As they moved, he got the distinct sensation they weren't alone in the tunnel. Something else was there-something hidden. Several times, he looked over his shoulder but saw no one. He kept his hand tight on Vindicator's hilt.
Finally, Lorien passed into the chamber where they'd seen the blue light. Shadowbane saw her stiffen, then creep cautiously toward something he could not see.
He picked up his pace, heedless of making sounds.
The chamber was wide and roughly square, lit by luminous pink and blue mushrooms. It had partly collapsed some years ago, and great shards of rock stuck out of the formerly smooth floor like stalagmites. A second entrance gaped in the west wall. The chamber was otherwise plain, except for two bodies in the northeast corner. They looked whole, though he could not be certain from his distance.
Strange. Though the room smelled thickly of blood and animal spoor, he saw no beasts, displaced or otherwise, that might have attacked the wounded adventurers. That was odd-why would monsters leave two perfectly good bodies lying in the chamber? Why, if they'd been somehow warded off, had they not chased the wounded and weak adventurers south?
A crude jest around the ante table was that one only needed to run faster than one's slowest delving companion.
He saw his answer, then: against the far wall were two bloody, ashen outlines of creatures like great cats. Shadowbane wondered what manner of magic had done that.
"All's well," Lorien was saying. "I'm here to help-not to hurt."
Shadowbane turned, but he could see only that Lorien was approaching someone. He heard another voice-younger, also female-speaking words in a tongue he didn't know. She sounded terrified and, he realized, familiar. He couldn't place the voice.
"Wait!" Lorien said. "Let me help you!"
He saw a flash of blue light, and then the speaker-whatever it had been-was gone. Shadowbane peered closer and saw Lorien kneeling to examine a blood-stained woman, heavy in build and wide of face, who lay in a puddle of blood-spattered robes. Something was odd about her skin, too-it seemed puckered and red as though burned by fire.
Lorien gave her a kiss of healing, and the wizard murmured wordlessly.
Then the back of Shadowbane's neck prickled, and he knew they were not alone.
Lorien looked up, though Shadowbane thought it impossible that she'd sensed him. She looked instead deeper into the cavern, where a short, wiry figure in a black robe perched atop a rock, conremplating her with his chin in his hands. The light of the mushrooms bathed his face in a cruel, fiendish light: Rath.
Shadowbane drew his sword halfway.
"Well," said the dwarf. "Now that-was impressive. How did you hear me, I wonder?"
"I have a guardian, to serve me at need," Lorien said with a defiant toss of her curls.
At first, Shadowbane thought she must be speaking of him, but then he saw it, finally, in the light shed by the mushrooms. A shadow, unattached to anything else, seemingly of a tall and broad man, flitted across the floor, moving fast toward Rath.
Rath calmly raised a hand and spoke a word in a tongue Shadowbane did not know. Light flared from a ring he wore, bathing the room in a white glow. Lorien shielded her eyes.
The shadow hesitated, then fled into the darkness, and Shadowbane saw it no more.
"Simple enough," the dwarf said. "When one is prepared."
Rath stepped toward Lorien, his hand on his slim sword.
The priestess backed away, spreading her arms in front of the wounded woman.
Shadowbane cursed. He knew revealing himself was unwise, yet he couldn't just stand and watch. He stepped into the room, hand on his sword hilt. "Hold."
Lorien looked up at his appearance and her eyes widened. She gaped.
Rath hardly looked surprised. "Ah," he said. "Come to see if I shall fight you this time?"
Shadowbane drew Vindicator, whose length burst into silvery white flames. "Face me or leave this place," he said. "This lady is under my protection."
Rath eased his hand away from his sword hilt, but Shadowbane could see the violence in his eyes. "Very well," said Rath. Unassumingly, he walked forward.
Shadowbane drew back into a high guard, ready to slash down hard enough to cut Rath in two, but the dwarf just ambled toward him as though unaware of the danger. Shadowbane couldn't help feeling a little unnerved, but instinct seized him and he struck.
Rath stepped aside, fluid as water, seized Shadowbane's grasp on the sword, and elbowed him in the face. The blow would have been hard enough to shatter Shadowbane's nose and cheekbones, if not for his helm.
Stunned, Shadowbane staggered back, empty-handed, and the dwarf admired Vindicator in his hands. The sword's silvery glow diminished but did not go out.
"How amusing," Rath said, as power pulsed along the length of the sword, "that you think yourself worthy of me."
Shadowbane's helmet was ringing, or maybe that was his ears.
"Here," said the dwarf, lifting the blade in his bare hands. "Yours, I think."
Not thinking, the knight groggily reached out to take it.
Rath leaped, twisted over the sword, and kicked him once, twice, in the face. Shadowbane fell to one knee, while Vindicator clattered to the stone near Lorien.
The dwarf barked a laugh, then turned to Lorien. "Now, woman," he said. "We shall-"
But Lorien had seized the sword and tossed it toward Shadowbane.
The knight was already running forward, and he seized the blade out of the air. Rath leaped, and only his speed kept Shadowbane's slash from taking one of his legs. The dwarf landed two paces distant and Shadowbane pressed, slashing and cutting high and low. Rath ducked and weaved and snaked aside, dodging each swing.
Then Shadowbane saw irritation flash across the dwarf s face, signaling that the duel no longer amused him. The dwarf dropped low, knees bent, hands at his stomach. Shadowbane pulled Vindicator back to block.
Putting all the force in his compact, powerful body into one blow, Rath slammed the heels of his palms into the flat of Shadowbane's sword as rhough it were a shield. The blade slammed into Shadowbane's chest, and the force sent him back through the air and onto one knee. As though with a great maul, the dwarf had knocked him a full dagger toss away.
His face calm, Rath looked down at his black robe, where Vindicator had cut a single slash below his simple wool belt. He fingered the cut, frowning.
Shadowbane coughed and levered himself up on the sword.
"You yet stand." Rath rose, a smile on his smooth, handsome face. "Good."
Calling on the power of his boots to enhance his leap, Shadowbane lunged, crossing the distance in one great step, and slashed down, as though to cut his foe in two.
Vindicator sliced only air and sparked off the stone as Rath leaped. The dwarf wrapped his legs around Shadowbane's head, rwisted, and tossed the knight back-this time even farther. Shadowbane rolled as he landed and kicked onto his feet.
The dwarf landed lightly and beckoned with one languorous hand.
Shadowbane obliged. He darted forward, sword reversed as though for a high thrust. Rath sidestepped, just as Shadowbane expected. Exploding out of the feint, he spun toward the dwarf, slashing out and across rather than thrusting.
He had not expected the dwarf to be so fast. Rath ducked and, capitalizing on his low gravity, plowed into Shadowbane, driving him out of his spin and onto the ground.
The knight tried to rise, but Rath leaped onto the flat of Vindicator, which lay across his chest. He shifted his feet, caught the sword between his toes, and kicked it away, where it skittered into the shadows, its light still blazing.
Rath's eyes weren't amused. He bent down, pulling back his fist to crush Shadowbane's head against the stone. "Enough of this," he said.
"I agree," said a feminine voice from behind them.
Rath and Shadowbane looked, and there stood Lorien Dawnbringer, divine radiance shrouding her. If she had been lovely before, she was now truly beautiful-fantastically so, glowing with a force and grace not given to mortals. Shadowbane could not look directly at her.