“Quick look around in here, folks,” Jerdren ordered. “There’s bound to be wealth here, but no sense getting killed by smoke trying to find it. You, by the door—the smoke may bring guards, so you keep a good watch. Impressive, Mead,” he added.
The elf mage smiled. “You said to slow them. It seems to have worked.”
“I found the mechanism for the secret door,” Panev said. “The passage beyond is dark, and I think it is blocked not too far on by another such door.”
“We better check that,” Jerdren said, and he sent Blorys and two of the armsmen to guard the priest. They were back in short order.
“Beyond the second door is a very evil place,” the priest said. “I sense twisting passages, lost souls, and a reek I only encountered once before. I think there is a minotaur.”
“Minotaur!” Jerdren’s eyes lit.
Eddis hauled him around by the shoulders and gave him a good shake. “I’ve heard about them, Jers. Damned few of us would survive an encounter with a minotaur, and that’s if we got far enough into the maze to find it! We’re not done with these bugbears and any prisoners they’re holding. Or did you forget?”
Jerdren sighed, shook his head.
“The smoke’s starting to clear out, but we’re still at a dead end passage, because I am not counting that secret door. I say a very quick search here and we’re gone before we’re trapped.”
“What—by half a dozen bugbears?” Jerdren demanded. “We’re better than that.”
Eddis scowled, and he turned to shuffle his feet through the things on the floor as he moved toward one of the tables.
“Her’s got gold earrings,” Flerys said, pointing at the dead female with her spear. It was the first thing Jerdren had heard her say all day.
“So she has. You take them, girl, and put them somewhere safe,” Jerdren said. He abandoned the table and went over to where Mead was slowly moving, his eyes searching along a high shelf.
“Thought so,” the mage said. “There—a chest, see it?”
It proved heavy, and Mead insisted they use care getting it down. Kadymus broke the lock, to reveal a heavy, pale statue.
“Worth something,” Jerdren said, “but too heavy to bother with, leave it. Look—there’s a pile of coins under it. We’ll divide that for carrying. What’s that leather tube, Mead?”
The mage drew it out and turned it carefully in his hands, then peered down the open end. “Potions for healing. Good! They’ll be needed.”
Jerdren waited while the party divided up the silver, then led the way back out. “Quiet here?” he asked the men on guard, and one of them nodded.
Back down the stairs, and along the main passage. It was quiet here at the moment, and Jerdren could smell smoke from the chief’s chambers. Fortunately, it didn’t seem to have alerted anyone else up this way. Where the long passage ended, he could make out low voices off to his right.
The other direction, a natural cave sloped up, heading roughly north and out of sight around a bend. Willow went a ways along the slope and stood listening, then came back.
“There are more bugbears that way, but not close, and I believe there is a closed door between them and us. Sleeping quarters, I would say.”
Blorys came back from the right-hand passage. “Steps heading down, just up there. I can hear guards down there and someone moaning.”
“That’ll be the dungeons, then,” Jerdren said quietly. “Leave the barracks for the time being.”
Panev went ahead, hands clasped together and lips moving silently, the rest following. At the base of the stairs, the priest stood aside to let the others pass. Jerdren paused while they were still in shadow. There was no door.
It’s a dungeon, all right, Jerdren thought. You couldn’t mistake the sounds or smells of such a place. He could see guards now: five bugbears sitting at a table right in front of the entry, though they weren’t watching it. Jerdren quietly drew his sword and started forward, the others right on his heels.
Just inside the chamber, he slapped his sword against the wall, and shouted, “Who wants to fight?”
The bugbears leaped to their feet, catching up spears and throwing them in one lightning-fast move. Jerdren dropped to one knee, swearing through his teeth as bruised bone protested.
Behind him, someone cried out, and Eddis yelled, “Are you mad, Jers? No, Flerys—behind me and stay close, do it now!”
She brushed past him then, knocking him off balance and back into the wall, leaping out of the way, sword swinging in a shining arc as M’Baddah’s bowstring twanged and one of the black-fletched arrows Mead had found buried itself in a hairy shoulder. The bugbear roared a curse and clutched at it but couldn’t pull it free.
Spears were flying both ways. Jerdren shoved to his feet, got a two-handed grip on his sword-hilt, and settled in next to Eddis, hacking and slicing, though so far all he’d done was leave cuts in poorly tanned, hardened leather armor. He ducked as one of the brutes jabbed at him with a thick spear, slammed his blade down across the exposed forearm. Blood ran down the bugbear’s fingers and pooled on the floor, and it lost its grip on the spear. M’Baddah’s arrows finished it in short order.
A crossbow quarrel pinned one bugbear to the wall by its hand. The beast snarled and strove to tear it free, but too late. Eddis stabbed high, plunging the sword deep into the female bugbear’s throat, angling up. The creature sagged, quarrel tearing through its hand as it went down. A little blood trickled from the gaping wound, then stopped.
“Good one!” Jerdren shouted. Eddis rolled her eyes and backed away from the entry, drawing Flerys with her.
“Move!” she ordered him. “You want to get pinned by one of your own spearmen?”
Another cry of pain from up the hallway, then Mead strode into the open, lips moving and hands out before him. A spear whistled by his head, barely missing his ear, but he stood his ground and brought his hands together.
It was the same spell he’d used on the bandits, Jerdren thought, but in this enclosed place, the result was incredibly bright and loud. The bugbears were caught dead center. By the time the light faded, all the guards lay unmoving, and the air was filled with the stench of burning hair. Sword at the ready, Jerdren moved forward to check the bodies, but Mead shook his head.
Brief silence, broken by a sudden clamor of voices from the far ends of the chamber. Men, Jerdren thought—but other things, too.
“All right, people! We’ve got the guards down, and we’ve got locked cells at both ends of the room here! Anyone hurt back there, get help from our priest here, or Mead, or M’Baddah. Kadymus, I need you!”
He was aware of Eddis’ sneer as the young thief swaggered into the dungeon and edged around the dead guards to search for keys.
Willow joined Jerdren, who was looking up and down the long, narrow chamber. “Panev’s silence spell is holding. Any guards up that slope won’t have heard anything.”
“Good. We’ll move fast anyway,” Jerdren said. “We don’t know when they change guards here, and we’ll be slowed by our injured and what hurt men we find here.”
The priest nodded and went back to keep watch partway up the stairs, taking two of the archers with him.
“Kadymus, keys?” Jerdren added tersely.
“Ahead of you,” the thief announced and handed over a heavy ring of them before producing his bundle of lock-picks.
“You go to the right, boy, but wait until Blor or Eddis checks that pen before you open it. I’ll take the other. Two of you Keep spearmen come with me, in case there’s trouble.”
He strode down the passage and peered into the gloomy pen. The air was fetid, close, as though the straw littering the floor hadn’t been changed in a long time. There were several beings inside, chained together, but the only light was down by the entry, so he couldn’t make out much else.