'So try harder,' Davoren said, his voice dripping.
Slip shivered and hid behind Gargan, who looked from her to Davoren. The warlock fell silent. 'Besides,' Slip continued. 'I… I don't think we're supposed to go that way. Maybe someone or other's meant to be kept in. On the other side, aye?'
'Whoever built that tunnel really, really didn't want us going down it,' said Liet.
'All the more reason to go,' Twilight said. When the others balked, she flashed a sly smile. 'I've never been fond of doing another's will.'
The irony in her voice caused more than one of the others to eye her suspiciously, Taslin in particular. 'Your decision then,' the priestess said. 'Slip's skills are insufficient. I hope you know a few things about traps yourself.'
Twilight's lips twitched up at the left side and she drew her blade. She knelt and studied the darkness for a hundred heartbeats.
'Come now,' growled the warlock. 'Are we going to wait in this stinking sewer all the day while you think about it? Just disarm them like a good sneakthief.'
' 'Twould take two candles,' said Twilight. 'To be safe.'
Davoren threw his hands in the air. 'Wonderful,' he said. 'Waiting for two candles to burn down. We'd be a meal sitting here for some beast that comes along-like that troll-while our fearless leader takes her time for the sake of safety.'
'What have I told you about insults?' Twilight said.
'It's an insult to call you 'fearless?' ' Davoren feigned shock.
Twilight shook her head. 'Very well,' she said. 'Follow and move as I do. But wait. A four-count should be right.'
Brows furrowed. 'Four?' Slip asked. 'Why not five?'
'Why not six?' snapped Davoren.
Twilight shrugged. 'Chameleon, I hope you're enjoying this,' she murmured.
No response, as always.
The shadows coalesced around her. Then she ran.
A veritable firestorm of metal shards, swinging blades, and crossbow bolts filled the tunnel. Twilight lunged, danced, and dodged. She rolled under a blade that would have taken her head from her shoulders, sprang to the side between two chopping axes, and stopped short just in time to avoid a pair of darts shooting from either side.
Slip and Liet looked at one another, then charged after her. It took the others another breathless moment before they, too, followed the elf. They ran past as each trap reset itself.
Twilight ran, snaked, and dipped. Here she went low under darts, there she snapped a trip wire with Betrayal. Where she pulled up short, the others froze, and where she ran, the others dashed. More bolts fired out, and she twisted around them. Writing flared along the wall, and a fringe of flames shot out. She dived under the flames and rolled, scant feet from the end of the passage.
A sword swung down from the ceiling. Twilight dodged and hopped, but she sensed an attack from behind. Like a perfect pendulum, the blade scythed for her back.
Unlike a perfect pendulum, however, it wove from side to side. Then it veered to the right-directly at Twilight.
She managed to leap to the left, but not before the trap tore a gouge across her shoulder. She went down hard on her backside, and looked up to see the weapon streaking for her forehead. It would split her neatly in two- at least halfway. The sword probably didn't reach all the way to the floor.
Twilight found it amusing that she'd made it all the way through the corridor by sheer luck, only to fall to the last trap of all-and the most obvious.
'You're a bitch, Misfortune,' Twilight cursed.
Then a ray of flame shot over her head and cut the sword blade from its swinging mechanism. The trap swung toward Twilight, but the blade's weight drove it into the stone floor a hair's breadth from her midsection.
'I take it back,' she said.
Twilight was up with a start, taking Liet's hand. Carried by Gargan, Asson wiggled his fingers at Twilight, to show that he had fired the flame that had saved her.
Trailing smoke and dust, the seven emerged from the tunnel, leaving behind a wake of triggered traps and bolts studding the walls like porcupine quills.
Aside from sweat, hard breathing, and anxiety, none of the seven carried any marks to show for the experience, except Twilight's single shoulder wound.
'Let me see to that for you,' Taslin offered.
Twilight flinched. ' 'Tis nothing.'
'It could fester,' the priestess pressed. 'That trap was very old.'
Twilight was tempted to point out that lockjaw from old metal was a myth, or at least an incomplete notion, but instead she conceded and turned her head aside. The priestess cast the healing, and Twilight's torn shoulder knit itself without argument.
'Aye,' said Slip. 'I'm not sure we should've gone this way.'
Twilight looked around at her surroundings for the first time and agreed.
They could see that the sewer did not extend far beyond the trapped corridor. Five paces from the tunnel, the carved floor gave way to natural stone. Beyond were two cave entrances, tunnels just large enough to admit the goliath if he stooped.
To complicate the scene, a five-pace diameter tunnel of stone also cut through the chamber, its smooth walls assuring Twilight that it came from the same source as the other perfect tunnels they had found.
'I don't know,' Davoren said. 'I find the change of scenery rather refreshing. Anything but more dismal, filthy tunnels.'
'Everything's 'dismal,' 'wretched,' or 'filthy' with you, aye?' Slip asked. 'Do you only know three adjectives?'
The warlock's burning eyes flicked to her. 'I would advise silence, little one, before I think up a fourth-just for you.'
The halfling shivered but held her tongue.
CHAPTER SEVEN
They rested from their exertion while Twilight decided which tunnel to take. She sent Gargan and Slip to investigate the cave entrances. In the meantime, Taslin conjured a simple meal of cakes and wine for them. They sat on fallen rock debris and ate.
For a time, no one spoke. Then the priestess broke the silence.
'What manner of sword is that you carry?' Taslin asked.
Twilight gave her a nonchalant look. 'A rapier.'
'It is shorter than any rapier I have seen,' the priestess said.
'She's right,' said Liet. Twilight flashed him a warning look, but the young man spoke before she could stop him. 'I've learned a bit about swordplay, and there's an accepted length for a rapier. Yours is short by a full hand.'
'The gods shine!' Twilight said wryly. 'Creativity.'
Slip bounded into the chamber just then. From the gleam in her eyes upon seeing the food, Twilight knew better than to ask her first what she had discovered.
'It looks more like a thinblade,' said Taslin. 'An elven weapon. But it is short even for that, and too long for a smallblade.'
Asson decided to join the discussion. 'And that material-I've never seen metal of that gray sheen. I saw what it did against those wights-the little lick of flame, the spark of electricity. What is it?'
