The acrid stench of horse sweat was everywhere. Even without endowments from a dozen dogs, Iome could smell it. She only hoped that Binnesman’s spells could hide them.
The hope was short-lived.
In seconds a reaver reached the mouth of the grotto. The huge monster rushed up the cliff and wedged its head into the crevasse at the opening. The philia along its jaw line quivered as if in anticipation. Slime dripped from its fearsome jaws.
“He’s found us!” Averan screamed. “He’s shouting to the others, warning them.”
There was no sound from the reaver other than his hissing breath. His shouts were smells, odors so subtle that Iome could not distinguish them.
The opening was only six feet wide, too narrow for a full-grown reaver to enter—at least that is what Iome thought.
But the monster shoved its head into the crack, and twisted its body sideways. It heaved once, and there was a snapping noise.
On the reaver’s head were three bony plates joined by cartilage. Now the reaver shoved its head into the crevice, and the plates snapped back, so that it could shove its muzzle into the hole. It twisted onto its side, and its torso followed.
Iome could smell the stink of its hot breath. A gree flew up from the beast, dislodged by its acrobatics, and flapped around the small grotto with a squeaking sound.
Gaborn leapt forward, stabbed the monster in the muzzle with his dart. Even with all his endowments of brawn, the blow hardly pierced the monster’s thick flesh.
Iome looked for a place to run. She could not see an exit up here.
The reaver hissed in outrage at Gaborn’s thrust, and pulled its muzzle back, inching from the grotto. It backed out completely, and Iome’s heart pounded in terror: behind it were more reavers, a tide of them sweeping into the small tunnel. Their bodies formed a black wall.
Yet even as they came to a halt outside, the trembling continued, growing louder. She realized that the main part of the reaver horde was still marching, passing them by, uninterested in a few intrepid humans that dared venture into their domain, or perhaps more concerned with advancing to war.
A larger reaver appeared at the mouth of the grotto and thrust a knight gig—a metal hook on a long iron pole—through the hole. Gaborn leapt just as the knight gig approached.
“Binnesman!” Gaborn shouted.
The reaver flipped its knight gig around expertly, and would have impaled Binnesman, then dragged him from safety. But Gaborn leapt down on the pole and ran up its length two paces, until he reached the reaver’s massive paw. He struck with his dart, plunging it into the soft flesh between the monster’s fingers. The reaver wheezed in pain.
There was a hissing at the reaver’s back, a sound of rushing wind that sounded like “Gasht!”
Iome had heard that sound before, when reaver mages cast their spells.
A dark cloud roiled into the grotto, filling it with noxious fumes. Iome found her eyes burning, as if hot coals had been flung into them. She dared not take a breath, for even in the open air on the battlefield, a reaver mage’s spells were devastating. Here in the confines of a grotto, their effect would be twenty-fold.
Think, Iome told herself. Gaborn said that there has to be a way out. But where?
The reaver drew his knight gig from the grotto, banging it against the walls. The pole must have been thirty feet long and six inches around. As it struck the left wall, a huge chunk of stone broke away.
Encouraged by this, the reaver swung the knight gig, hitting a far wall.
“He’s widening the opening!” Binnesman warned. The wizard let out a breath, and was forced to draw air. He fell back against the wall, eyes tearing. He struggled to reach into his pocket for some healing herb.
The green woman rushed forward and would have done battle with the reavers, but Binnesman put a restraining hand on her shoulder. “No,” he said, the word wrung from his throat in torture.
The floor! Iome realized. There were pools here, but no sign of a stream flowing away. That meant that the water had to have emptied through the floor below at one time. There might be an exit hidden down there.
She leapt from the roof of the grotto, twenty feet, jarring her ankles as she hit ground. She peered around the edge of the deepest pool. Her eyes burned, and she swiped tears away. At the back of the grotto she saw it—a tiny crevasse under the craterlike rim of a pool, not more than a foot long and an inch wide.
Gaborn raced to the mouth of the grotto and stabbed at the reaver’s paw. As he did, a second knight gig thrust through the opening. Even with all her endowments of metabolism, it seemed to Iome that the gig wrenched through with incredible speed. Gaborn tried to dodge, and took a glancing blow.
The stroke flung him against the far wall.
“Kill a reaver!” Binnesman shouted to his wylde. The wizard stood with his back against a stone wall, gasping, and tried to pull Gaborn to safety.
The green woman, unleashed at her master’s command, leapt forward. As she did, she waved her iron-bound staff in the air, making it do a little dance, forming a rune of power.
She jabbed the reaver’s paw, and there was a sound like stone hitting meat. The reaver’s massive hand exploded, sending shards of broken bone through flesh. The monster wheezed in pain and dropped its weapon as it struggled to back from the cave. For the moment, no other reavers could get near to attack.
Iome grabbed her own reaver dart, and plunged it into the tiny crevasse. Stone broke beneath her, a clod as large as her hand. The spear pushed through. She lowered her head and peered down. She saw another cave beyond the grotto!
Iome’s air was almost gone. Her lungs burned, but she dared not draw breath. Instead, she pounded the stone alongside the crevasse as fast as she could, widening the hole.
Averan let out her breath, and cried in agony. “Help! I can’t see!”
Iome could do nothing for her. She dared not. She plunged the spear into the stone, breaking away a handful of calcite here, another there. Even with endowments of brawn, it was harrowing work. Her spear point felt blunted and all but useless in a matter of moments.
She toiled on.
Another large reaver entered the mouth of the cave, picked up the pole, and thrust it in. It hit the wylde on the ankle, throwing her to the ground.
Iome slammed her spear into the stone. A large chunk of calcite fell away, went sliding downward.
She could see the cave beyond! There was a path of flowstone, and it dripped down the hill until it joined what must have been the bed of a submerged river, for there the path widened.
She could hold her breath no longer.
She exhaled, and gasped.
The reaver mage’s stench burned her throat. As air filled her lungs, she could almost hear the reaver’s command, “See no more.”
The wylde roared in anger and swung her staff. The blow struck a wall, sending shards of dust and rock everywhere. The reaver that had attacked her backed away.
Iome’s eyes throbbed. The cords that held her eyeball convulsed and spasmed so that she could not focus. She felt as if a dagger had been thrust into each socket, and now her attacker was methodically twisting the blade. Even with a dozen endowments of stamina, she could barely see.
She grabbed Averan first, shoved her through the hole. Averan went tumbling a few yards, then slid on her belly the last dozen feet. As she reached bottom, she began to flounder and make a mewling noise, trying to crawl to safety. Iome found the girl’s pack and shoved it after.
“This way!” Iome shouted.
She could barely make out her friends. Her eyes wouldn’t focus. Gaborn, Binnesman, and the wylde were but partly glimpsed shadows, shifting about in a world of pain.
“Duck!” Gaborn shouted.
Iome ducked.
A swinging pole whipped past her head. She felt more than saw it. Half blinded, only Gaborn’s warning had kept her from being brained.