spell it was about to utter, the air above the spider-eater shimmered, and its rider was invisible no more.

The thing was only two feet tall, with twisty horns and pustulant, green flesh. It was naked and unadorned but for a spiraling black tattoo that roamed from one gnarly shoulder across its thin chest and torso before ringing its opposite leg. The creature gripped the spider-eater's reins in one slender hand and shook the long claws of its other hand at Devis.

"Got you, you little bastard!" cried Devis. Tordek looked up to see the bard dropping a scroll whose magic he had just discharged. Devis ducked back inside the passage in time to avoid another rush from the third hovering insect.

Tordek was loath to give up his axe, but he dropped it in favor of the longbow. The previously invisible rider screeched a command, and its mount rose farther away from Tordek. The other remaining insect swooped down from the secret passage to join its fellow.

Devis whooped a note so musical that Tordek thought at first he was singing. Instead, the bard leaped from his high vantage and fell with all his weight upon the retreating spider-eater. Together they plummeted toward the dwarf, Devis shouting, "Kill it, Tordek!"

At the same moment, the strange insect-rider shrieked. Tordek glimpsed its fall out of the corner of his eye. The tiny creature tumbled off its steed with a green-fletched arrow lodged in its knotty hide. It seemed more startled than injured.

Tordek's attention was wrenched back to Devis when the bard and the other spider-eater crashed into the gravel at the cliff's base. Devis rolled away from his unwilling steed onto the shore. The creature's wings were broken and its carapace cracked, but its razor claws thrashed furiously in all directions. Tordek snatched up his axe and after slashing off the flailing limbs, set to work chopping the spider-eater to messy bits. The monstrous insect squirmed and chattered horridly until the blade cut it into dozens of sections.

Devis regained his feet as Tordek turned to face the third and final foe. Instead, he saw it disappear over the top of Jorgund Peak, followed by an erratically flapping bat he had not spied before. There was no sign of the little demon.

"We'd better hurry," said Devis, beckoning him back to the rope. "When that giant bug returns to camp, they'll send out a larger party."

Tordek nodded, collecting his bow and shield. There was no time to send up his gear and climb unhindered, but he paused before climbing the rope to consider the bard.

"That jump off the cliff," he said. "Not bad at all."

"Well, thanks," said Devis, "but when you tell the ladies, use the words 'brave' and 'dashing,' will you?"

Tordek pulled himself up the rope, guiding his ascent with his feet upon the cliff face. He grunted and said, "I'll think about it."