'Ye gods and small creeping things hear my plea,' the Zhentilar warrior whispered, invoking the old, old prayer of desperate warriors. He wasn't facing half a hundred orcs alone on a crag, like the legendary Borthin had been when he roared out the invocation, but dead is dead, and Fflarast Blackriver had only one life to lose. Moreover, he valued it just as much as Borthin had his own.
There came another rushing of stone off to the left, and startled cursing. Ah-one trap had missed. Good; that meant they were probably all clever feats, and not magic. Maybe-just maybe-Fflar would see the end of this day.
There came a ringing of steel from behind him. 'What's ahead, scout?' a self-important swordcaptain snapped. Pelaeron himself, scourge of lazy soldiers. Oh, joy.
'Traps, sir,' Fflarast said, indicating the fallen block and Baeremuth's arm. 'I'm deciding how best to safely proceed.'
'Well, hurry up about it,' the officer snapped, prodding Fflar's mail-covered backside with his sword tip. 'We haven't got all night, you know.' A file of warriors was crowding into the room behind the swordcaptain. Fflarast looked at them-and at Pelaeron's steely eye-and then swallowed, shrugged, and carefully climbed over the rubble to the left of Baeremuth, on into the darkness.
Darkness where there should have been light. The torch had been with Baeremuth, and no mage lights were near. 'Torch,' Fflarast rapped out, keeping his voice as laconic as possible, and reached back.
The swordcaptain curtly waved an armsman with a blazing torch forward. The man reached to hand the torch to Fflarast, shuffled amid loose stones, tripped, and measured his length on the rubble. Stones shifted-and Fflar flung himself backward into unknown darkness as hard and fast as he could.
An instant later, armsman, torch, Pelaeron, and all vanished in a roaring and tumbling of stone as two carefully balanced blocks collapsed sideways, and the floor of the chamber above came down.
Fflarast landed hard on his tailbone on rough-edged rocks and lay there groaning. The chamber he'd come through was now a new-sealed tomb in front of him. He was lying in a cross passage-and listening to fresh crashings off to the left as heavy stones dropped and rolled. Tortured metal shrieked briefly as it crumpled, a man screamed for an instant, and then there were only echoes. Echoes that faded slowly into silence.
Fflar shuddered. He snarled wordlessly. Gods take all wizards! Save my bruised behind! Grunting, he rolled slowly and carefully to the left, to his knees, and felt for his sword.
There was another rolling crash in the distance, and shouts. Fflarast found his sword and clutched it, not moving as he fought down fear. He was alone in chill darkness with death waiting all around him. For the greater glory of Zhentil Keep, whose proud lords would not even know that Fflarast Blackriver had died in the service. Or care one whit, if someone told them.
'Hungry beasts take them all,' Fflar told the darkness softly, and stayed on his knees, wondering how long it would be until dawn… and if he'd dare try to find his way out of the ruin even then.
Far down the passage, many torches glimmered and danced, and a voice said, 'There-that's armor!'
'I serve Zhentil Keep!' Fflar shouted desperately, flinging up his arms in case someone was very eager to fire his crossbow. No quarrels answered. The voice came again. 'Who are you, soldier?'
'Fflarast Blackriver, of Pelaeron's Mace.' He cleared his throat and added, 'I'm alone. Pelaeron and most of his swords lie under stone beside me. We've struck two traps already.'
'It seems a contagious habit,' the voice responded dryly. 'Stay where you are. I'm going to throw you a torch.'
A moment later, fire whup-whup-whupped end over end through the darkness, trailing sparks, and fell amid rubble, showing Fflar a row of archways on one side of the passage, and doors or fallen walls on the side he'd come in by. A boot-still twitching feebly-could be seen in the fall of rubble beside him. Fflarast swallowed and turned his back on it, looking through the nearest arch.
'What can you see, soldier?' the voice asked.
'A huge chamber-probably a great hall,' Fflarast answered. 'It has balconies around its inside walls, and the roof's gone somewhere. There's moonlight at one end.'
