Grypht stood patiently while the paladin reached out with his shen sight to try to determine what sort of evil he sensed. “It’s too far off to see clearly, but it’s so powerful and dark that I think it must be a minion of Moander’s,” the saurial said.
“Not surprising,” the wizard said. “Let us hope it is not the bard whom you see.”
Dragonbait nodded in agreement. He didn’t even want to think about how terrible it would be to try to convince Alias they couldn’t trust Nameless, that they may even have to destroy him.
The paladin stepped into the cleft between the rocks. The wizard squeezed in behind him, and together they hurried after the others.
The stench of the orc warren soon grew strong enough for even Alias, Akabar, and Zhara to detect. They proceeded with more caution. Even Breck, who could have followed his nose directly to their lair, remained close to the light of the Finder’s stone.
“They hate sunlight,” the ranger offered, “and they can sometimes be frightened off with a very bright magical light.”
“Like a light stone?” Zhara said, pulling one from the robe of her pocket. The damp walls around them glittered in the bright light.
“Yes,” Breck nodded. “Keep it hidden for now, though, and spring it on them suddenly. The surprise will add to their fear.”
Zhara pocketed the light stone.
The party finally reached the entry way to a cave that reeked of burnt flesh and smoke. Tiny pricks of red light indicated coals still burning in the dark room ahead. Alias held up the finder’s stone to see into the room.
It looked as if the center of the ceiling had crashed into the room, and it appeared to have happened very recently. Several dead orcs lay about the floor under piles of rock. Others lay on the ground, felled by some mysterious magic that left no mark. Dead animals lay smoldering over dying charcoal fires.
“If this is the work of the Nameless Bard,” Breck said, “I’m impressed.”
Alias said nothing. She had done her share of killing, but it was impossible not to notice how young some of the dead orcs were. If causing such destruction was the only way to save his life, she could understand. What she couldn’t understand was how Nameless could have been so foolish as to come this close to an orc warren to begin with.
Breck leaned over and yanked a leather thong off the neck of a dead orc. He held it out for Alias to examine. On the end was an ear—an elven ear. “This is the orc tribe of the Torn Ear,” the ranger said. “They’ve been preying on small caravans in the dales for twenty years now. The Dalesmen have tried sending out caravans full of adventurers disguised as merchants, but the Torn Ear always seem to know if a caravan is authentic. Once they’ve cut off their victims’ ears, they loot only the most precious treasures, leaving the rest with the corpses for the crows to pick over. They’re expert at covering their trail, too. No one has ever been able to track them to their lair. This season they’ve attacked nearly three times as many caravans as in any other year. Lord Mourngrym has sent out two parties to search for their warren. Neither group came back.”
The ranger laid the thong with the elven ear back down on the chest of the fallen orc. “Well, let’s find your Nameless Bard. I’d like to meet him,” Breck said.
The beacon light from the finder’s stone led them around the collapsed ceiling. They had to stoop now to pass through the edges of the room where the ceiling remained intact. Grypht remained behind, waiting for Dragonbait to return with a report of how far it was to an area that was open enough for the larger saurial to move through comfortably.
They came to another tunnel about fifteen feet wide, leading away from the main room of the orc warren. The voices of orcs drifted down the tunnel to their ears. Knowing danger lay in that direction made no difference. The finder’s stone indicated that Nameless was in the same direction, so they couldn’t avoid it.
The tunnel’s ceiling was higher here, so Dragonbait returned to tell Grypht. Breck paced impatiently until Dragonbait reappeared. “Well, where’s that lumbering wizard friend of yours?” he asked the paladin in a whisper.
A giant finger tapped Breck on the head. Grypht had stepped through his dimension door directly behind the ranger and crept up on him in the darkness.
“Uh … let’s go,” Breck said sheepishly.
Grypht held the ranger back by the collar of his leather armor and addressed Alias for a moment.
Alias rolled her eyes with annoyance, but she translated the wizard’s words faithfully. “Grypht says we should wait for Zhara to grant us Tymora’s blessing.”
Breck and the others stood by while Zhara pulled out a vial of holy water and began chanting for the goddess of luck to grant them her favors. As the priestess poured the water on the ground, Alias sighed. The swordswoman had seen priests heal people and cure curses, but when it came to bestowing blessings on people, there was no visible proof to convince her it actually did any good. Still, as Dragonbait constantly reminded her, it wouldn’t hurt her to give the priestess’s blessing the benefit of the doubt.
Grypht turned to Alias again. This time the swordswoman agreed wholeheartedly with the saurial wizard’s suggestion.
“Stay behind Grypht,” Alias told Zhara, repeating the saurial wizard’s message.
The priestess glared at Alias. “I will not! I will fight at my husband’s side. I do not need additional protection. I am wearing your old plate mail beneath my robe,” she argued.
“You swing a mean flail,” Alias said, “but we’ll need your skill as a healer again before the battle is over. Besides, Grypht is vulnerable when he’s casting spells. He needs someone to cover his back. That’s you.”
Akabar addressed a few words to Zhara in Turmish. Zhara sighed and nodded.
Breck and Alias took the lead, creeping up the passage, and Dragonbait and Akabar followed closely behind. Grypht hung back some distance, saving his magic to deal with whatever sort of evil minion of Moander ruled this place. He kept Zhara behind him, hoping to hide and shield her from anything that might rush toward them.
A hundred feet up the passage, Alias and Breck halted. Another thirty feet ahead of them were a dozen large orcs clearing away a pile of rubble. It appeared that the ceiling had collapsed in the tunnel just as it had in the main room. As they watched, a set of orc legs disappeared down a hole in the rubble, and another orc prepared to follow.
“Greater evil lies beyond the wall,” Dragonbait said softly to Alias.
“So does Nameless,” Alias replied in saurial, pointing out how the beacon emanating from the finder’s stone was striking the pile of rubble.
Breck, who couldn’t hear their conversation, asked, “What are we waiting for? Torn Ear!” he shouted loudly. “Prepare to die!”
The dozen orcs at the cave-in whirled around with drawn battle-axes or loaded crossbows. Breck leaped forward with his sword in one hand and his dagger in the other. He beheaded one orc with a single swing of his sword and sent another one stumbling backward to avoid being jabbed by the ranger’s flashing dagger.
Two crossbow bolts whizzed past Breck’s head, missing him narrowly, but a third buried itself in his chest. Three orcs with axes surrounded the ranger and began hacking at him. Alias sliced down one orc who had foolishly turned his own back on her to position himself at the ranger’s back. Then she and Dragonbait took position on either side of Breck. Having reestablished a defensive line, the swordswoman and the paladin were careful to hold the line across the width of the corridor so that no orcs could break through and engage Akabar as he cast his spells.
From behind her, Alias could hear the southern mage raise his voice in a Turmish chant. In a moment, two pairs of magic missiles whizzed past her shoulders, burying themselves in the chests of two orcs armed with crossbows. The orcs’ crossbows fired wildly, hitting the ceiling, and the orcs fell to the ground, dead.