“You have a dagger,” the priest said. “We should try to cut him loose.”
She reached to her belt, then visibly sagged. “I threw it,” she said. “It’s still stuck in the—”
She looked at the old goblin, whose one eye rolled up to meet her gaze. The goblin barked out two grunts, then two more, then two more. Lidda listened with narrowed eyes, then grunted herself twice. Jozan couldn’t imagine that was really a language, that ideas could be transferred with these simplistic, guttural vocalizations.
“What did he say?” Jozan asked.
“They keep the spiders for food and…” she said, shaking her head. “I’m not sure, maybe something like ‘livestock’? The spiders turned on them, because of something another goblin tribe did.”
Jozan said, “Keep talking. Find out as much as you can while I try to figure out how to get him down.”
It took the better part of an hour, but Jozan, using the lantern flame to make a tiny torch out of a broken crossbow bolt, managed to get the old goblin out of the web. As he worked, Lidda grunted her way through a halting conversation with the dying humanoid. Jozan brought to mind the prayer that would help him replace one spell with another that would at least begin to heal the goblin’s grievous wounds.
When the old goblin was laying still but alive on the floor of the cave, Lidda said, “He’s speaking a funny dialect and can’t manage the sign language, but I think what happened was—”
She stopped short when a spider appeared as if from nowhere. Jozan went sprawling backward from his crouching position to clatter onto the floor. The creature was on top of the old goblin, and before either Jozan or Lidda could react, it sank its sharp fangs into the old goblin’s chest. There was an awful wet, cracking sound, and the goblin let loose another low, long, echoing wail.
Jozan fumbled for his mace while trying to kick the spider, but he was at an odd angle, wrapped up in his own armor like a turtle rolled on its back. The old goblin went limp, and Jozan knew he was dead. There was a flash of reflected light, and Lidda’s sword came down at the spider. The thing released its grip on the dead goblin and launched itself backward with all eight legs. Lidda’s blade sank an inch into the already dead goblin, where the spider had just been. The halfling barked out a curse that, under normal circumstances, would have made Jozan blush.
Instead, he scrambled to his feet and managed to get his mace in front of his body just as the spider leaped at him. It smashed into the mace, and it took all of Jozan’s strength to keep the weapon from rebounding into his own forehead. The enormous brown spider wrapped its legs around the weapon and clapped its mandibles together, snapping at Jozan’s face.
The priest almost threw his weapon away, then he saw Lidda skip in front of him, dragging her blade along the spider’s back as she went. There was a splash of yellow ichor, and the spider dropped off the mace.
Jozan couldn’t help but smile. There was something reassuring in Lidda’s reaction to the spider on his mace. It was like something Regdar would do.
He looked over to her and said, “Thank you, L—”
“By the Protector,” Lidda interrupted, still holding her short sword in both hands, looking up into the darkness. “We need to run away—as fast as we can.”
Jozan looked around and saw shadows move and come together and pass through each other. The webs were waving as if in a stiff breeze.
“Spiders,” he whispered.
Lidda grabbed him by the arm and pulled, shouting, “Lot’s of ’em—let’s go!”
Regdar hopped up and down in the cold water, moving gradually to his left, but all he felt above him was the same smooth rock. He kept his eyes closed and tried not to imagine what might be in the water with him. His chest burned, his throat burned, his eyes burned… he had less than a minute to live. Regdar was determined to spend that time trying to save his life.
When the darkness behind his eyelids turned glowing red, Regdar was sure he was dying. Was that Pelor’s light? Was it his time to pass into the embrace of No, he thought, don’t give up.
Regdar opened his eyes, and there was a shaft of bright light in the water with him. He could see everything all at once: the water, clearer than any he’d ever seen; the smooth gray-white rock above his head; the slivers of black fish no longer than his thumb; and the surface of the water in front of him.
The shaft of light bounced up and down, and Regdar could see that it was a staff of wood that was somehow glowing with a cold white light. He reached out and grabbed it, and someone pulled the staff up. It slipped out of his hand, but he bounced after it, coming out from under the little ledge that might have been his tomb for the fact that he didn’t know that air was two steps in front of him.
He pushed off the bottom and grabbed the staff again. When his head came out of the water he drew in a deep breath, and his head spun. It was the finest air he’d ever breathed.
“Thank the Lord of All Magics,” Naull said. “I thought you were going to drown.”
Regdar reached out and with Naull’s help managed to get a firm hold on the side of the clear pool. He coughed, hearing and feeling a little water rattle in his throat. He crawled the rest of the way out of the pool. Regdar was shivering and self-conscious in front of the young woman.
He saw that they were in a small chamber at the foot of another waterfall. His eyes settled on Naull’s plain wooden staff, aglow with obviously magical light.
“If you… could do that,” he said, still panting for air, “why… were we… fumbling around with that damn torch?”
Naull opened her mouth to form an excuse but burst out laughing instead. Regdar laughed with her.
10
The caves of the Stonedeep Tribe were cut from solid rock by forces Tzrg couldn’t begin to fathom. Goblins moved into the tunnels a long time ago, but the caves were ancient even then. It was as close to a perfect environment as any goblin could ask for, but it was not without its idiosyncrasies—even dangers. The caves held many surprises for anyone who wasn’t careful where he stepped, even if he could see in the dark.
Only steps from the ksr pit was one of the cave’s most dangerous places: a sheer drop-off as tall as ten goblins. It was as if the floor of the cave just fell away.
A stairway of piled stones had been constructed along one wall so the goblins could move from the ksr pit and the higher caves down into the deeper chambers where the tribe made its nests and kept its females and young. The stairway was just wide enough for two goblins to climb it side by side. The cliff stretched the whole way across the width of the cave—lots more than eighteen feet across.
Rezrex had ordered a number of torches to be lit. They were held by Stonedeep warriors, stuck in cracks on the floor and walls, and propped between stones on the stairway. Hive spiders scurried in and out of the flickering shadows, the tap-tap-tap of their feet mingling with the echoes of goblin voices that filled the chamber. The ceiling was so high that Tzrg had never actually seen it, though he knew it was up there, in the reassuring darkness.
The captured goblins were brought out in groups of five tied to each other by thick queen spidersilk. The whole of Stonedeep Tribe—even the females and young—was gathered around them, with Rezrex watching the whole thing from the top of the tall ledge. Behind the hobgoblin was the ksr pit, in front of him, the cliff. The Stonedeep goblins gathered at the foot of the dropoff, most of them staring up at the hobgoblin with frightened reverence.