The wind freshened, shaking the trees. Dust scoured the faces of Tol’s party as they worked their way through a notch in the low hills west of the kender capital. They continued to find copious evidence of XimXim’s wrath-an earthen dam torn asunder, orchards uprooted, isolated homesteads smashed to kindling. Everything bore the tell-tale slash marks of the monster’s claws. They came upon a herd of cattle-some torn in half, others pierced by wounds strangely neat and precise. Equally precise and more horrible was the fate of the four herders accompanying the cattle.
The four were human, probably from the northern reaches of the empire. Nomadic herders often drove their cattle into Hylo to take advantage of the mild sea climate and abundant fodder. Usually the only risk they faced was from pilfering kender. These men had met a far worse fate. XimXim had struck off their heads and placed them neatly in a row beside their bodies.
Although he hated to leave the poor herders unburied, Tol could not delay long enough to do what was proper. He and his company had to stay in contact with the others in case there was trouble. They moved grimly onward.
The brown slopes of the Sentinel Mountains grew more distinct in the distance. Not a mighty range like the Khalkist, the Sentinels were called the Not Much Mountains by the kender. They were not much high, not much rich in minerals, not much inhabited, and not much of a barrier to trade and travel. However, at seventy leagues from end to end, they made a big pile of stone to shelter a monster.
Near dusk, Tol’s group paused in the shadow of a vine-covered ridge. Wind was still gusting over the mountains, gaining force as it rushed down the slopes to the sea. While they rested, Mandes opened his bindle and spread the square of brown cloth on the ground. He sorted through various knots of dry herbs and shriveled roots, putting a chosen few in a small agate pestle. With a small mortar, he ground the ingredients to a fine powder, adding pinches of other powders he carried in small wooden tubes. Sniffing the resulting mixture carefully, he nodded with satisfaction.
“What are you making?” asked Tol.
“Balm of Sirrion. It creates the impenetrable mist.”
“Like the one you gave the bakali?” The sorcerer nodded. “Doesn’t it work only in darkness?”
Mandes smiled smugly. “I put that limitation on the balm I made for the lizard-men. Properly compounded, the mist will work in sunlight or darkness.”
He warmed a plug of beeswax in the hollow of his hand. When it was soft, he pressed his thumb into the center, making a hole. This he filled with the balm powder. Pinching the wax closed, he rolled it between his palms to make a round pill the size of a hen’s egg. He likewise filled three more wax balls, using up all the magical mixture. He presented the four to Tol.
Tol picked up one of the yellow wax balls, handling it carefully with the tips of his fingers.
“Tylocost and the Tarsans tried to land under the cover of a magical mist,” he said. “XimXim flew right through it and tore the mercenaries to bits. How do you know he won’t be able to see through your fog?”
“I don’t. But some things require experiment.”
“Experiment! You’re talking about our lives!”
The wizard put the wax balls away, repacked his paraphernalia, and tied the four corners of the cloth into a bindle again. “My lord, you’re gambling with all our lives,” he remarked. “My magic improves the odds in our favor. Why else did you bring me along, if not to try my means?”
A runner came crashing through the underbrush. Tol and Mandes stood, and everyone idling under the trees got to their feet, spears in hand.
The runner proved to be a soldier from Narren’s company.
“My lord,” he panted. “Narren bids me tell you, we think we’ve found the cave of the monster!”
“Are you sure?” demanded Tol.
“Dirt mounded outside the cave mouth is marked with huge claw prints. Narren explored a score of steps inside. He found many bones of cattle, pigs, humans, and kender. And this-”
The messenger reached inside his overshirt and brought out a dull yellow spike as long as Tol’s hand. It was hollow and light, and made of a hard, hornlike material.
“Narren thinks the monster sheds these spikes, my lord,” he explained. “The floor was littered with them.”
The cave was in the first valley beneath the Sentinel peaks, three-quarters of a league away. Tol sent a fresh runner to spread the news to Egrin’s company. Commanding all to be stealthy, he set his men on the trail blazed by Narren’s runner, who led them back through the woods.
Night had fallen when they found Narren. Crouching in a rocky defile a hundred paces from the black, gaping entrance to the cave, Narren greeted his commander in a fierce whisper. He held his helmet in one hand, letting the wind dry his sweaty hair.
“Any sign of the creature?” Tol asked, keeping his voice low as well.
“None.” Narren wrinkled his sunburned nose. “Stinks like a slaughterhouse in there.”
Tol grimaced at the too-apt description. “I notified Egrin. He’ll join us when he can, but I want to have a look myself now. Mandes, come with me.”
Kiya also followed him, as did a reluctant Miya. Tol told them to remain in camp, as this was only a scouting expedition.
“No, I am with you,” Kiya said stubbornly.
“And I am with Sister,” added Miya. “Though I wish she’d stay here!”
He ordered them to go back, but Kiya said flatly, “I’m not one of your warriors. I’m your wife, and I don’t take orders.”
Mandes chuckled. Tol glared at him, then hissed at Kiya, “All right! But please keep quiet!”
It was a foolish injunction, and he knew it. Having grown up in the Great Green, the Dom-shu were far stealthier than Tol or the city-bred sorcerer. They moved along silently as wraiths in the gathering night, while Mandes dislodged loose stones with every step.
At last they were crouching at the entrance to the cave. Sixteen paces wide and half as high, it was amply sized to admit the monster, and Narren had been right about the stench. Warm air emanating from the cave smelled worse than a charnel house. Mandes audibly gagged. Tol had to swallow repeatedly to keep from doing likewise.
Digging through his supplies, Mandes brought out a wooden tube of ointment. He put a drop of the oily stuff on their forefingers and bade them smear it under their noses. The sickening reek faded, replaced by a faint aroma of roses. Mandes explained the effect was only temporary.
The ledge at the mouth of the cave was a single slab of brown granite. Overhead, Luin had risen high enough to cast its reddish light into the opening. Tol could tell the cave had been gouged out of the living rock by force, most likely by XimXim himself.
At Tol’s request, Mandes cupped his left hand, and an orange-white orb materialized, throwing off a soft glow. Tol and Kiya started in, he drawing his sword and she nocking an arrow in her bow. Mandes walked between them, lighting the way. Bringing up the rear and glancing constantly over her shoulder, Miya also carried her sword.
The tunnel plunged straight into the mountain, slanting downward at a fairly steep angle. Heaps of stinking refuse lined the walls-bones of various victims with scraps of flesh drying on them, along with dozens of XimXim’s cast-off spikes, which had a musty reek all their own. Normal subterranean life was absent. No bugs scuttled away from their light; no bats clung in furry clusters from the cave roof.
Two dozen steps inside the cave, the muggy air gave way to a much warmer current, rising slowly from the depths of the tunnel. The passage continued straight as an arrow, with no end in sight.
“Let’s go back!” Miya said. Her whisper sounded booming in the stone-walled cave.
“Yes,” Kiya agreed. “There’s nothing to see.”
Tol wasn’t satisfied, and asked Mandes if he could throw the light farther down the tunnel.
“I can send it as far as I can see it,” replied the wizard.
He mumbled a brief incantation, and the little orb flew out of his hand. It sailed down the center of the passage, on and on, growing ever smaller with each passing heartbeat. Tol was astonished by the length of the tunnel.
