"Do not step through the arch," the magelord commanded them.
Making several complicated passes with his hands, Archlis muttered and spat his way through a series of phrases in an ancient tongue. Both Gunderal and Kid winced as the recitation continued, as if the words themselves were scratching across their skin. Archlis finally pulled another charm from his cloak and ground it between his hands, reducing it to dust. He sprinkled the glittering powder in the air. Something shimmered in the air before them.
"Watch," Archlis instructed them, pointing at the empty chamber beyond the invisible barrier. A trio of huge beasts, light brown and dapple-striped in darker brown, shambled into the room. Hairless and hideous, they resembled nothing that Sanval had ever seen before. Two came through arches leading from different tunnels. The third clawed its way through a hole that opened up in the floor. The monsters jostled for space in the tiny chamber, clambering over each other. Their heads turned to the left and right, blindly questing for the source of the noise that had lured them out there just before Archlis had raised his spell.
"They have no eyes," whispered Gunderal.
"But look at the size of their raggedy ears," replied her sister.
"I'm noticing the size of those great long claws, myself," said Mumchance, putting his hand on Wiggles's head and pushing the little dog deeper into his pocket, as if that would protect her from the beasts. "And do you see all that ugly muscle in the tails? Must hit like a battering ram."
"What are they?" asked Ivy, not taking her eyes off the beasts circling in frustration before them. Blind as they were, the great monsters obviously knew that there was prey close.
"Destrachans," said Archlis. "Watch closely."
One of the creatures lifted its round muzzle to the ceiling. Although they could hear nothing on their side of the invisible wall created by Archlis, a deep vibration shook the ground. The other two beasts also lifted their round, toothless mouths, looking much like a malevolent pack of reptilian hounds howling at the moon. The stone of the ceiling changed almost immediately, melting into a cascade of sand that splattered across the destrachans. Balancing up on their powerful tails, first one and then the next of the beasts used their giant claws to pull themselves into the hole created in the ceiling.
Sanval watched Ivy as the last of the creatures disappeared into the hole in the ceiling, a final flick of its big brown tail sending down a small avalanche of pebbles and sand. Ivy chewed on one gloved knuckle-the most obvious sign of nerves that Sanval had seen her display.
"What did you call them?" she asked Archlis, as the magelord retrieved his Ankh from Osteroric.
"Destrachans. They are rare but not entirely unknown in such ruins as these. They probably trailed into the underground passages following a migration of kobolds, a favorite food of the beasts."
"So they are meat-eaters," stated Ivy. "I did notice that they have no teeth."
"That does not matter. They break their food down with waves of sound or pull it apart with those claws. They especially like intelligent food that they can play with before they devour it."
"If you consider kobolds intelligent." Zuzzara snorted, but Gunderal shushed her.
"Why not just hit them with one of those fire spells that you keep threatening us with?"
"Their cries can shatter metal," admitted Archlis, "and dissolve stone. Also, they seem to have incredibly tough hides."
"So you tried fire on them?"
"Not this group. But I have encountered this breed before. They are the bane of deep ruins."
"And you think they will destroy your Ankh before you have time to destroy them." Ivy was back to making statements, as if she were ticking off some mental list of disasters.
"It is a possibility that I would prefer not to consider," Archlis explained. "The problem with destrachans is that they are sensitive to the slightest sound. Any noise near their lair brings them out hunting."
Osteroric whispered to Sanval that was how he lost poor Hackermic, who caught the edge of the destrachan's scream. "His armor became a cloud of… what would you call it," he asked Norimgic. The bugbear's companion rolled his eyes and hissed back. "A cloud of scintillating dust," continued Osteroric. "I told you that Norimgic is a great poet. He is very good with words, even if he will not talk to humans. As for Hackermic, what the creatures did next to him was truly awful."
Ivy's discussion with Archlis was growing louder, which caused Osteroric and Norimgic to back farther away. Norimgic grunted something at Osteroric. "If she pitches her voice any higher," said Osteroric, "she will bring the shrieking beasties back. She is a very formidable female, says Norimgic."
"He is right," said Sanval, watching Ivy cock her head forward so she was standing almost nose to nose with Archlis, her gaze locked with the magelord's. It was a deliberate tactic, he realized-one that she had used to equal effect in the camp on the officers in the Thultyrl's Forty and that camel she had punched out of her tent. If she could get Archlis to back down even one step, she would be on top of him in a flash. But Archlis was more resolute than a Procampur officer or a dromedary. He did not budge.
"You must lure the destrachans away from their lair," Archlis said. "I am running out of bugbears, and they do not make good decoys. They are too slow and too easily caught."
"Poor Hackermic." Osteroric sighed.
"Why not just use that fancy spell of yours? Why not just sneak around them?" Ivy demanded.
"That fancy spell, as you call it, ends as soon as we pass through the barrier," Archlis said, waving a hand at the sparkles of light still shimmering in the air.
Gunderal gave a little sniff and whispered to her sister, "And he doesn't have any more charms like the one he just crushed. Have you noticed all his spells use other objects-no magic coming just from him."
Archlis frowned but ignored the sisters. "We are still far from where I need to be, yet the sounds that we just made drew the destrachans immediately."
"They are what forced you back the first time, not Fottergrim's hobgoblins," guessed Ivy.
"I retreated a strategic distance to consider my options," Archlis said in dignified tones, looking down his long nose at Ivy.
"Ran like a hare," said Mumchance to Kid, not trying to be quiet. Archlis ignored him too.
"Why us?" Ivy pressed the point.
"I have no more silence charms," Archlis admitted in a disgruntled tone.
Gunderal poked her sister in the ribs. Zuzzara patted her on the head in acknowledgment of her cleverness. Swatting her sister's hands away, Gunderal pushed her topknot straight and fluffed up her side curls.
"So I need a distraction-something to lure the destrachans away from this tunnel," said Archlis to Ivy. "You seem more intelligent than those hopeless hobgoblins or my bugbears. Destrachans like to play with their food. If you make the chase interesting, you can lead them a long way from here."
"Which helps you and doesn't help us. I fight for who pays me. Not for who is sure to get me killed. Same for all of us. Offer me something better than what he has." To Sanval's surprise, she pointed straight at him. He knew red-roof mercenaries sold their loyalty to the highest bidder, but still he had not expected so blatant an offering of betrayal from Ivy.