With a roar, a huge gout of flame erupted from the pit, and the rope burned through.
Marian stared. So did Matt. Then he whispered. "That, too. Yeah."
"Back!" Stegoman thundered. "It comes! Stand back against the walls; leave me room!"
Nobody argued; they plastered themselves against the rock. A head poked over the pit, a huge, blunt, questing snout with faceted eyes, under which were two huge clashing pincers. Behind them came a pair of crooked bowlegs—and another pair, and another. Up it came with a slither of scales, foot after foot, yard after yard, leg after leg.
Yverne screamed. Matt might have, too—he remembered all the little scorpions they had roasted back at the beginning of the tunnel. Their big brother had come for revenge.
It opened its jaws and blasted flame.
Stegoman roared, with a gout of fire that met the centipede's. Flame blasted against flame and splashed off the walls; the companions scrambled out of the way.
"He holds it!" Sir Guy cried. "Attack!"
Matt jolted out of his trance, whipped out his sword, and leaped forward, stabbing. His sword point skidded across the chitinous shell—then lodged between segments. Matt leaned on it with every ounce of his strength, and the blade went in.
The monster screamed and thrashed, four sword points skewering it, and the segments closed on the sword, twisting it out of Matt's grasp. He dove for the hilt, but it danced mockingly before him as the monster gyrated in pain, and it turned its snout back toward him...
Fadecourt threw his huge strength against the body, holding a length of it still just long enough. Matt seized his sword and yanked it out, found another gap, and plunged it in again. So did Marian—she was on her third or fourth stab, and Sir Guy and Yverne weren't far behind. The monster shrieked and drew breath...
Stegoman blasted, his flame catching the centipede broadside.
Its scream veered toward the supersonic; it whipped about, blasting a return at Stegoman. But the dragon held his flame steady, till the centipede's slackened—and slackened more and more, for the five companions were stabbing and stabbing. Matt tried to remember his freshman zoology class, figuring where a heart might be, and stabbed and wrenched, trying to avoid the green slime that welled between the segments, but not succeeding too well, remembering, with a sick, sinking feeling, that basic life-forms like this took an awfully long time to die...
But breathing fire took a lot out of the worm. It gave a last, feeble puff of flame; then its legs folded, and its faceted eyes began to dull.
"It dies!" Sir Guy cried.
"Back!" Fadecourt bellowed. "It falls!"
For the first time, Matt realized that, no matter how much of the huge centipede had come out of the pit, there was more down below, and it was hanging loose from the side now, dead weight, the slackened claws having lost their hold on the niches in the rock. It slid backward faster and faster. The companions leaped aside just before the head whipped back over the edge of the pit and shot down out of sight.
They stood silent, staring down into the darkness, not quite believing the battle was over.
Then Matt felt a burning pain on his upper arm. "Yow!" He looked down and saw that the ichor had eaten through the cloth of his tunic. "It's acid! Everybody out of your clothes, quick!"
He scrambled out of his garments and shivered in the chill, glad that he had held to the habit of wearing underwear—in defiance of this world's custom. The ladies shed their dresses, standing almost as decently clad in their shifts, and Fadecourt and Sir Guy caught up the cloth to wipe the slime off skin and armor, respectively. Sir Guy inspected some mild etching and said, "I am nearly unscathed." He turned to Fadecourt. "And you, friend?"
Yverne saw the raw patches on the cyclops' skin and cried out.
"I will endure," he grated. "It is painful, but I am not hindered. Quickly, let us come out of this place! Then the wizard may mend me!"
"I may do so now." Marian took the belt off the remains of her gown and reached into a pouch. She took out a small jar, opened it, and began to rub the cream inside onto Fadecourt's burns. " 'Tis an herbal compound I learned to craft, from a monk. 'Tis a sovereign remedy for small wounds of all kinds—does it aid you?"
"A blessing," Fadecourt said, with a huge sigh of relief. "I thank you, maid."
As she finished anointing him, Matt said, "I hate to rush things—but do you have another one of those iron arrows?"
"Aye." Marian took up her bow, drew a new arrow, and tied the remains of the rope to it. She drew and loosed, and in a very short while, Fadecourt was swinging hand over hand along the rope—having claimed that he owed it to her for the salve. Then Stegoman braced the other end of the line, and Matt and Marian between them figured out how to make a fireman's chair. They swung across one by one—and, when they were all standing on the far side, they looked back at Stegoman, with a sudden shock of realization.
"How," Matt said, "are we going to get the dragon over here?"
"I can leap with ease, if I have room enough to land," Stegoman answered. "But yon dozen paces is nowhere nearly enough. Open the door, Wizard, and all of thee go through it; then I'll have room enough indeed, and shall be with thee straight."
On the word, Fadecourt turned and lashed a huge kick at the lock. Metal snapped, and the door slammed back.
There was darkness behind it. They stood in silence, waiting, until they heard distant voices calling.
"What sound was that?"
"The door, fool! Belike the warders bring another luckless soul to join us!"
"Or," a third, and nervous, voice said, "have they come to take one of us away to the gibbet?"
" 'Tis the dungeon," Maid Marian breathed, "and no guards."
"Surely," Sir Guy agreed. "Wherefore would they ward a door that has not opened in hundreds of years?"
Matt frowned. "You'd think somebody would have remembered."
"Their guards were on this side of the door," Yverne pointed out. "If such a monster as this failed, what use would be human guards?"
She definitely had a point. Matt thrust the torch out and stuck his head behind it, inspecting for booby traps, then leaped through the door, just in case—but no nets fell, no barbs sprang out. "It's safe. Come on, friends."
They filed through. Then, with a whoosh, a huge thud, and a scrabbling of claws, Stegoman shot through the door and skidded to a halt, jolting against the far wall. Matt glanced at the floor; the dragon's claws had gouged grooves in the granite. "Glad you're on our side. Now—where do we go?"
"Yon." Fadecourt turned, pointing, then strode ahead.
He seemed very sure of himself. Matt wasn't about to argue—but he did wonder. He followed the cyclops while he wondered, though.
They followed a sloping floor up, where the rock was no longer quite so rough-hewn. They tried to walk as quietly as possible, but as they neared a door of planks, a low voice called through its small grate, "Who brings light in the darkness?"
They stopped, all looking at Matt. He swallowed and answered, "A friend. What are you doing here?"
"I performed pantomimes in village squares, and mocked the king," the voice answered dryly. "And you?"
"We have come to help those who deserve it." It was a justified gamble—Gordogrosso punished only goodness, not evil Matt nodded to Fadecourt, who laid hold of the latch and shoved. There was a crack of breaking metal, and the door swung open.
There was a minute's silence.
Then a middle-aged man, with hair almost white, crept out of the cell, blinking in the torchlight. "You...you would not mock me?" Then he saw Stegoman; his eyes widened, and so did his mouth.
Maid Marian clasped a hand over his lips. "Softly, goodman—he, too, is a friend."