The Dwarves looked around in wonder, for at last they had come into their ancient homeland. Perry saw little, for he was busy counting paces, and when they reached the distant outlet and the broad road that led down toward the Great Deep, he was relieved to find that his measure reasonably agreed with that of Brega's of long ago.
They entered the corridor and sidled along the south wall, which was deepest in shadow. The farther they went, the darker it got, but their eyes adjusted to the dim light reaching down the passageway. Down a gentle slope they crept, another furlong or so, stepping quietly, down from Gate Level toward First Neath. And the light continued to fade as they went, but ahead there began to glimmer the dim flicker of far-off torchlight. The Seven edged to the limit of the corridor and paused ere creeping out upon a landing at the top of a short flight of wide stairs; the steps led down to the Broad Shelf.
The Shelf in turn came to an abrupt end, scissured by the Great Deep, black and yawning, the ebon gape splitting out of the high rock walls to jag across the expansive stone floor and bar the way. Beyond the mighty fissure the wide stone floor continued, lit by guttering torches, and on farther the Squad could see the beginnings of the vast Mustering Chamber-the War Hall-receding beyond the flickering light into impenetrable blackness, the distant ceiling supported by four rows of giant Dragon Pillars marching away into the vast dark. Across the Great Deep a spidery rope bridge with wooden footboards was suspended. The span was narrow; those using it would have to cross the wide gulf in single file. It was anchored on the near side by two huge iron rings on iron posts driven into the stone; and it was held on the far side by a winch set far back from the!ip of the rift-the winch a remnant of the ancient drawbridge destroyed in the Winter War. Guarding the hoist on the distant side were two Rucks, squatting on the stone floor, casting knucklebones and muttering curses at each other.
Lord Kian motioned Shannon Silverleaf forward. 'Can you fell the Rukh on the left with an arrow from here?' Kian whispered.
Shannon eyed the distance; it was a far shot. 'It would be surer from the bottom of the steps.*' He motioned downward into the shadows.
Lord Kian gave a curt nod, and signalling the others to remain, the Man and the Elf crept down the broad stairway. At the bottom, Kian knelt to one knee while Shannon stood straight, and each drew his bow to the full. The Rucks continued their quarrel, unaware of their danger; one, enraged at the turn of the dice, jumped up with a snarling oath and clouted the other behind the ear. The second Ruck kicked out at the first and with a curse sprang to his feet, and they both drew their scimitars, bent on murder. But before they could close with one another in battle, Th-thunn! two arrows were loosed and sped hissing through the air to lodge deeply into the Rucks. One fell instantly dead, pierced through the heart. The other stared in astonishment at the point emerging from his stomach, but ere he could draw breath to scream, Th-thock! two more arrows thudded into him, and he pitched forward on his face, dead before striking the stone floor.
Perry and Delk dashed down the steps, with Anval, Bonn, and Ursor right behind. 'Now!' barked Kian. 'Across the bridge. Hurry!' But Shannon, in the lead, had just stepped onto the span when out of the first side tunnel on the left came tramping a H!6k-led company of Rucks. It was the change of the guard.
For an instant in time, the Rucks stopped, frozen in amazement at the sight of these intruders. Then, with snarls of rage, the maggot-folk leapt forward, scimitars raised.
'Wait!' Kian called to his companions. 'There are too many of them to meet on the open floor. We'll make our stand on this side of the bridge where they can only come at us one at a time. Ursor, to the bridge. Anval, Bonn, flank Ursor. Shannon, with your bow stand thwartwise to the span from me; we'll catch them in our cross- fire. Perry, Delk, take those who get past the first rank. Yield no quarter.'
Across the bridge charged the maggot-folk, the span bouncing and swaying under their rushing feet. On they came, right into Ursor's devastating mace, and Anval's and Bonn's lethal axes, and the first to fall was the Hlok leader.
His heart hammering, Perry had drawn Bane, and its blue flame blazed; the Warrow and Delk stood ready, but as of yet no Spawn had won past the front rank. Kian's bow hummed as arrow after arrow hissed into the Rucks at the rear, and Shannon's aim was just as deadly, the bolts slashing into the foe from right and left.
