“Hmph! Well at least you’ve got good taste.” The girl pulledon her long gloves. “All right crew, show’s over, trap’s solved. Let’s getmoving and find this damned wizard!”
They returned to the side passage that had led them astray. Escalla flipped herself invisible, peeked about the corner, and then led the way into the dark. Jus surged through the water just behind her, his sword out and his eyes searching everywhere. Above his helm, Cinders grinned like a mad piranha. The dog’s big white teeth were the only things clean in the entiredungeon.
The teamster gradually fell behind. Carefully drawing on his scrolls, the man looked up only when hailed from a great distance ahead. A small ball of light floated in the darkness behind Jus and the faerie.
Staring in irritation back at Polk, the Justicar growled and said, “What in the name of Zagyg are you doing?”
“Maps!” Polk refused to be disturbed at his task. “Achronicle has to have a map.”
“Right.” The ranger walked on down the passage. “Come on. Ifyou fall back too far, we won’t hear it if you get eaten by a monster.”
Polk blinked, looked behind himself, then sped hastily after Jus’ departing back, his feet splashing madly in the water. He made sure totread in the big man’s footsteps and stayed as close behind him as he dared.
The corridor ended in a plain wooden door. Escalla becamevisible as she neglected to concentrate on her magic and instead played at being a dungeoneer. With her wings whirring away, she made a careful inspection of the portal.
“Is this one teak?” The faerie made a face of mock distaste.“The last door was oak. These people ought to decorate according to some kind oftheme.” She carefully kept away from the moldy, slimy wood. “No traps, no runes,no ear borers, no guillotines.” Escalla motioned to the door. “Wood rot isreally bad for my complexion. Anyone want to listen at the thing?”
Jus made an irritated noise and simply kicked the door down. Rotten wood flew apart and fell bouncing all over the floor. With his sword ready, the Justicar advanced through the doorway and glared into the room beyond.
Magic light flooded harsh and bright into a large stone chamber. A single door stood opposite the entryway, and four huge, terrifying shapes stood hunched in the gloom. Huge creatures made of malformed flesh, eight feet tall and rippling with misshapen muscle, each seemed to have been badly stitched together out of spare parts from a mad doctor’s refuse bin.
The Justicar looked at the creatures and hefted his sword, ready to parry or run one through.
“Flesh golems.”
They stood in niches-four monsters with an empty niche besidethem. Each monster had a number burned into its chest: five, seven, eleven, and thirteen.
One of the monsters stirred. Its breath bubbled wetly as it turned foul, cold eyes upon the three interlopers and said, “One of us does notbelong with the others. If you can pick it out, it will serve you. If you pick the wrong one, we will kill you. You have sixty seconds.”
Frightened into visibility and hovering ahead of her two companions, Escalla looked at the numbers and blinked.
“Um, look, did some other guys come through here justbefore?”
“Fifty-five seconds.”
“Yeah, look, do you always ask the same question when peoplecome in, or do you change it?” The faerie nervously fluttered her wings.“Because if the other guys came through here and answered right, then the oddmonster out went with them.”
“Forty seconds.”
Escalla flitted in front of the door with anxiety. “Look! Ifthere was a fifth monster and he went along with the other guys, then
“Thirty seconds.”
The faerie fluttered madly back and forth, her voice pitched into a whine.
“But it’s
The monsters turned toward Escalla and flexed fingertips hard enough to carve though stone.
“Ten seconds!”
“All right! All right! I can solve this!” The girl tried tohold Jus back. “There’s a solution, trust me. Brains over brawn.”
The Justicar turned, shoved Polk back down the corridor, then grabbed Escalla underneath one arm. The faerie’s eyes bugged, and she angrilykicked her little feet.
“Hey! No one touches the faerie!”
“Shut up and shoot!”
Escalla looked back into the room behind her to see all four monsters lumbering toward the door. She laughed and opened her hands, a swirling surge of energy whirling inside her grasp.
“Ha!
Jus tried to stop her. “For gods’ sake
Too late. Escalla screeched with glee and punched the spell down the passageway. With a foul curse, the Justicar managed to tackle Polk and shove both the teamster and the faerie down into the mire. The ranger thudded on top of them, Cinders’ fur cloaking his back as a wild explosion blasted throughthe air.
The fireball was a spell far too large for such a tiny room. The room shook with explosive force, and then a roaring lance of flame came shooting down the corridor. It ripped above the Justicar, the heat of it licking steam from Cinders’ fireproof fur. Greasy sludge atop the water caught firewith horrid little flames, lighting the scene as Polk and Escalla fought up from the filth and coughed the muck out of their mouths.
They were suddenly alone. The air was filled with smoke and the stench of scorched muck. Dazed and almost drowned, Escalla peeled back her hair from her face. Polk half raised himself from the mire and looked around as though expecting a new blast of fire.
The Justicar’s magic light had disappeared.
Thrashing sounds came from the room as the massive creatures beat in a frenzy at the walls. Burned and furious, all four of the flesh golems came staggering through the doorway, caught sight of Polk and Escalla, and screamed in bloodcurdling hate. Escalla shrieked and instantly disappeared. Suddenly alone, Polk sat on his backside and began to skid rapidly backward through the mire.
All four monsters blundered toward him, when suddenly a dripping shape heaved upward from the water. Dripping mud, his hell hound skin outlined by fire, the Justicar rose and hacked his black sword straight into the trailing creature’s skull. The bone clove with a hideous
The monster spun and staggered blindly against a wall, thrashing in the mud with an appalling unwillingness to die. A second monster whirled and flailed with its fist, catching Jus across the shoulder and smashing him against the wall, but the ranger rebounded and hacked through the creature’sarms. The golem shrieked in agony and rage, but the ranger wasted no time. Following through with his sword, he plunged over half the blade through his foe’s chest. The creature staggered and fell.
Cinders sent a bolt of flame thundering into the corridor. One flesh-monster roared and screamed. Another simply put its hands over its eyes. The Justicar dodged a clumsy strike by one of the monsters, split one creature’s shoulder half from its body, then with a second chop almost rippedthe creature in two.
The last remaining abomination made a charge, blundering through the water. Jus hefted his sword and let loose a roar that shook the entire tunnel. Hurling himself into his enemy, the ranger met its punch with a swift slice of his blade. The monster’s arm fell, injured and bleeding. Itflailed the limb at him like a club, battering the Justicar’s shoulder so thatthe bone snapped with an audible crack.
Snarling as he shook away the pain, Jus staggered backward. The flesh monster clenched its fist and rose to smash him to the floor. The ranger kicked the creature in its crotch, and his boot making a sickening sound. The
