only did he have to be stealthy, he apparently also had to remain upwind of his prey. If not, he'd be the first thief ever discovered by his stench. Not the epitaph he wanted on his grave, that was for certain!
The stalking game of cat and mouse continued, although it was never clear who was the cat and who the rodent. Ikrit stopped far too frequently to suit Pinch yet never seemed to tumble to the rogue's presence. It was almost as if the quaggoth were hearing something else that eluded Pinch's dulled ears. The result was a maddeningly slow pace for the thief. He was of the utter conviction that time counted for everything, that his body had to be regained by the coronation. After that, reaching Manferic/Janol/Cleedis-it was impossible to choose a single name for the lich-would be well-nigh impossible. The privileges of the palace would surround the creature, and between the guards and the lich's spells it would be impossible to get close to the dread lord. Pinch's mind had already plotted that the best hope lay in the sheltering confusion of the festival. The lich was most apt to be distracted now before its triumph was complete.
But what then? Assuming he found Manferic, how was Pinch supposed to get his body back? The rogue had no idea. Manferic certainly wasn't going to give it up easily, not after all the trouble he'd gone to just to collect it, and Pinch had no spells to force the issue. Damnation, he wasn't even sure what had happened to him! All he had was his faith in improvisation, the belief that if somehow he saw his way through, something would give him a chance.
There was only one problem with his determined optimism. Ikrit wasn't cooperating. With his improved eyesight and his past experience, Pinch knew enough to say the ape-thing wasn't bound for Manferic. It was avoiding all the tunnels Pinch remembered and plunging into areas the thief did not recognize. Admittedly, there was only so much he could remember about darkened stone, but the haze of dust clearly meant that no one had passed this way in recent time.
This was not good, but what could he do? Short of marching through the halls of the palace, Ikrit was his only lead. He had to follow where the beast led.
Thus he was trailing the creature, slipping into a crack in the catacomb wall when it paused for the hundredth time, that Pinch was caught unawares. As he was peering carefully from his shallow hiding place, the angry buzz of a hornet sang loudly in his sense-clogged ears. A shadow hurtled past and skipped onto the stone between him and the quaggoth with a rattling clatter.
As the thief was held prisoner by amazement, trying to fathom what had just happened, the silence was rent by cries of war. Ahead of him, doing all things at once, the quaggoth bellowed with bloody rage, dropped into half- doubled crouch, and charged, talons bared, straight down the corridor for him.
Gods pluck a rose, Pinch panicked, he's seen me! With his instinct to run in full alarm, the regulator spun about as quick as the rickety body would let him-
And came nigh-on face-to-face with two hundred-plus pounds of charging dwarven hate. The barrel-chested, black-bearded little man had cast aside a crossbow and was in the act of whirling an iron-studded mace over his head for a furious blow. 'Death to the king!' Iron-Biter roared.
Pinch flopped his decrepit body back into the niche in which he'd sheltered. He was barely fast enough. Just in front of him, all forces collided in the narrow passage. Iron-Biter's mace hit the wall scant inches from the rogue's forehead. Stone ripped in sharp splinters and ricocheted around his head. The shards tore into Ikrit's outstretched arms as the quaggoth slammed into the stocky dwarf like a brawling stevedore. The impact flung the dwarf backward, and it was only his warblood, which even a surplice couldn't change, that gave him the determination to hold his footing. Ikrit slashed with his broken claws, ripping ragged gashes through the dwarf's armor. Blood leaked over the rent chain mail.
Pinch squeezed into the scant hollow as deep as he could. The battle raged too damn close for him to be safe. Ikrit's back-cocked elbow slammed him in the chest, spraying rot over his tattered cloak. If he'd been Pinch and not this festering thing, the blow would have punched the wind out of him like a noisy sack. Fortunately, at this moment, he didn't breath.
'Clubs!' Maeve's familiar voice shrilled from down the passage. It was a warning to her friends to stand clear, a slang the mage used just before she was about to cut loose with a spell large and nasty.
'Maeve, for the gods' sakes-NO!' Pinch yelled with the realization that he was almost certainly standing at the blast center of whatever it was. The scream, though, was absurd: far too shrill, far too unbelievable to be heeded. Abandoning the wisdom of eyes to the foe, Pinch threw his cloak up and huddled against the wall.
