"Imoen!" Abdel shouted in warning, but the girl was already in the process of jumping backward.
The madman hadn't jumped off the table—he'd been pulled off. Ropelike tentacles covered in a viscous slime hung from the ceiling and wrapped themselves around the suddenly stiff, unmoving inmate. Abdel, Jaheira, Imoen, and the minotaur all looked up at once and saw the source of the tentacles. The minotaur growled something in some guttural language.
Hanging from the ceiling, upside down over the madman's table, was a huge wormlike beast made of fleshy, spherical sacks. Its head was shaped like an onion, and from it sprouted a blossom of tentacles.
"What in all Nine Hells is that?" Imoen said, stepping quickly backward to get out from under the thing.
"Carrion crawler," Abdel, Jaheira, and the minotaur all answered simultaneously.
Abdel was surprised by, of all things, the height of the ceiling. Thinking back, the minotaur had jumped over him. The creature was eight feet tall, and Abdel seven, so the ceiling must have been far above them. He could see a hole in the wall near one corner of the gloomy ceiling where the giant beast had obviously come through. He'd heard of these things. They scoured the deepest caverns and dungeons cleaning up the remains of dead carcasses and the aftereffects of battles. This one had obviously mistaken the madman for a casualty.
"Me," the madman grunted, his jaw tightening around the words, "help."
The minotaur jumped onto the table and brought its battle-axe around in a long overhand arc. One of the tentacles dropped onto the table with a wet smack, and the minotaur deftly avoided being splashed with any of the paralyzing poison that coated it. The carrion crawler let out a hiss and withdrew into the dark opening near the ceiling, dragging the paralyzed madman in with it.
"I won't need your help," the minotaur said. "Go on about your quest."
The bull-man didn't wait to see if Abdel and the women complied. It jumped up, grabbed the edge of the opening with one hand and was through it before Abdel could even get to the table.
Jaheira stopped him from following with a hand on his arm. "Suldanessellar," she said. "Irenicus."
Abdel looked at her and nodded, then looked once more at the dark opening, and said, "You understood those backward directions?"
"I didn't," Imoen admitted.
"I think so," answered Jaheira.
"Then let's go," said Abdel.
Chapter Thirteen
The creatures intended to eat them alive, Abdel knew that much for sure. What he didn't know was what exactly they were or how he was going to kill them.
"What are these things?" Imoen shrieked. "And how are we going to kill them?"
The girl nimbly climbed to the top of a smooth stalagmite, deftly avoiding the snapping jaws of the bizarre beast that was chasing her.
Abdel was only paying marginal attention to Imoen's predicament. He was in one of his own. One of the creatures lunged at him, and Abdel dodged to the left, bringing his hand up fast and catching the monster under its snapping bottom jaw and pushing it away before it could bite his face off.
The monsters had come upon them during one of their short, infrequent rest stops as they continued to follow the winding, seemingly endless tunnel deep underground. The things looked like snakes or thick-bodied worms, but to all appearances they were made of stone. Their odd skin was hard—Abdel's broadsword barely chipped at them the few times he'd managed a successful strike—and had the color and texture of the surrounding rock. Though they moved in a snakelike undulation, they appeared to get most of their mobility from two vaguely humanlike arms that sprouted from their serpentine bodies just past their nublike heads. Cold black eyes—two of them—gleamed in the light of Imoen's makeshift torch. Below the eyes was a proportionately huge mouth lined with triangular teeth. Abdel could tell by the way the light glinted off those fangs that they were razor sharp.
Jaheira's voice echoed loudly through the cavern. Abdel understood only the occasional word. He glanced at her as he spun around to toss the rockworm away from him, and he could see her standing still, eyes closed, chanting what must have been some prayer to her goddess. Abdel turned away from her just in time to see the creature snap at his heels. He jumped up fast enough to avoid it but came down on the thing's rounded form. His foot slipped off, and he splayed his arms out to break his fall. The monster twitched away as Abdel hit the stone floor. His ears rang, and he wasn't sure if Jaheira had stopped praying or he'd gone deaf.
He looked up, and Jaheira had opened her eyes. Another of the monsters snapped at her, and she twitched away. There was something about the movement that looked wrong to Abdel. Jaheira moved just a little faster than he'd known her capable of in the past, and the monster seemed to move more slowly than his companions. Abdel didn't have time to mull over this strange feeling. His own monstrous opponent was coming at him again.
Abdel rolled to the right, and the thing shot past him as if it were suddenly struck blind. Abdel smiled at the thing's show of weakness and hit it hard on the top of its head with the pommel of his sword. The thing let out a shrill whistle that Abdel instinctively knew was a sign of pain. He took advantage of this opportunity and jumped onto its back. The thing was as long as Abdel was tall, and when the sellsword wrapped a strong arm around it, he could feel no warmth. The thing was actually made of living stone.
There was a pained, all-too-human scream from behind him that sent a chill down Abdel's spine. One of his companions had fallen. The scream had an edge of panic in it that Abdel recognized all too well. Whoever it was was sure she was dead.
"Imoen!" Jaheira screamed, then grunted when the worm she was still just trying to avoid lunged at her again and almost found its mark.
Abdel dragged the blade of his broadsword across the rockworm's eyes and was happy to see them burst open and pour out a dark gray, watery putrescence. A sharp, tangy smell pervaded the tunnel, and the thing convulsed hard once in Abdel's grip. He let it buck him off and made use of the momentum to get some distance from the thing. He hit a warm, wet spot on the floor and slid a bit farther than he wanted, but he recovered in time to see the thing blindly lunge at him. Abdel fed the creature the length of his blade and was satisfied when the shower of charcoal blood was followed by the rockworm's final death spasm.
"Abdel!" Jaheira called sharply. "Mine!"
The sellsword burst to his feet, yanking the sword out of the dead creature's gullet and turning in the direction of Jaheira's voice. She was backing away, nimbly dodging the rockworm's leaden strikes. Abdel rushed it and slashed with a backhand motion in an effort to take its head off. The worm twisted, anticipating the attack, but didn't move fast enough to avoid it. The prayer Jaheira had offered up was the obvious source of this welcome advantage.
Abdel's sword lodged into the rocky flesh of the creature's bottom jaw. It too shrieked in pain, and Abdel grunted, smiling, as he sawed into the thick hide. The rockworm's lower jaw came off with a pop and a torrent of gray fluid.
It tossed its head back and to the side, and Abdel, overextended for the cut, couldn't get out of the way in time. The thing's bleeding head smashed into Abdel's broad chest and knocked him back hard.
Abdel, dazed, looked up and saw nothing but a dim yellow haze. Something seemed to pop in his chest and a wave of pain shook his body.
"Imoen," Jaheira said quietly, her voice quavering with concern.
Abdel stood, his vision starting to come back, and stepped over the twitching, jawless rockworm as it finished dying. He ran and stumbled at the same time to Jaheira's side, coming around a stalagmite. He could hear more of the rockworms skittering in the darkness. Next to the base of the stone column, Imoen was lying, gasping for breath like a drowning woman. Jaheira kneeled over her and began praying. She held the tiny rock she always kept close to her in one hand, and her other hand slid deftly across the wound, smearing bubbling crimson blood over Imoen's shredded chest.