No one risked trying to interrupt him, and when he finished blowing off steam the sergeant finally condescended to explain.…
Alistan, Uncle, Loudmouth, and Honeycomb had been the only ones left in the inn. Less than an hour after we left, a group of strangers with crossbows had broken in and without any explanation started trying to dispatch everyone to the next world.
Honeycomb had pulled Uncle off his chair just in time, and the sergeant had taken a crossbow bolt in the shoulder instead of the heart, but the unfortunate Master Pito and his staff had been riddled with bolts. Honeycomb and Uncle had made a dash for the safety of the kitchen and Alistan had followed the two Wild Hearts, after first putting his sword to use and killing two enemies who had already emptied their crossbows. The Wild Hearts had barricaded the oak door of the kitchen, and the attackers had not even attempted to break it down.
But Loudmouth had been unlucky—when his comrades retreated to the kitchen, he was on the other side of the hall with three crossbows trained on him.
“When we came out after they left,” Uncle continued, “the whole wall where those bastards caught him off his guard was studded with bolts, and the floor was covered in blood.”
“I don’t see his body,” said Eel, nodding toward the dead men lying beside the bar.
“We didn’t see it, either.”
“You think they took him with them? But what for?”
“I don’t know, perhaps he’s still alive.”
Alive? Miracles are too rare in this world to hope that things could have worked out like that.
I had no doubt at all that Loudmouth was dead. If the attackers had killed the harmless innkeeper without the slightest qualm, they would surely have shot an experienced soldier on the spot. As for the body … who could tell what they might need it for? Yet another irretrievable loss for our little band. Good-bye, Loudmouth.
“What did those men want?” I asked Miralissa, setting aside my thoughts on the death of one more of our comrades.
“The Key, Harold. They took the Key.”
Things were getting worse and worse! Fortune and her little sister Lady Luck were definitely not on our side today.
“What key is that?” asked Deler, who, like the rest of the Wild Hearts, knew nothing about that story. Miralissa and Alistan had not thought it necessary to tell the members of the team about the elfin relic.
“Without the Key it’s doubtful if I can even get into the heart of Hrad Spein,” I explained to the dwarf. “Basically, if we don’t have it, we might as well not go anywhere, we can just sit here and wait for the Nameless One to arrive in Ranneng. No Key, no Rainbow Horn!”
“Shtikhs!” Deler swore in gnomish, and his frown darkened even further. “And how could they have found out about this key of yours?”
“Who knows?” said Egrassa, taking the slim silver crown off his head and tossing it onto a table in annoyance. “Human cities are full of talkative little birds. Someone knew, someone blabbed, someone heard and took action. We’ve lost one of the most important elfin relics!”
About fifteen hundred years earlier, when the elves and the orcs had only just finished building the upper halls of the Palaces of Bone (that was after they stopped even visiting the lower levels of the ogres), both races regarded Hrad Spein as a holy place and would not risk spilling each other’s blood in the labyrinths. But their hatred had proved too strong and war had broken out under the ground, too. The palaces had become deadly places for the Firstborn and the elves. And ever since those ancient times Hrad Spein had been a dangerous place, filled with many things that even ogres spoke about only in whispers.
To this day no one knows who (or what) founded those Palaces of Bone so deep under the ground at a time when the race of ogres was still young.
It was only later that the ogres transformed Hrad Spein into burial chambers (and then their bad example was followed by the orcs, elves, and men), but no one has yet worked out what the original purpose of the underground labyrinths was.
The race of ogres occupied the lower levels and started to construct their own, but they lost their minds and their reason, becoming stupid, bloodthirsty animals. The elves and orcs took the ogres’ place, but they were smarter than their predecessors and didn’t go down into the gloomy depths of the lower level of Night. In fact, they didn’t even risk going down into the former realms of the ogres, fearing that they would awaken the ogres’ dark shamanism.
But the blood of the two younger races drove them on to do what reason had prohibited. Blood and hate were the two edges of the sword that slashed the rip in reason’s defenses.
The elves and the Firstborn realized just in time that they must get out of the path of the evil that had awoken in those deep underground halls, and before it could break out, the elves blocked its path with Doors on the third level, cutting off the passage from one level to another.
The Doors were created using the magic of the dark elves’ shamans and the light elves’ magicians. In order to lock them, the elves needed a magic key, and for help in making it they turned to the dwarves, to whom they lied that they were sealing up the palaces so that the orcs could not get in. The Key had sealed the Doors forever, and there were very few bold enough to venture down into the depths of the palaces by the roundabout route, a route which, for some reason, the evil could not follow.
After the Doors were locked, the Key had remained in Listva, the capital of the dark elves’ kingdom, for a very long time, until this past year when the House of the Black Moon had taken the Key from the House of the Black Flame and given it to Miralissa.
She had taken the artifact to Stalkon, knowing that the party setting out for Hrad Spein would not be able to complete its mission without it. The route through the Doors on the third level was the quickest and the safest—or, rather, the least dangerous.
“Without the Key I’d have a better chance of sticking my head in an ogre’s mouth and taking it out safely than completing my jaunt around Hrad Spein successfully. The whole business is getting more and more hopeless. Does anyone have any idea what we should do now?”
“Wait,” Egrassa answered, mechanically running his finger round the hoop of silver lying in front of him. “Now we’re going to wait.…”
“Wait for what? Is someone hoping that these lads will be stupid enough to give us back the Key, along with a sincere apology?”
“What Tresh Egrassa says makes good sense, Harold. Don’t start getting agitated,” said Uncle, raising his beer mug to his bearded face.
“I’m not getting agitated.”
“Good, there’s no need. Honeycomb went after the thieves.”
“Honeycomb?”
“Who else? We couldn’t wait for you clunkheads,” the sergeant growled. “The elves weren’t here, I’m wounded. Milord Alistan is a knight, not a tracker. You were all gadding around the taverns and getting into fights. Honeycomb was the only one left.”
“Has he been gone long?” asked Marmot.
“Yes, about two hours.…”
“Hallas, enough sitting around,” said Deler, making for the door. “Ell asked us to relieve him; he could still overtake the big bruiser.”
The gnome and the dwarf went out.
“I thought you always carried the Key with you, Lady Miralissa,” said Kli-Kli, interrupting the lingering silence.
This time there was none of the jester’s usual snickering and tittering. Even the resolutely cheerful goblin understood the fix we were in.
“My mistake, jester.”
An elf admitting a mistake! This was something new. They usually accuse other people of making the mistakes.
“No one’s to blame,” Milord Alistan reassured Miralissa. “We had assumed no one would know that we had the Key.”
