"You always put down bones when you can. You have lost your magic!" The last was shrieked by the half-orc. The skeleton made an abrupt about-turn and lurched away from them.
"Don't be foolish! I can't lose my magic. I'm just tired, and my arm hurts, and you keep screaming at me!" Gunderal stamped her foot, raising up a cloud of ash. "Look what you made me do. It will take me forever to clean these skirts."
"You're still in pain. I told you that I should carry you out of those tunnels. You have exhausted yourself," said Zuzzara, modulating her voice into something less than an orc shout but still loud enough to make everyone else in the room wince. The skeleton picked up speed away from the half-orc, lurching rapidly toward the nearest tunnel entrance. Ivy watched it go with a mild expression of envy. Once Zuzzara and Gunderal got to the screaming stage, it was difficult to shut their mouths with anything less than an avalanche.
"I'm not a child," Gunderal answered back, her voice going higher, like a stubborn little girl. "Besides, that tunnel was so narrow, you could barely get yourself through it."
"But you're all white and dizzy."
"Because I'm wasting breath arguing with you. Leave it be, Zuzzara, I'm fine. The arm just aches. I'm not going to die from a sprained arm."
"So why can't you do any spells? You can always do spells."
"Not when I'm in pain and somebody is shouting in my ear!"
The skeleton was just a faint green glow, disappearing into the black tunnel.
"Shut up!" shouted Ivy, cutting across their words with a parade ground bellow. "They can hear you all the way back to the Thultyrl's tent. Zuzzara, if Gunderal faints or even starts to faint, sling her over your shoulder. Until then, leave her be!"
"Sorry, Ivy," muttered Zuzzara.
"Sorry, Ivy," echoed Gunderal.
Ivy shook her head at them, a little startled that they had actually paid attention to her. They must both be feeling exceptionally bad. "You should be sorry. Disgraceful, Zuzzara spending so much time worrying about you, Gunderal. And Gunderal, you should stand up to her more. Just because you're such a shrimp…"
Gunderal squealed an indignant reply. Zuzzara frowned at Ivy. "She's not a shrimp. That's not a nice thing to say, Ivy. She can't help being short."
"I am not short!" yelled Gunderal. "I'm just not oversized!"
"Yes, yes," said Zuzzara, patting Gunderal on her head.
"Zuzzara!" Gunderal ducked out of reach of the half-orc's friendly pats and checked her topknot with her good hand to make sure that it was still straight. Her hair had slid a little to the side. Gunderal pulled a small round silver mirror out of her pouch with a sigh. The mirror, unlike her potions, had survived the fall. She handed it to Zuzzara with a sharp command of "make yourself useful, hold this for me."
Ivy rolled her eyes. The world could be ending and Gunderal would still be combing her curls or arguing with Zuzzara. "Never, ever, go campaigning with a pair of sisters," Ivy said to Sanval. "Just because they are related, they will drive each other crazy as well as everyone else around them."
"They are sisters?" He nodded toward them, his eyes wide. The half-orc, with her gray-streaked braids caught in iron beads, her sharp-toothed grin, and her large-boned frame, towered above the delicate Gunderal, with her fine features, rose petal skin, violet eyes, and a cloud of blue-black hair sliding out of its enameled pins and shell combs. Ivy could see why he had not caught the family resemblance.
There were never two women more physically different than Gunderal and Zuzzara, and most of the mercenaries in the camp never even guessed that they were half-sisters-unless they came flirting after Gunderal only to meet the point of Zuzzara's sword. Or picked a fight with the half-orc and suddenly found themselves entangled in one of Gunderal's spells.
After a decade of living with them, Ivy sometimes forgot about the physical differences. It was something about the tone of their voices, the quickness in which they could dissolve each other into tears or laughter, or the way that they would both nag her simultaneously. She had a hard time seeing them as anything but sisters.
"How can they be so different and still be sisters?" Sanval asked.
Ivy shook her head at the Procampur's stodginess.
"Same human father, very different mothers," she said.
"They each take after the maternal side of their family. Look, we don't have time to discuss their family history, because it is extraordinarily complicated. Ask Mumchance some time; he knew their father." To everyone else, she shouted, "Let's get moving!"
"Ivy, I hear something," Mumchance said. "Listen. Something is coming. From there."
The dwarf pointed toward the far side of the huge hall in the direction they would have to travel. Ivy shifted her sword off her back, clipping the scabbard on to the side of her weapons belt, so it would be easier to draw. She saw that Sanval already had his blade out. It, of course, gleamed in the light of Mumchance's lantern.
Kid pricked up his pointed little ears, swiveling them in the direction that Mumchance was pointing. "Feet. Many little feet." Kid licked his lips with his purple tongue. "Many little scaly reptile feet running toward us."
CHAPTER FIVE
Zuzzara pushed her sister behind her, then stood with her shovel raised over her head, obviously listening. She peered through the darkness in the direction that Kid had pointed out. "He's right, Ivy," she said. "Something is coming-something small and fast!"
Mumchance tapped the remaining hammer in his tool belt to be sure it was in easy reach, then lifted his lantern higher, to light the hall to its fullest extent. Ivy hissed to the dwarf, "Your sword, don't forget your sword." She did not have to remind Sanval or Kid about the importance of edged weapons. Sanval shifted to a position closer to the front, facing where Mumchance had pointed earlier. Two slender stilettos appeared in Kid's hands. In a few moments, even the humans could hear the sounds of hard, scaled little feet pattering quickly toward them.
"Kobolds," groaned Mumchance, a dwarf with far too many centuries of memories of the little lizardfolk that plagued the underground routes of the world. "Those rotten little pests."
Kobolds burst through two entrances, attracted by the noise that Zuzzara and Gunderal had been making earlier. A few carried glowing green bones to light their way. Others were bearing flaming torches. Still more were heavily armed with pointed sticks, wooden clubs, and looted weapons. They flowed like a river through the cave-a tumbling, angry river of small, scaly brown creatures. From their horned heads and reptilian snouts to their nasty ratlike tails and long-clawed toes, they shook with the fury of their barking. The Siegebreakers could barely hear one another's warning shouts over the racket.
Ivy realized that their ragged line formation was about to be overrun. She bellowed, "Tight in! Tight in! Form a knot!" Sanval and Zuzzara shifted closer to her, forming the classic square position taught by military tacticians from Tethyr to Narfell. The smaller members of the party gathered close behind them, to be better shielded from the onslaught. Of course, long shields were normally used in this tactic. Any shield would have helped, but none of them had bothered to carry campaign shields to a tunnel dig. Ivy saw Sanval shift his left arm to the classic shield lock position, grimace when he realized that he was presenting just his forearm and elbow armor to the kobolds, and then use that same armored elbow to deliver a devastating blow to a kobold's vulnerable throat.
"Back-to-back?" asked Sanval. It was another classic, especially if fighters lacked shields.