“Goblins!” Lidda called out from behind him.
Regdar set his jaw and stepped in as he saw another one emerging from the shadows along the opposite cave wall. This one held a club carved from a stout branch and studded with sharpened stones. Regdar hacked his sword down in front of him and moved to pierce the goblin’s chest when the cave went white, and pain forced his eyes closed.
He heard something—likely the goblin in front of him—scream with pain. Someone bumped into him from behind. He whirled, his eyes refusing to open as purple blotches bubbled across the inside of his eyelids.
“Damn it, Jozan,” he heard Naull say from behind him—it must have been she who’d bumped him, “warn us when you’re going to cast—”
Regdar tried to step away from her, but she tripped or was pushed into the back of his knees. He tensed his legs, but he still went down. Regdar opened his eyes and had to shut them again. He hadn’t realized how accustomed to the darkness his eyes had become. Naull cursed again when Regdar hit the cave floor, rolling over his left arm and bumping her a few times as he tried to roll to his feet.
“Regdar,” Naull yelled, “look out for the—”
Again she was cut off by Regdar falling. He was rolling and sliding down a hard rock incline, and from the sound of her cursing and growling, Naull was close behind. He opened his eyes, and the light was gone, replaced by a darkness so total, Regdar was sure he was blind. He hit a rock wall, and the air was forced from his lungs, but he bounced off and continued to fall. He felt Naull grab his arm, but the hand was forced away before he could reach her.
He could hear Jozan call his name, but the sound of the priest’s voice was receding quickly, echoing, and impossible to pin down. In a heartbeat or two it was gone completely.
What a bunch of amateurs, he thought. What a bunch of damned amateurs we are.
8
So they’re goblins then, Jozan thought as he stepped into the shadowy humanoid’s charge.
Lidda was sprawled out on the cave floor next to him, cursing in some language Jozan didn’t recognize, all tangled up with Regdar’s shield. From behind the priest came loud crashing sounds, rocks and gravel shirting, and the curses of both Regdar and Naull. With the light from Lidda’s lantern partially blocked by the big shield on top of her, Jozan had enough trouble seeing the goblin that was attacking him. He had no idea what his friends were doing.
A second goblin, the one Jozan had cast the light spell on, had disappeared down a side passage, the bright light going with him. The spell had blinded the creature but had also managed to do much the same to all of them, and Jozan was more than a little embarrassed by that failure.
The goblin jabbed at Jozan, the roughly carved tip of the little javelin looking sharp enough to kill. The priest batted the stick away with his heavy steel mace, and the weapon flew from the goblin’s grip. With a squeal, the little humanoid turned and ran. Jozan, his mace still on the follow-through, stepped back and let his weapon fall in front of him in a defensive posture. The goblin was running a It fell with a weak, high-pitched scream when a thin-handled dagger appeared as if from thin air, stuck in the middle of its back. The goblin went down hard, never putting its hands out to stop its fall.
“Bull’s-eye!” Lidda cheered.
The priest looked down at her in horror. The creature was running away, and she’d hit it in the back. The lack of honor, the absence of a sense of justice, made Jozan’s blood run cold.
Before he could speak, the halfling was up and running in the direction the fleeing goblin had gone, the light of her lantern going with her. Jozan reached down and snatched up Regdar’s heavy shield before it became too dark for him to see it.
“Lidda!” the priest shouted as he started to run after her.
She hared off after the fleeing, light-blinded goblin, into the black depths of the side passage from which the three goblins had emerged, away from wherever Regdar and Naull had gone.
The cave floor was almost impossible for Jozan to negotiate. He could see the light from Lidda’s lantern, bouncing and blinking as she, apparently, dodged between the stalagmites that crowded the floor. Jozan bumped his knees and other parts of his anatomy on more than a few of the conical stones that grew from the cave floor like tree stumps.
He had only prayed for the one light spell that morning and was further embarrassed by the fact that he carried no torches or lantern of his own. If he lost sight of Lidda’s bobbing light, he would be at Pelor’s mercy in the dead black cave all alone.
There was a sound from ahead—at least Jozan thought it was ahead of him, the sound echoing a thousand times over made that a wild guess at best. Lidda’s lantern seemed to bobble in response to it. It sounded like someone being strangled, and Jozan feared for the halfling’s life. She might have run headlong into an ambush. It would be the most obvious tactic: appear to be running away so your enemy follows, cocky and careless, into a nest of archers.
Jozan, unsure what else to do, hefted his mace and went after her as best he could through the stalagmites. The lantern light was no longer moving away, and as the priest came closer, he slowed down, trying as hard as he could not to make a noise. He breathed through his mouth—quieter than breathing through his nose. He walked with a stiff-legged gait to minimize the creaking of his armor, and he held his mace high, so it wouldn’t knock against any of the stalagmites.
Finally, he could see Lidda, lit by her own lantern. She was scanning the darkness in his direction and smiled when she saw him.
“It’s all right,” she called, her voice cascading around the cave.
Jozan looked around and realized that he could see nothing at all outside the strict boundaries of the lamplight. The cave could be barely bigger than that, or stretch on for thousands of feet in all directions. The air was cool and humid, with a distinct breeze that carried on it a mélange of dank, earthy smells, one stronger than the others: the smell of blood.
Jozan approached more quickly, his jaw clenched tightly, wondering what he would say to the wayward halfling that might impress upon her his outrage at the way she’d dispatched the fleeing goblin—no, two fleeing goblins.
The light-blinded goblin was impaled on a stalagmite, the surprisingly sharp point of the formation jutting out through its blood-drenched back. Its eyes were closed, but Jozan could see a line of light, and a vein-traced orange glow through its eyelids. He had cast the spell on the goblin’s eyes—another old trick.
Jozan looked at Lidda, and she must have seen the stern look on his face.
“It wasn’t me,” she said. “He just ran into it, poor bugger.”
When he’d been a raw recruit in the Duke of Koratia’s infantry—The Third New Koratia Comitatus, Red Dragon Regiment, to be precise—the drill sergeant had made the whole regiment perform various tasks while blindfolded. As Regdar fished around through the contents of his backpack, he wished he’d paid better attention to those drills.
“I think I found a torch,” Naull said, her voice quiet but still echoing in the absolute darkness, “but I can’t find my flint and steel.”
The only other sound was the distinct splashing of water, as if from a waterfall, or even waves crashing in rapid succession over stone. Echoes made it impossible to judge distance or direction. Regdar thought they might be either inches from the edge or a mile from it.
Every time his fingers touched something familiar in his backpack, they’d find something that seemed wholly alien in turn. Finally, his hand came to rest on what he was certain was his own flint and steel.