Almost immediately, the clang and squeal of battle was complemented by a thunderous crack. The rogue had heard the sound oft before, and every time it reminded him of the bang of smoke powder rockets from Shou. The air exploded in a tingling concussion of heat and static, punctuated by first one metallic howl of pain and then a second, more bestial, squeal. Jagged ribbons of blue fire embraced the huddled thief, rippled the scant hair, and sparked in front of his eyeballs. The maggots and worms fell in roasted flakes from his corpse, but the electric agony Pinch awaited never materialized.
Staggered by amazement, Pinch rose from his huddle to confront the battle once more, except that there was no battle left. The passage in front of him was a bloody smear of white fur and broiled flesh. What was left of Ikrit had been flung a good rod down the passage. The body was there, but the quaggoth's flattened broad head was all but gone, transformed into a smoldering, blood-strewn blot. Ikrit was dead, without even a convulsive hint at life.
Even as he absorbed the sight, the battle began again all too fast. 'Die, you thing of evil!' a shaky voice commanded. Iron-Biter was staggering to his feet even as he held forth the seal of his order. The dwarf was calling upon the majesty of his god to undo the evil that bound this undead thing to the world. The only problem was that, being undead only in the flesh, Pinch just didn't fit the mold. The words and the display had no effect on him.
Nonetheless, the dwarf gave it his best, screwing up his blood-splattered face in a grotesque mask of concentration. He was bleeding from gashes over his shoulders and chest, his leather and iron helmet was twisted black from the bolt, blood flowed from a loose flap in his scalp to soak his bearded cheek, and his whole frame shook with exertion, but the dwarf intoned his orison with a will. Behind him, well back and awaiting the outcome, were the rest of the ragtag band: Sprite, Maeve, Therin-and Lissa in their tow.
Pinch almost wanted to laugh at the futility of it, but there was no time. Realizing this monster was not to be turned, Iron-Biter threw aside the effort and changed his chant. The words and gestures were a spell. Pinch didn't know what, but it couldn't be good for him. The dwarf had death and murder in his eyes. Pinch had to stop him now or not at all.
Besides, there was the matter of old scores to settle.
Even as the dwarf raised his voice in the final binding of the spell's power, Pinch lunged forward. He had no weapons, little hope of besting the bear-sized dwarf in a hand-to-hand battle, and no particular courage for straight-up fighting, but it was a long sight better than standing still to be blasted to shreds.
His lunge startled the priest, who expected to fight with magic and not his hands. Pinch got one hand on Iron-Biter's arm, wrenching awry the intricate patterns he'd been weaving in midair. To the rogue's amazement, the skin beneath his corrupt fingers instantly turned an icy blue, the lines of his chilling touch tracing their way up the dwarf's veins toward his heart. Seizing on that opening, Pinch got his other hand closed around the throat, squeezing to a gurgle what would have been a scream if the rogue weren't crushing the little priest's windpipe. The frozen blue pallor spread underneath the dwarf's beard and emerged on his cheekbones.
Iron-Biter was far from defenseless, though. With his free arm he swung his holy symbol, a weighty replica of the Cup. It cracked against hollow ribs with enough force that Pinch knew it had caused harm. His mind told him that, but his nerves remained dead to the blow. No pain, he thought, a lich must feel no pain.
He squeezed tighter, and that's when he made his next discovery. Along with the icy touch, Pinch had inherited the lich's strength. His bloodless fingers squeezed down. Flesh tore and bones snapped within his grasp. Iron-Biter's eyes bugged as he corded his neck muscles to hold off the pressure. It was a losing battle and the dwarf knew it. He dropped the mace and scrabbled for something at his belt.
No mercy, Pinch knew. Iron-Biter would show him none, and he couldn't afford to give any. He squeezed harder, starting to hear the clicking grind of cartilage giving way.
Over the dwarf's shoulder, five motes of light hurtled from Maeve's fingertips to strike Pinch cleanly. With each he rocked a little, like the impact of an arrow, and like the mace he knew these were hurting him though he felt nothing. This had to be ended quickly or his friends would kill him, all the time believing him to be Manferic.
The dwarf pulled something from his belt-a short stubby stick of intricate workmanship. It was some kind of
