The spores remained hanging in the still, cool air, drifting slowly forward from time to time as gas trickled from tiny holes at their rear. Carried over Jus’ shoulder, Escalla gazed back at them until they disappearedfrom view, watching past Private Henry as the boy walked nervously, cradling his crossbow.
The narrow, slimy tunnel curved and dipped, then suddenly opened onto a wider passageway. It was the old, familiar path that ran northwest, at least forty feet wide and user friendly. Escalla consulted the locator needle and pointed the way into the dim phosphorescent depths. She escaped from her perch upon Jus’ shoulder, using her sharp ears and clever eyesto hunt for dangers lurking far ahead.
Danger soon appeared. Escalla’s sensitive ears detected ascratching noise far ahead. Signaling the others to halt, the faerie turned invisible and flew softly forward down the passageway.
A few dozen yards beyond the adventurers, a dozen hideous monsters crouched in the dark. Working with great stealth, the savage creatures were pulling apart the rock wall with their claws.
Skeletal and horrific, the monsters were mere skin stretched over bone-human-like, but with bestial faces, and spreading a vicious stink ofrotting flesh. At the rear of the pack, two of the creatures crouched over a long bundle wrapped in rags. The bundle seemed to pain them, for none would touch it willingly. The beasts seem to be squabbling over which of them should drag the heap of rags closer to the new hole in the wall.
Jus moved silently beside Escalla and joined her in watching the creatures. Escalla nodded her chin toward the beasts, wrinkling her nose in distaste.
“Ghouls.”
Undead and carnivorous, the ghouls were also apparently working to a plan. Within the newly opened cave, a black pit could dimly be seen. The leader of the ghouls-a larger, wart-encrusted male-slashed at one ofits subordinates, which loped into the cave and began sniffing like a dog. It peered into the pit then began snarling to the other ghouls outside.
The creatures crowded up to the cave entrance, the hindmost ghouls jerking their hands away from the rag bundle until forced to drag it closer to the cave. The bundle was unwrapped. The rags proved to be a torn battle flag. Working with fungi stalks as tools, the ghouls began prying and levering at the contents of the bundle, scattering away in panic as something metallic fell to the floor at their feet.
One ghoul tripped as it fled, then screamed, flashed, and blew apart in a choking cloud of dust. The other ghouls fled from the bundle until forced back by vicious blows from their leader.
The ghoul leader snarled at a subordinate, shoved it aside, then levered up something bright and golden with its fungus staff. For a brief instant, a sword glittered in the eerie light, and then the ghoul flung it down the pit. After a long, long moment, a faint metallic
Escalla looked up as a black shadow loomed nearby.
Drifting quietly in the air behind the ghouls was a great, brooding sphere. The object floated in midair-a menacing presence topped witheye stalks and a single huge eye just above its mouth. The sphere drifted unnoticed behind the ghouls, and Escalla felt a malicious little plan flooding through her mind.
“Hey, guys!” she whispered sharply. “Watch this!”
She fired her magic bees toward the sphere before Jus could stop her. The stream of magic missiles blasted into the giant sphere in a blaze of light. Instead of triggering a titanic explosion to destroy the ghouls, the spell set off a furious roar. The sphere whipped about to face the faerie, eyes red rimmed and fangs gaping. The big central eye blinked closed, and from an upper eyestalk a spell blast disintegrated ten square feet of passage wall. Jerked out of the way at the last instant, Escalla hung in Jus’ grasp, staringin shock as the beholder shook the whole tunnel with its roar.
Ghouls screeched, leaping onto the sphere and sinking fangs and claws into its flesh. The beholder pounded itself against the wall, crushing ghouls and catching one of the undead creatures in its jaws. Bleeding, the beholder staggered as the ghoul leader jumped atop it and wrenched off several eyestalks. An instant later the ghoul was blasted into vapor by a shot from an eyestalk at its side.
