"Birgis?" Dannelle whispered. "Galen, where's the dog?"
Thinking only that I'd be damned before I lost yet another member of the party, never considering the danger it could bring, I reached in my pocket, pushed aside the gloves, and wrapped my fingers around the dog whistle. Placing it to my lips, I blew three short, brief bursts into the stagnant air of the cavern. At the opposite end of the enormous room, the sound of rustling wings and of wild, pained chittering arose as the tenebrals stirred uneasily, alarmed at the noise we could not hear.
Something belched at my feet. Birgis appeared out of nowhere, snuffling at my shoes. I stroked him behind the ears and seated myself on a low, rounded stalagmite.
"Well, where do we go from here, juggler?" Ramiro asked aggressively, leaning back against a huge stone drapery. A silence followed, in which we heard the flapping wings of a bat or tenebral-or something-dodging through the stalactites at the far edge of the light. "Here we are, half lost down a crack in the earth, not even close enough to our destination to draw enemies."
Dannelle stirred angrily.
"It is grand of you to be so concerned about enemies at this juncture, Ramiro," she observed ironically. "Nonetheless, I think what we do is up to the leader. Who, if my understanding is correct, is not you."
As if to second her words, Shardos gestured in my direction.
"I believe the choice is Sir Galen's," he murmured.
All eyes-even the blank ones of Shardos-turned toward me. I looked around me, then behind me, where Birgis sat on a flat rock, scratching his ear and staring simply and expectantly.
I looked up, pretending to be mulling a great decision, though in fact I was searching frantically, desperately, for anything that would make sense of this underground labyrinth.
A trio of tenebrals fluttered overhead. They circled rapidly, began to descend and, seeming to sense the presence of the lantern, dodged its light and warmth in a blind rush back into the darkness toward the far end of the cavern. Off in the dark, the large room filled with the rustle of innumerable wings.
Through the frayed cloth of the pouch in which I had placed it, I saw a faint light as the brooch began to glow.
Chapter XVII
By following the waxing light of the brooch, we found our way over stalagmites across the dark, vaulted chamber. This cavernous world was chaotic, grotesque, as if patched together by formations of rock.
Shardos walked beside me, Dannelle and Oliver directly behind us, and Ramiro tailing them, straddling the stalagmites perilously and squeezing and finagling past cornet and rock formation. The dog Birgis brought up the rear; snorting and whuffling merrily.
Ahead of us, the tenebrals fluttered and dove, glowing with an unearthly light like huge, darting fireflies. Soon their presence became a part of the environs, beneath our notice or beyond it, so that when Shardos cried out and pointed above us, 1 had almost forgotten them.
Above us, a host of the small creatures-ten, perhaps, or even as many as fifteen-circled away from us and poured into a wide tunnel twenty feet up the wall of the cavern, losing themselves once more in the dark.
"That's it," Dannelle said calmly, confidently. "A way out of here foretold by the stones in your hand."
She moved against me for warmth in the cold, cavernous room, and for a moment, I was greatly afraid for all of us.
It was not heartening, following the godseyes, when following them before had led us on a trail into ambush-an ambush that had cost me my brother Alfric. It was all I had to go by, though, the strange and ominous directions of the light in the gems, for I had burrowed us to a crucial point in our journey.
The prospects were not cheerful when it became obvious that there was still some rugged climbing to do before we put this underground chamber behind us. The large room we had crossed ended in a sheet of yellowing limestone, wet and glistening in the torchlight, as though a waterfall had frozen in midplunge before us. Atop the cascade, some twenty feet or so above our heads, lay the black, gaping mouth of yet another tunnel. Through it the tenebrals swarmed like a river of unhealthy light.The stone in front of as had a certain beauty, but it was a beauty that only a mountain goat could have stopped to appreciate.
Resignedly, I held out my hand for whatever passed for climbing gear in this group.
Suddenly, inexplicably, Birgis growled low and menacingly, the rumble beginning deep in his chest and passing swiftly through his bared teeth.
The juggler was moving before the dog's hackles rose. Deftly he slipped a rock in his sling and pivoted, sending the stone hurtling to the margins of light, where it struck the first of the seven creatures emerging from the darkness. The thing whined, staggered, and kept coming. The others came after it. Uncanny, unnaturally white, as swift as illusion, they darted into the light, cluttering and snapping the air.
Ramiro, Oliver, and I drew swords.
"Vespertiles!" Shardos breathed.
And they were on us.
The first of them surged by the juggler with a brief, high- pitched cry and barreled into Ramiro. There was a dull, leathery sound as the two collided and tumbled into the stone cascade. I turned back to face the vespertiles and saw nothing but teeth and hot red glittering eyes as several rose from below me, one climbing up under my tunic, thrashing its way to my throat.
I cried out and tried to push it down, but it scrabbled up my chest, its claws scraping and tearing through my shirt, and then we were fighting under the same ragged skin.
I looked up, and Oliver was rushing toward me, knife glinting in his hand.
"Don't move, Galen!" he cried as the dagger plunged into the front of my tunic, and the vespertile spasmed, stiffened, and softly fell out of my clothing. A blue spot widened around the place Oliver's blade had torn my shirt.
I had time to raise my sword. In a stride, I was next to Shardos, who was grappling with another of the creatures. I slipped my arm between them, shielding Shardos's face, and sunk my sword into the thorax of the vespertile. The blade wrenched in my hand, and I brought it up through bone and gristle and entrail as the monster on the end of my weapon writhed and shrieked, its scream ascending into shrill, barely audible sounds and finally into silence.
I set my foot to its neck and pulled my sword from its body in a swift, grating movement, bringing a course of thin blue fluid up the blood gutter.
I turned to see one of them envelop Dannelle's head, the outline of her face faintly visible through the veins and translucency of its enfolded wings. Swiftly she brought up her dagger, splitting the wing's leather. The creature shrieked and fluttered from her grasp, and Birgis leapt onto its back, grabbing its neck in those long, badger-breaking jaws and worrying it back and forth until it was limp and still.
Oliver and Ramiro drew their swords out of the third vespertile as blood streamed from the ragged cut on the big Knight's forehead. Their companions put to dagger and sword, the remaining monsters turned and scurried back into the darkness, some of them dragging ruined wings.
By the time I had caught my breath, Dannelle was already walking confidently to the foot of the formation as though someone had appointed her mountaineer. She tested its surface for holes, for shelves, for purchase.
"Just what do you have in mind, Dannelle?" I asked in my most commanding voice. She did not heed me. Up the rock face she scrambled, and though she was no monkey, no goat, but still a dazzling girl brought up in luxury, in social grace, she had managed somehow to become a more than adequate climber.