'Off to your left-my right?'
'Aye,' Fflarast called. 'It looks open-big empty stretches.'
Voices murmured down the corridor. The officer called, 'Can you get to the torch?'
Fflarast struggled over rubble for a few sweating moments, half-expecting the ceiling to fall on him, but reached the guttering torch safely. 'I have it,' he called, and swung it nigh.
'Good. We're going to throw you another. Pitch it out into this large hall of yours and tell us what you see.'
Fflarast did so. The chamber rivalled the main hall of the Black Altar back in Zhentil Keep. He'd stood honor guard in that dark temple more than once, and knew this hall was fully as large. He told them so.
'Can you say anything of interest?'
'No… broken tiles… heaved and stained flooring, but open. The torchlight doesn't show it all. Nothing moving or alive that I can see.'
'Good man. Stay where you are. We're coming to join you.'
Fflarast sighed heavily and stood as still as he could, watching the slow and cautious advance of a long file of black-armored men.
It seemed half the Sword of the South was in the passage. Someone had cut a long, bent sapling and lashed a torch to it, and was lighting the high ceiling as they came, finding holes and old rockfalls. There were also two shafts that presumably let light and air down into the keep, but as the soldiers of Zhentil Keep cautiously passed beneath them, nothing swooped down or fell from above. Soon the Zhentilar reached Fflarast, and a swordcaptain- another officious one-curtly ordered him to stand aside.
A torch was tossed on down the passage. Its flickering light revealed that the corridor was blocked completely not far beyond where Fflarast had entered it. An entire room seemed to have fallen from the floor above, pouring a high mound of broken stone across the passage from wall to wall, and almost to the ceiling. Fflar looked at it and shuddered.
'This great hall it is, then,' the swordcaptain ordered, turning away. The man at his elbow-the swordcaptain who'd thrown the torch to Fflarast-peered into the vast chamber and murmured, 'I have a bad feeling about this room.'
'I think we all do!' the other officer snarled, fear lacing his blustering voice. 'So let's just get on with it! Men-out swords and advance, the first dozen of you! Stop and report if you see anything of import-especially moving bones! I want to get that mage in here fast… and then maybe we'll all get some sleep!'
Men moved reluctantly into the chamber. Fflarast stood silent, glad he wasn't among them, expecting to hear another heavy crash at any moment.
Minutes passed, and the men standing still and tense in the passage could hear each other breathing, hoarse and fast. But no cries or falls of stone came, and soon a man whose armor bore the red shoulder emblem of a sword came back to the archway and reported crisply, 'No danger, sir. Molds and rubbish down one end, where a lot of water's come in, but there's nothing else in the place except two stairs up to the floor above and a high seat-of bare stone, nothing in it-on a raised bit at the far end. The place is huge; there's room for a good two thousand blades to bunk down, though I'd not want to be close in under some of the balconies; they look none too safe.'
'Well done, sword. Set men to guard all doors and archways into the place; we'll move in. Swordcaptain Aezel, go out and tell the swordlord. Request that the spellmaster be brought in, forthwith-and if the wizard objects, request it again.'
There were a few dry chuckles in the safe anonymity of the gloom, and then men were on the move. Fflarast Blackriver came to a sudden decision. He handed his torch to a passing armsman and took up the straight, back-to- the-wall stance of a man on guard duty. He wasn't going into that great hall unless directly ordered to.
Thankfully, the officious swordcaptain passed on into the great hall, and the bulk of the soldiery followed, leaving a few wary veterans standing in the passage with Fflarast. 'Neatly done, lad,' one of them hissed, and grinned. Fflarast gave him a grin back, and they waited in the darkness together until a bright blaze of torches and the shuffling of many booted feet told them the main body of the Sword had arrived.
Men in black armor seemed to file past forever, until at last the black battle robes of the spellmaster could be seen sweeping majestically down the passage. He was escorted by two swordcaptains and the swordlord
