"And it may be the last thing you see," Tolem replied.
Chapter 36
A second fireball sailed out of the passage and into the chamber. Again the Neidar, Aghar, and kender ducked behind the tilted stone slabs of the broken tables.
"Zow! That was a great shot! Wonder how hard it is to send something down a passage?" Trap asked. He was not seeking an answer from the dwarves. He picked up a small, jagged rock, set his hoopak against the stone column that had once been the leg of a table, and drew back the pouch. The missile went sailing and disappeared into the darkness of the passage.
The reaction was an entirely human curse, the voice full of pain, surprise, and outrage.
"You hit the wizard!" Tolem said, giving Trap a look filled with respect. The dwarf fitted a quarrel to his cross-bow and shot down the dark passage. A goblin screamed.
"There must be a lot of them bunched together," Ripple said. "We'll hit something every time." She set her whip-pik and nocked a small arrow into the loop. Her arrow and five dwarf quarrels entered the dark hole of the passage at once. They heard cries of pain and howls but no one would know which had found a target. Volley after volley of dwarf quarrels, Ripple's small arrows, and Trap's stones went sailing down the passage and by the sound, each one found some target, but they did not hear another cry from the wizard.
"He probably sent his minions on ahead of him," Tolem said. They all knew wizards relied on their arts, not on weapons. It was reasonable to assume that the magic-user was either shielded by his arts or his companions.
The last volley brought no cries of pain. They heard nothing, no footsteps, no shuffling, no rattle of weapons. The complete silence was as eerie as the idea of enemies in the darkness.
"Go get white robe," Umpth suggested. "Him fight black wizard."
"No," the tallest of the dwarves, who was closest to the gully dwarves, grabbed Umpth's arm. "Leave him alone right now."
"Yes, leave him be," Tolem said. "I don't hold with magic, but that creature with you is some sort of fiend. If I understood their talk, they're trying to send it back to its own world?" He was asking the question of Ripple.
"That's what they want to do. That and get Orander, the red-robed wizard, back. Halmarain promised us he would give us some magic, but I don't know if he will. Wizards all seem to be as grumpy as dwarves-oh, I didn't mean… well, now that you've got your necklace back…"
Trap had only half listened to the gully dwarf's suggestion and part of the conversation that followed. He was finding the silence and the inactivity boring in the extreme. He had been looking forward to a fight. What had happened?
Had they killed all the humanoids? He didn't believe it. Even if every quarrel and each one of Ripple's arrows had been a fatal shot-which was highly unlikely-they had not sent enough missiles down the passage to account for all the humanoids. Since the last volley had not found targets, either the enemy had retreated or found a way to keep from being struck. While the dwarves asked questions and Ripple tried to explain, he edged away from the others. He crept closer to the dark mouth of the passage.
To keep from being a target, he dropped flat on his stomach and crept up to the wall to see if he could see anything of interest. Keeping his head close to the floor, he eased forward and peered around the corner, and looked straight into the pig eyes of a metal-helmed goblin. The humanoid yipped in alarm and drew back. Trap jerked his head back and in an instant was on his feet, dashing for shelter.
"They're crawling down the passage, they're already at the door," he called to the others. He raced for a broken table with a tilted top, looking for shelter and stones for his hoopak.
"Let them have a low volley," Tolem shouted to the other dwarves. They sent six more quarrels down the passage and could be satisfied with the howls that returned.
A low-voiced command from farther down the dark passage reached them and suddenly more than twenty humanoids rushed into the chamber. Some were still in a half crouch.
Ripple and the six dwarves were ready with their missiles. They could see their targets and four bugbears fell dead before they had taken three strides into the lighted hall. The others leaped over their dead companions and were on the dwarves and kender before the crossbows could be loaded and cocked again.
Trap, off to the side, picked up a large, jagged piece of rock and fitted it into to the pouch of his hoopak. He swung the weapon twice around his head before he let fly, and caught a goblin in the back of the neck, crushing its spine. He knelt behind the broken table and felt for another stone, his eyes on the battle in front of him.
He found nothing, but he still had stones in his pouch, he remembered. When he dug in the bottom of the bag at his waist, he felt a ring. It slipped onto his finger and he was lost from his own sight again.
He paused momentarily. Should he keep it on? Why not? The six dwarves and four companions were still far outnumbered, and they faced a wizard as well.
Did he have any more flame balls? He wondered. He reached into his pouch again, but he faced the same trouble he had before. He could not distinguish a flame ball from a smooth stone without seeing it. The small missiles he was carrying would do no more than irritate the huge bugbears, so he opted to skip around the table and attack with his hoopak.
He picked a likely target, a bugbear that seemed to be after the two cowering gully dwarves. Then he changed his mind. Tolem was holding off two goblins with mighty swings of his heavy axe, but behind him a third human-oid was dancing on the balls of his feet, working in position to attack from behind. The goblin found his opening and rushed forward, his spear ready. The kender, out of position to deliver a fatal blow, thrust his hoopak between the goblin's legs and tripped him up.
The humanoid's stone-headed spear went flying out of his hand just as Tolem stepped aside to avoid a thrust from the goblin in front of him. The goblin that the dwarf faced took the accidental spear thrust in the center of the chest.
Trap was bumped from behind and turned to see a goblin staring at something he had felt but could not see. Trap speared him with the sharp, metal-tipped point of his hoopak.
Two other goblins had seen their companion mysteriously fall and then die by some unseen agency. They backed away and shouted to the wizard that they were facing magic.
Trap ignored them as he looked around for his sister. He was just in time to see her backing away from a bug-bear that was twice her height. As the large creature stalked her with a raised, stone headed club, she caught the butt of the iron wood whippik in her left hand and the leather loop in her right. In a lightning move she skipped to the side, jumped onto a stone bench, and then the table it flanked. She let the leather thong go and flailed the bug-bear across the face. He screamed and dropped his club as he put his hands over his eyes.
Not to be outdone, Trap raised his hoopak and whacked another bugbear across the face. He missed the eyes but connected with the creature's snout-like nose, breaking and shoving it back into his skull, a fatal blow.
"Trap?" Ripple asked. She had seen the bugbear fall without any visible force. "Are you wearing a ring?" Ripple asked, her glances darting as she looked for her brother and any close enemies at the same time. "Isn't this fun? I was beginning to think we'd never do anything interesting."
She ducked a thrown spear and when it bounced off the wall she picked it up. Grabbing the butt end, she swung it around her head let go, sending it whirling into the melee.
Three of the dwarves were surrounded by goblins, but they were holding their own and even driving the creatures back toward the passage when the wizard stepped into view. He cocked his head as if listening to something beyond the battle.
His eyes burned in anger and he muttered an incantation. When he finished, an icy storm swept down onto the defenders and attackers alike. Icy pellets struck the humanoids and demi-humans as if they had each been shot from a sling. The force of the magic storm drove them back toward the far door of the chamber. Behind the wall of stinging ice the black-robed wizard passed unchallenged.