“Duck,” he heard Thurl yell, and instinctively Bradok hurled himself sideways.
A long pink Rhizomorph tongue sailed over his head and struck the cave wall. Someone severed it, and the next instant it fell, writhing, on the floor. Bradok kicked it away in disgust.
Bradok picked up his sword and got painfully to his feet. The remaining defenders had killed and dismembered enough of the Rhizomorphs that now only a handful remained. Little by little, the dwarves and Perin were driving the monsters back.
Bradok moved among the still-flailing limbs and bodies, striking the heads of any that appeared still capable of causing trouble.
A few moments more, and it was over. Bradok stood on weak legs. He slowly moved his sword across his body, trying to catch the tip of it where it belonged, in the top of his scabbard.
“Are you all right, lad?” Much asked, taking Bradok’s sword for him and slipping it into the empty scabbard.
He nodded, feeling tremendous exhaustion.
“You’re bleeding again,” Thurl said in a disapproving voice.
Bradok looked down to see a red stain soaking through the bandage on his side. “There’s no time,” he said, pushing Much’s hand away. “I’ll be fine. We need to get back to the main group and spur them to keep going. There’s no telling how long it will take the rest of these walking mushrooms to catch up with us.”
“Yeah,” Chisul agreed. “Stay ahead of them.” The big dwarf was cradling his left arm, which appeared to have been burned by acid.
Bradok held up his own arm, looking at the wound, and realized that it was burned like Chisul’s, though not so badly.
“I counted about twenty in this group,” Perin said. “How many more can there be …?” He let the question trail off glumly.
“Can he walk?” Bradok asked about Serl.
Tal waved his hands in front of Serl’s eyes. The big dwarf’s eyes appeared white and watery and didn’t follow Tal’s hand.
“He’s been blinded,” Tal explained. “It might just be temporary; I can’t tell yet.”
“Well, I might be blind, but I’m not deaf,” Serl said, sitting up. “And I can still walk. One of you lead me along and I’ll do fine.”
Corin and Vulnar each took one of Serl’s hands, guiding him quickly up the passage. Bradok started after them, more slowly, hampered by his wound.
“Keep going until you find the others,” Bradok called. “I’ll catch up.”
“I’ll stay with him,” Thurl said.
“Tell Rose to use the compass,” Bradok called as the other dwarves began to outpace him. “She’ll know what to do.”
Bradok and Thurl walked along in silence and darkness, their eyes adjusting to the lack of light. Finally, when Bradok could no longer hear the tread of the dwarves in front of them, Thurl paused. He stretched his arm out from his cloak. He’d wrapped a handkerchief around his forearm. A large, dark stain covered it.
“This may be a problem,” he said, showing his wound to Bradok.
“What happened?” Bradok said, panting with the effort of walking.
“One of them bit me,” Thurl said.
“Before or after the spore cloud?” Bradok asked.
“After,” Thurl said. “I’m worried about it.” Such a declaration seemed out of character for the normally stoical Daergar.
“Corin said no one knows how the Zhome is spread,” Bradok said. “I think that if it was spread in such a mundane way as bites, Corin would know about it.”
“Still,” Thurl said. “Rose has the Zhome on her arm, right where she was scratched in our first encounter with the Rhizomorphs.”
“True,” Bradok agreed worriedly.
“Almost everyone was wounded this time,” Thurl said. “We may all be infected.”
Bradok sighed heavily. “Well, we’ll just have to deal with that somehow,” he said.
“How?” Thurl asked. “If we’re infected, sooner or later, we become Rhizomorphs. If that happens, we become a danger to everyone, so it stands to reason that before anything like that happens …” He let the sentence trail off.
“I see what you mean,” Bradok said grimly. “We either have to abandon those who carry the Zhome germ at some point, or we have to kill them.”
“Such decisions are difficult,” Thurl said. “But perhaps they are made more easily and rationally in advance, when we are discussing the problem in the abstract and no one particular person’s life is on the line.”
Bradok wondered at Thurl’s resoluteness. “What do you suggest?”
Thurl reached into his belt and pulled out a small crystal phial. “A few drops of this in someone’s waterskin before bed, and they’ll never wake again,” he said. “Quick and painless.”
Bradok thought about it, not answering for a long time. Perhaps Thurl’s idea was the most humane option, but as the group’s leader, the decision would fall to him. He would have to decide when to abandon or kill those who suffered from the Zhome. He would have to decide whether to abandon or kill Rose. But as leader, wasn’t it his responsibility to act on behalf of the group?
“Thank you, Thurl,” Bradok said, quietly. “If the time comes that we have to let one of our own go, I will keep your idea in mind.”
“I live to serve,” he said in response.
“Where did you get that potion, may I ask?” Bradok asked.
“I’ve had this for the last thirteen years,” came the reply. “I keep it secret. Keeping things secret is my trade.”
They walked together for more than an hour before they caught up to the other survivors. The main group had stopped in a cavern sparsely dotted with Reorx’s torch mushrooms, giving off light that reflected off the damp ground. A pool of water fed by a waterfall was off to one side, filling the cavern with cool spray and a damp smell. A shallow, fast-moving stream ran away from the pool, across the floor, and into a deep fissure against the opposite wall.
A small knot of dwarves had gathered around Tal. Rose saw Bradok approaching and immediately hurried over.
“You’d better come quick,” she said, her face pale.
In his wounded condition, Bradok had expended most of his energy just putting one foot in front of the other. Hurrying was no longer possible for him, but he lurched after her.
Rose shooed away some of the crowd so he could get through them. Serl lay on the ground with Tal kneeling over him. When Bradok got a look at the dwarf’s face, he felt like retching. Mushrooms were already growing out of Serl’s eyes and nose. He lay on the ground as though dead; the only sign he gave of life were the ragged breaths that came at infrequent intervals.
Bradok glanced at Tal, but the doctor could only shrug and shake his head.
Suddenly Bradok’s arm was jerked up in the air so hard and fast that he gasped at the lancing pain. It was Corin who had done it, and the Daergar was staring at his arm. Bradok saw it too: A tiny mushroom had embedded itself in the wound left by the tongue.
“It’s a spore,” Corin said.
Bradok squinted and saw that, at the base of the mushroom there was a small, opaque seed, about the size of an orange seed.
“We’ve got to get it out before it takes hold,” Corin warned.
Bradok nodded. Tal approached with a pair of long metal tongs and, taking hold of the seed, yanked it out. Bradok grunted as it trailed a small root that had already begun burrowing in his flesh.
“Check everyone who fought,” he said, rubbing his arm ruefully. “Strip down and look everywhere.”
The thought of Zhome spores growing in their flesh had the usually modest dwarves stripped bare in moments. There was a gasp as Chisul took off his shirt; a row of tiny mushrooms were growing in his back, right where Bradok had seen the gray patches before.
“There’s nothing to be done,” Tal said quietly once he’d examined Chisul. “It’s as bad as Rose’s arm.”
Chisul nodded with dismay; he and the others had suspected that Rose was infected, but after the fight, so many of them were.
Everyone was checked over and over, and twelve spore growths were found. Those were removed as best as they could, but it was possible they were all doomed. Bradok was just too spent and sore to care. When they were finished, he pulled Rose aside.