The Rucks were single file on the narrow bridge and jammed closely together; those in the fore fell screeching into the Deep, hurled there by mace or axe, while those in the rear plummeted into the black depths with quarrels through them. Many in the span center turned to flee, elbowing, pushing, wildly clawing, jolting into each other and shoving one another off in their mad bid to escape; yet some at the distant end regained the far side only to be dropped by deadly arrows before they could reach the sanctuary of the far tunnels.
But one fleeing Ruck ran to the windlass, where he grabbed up a mallet and with a wild swing knocked the brake-wedge loose just as an arrow sprang full from his chest and he feir dead. Yet the winch was free and spinning as the anchor ropes ran loose. And the bridge, now held only at one end by the large iron rings, rucketted down to crash into the side of the abyss, and the remaining Spawn fell screaming to their doom. And Perry's blood ran chill as he unwillingly listened in frozen horror to the shrieks and wails of the plunging Rucks-screams that dwindled and faded, to be tost at last in the black silence as the maggot-folk plummeted beyond hearing down into the dreadful depths.
A quick check showed that none of the Seven had received so much as a minor wound, though there was a long scimitar scar on Ursor's learner breastplate. Albeit free from injury and successful in battle, still the Squad may have lost the campaign, for they had yet to cross the gulf; and the span was down, dangling from the iron rings on the near side, creaking and swinging slowly like a great long pendulum as it hung down the sheer undercut wall of the Deep.
'Did any of the Rutcha escape to warn the others?' asked Ursor. 'I could not tell, for I was busy at the fore.'
'I think not,' answered Shannon, gesturing toward the many dead on the far shelf. 'Our arrows dropped all who tried to flee.'
'Though none escaped,' declared Kian, 'we must be across and gone ere any more come. If that was the changing of the guard, we have at most six or eight hours-likely less-Before others arrive.'
They went to the lip of the gulf and searched for a way across. The chasm was wide: the far rim at the narrowest point was some fifty feet away, and in many places the width exceeded one hundred feet.
Anval, Bonn, and Delk unhooded three Dwarf-lanterns, and with Perry they lay on their stomachs on the lip of the rift and examined the depths for as far as the light shone. They could see the bridge dangling down the wall, swaying slowly, but they found no way to span the abyss, for below the undercut the sides were smooth and sheer, dropping straight for as far as the eye could see, vanishing into the unguessable depths beyond. Perry quailed at the sight of the endless-fall, and pushed back from the rim.
Finding no way to cross down below, the buccan and the Dwarves strode out to the sides where the great ebon crack disappeared into the stone walls of the mountain, but the rift was even wider at those points. Lord Kian, Shannon, and Ursor spoke quietly together and eyed the distance to the winch; they saw that it was covered with a grapnel-shelter, whose rounded edges and tumed-under sides were cunningly contrived to resist hooks; in any event, the cast was a long one to carry a rope of any consequence The rest of the far-side shelf was barren and smooth, flattened ages agone by Dwarven adze and stone chisel to resist invaders' grapnels.
'Our mission has failed before it ever got properly under way,' groaned Perry in despair. 'We are stopped here at the Great Deep. All of our hopes and plans have fallen into its black depths just as the burning Gargon fell long ago.'
'Speak not the name of the Dread needlessly'-Shannon's voice held a sharp edge-'for it portends evil in Black Drimmen-deeve. And do not despair too soon, for I believe our Drimm friends will yet show us the way.'
'Kruk!' spat Anval. 'We cannot throw a hook to cross over, and we cannot go around the ends, and we cannot climb down and across. Bonn, it will be slow, yet all that is left to us is a climb up and over on the roof.'
'Roof? Climb?' asked Perry, looking upward, dumfounded. 'How can we cross over on the roof? It must be eighty or a hundred feet up to there, and we are not flies to walk upside
down on that stone ceiling. Do you propose an enchantment, a miracle?'
'Nay,' growled Bonn, rummaging in his pack, 'not a miracle, nor spell, but this instead.' From his pack Bonn extracted a leather harness laden with crafted metal snap-rings and thin-bladed spikes, each spike with an eyelet on the side of the thick end; also affixed to the belting were many different-sized, small, irregular iron cubes, each
