As Jerdren passed under a black-trunked tree, doglike creatures half her size and armed with blades threw themselves from the branches. Jerdren, startled, went down under two of them, his sword swinging, but he rolled and was on his feet almost at once. Keep men closed in from both sides, spears ready. Eddis set her shoulder against Blorys’ and drew back her bowstring. Mead pushed his way forward and, raising his hands, brought his palms together silently. Something flew from between them, something that scared the little brutes. With shrill cries, they turned and pelted uphill, past the cave entrances she could see, and vanished into the woods—leaving behind one dead comrade, a wounded one, and half a dozen roughly edged small swords.
“Kobolds,” Blorys breathed against her ear. “Nasty little things.”
Eddis nodded and eased the pressure on her string. Jerdren dispatched the wounded kobold with a swift stab, straightened his mail shirt, and looked at Mead, who signed, “Gone.”
Jerdren jerked his head toward the nearest dark opening and set out once again, Mead at his side, but when the man would have gone on in, Mead touched his arm and shook his head.
Willow entered the cave, then quickly came back out and gestured for them to join him.
“There are guards, back in a ways, but there is a deep pit just inside, where you humans will not be able to see it. Stay as close to the walls on either side as you can. It is perhaps four paces inside, and it will take four paces for you to pass it. I will lead,” he added.
“Good,” Jerdren said. “You with the lanterns next, archers after.”
Eddis clutched her bow and the arrow in her left hand and felt her way along the wall with the other. Once inside the cave, darkness was complete. Four steps, five. Her foot tilted out and down as the ground fell sharply away. She pressed against the wall and moved past as quickly as possible and kept going to make room for those behind, until someone’s still form brought her to a halt.
Guards, Willow had said, but wherever they were, they weren’t making any noise. Maybe they’d run when so many large, well-armed people came into the cave. Surely they had seen their visitors? Something off to her left was producing a stomach-turning stench, and she wondered if she was going to be able to deal with all this.
“Light!” Jerdren’s voice was painfully loud in the enclosed area, and a way ahead, something yelped. Three oil lamps were unshuttered. Eddis could make out armed kobolds frozen against the far wall, their eyes screwed shut tight. Before they could recover to fight or run, Jerdren charged forward, with a Keep spearman at his side. Two of the small guards went down in that sudden attack, and two others fled into darkness to the right, yelling shrilly. Eddis stayed back out of the way as Jerdren and the Keep man cut down the other two guards.
“They’re warning the others,” Jerdren said as he wiped his blade on one of his fallen enemy. “Leave the lanterns open. Wager they all know we’re here now.”
By that light, Eddis could make out rough-hewn walls that were wide enough for two grown men to walk abreast and higher than she could reach. The corridor the kobolds had taken ran fairly straight at a right angle to the entry and was very dimly lit, but she thought the far end might be blocked by a curtain. The other way, a heavy, dark cloth blocked the passage just across from the pit they’d come around. The pit, she could see, was at least as deep as she was tall, and it was spiked.
“We’re in luck,” Jerdren murmured. “It’s cowardly little kobolds, all right, and I don’t think they dug this cave. Ceilings would be lower.”
“Good,” Eddis said quietly. “I don’t fight well on my hands and knees. We’d better get after them, don’t you think? Keep in mind this place might hold a lot of them—enough they’ll be willing to turn and fight. Or they might have bigger allies back there.”
“Allies, huh,” Jerdren said.
“What’s that way?” Kadymus whispered. He was gazing at the curtained-off passage across the pit.
“Worry about it on the way out,” Jerdren replied. “Guards went that way.”
“Nothing there but very dead things,” Mead said, and his face twisted in disgust. “Dead things—and rats.”
Jerdren looked at him, astonished. “You wasted a spell for that?”
“I used my nose,” Mead replied shortly.
“Dead things,” Eddis said, as shortly. “He’s right, trust me. Let’s get moving, before they get a chance to plan something.”
They hurried down the long corridor after the kobolds. It was very quiet that way at the moment. When they reached the curtain, another gloomy passage branched to their left—a fairly short one. Eddis and the others waited while Willow and Kadymus slipped past the filthy cloth. They were back at once.
“Nothing in sight,” Willow said quietly. “We’ve come about halfway down this passage. There’s a chamber down there. I could see light, and there are kobolds down there. I don’t think the guards went that way. It’s too calm.”
“We don’t go on and leave anything behind to set an ambush for us when we’re going back out,” Eddis said.
“Let’s go,” Jerdren said shortly and slipped past the curtain. The others followed.
The passage itself was gloomy, but Eddis could make out what seemed to be a large chamber. The air was still and smelled of damp dirt, sweat, poorly cooked food, and something long dead. The last fortunately could not have been close by. Willow took back the lead, and the men carrying lanterns had them shuttered once more.
Eddis glanced at the priest, who now walked next to her. The man carried a mace, and his face was grim. Odd, she thought. He’d been so quiet and placid all the way to the Keep, shed once thought him half-witted.
Flerys was right at M’Baddah’s side, bow slung over her shoulder and a long knife in her hand.
Gods, I must have been half-witted myself, bringing a child here, the swordswoman thought. At least the child didn’t seem to think it odd. Eddis made sure her own bow was secure and drew her sword.
Panev suddenly eased to the fore and pointed.
“Evil is there, hiding,” the priest whispered, then yelled a warning as a dozen or more kobolds erupted from the chamber beyond. Most were armed with dagger-sized swords and long, slender metal pikes. A few wore bits of armor, but many—likely females—wore only ragged tunics and clung to even smaller creatures. Perhaps they were merely seeking a way of escape, but most of those with young held knives or daggers. Eddis blocked a long, wild swing and countered with a pivot and stab. The kobold howled in pain and tore itself from her blade, but staggered into the wall and fell. She brought the blade down across the back of its neck and swung at the next. Four long steps—and two more dead—brought her into the chamber itself, her back against the wall, bloody sword in one hand, long-bladed dagger in the other.
This chamber was wide and deep, the ceiling vaulted, and only a few tallow candles burned here, the smoke thick and cloying. Eddis was grateful when one of the Keep men opened his lantern, illuminating the place in all its dreadful fouled state. A few kobolds—smaller and half-naked—knelt mid-chamber, clinging to each other, and these were guarded by females.
Many of the fighters were still trying to cut their way through the company—seeking simply to flee or perhaps hoping to escape with the females and young. Several of the Keep men, like M’Baddah, were using bows to bring the creatures down from a distance. Eddis decided to stay where she was, in the doorway, sword ready to bring down any who made it past the archers. As she freed up a throwing knife, Blorys came over to set himself at her left shoulder. Three of the Keep men ran into the chamber, boar spears ready to throw.
“Arrow!” M’Baddah’s voice rose above the noise, and the spearmen ducked, staying low as the outlander, his son, and Flerys shot together. One arrow buried itself to the fletchings in the nearest kobold, and the other two wounded their targets, though not badly. The other kobolds abandoned their fallen comrades and retreated toward the far wall.