As he walked around the statue of Argus Gingerbeard, he realized that he had developed a limp. He didn’t remember hurting his leg and, in fact, his leg didn’t seem to be in any pain; it just didn’t work as it should. Figuring it might have fallen asleep, he tried shaking and rubbing it to no avail.
When he looked up from his exertions, he discovered the cooper, Silas, standing at the base of the statue, regarding him.
“Silas,” Bradok stammered.
“It’s going to get worse before it gets better,” Silas told him sadly. “You need to be strong. Others will need your strength.”
“I’ll do what I can,” Bradok said.
Silas shook his head. “You must do better than that,” he warned. “Trust yourself and have faith.”
The light overhead flared, and Bradok had to shield his eyes. When it subsided, Silas was gone. Only the last words of his message, “have faith, have faith …” seemed to echo on in the distance.
While he stood there pondering Silas’s appearance, a bloodcurdling scream erupted out of nowhere.
Bradok whirled, trying desperately to locate the source of the cry. The city seemed to bend and waver as if it were melting; then it dissolved around him. Have faith, faith, faith …
He woke up, lying on the sand where he’d fallen asleep. Sitting up, he became aware of a long pink ropelike appendage hanging down from the ceiling, slowly wrapping itself around his leg. With a cry of disgust, he jerked his sword free of its scabbard and sliced the thing in two. Milky white liquid spurted from the wound and spattered Bradok’s leg and chest. He tried to wipe it off, but it burned his hand. Cursing, he rubbed his hand in the sand to get the acidic goo off.
The pink tentacle withdrew back up to the ceiling but Bradok could see the strange orange fungi above were trailing long tentacles down among the sleeping dwarves. Already they had wrapped around some and were pulling them into the air, toward open maws. Bradok could see the orange fungi peeled back, like bananas, with tiny tentacles waving inside. They would bleed their victims dry once the pink tongues sucked them in. Bradok shouted a warning to the others, but he had his own troubles.
He tried to kick his leg, to dislodge the tentacle end that was still wrapped around his leg, but his leg spasmed. Where the tentacle touched him, it had secreted a clear substance that had soaked through his trouser leg, turning his leg numb. Using the tip of his sword, Bradok peeled the pink appendage away from his leg.
Rolling over, he pushed himself to his knees and stood, or rather, tried to stand. The moment he put weight on his numb leg, it collapsed beneath him, sending him sprawling in the sand.
A second tentacle dropped from above and struck Bradok on the shoulder. Before it could latch onto him, he chopped it away, sending the bleeding stump retreating back to the ceiling.
Off to his left, a tentacle had wrapped around one of the hill dwarves and was pulling her upward. Bradok lurched forward, putting his weight on his good leg, and chopped away the tentacle, sending the unconscious dwarf falling into the sand with a thud.
Screams and cries and the sounds of battle filled the cavern as most of the dwarves woke up to discover themselves in the grip of the nightmarish attack. Bradok hobbled over to where Kellik grappled with a tentacle that had Hemmish in its grip. Each time Kellik’s hammer struck the tentacle, it would contract; the net effect was that it pulled the boy higher and higher away from his father.
“Use your knife,” Bradok cried as he slashed wildly at the appendage, cutting it part of the way through and sending it spinning. Kellik swung at it with his knife but missed, leaving Bradok to chop Hemmish free when the tentacle spun back his way.
“Help me unravel him,” Kellik said to Rijul as he pulled the limp end of the tentacle off his younger son.
“Hemmish,” Kellik yelled, shaking the boy. “Hemmish, wake up!” Kellik thumped him on the chest, hard, and Hemmish gasped, coughed, and started breathing weakly.
“Help me!” came a terrified shriek to their left.
“Stay with him,” Bradok told Kellik as he lurched to the rescue.
A few yards away, Starlight, Marl Anvil’s eldest granddaughter, was struggling to free Marl from a tentacle lifting him off the ground. Marl’s hip was bleeding profusely. Nearby the two younger grandchildren held each other and cried.
As thin and delicate as the tentacles seemed, the creatures were strong. By the time Bradok got there, they had lifted Marl almost out of reach. Bradok hacked away at the tentacle, trying not to hit Marl. Finally he struck a good blow. The tentacle spurted white fluid that mixed with Marl’s blood, and it unwound quickly, sending the old man spinning into a heap.
Bradok grabbed Marl’s cloak, still lying on the sand and pressed a corner to his bleeding hip.
“Hold this down tight on his wound,” he told Starlight. “If any more of them come down, chop at them with your knives.” Bradok motioned the other two children over to their big sister’s side. Then he realized that one member of the family was absent.
“Where’s your grandmother?” he asked. “Where’s Isirah?”
With a trembling hand, the boy, Graylin, pointed up to the ceiling. Bradok looked up just in time to see her unconscious form being sucked into one of the orange fungi. It closed its maw around her hungrily, and Isirah vanished from sight.
“Damn it!” Bradok shouted just as someone grabbed his shoulder.
“Help us,” Jeni, one of the Daergar, said desperately. Her hair was disheveled and smeared with the slime from the tentacles. The sticky liquid covered her left cheek, causing it to remain frozen when she talked, forcing her to slur her words.
“Where?” Bradok asked, forcing himself to rejoin the fight. Jeni ran ahead, pointing, and Bradok limped after her. On the far side of the cavern, Corin was battling for his life. He’d been almost completely wrapped in a tentacle, and his arms moved weakly as he tried to saw his way free. Xurces lay unconscious on the ground, and Omer, confused by the attack, was wailing and covering his head. The assassin, Thurl, hung in the air, trussed like a holiday duck, and of the rotund Hurlic there was no sign.
Bradok chopped away at the tentacle holding Corin then cut down Thurl, who dropped to the ground like a stone.
“Untie him,” Corin gasped, pulling the ropy flesh away from Thurl’s body. “The tentacles are poisoned; the longer they make contact with your skin, the more you absorb, until you’re dead.”
Bradok pulled away the tentacles from the semiconscious assassin. Even as he did so, he could feel his hands growing numb where the sticky substance coating the tentacles spilled on him.
“Thank you,” Thurl whispered. His eyes locked feverishly on Bradok and seemed to bore into him. “I owe you my life,” the assassin said weakly. “I am your man … till I die.”
“Easy there,” Bradok said. “Just rest for a minute.” He turned to Corin. “You seem to know something about these strange creatures. How come you didn’t warn us?” he demanded.
“I’ve only heard about them from stories told by old ones,” Corin said, his voice raspy and strained. “Do you think I’ve actually seen one before? They’re called cave fishers.”
Bradok opened his mouth to tell Corin that he didn’t give two figs what the tentacles were called when he heard a single word rise above all the chaos of sound filling the cavern.
“Rose!”
He whirled and saw Tal hanging on to his sister as a relentless tentacle pulled her upward. Tal’s left arm hung limply at his side, it was clear he wouldn’t be able to hang on much longer.
“Rose!” Tal shouted again.
Bradok ran toward them, forcing his benumbed leg to work by shear dint of will. As he ran, he tore off his cloak and swung it around over his head. He reached them just as Tal’s grip faltered. Swinging his cloak round, he launched it up, wrapping it around Rose as she hung upside down. He caught the loose end and pulled, using the cloak as a kind of sling. The cave fisher pulled back, trying to lift them both off the ground.