stepped to Ghaji’s side, holy symbol exchanged for another silver dagger. The metal wouldn’t provide any special defense against these men and women since they were mortal, but a sharp blade was a sharp blade, regardless of what substance it was made from.
“We have to follow Erdis Cai before he can conduct the sacrifices!” Diran shouted.
Before he kills Makala, Ghaji translated. He nodded, and still wildly sweeping his fire axe with one hand and his mundane axe with the other, as a mob of black-garbed men and woman with clean-shaven heads and bloodlust in their eyes came at them. Erdis Cai’s “children” held back at the sight of the flames trailing from Ghaji’s mystic axe, none of them eager to be set afire.
Erdis Cai, Onkar, and Jarlain quickly reached the uppermost level of the amphitheater. Erdis Cai gestured over his shoulder, and the ground began to tremble. Immediately the bald cultists backed away, terror in their eyes. A seam appeared as the floor split into two separate sections that began to slide away from each other with a loud rumbling sound. The floor shook as its sections retracted, and it was all Diran and Ghaji could do to maintain their balance.
Erdis Cai and his two servants were no longer in sight.
“What’s happening?” Ghaji shouted over the noise.
“Erdis Cai must’ve activated some sort of trap!” Diran said. “Whatever it is, it’s terrifying our attackers!”
The black-clad men and women had lost all interesting in fulfilling their master’s command. They turned away from Diran and Ghaji and frantically tried to get off the retracing floor, shoving, hitting, and clawing at one another in their fear. Ghaji and Diran were only a few yards from the edge of one of the sections, and the half-orc could see iron grating being revealed as the two halves of the stone floor pulled back. Then the floor stopped retracting with a sudden jerk, knocking many of the fleeing crowd off their feet. Diran grabbed Ghaji’s arm to steady himself, and the half-orc braced his legs and managed to maintain his footing.
All was silent for a moment, and though many of Erdis Cai’s children continued fleeing, a number stopped, puzzled looks on their faces. The silence was broken by a series of soft snicks, as of latches being released. A rectangular section of the iron grating dropped away and fell to the floor below with a loud clang. A moment later a mottled-fleshed hand with long black claws gripped the edge of the amphitheater’s partially retracted floor. It was followed by many, many more, and then the owners of those hands hauled themselves up and dozens of naked forms with discolored flesh, burning eyes, and froth-flecked fangs scuttled onto the separate sections of the amphitheater’s floor.
“Ghouls,” Ghaji said. “If there’s one thing I hate more than vampires, it’s ghouls.”
Those Grimwall citizens still standing on the floor screamed in abject terror and fled for their lives. The ghouls, nearly forty of them in all, Ghaji judged, shrieked in dark delight and began attacking whatever mortals happened to be nearest, including Diran and Ghaji.
CHAPTER
Yvka and Hinto were urging the first of the prisoners through Grimwall’s entrance and onto the dock when they heard shouting behind them.
“They’re coming!”
“The raiders!”
“Erdis Cai knows, he knows!”
Yvka swore. It seemed the wounded guard who’d gotten away had managed to sound the alarm. She knew they had only seconds before the prisoners’ fear overwhelmed them and they panicked.
“Hinto, lead the prisoners onto the galleon. I’ll slow down the raiders!” She had no idea if the halfling would be able to maintain control of his emotions long enough to complete the task, but she had no choice but to trust him.
A flicker of nervousness passed across the halfling’s features, but he nodded and began shouting for the prisoners to follow him. Yvka plunged back through the entrance, shoving through the mass of frightened men, women, and children.
“Which way are they coming from?” she demanded, and several people pointed to the left-hand branch of the corridor. The elf-woman turned and saw the raiders running toward them, swords drawn, false teeth bared to inspire maximum terror in the prisoners.
“Go!” Yvka shouted. “Follow the halfling!”
The prisoners mulled about, uncertain and afraid, and Yvka had to yell at them to go one more time before they finally started moving.
Yvka stepped forward, placing herself between the fleeing prisoners and the oncoming raiders. She reached into her leather pouch and grabbed hold of a handful of objects. She didn’t have time to select carefully, and she hoped that whatever she brought out would at least be enough to buy the prisoners enough time to get aboard the remaining functional galleon. She pulled her hand out of her pouch and hurled the items she’d grabbed toward the raiders. She caught a glimpse of the items as they flew through the air-crystalline pebbles, a dried cicada husk, tiny rodent bones, and a mummified frog’s leg. Just as the first of the objects was about to hit the floor, Yvka spoke a single word in Elvish and averted her gaze. There was an explosion of light, smoke, fire, and wind, and the raiders cried out in pain and confusion. Though Yvka couldn’t see through the smoke, she guessed that some of the raiders had been injured, though not all.
“Be careful to hold your breath until you’re outside!” Yvka shouted. “That gas is deadly!”
It wasn’t, of course, but there was no reason the raiders needed to know that. She turned to check on the prisoners’ progress and saw that the last of them were hurrying through the entrance, perhaps spurred on by her false warning. The elf-woman sprinted after the prisoners, already hearing several raiders shout that it was just a trick and there was no poison gas.
Once outside Grimwall, Yvka saw a line of prisoners running down the dock and up the gangplank of the elemental galleon that Tresslar had spared. Hinto stood on the ship’s deck, urging the prisoners to move faster. Of Tresslar, Yvka saw no sign. That struck her as ominous, though most likely the artificer was simply hidden from her view at this distance.
“Go, go, go!” Yvka shouted as she brought up the rear.
The prisoners, most of whom she guessed hadn’t been outside of Grimwall in a very long time, picked up speed as they tasted the sweet salty air and saw the stars and moons shining down on them. They cried out in delight as they ran, and more than a few had tears of joy streaming down their faces.
The last of the prisoners reached the gangplank and were pushing and jostling to start climbing when the first of the raiders emerged onto the dock.
“Hinto, as soon as the last person’s aboard, dislodge the gangplank!” she called.
She had a few toys left in her pouch. She hoped they’d be enough to slow down the raiders long enough for all the prisoners to board the ship.
“Miss, are you talking to the halfling?” It was the girl who’d been the first to speak to them through the bars of the gate that had kept the prisoners trapped in their squalid quarters.
Yvka turned and saw the girl standing at the ship’s railing, looking down at her. “What’s wrong with him?” she shouted back.
“He’s lying on the deck, shivering as if he’s got a fever, though his forehead’s not warm!”
Great. Hinto had picked a most inopportune time to surrender to his fear. “I don’t care who does it, but make sure to push the gangplank away from the ship!”
“What about you?” the girl asked.
Yvka didn’t have time to answer, for the raiders came rushing at her then, weapons drawn and eager to use them. Yvka knew that neither acrobatic maneuvers nor what remained in her pouch would be enough to stop all the raiders, but if she could stay alive long enough, she might be able to-
“Crabs, Miss!” the child cried out. “Hinto says to tell you to remember the crabs!”
Yvka smiled. Even caught in the throes of his panic, the little pirate hadn’t abandoned them.