The battle spilled back into the cave, injured ghouls falling screaming down the open pit and plunging to their doom. Jus pitched Escalla down the passage, grabbed Polk and Henry by the scruffs of their necks, and ran down the tunnel as if every legion of the Nine Hells were behind them.
A sharp zig-zag hid all sight of the fight, but howls and screams echoed through the gloom. Escalla whirred to a corner and clung to a stalactite in fright, covering the retreat of her friends with her wand.
Catching up with her, the Justicar shouted at her, “What arethey when they’re
“All right! All right!” The girl angrily waved her hand. “Itstill worked! The ghouls are neutralized! The faerie scores again!”
Jus turned her around and pointed her northwest. “Move! Ifthat beholder comes after us, we’re toast!”
Weighed down by chain mail, Private Henry staggered and fell. Jus picked the boy up with one hand and set him on his feet. The boy looked back in terror as he ran.
“Is it coming?”
“Might not have seen us.” The Justicar put himself at theboy’s back. “If it comes, keep running! I’ll buy you time!”
Escalla shot far ahead as they fled down the passageway. Something thundered in the tunnel far behind. Still invisible, Escalla looked behind her as she flew… and smacked straight into something hard.
Stunned, Escalla tumbled back and hit the ground. She half saw a gigantic figure towering over her invisible body-a big goblinoid creaturethat stank like a sewer. Confused, the monster staggered back and looked around for what had struck it. Squatting beside the first giant goblin was another, and another, and another…
A vast cavern opened beyond the monsters-a cavern that teemedwith troglodytes by the score. The lizards sat in their scores at the cave center, tearing at bleeding chunks of food. A dozen giant goblin guards cradling huge clubs loomed at the tunnel entrance. The first rubbed its skull where Escalla had crashed into it.
Beyond the other monsters, pack lizards and drow merchants knelt reverently before a sinister, robed figure at the far side of the hall. The whole image hung frozen in time as Escalla stared, and then she heard the pounding of boots behind her as Jus, Polk, and Henry arrived upon the scene.
A hundred monsters turned to stare. Over by the kneeling drow, the tall figure dressed in black robes turned and brushed its cowl back across its shoulders.
There was no face, only a rotting skull with mad, staring eyes. Escalla took one look at the thing, screamed in panic, and shot backward past Polk and the others.
Used to instant obedience, Private Henry turned and did what he was told. More bull headed, Polk and Jus stopped to judge for themselves. They stood for one tiny split second, staring at the cavern with its horde of enemies.
The lich, an undead sorcerer of terrifying power, stood at the center of the hall. Rotted jaws screeched with laughter as the monster threw its arms open, summoning a spell. Jus and Polk turned and ran.
Too late. The lich gave a vile scream as magic blasted through the cavern and into the tunnel mouth. A blazing wall of force sealed the tunnel shut, blocking Jus and Polk from escape and locking Henry and Escalla away from their friends.
The giant goblins smashed at Jus with their huge clubs. The ranger spun into the first blow and wrenched the monster off balance while crashing his elbow into its jaw. A kick from his heavy boots sent another monster reeling back. Jus finished by disarming the first monster and smashing its skull with one blow of its own club. He turned as Cinders blasted flames into the onrushing monsters and sent six of them staggering away with their flesh aflame.
A gigantic goblin picked up Polk and tossed the helpless teamster against a wall. He fell, was lifted by the hair, and then punched unconscious by one of the goblinoids. With hell hound flame sheeting all about him, Jus fell back against the force wall as a dozen monsters surged toward him like a tidal wave.
They were too close-packed to fight with clubs and claws. Jus roared, his rage making the whole tunnel shake as he crashed his clenched fist down onto a giant goblins skull. His other hand crushed the windpipe of a troglodyte, the huge creature screaming and thrashing. The fangs of a fallen lizard snapped into Jus’ calf. He raised a boot, smashed the creature’s neck,then fell back to thud against the force wall as monsters climbed toward him in
