The elemental king came into view a few blocks away, striding out from behind the tall, square fortress. The giant reached out to smash down a three-story stone building, crushing the roof with a hammer blow, then pummeling the rest of the sturdy structure into rubble. Flames surged from its eyes, and immediately the interior of the broken building erupted into a conflagration. Black smoke billowed skyward, forming another of the pyres that already burned in a dozen places around the city. Stepping through the inferno, the elemental king crossed to the next block and began smashing a warehouse.
“Ankhar won’t be very far away, if the kender’s report is accurate,” Jaymes noted.
“It is!” protested Moptop.
“There’s the half-giant!” Brianna said, pointing toward the Duke’s Avenue, the wide street where goblins were hurling themselves against the barricade.
Now they could clearly see Ankhar swaggering along, several hundred yards behind the skirmishing. He was accompanied by several humans in black armor-former Dark Knights-as well as by the gray-robed Thorn Knight and the huddled, decrepit figure of the old witch-doctor. They were several blocks away from the temple, in a section of the city where all the human defenders had apparently been slain or driven out.
With his fists planted on his hips, the half-giant commander looked first toward the line of battle and the palace. Then his head quickly swiveled to the north. “He’s searching for the elemental,” Brianna guessed. The other men murmured agreement.
As they watched, the conjured creature left the wreckage of the burning building and once again passed behind the armory, heading toward the northwest. It was backtracking through its path of destruction, entering another quarter, a long block of tall buildings housing formerly prosperous mercantile shops. One sinuous limb tore through the front of a weaver’s store and cast a rainbow array of colored woolen fabrics into the air.
Ankhar and his party started after the creature, but they halted as the half-giant indicated a large, undamaged inn on a corner of the Duke’s Avenue. The watchers on the temple spire observed the bodyguards enter the stone-walled building, which was dominated by a thirty-foot tower at one corner. A moment later one of the men emerged and gestured, and the half-giant, with his wizard and shaman, followed them inside.
“Looks like he’s going to set up a temporary headquarters,” Jaymes said. He touched Moptop’s shoulder. “Do you think you can find a way over there through the sewers?”
“Sure! I can find my way anywhere; that’s why I’m called a pathfinder. We can go down through that grate that’s right over there in front of the temple. And we’ll have to find a place to come up over by that inn, but it shouldn’t be difficult. Just got to consult my maps,” he said, reaching into one of his pouches as one of the Solamnics could be heard to sigh deeply.
“Some of the grates are settled so firmly they can’t be removed,” Brianna cautioned.
Jaymes raised a hand to the hilt of his sword. “I can cut through steel, if need be,” he assured her.
“Good luck,” she said, placing a hand on his arm, squeezing him with surprising force. “And be careful.”
“You too,” he said, placing his own hand over hers then quickly breaking from her clasp, grabbing the kender by the shoulder, and pushing him into action.
The three Sword Knights, the Kingfisher, Moptop, and Jaymes quickly descended to the street level. Passing out through the front doors of the temple, they found the temple grate in an alley just to the side of the building. Two of the knights lifted off the heavy iron grid, exposing a shaft descending into the darkness. Rusty iron brackets set in the wall of the shaft held a ladder that looked to have been installed before the Cataclysm.
“This will do,” Jaymes said, the first to sit on the edge of the hole and drop his feet toward the first rung.
“Can’t I lead the way?” the kender complained plaintively, plopping down to sit beside the lord marshal. “I’m the pathfinder, remember?”
“I’ll go first,” Jaymes interjected, winking at the others. “The pathfinder must be protected. When we get below safely, you can advise me which way to go.”
With a shrug, the kender moved his legs to the side and allowed the lord marshal to precede him into the darkness. He came swiftly behind, however, followed by Sir Maxwell and the three Knights of the Sword. The kender, as usual, had a supply of small torches and passed a pair of them to two of the knights. They were ignited by the touch of one of his matches, and when held aloft produced enough illumination to tolerably light the way. Sir Maxwell, meanwhile, cast a light spell on the blade of his dagger, and held the weapon before him to add its cool, milky illumination to their mission.
Jaymes went in the lead, holding one of his small crossbows cocked and ready. Sir Maxwell, with his lit blade, advanced beside him, followed by the kender and the other knights. The passage was roughly cylindrical, with an arched ceiling and walls, though the floor was solid and flat. Muddy puddles of water reflected the torchlight, but they were able to step around these and for the most part, keep dry.
Moptop pulled out a long sheet of parchment and scrutinized it under the torchlight. “Now, we follow this until it ends up ahead, and then we take a left,” the kender said.
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” grumbled Sir Michael, holding the torch high with his left hand while his right rested on the hilt of his sword.
“I can attest that he has a way of finding paths,” Jaymes said quietly.
They advanced in silence for perhaps a hundred paces to discover that, true to Moptop’s prediction, the tunnel did end in a T-intersection. They took the left branch and continued for a similar distance, past several small tunnels shooting off in different directions. When they came to a larger juncture, with three full-size passages leading away, the kender silently pointed them to the right, and they continued on for a short distance.
Moptop gestured to Sir Michael, and the knight lowered the torch for the kender to squint at his parchment again. Looking over the pathfinder’s shoulder, the knight shook his head in dismay as he saw the tangled patchwork of charcoal marks. But he bit his tongue, as Moptop curled up his parchment and tucked it back into his pouch.
“Right this way,” he said in an exaggerated whisper. “Now is when we should start looking for a way up and out of here.”
They found a way up in only another fifteen paces, tucked in a small alcove to the side of the tunnel, where a series of rusty rungs similar to the ones they descended led toward a metal grate overhead. No sunlight illuminated this grid, so Jaymes guessed they were either under a building or a roof’s overhang or perhaps in a narrow alley. Any of the three boded well for a surreptitious exit.
The lord marshal gathered the members of the little party at the base of the ladder, speaking quietly and quickly.
“Remember, the Thorn Knight first,” he said. “The giant and the witch-doctor are dangerous, but it’s the magic-user who is likely the chief link to the elemental. After we take him down, make for Ankhar and the shaman. All set?”
“I’m ready,” Sir Maxwell said. Most of the color had drained from his young face.
“Let’s go,” Sir Michael said, nodding curtly. “We’re all ready.”
Jaymes led the way, still holding one small crossbow while using his free hand to climb the ladder. He moved as stealthily as possible as he ascended, peering through the bars of the sewer grate, trying to get some idea of where they were going to come out above. By the time he was at the top of the ladder, he could see two walls with exterior surfaces of sooty stone, which seemed to indicate that they would be within a narrow alley. There was a thin line of smoky sky visible between two roofs that nearly overlapped each other, casting the whole area in welcoming shadows.
The grate was not so welcoming, however. Jaymes shoved at it with one hand, but it wouldn’t budge. Reluctantly uncocking his crossbow and slinging it at his belt, he put both hands against the rusty bars and braced his feet on a ladder rung. He pressed with all his strength, gritting his teeth, sweat beading around his eyes, but the grate was stuck fast.