“They’re your catacombs. You tell me,” Cat challenged.
From the same direction as the crash came a blood-curdling scream. A human scream.
“Steele!” Giogi exclaimed. “You wait here with Birdie,” he ordered Cat. He drew his foil and ran off in the direction of the scream.
8
Steele’s Rescue
Olive took only a moment to consider her options. On one hand, she was sure she didn’t want to run into whatever had made Steele scream that way. On the other hand, if whatever it was happened to swallow Steele and Giogi, she was stuck in the catacombs—as a burro—with Cat, possibly for the rest of her life, as short as that might be.
Not an amusing prospect, Olive thought. I have to keep the boy from doing something rash. She trotted down the corridor after the shrinking light of the finder’s stone.
There was another scream, and Giogi dashed down a narrow side passage to follow it. The ceiling was lower there, and he had to stoop as he ran. Shrill cries of anger and laughter echoed down the hall. The nobleman slowed. There were no further cries from his cousin. The laughter had a sinister tone, which chilled Giogi to the marrow. He stopped.
Olive bumped into the nobleman. He gasped and whirled around. “Birdie, you naughty girl. You were supposed to wait with Mistress Cat.”
Cat drew up behind the burro. “What is it?” she asked.
“You should have stayed with the burro. It could be very dangerous,” Giogi chided.
“I am with the burro,” Cat pointed out. If it’s dangerous, why don’t we leave?” she asked.
“That was Steele. He’s my family. I have to help him.”
“But if you don’t come back, I’ll never get out of here. I’ll die down here,” Cat said. Her lower lip quivered.
What she said, only without the dramatic touches, Olive thought.
“If Steele and I don’t come back, my Cousin Freffie will come down looking for us. If you wait in the crypt for him, he’ll let you out.”
Cat frowned with displeasure. Olive thought, She doesn’t want to take a chance on Freffie. He might not fall for her story as easily as Giogi did.
“I’m not leaving you,” Cat insisted.
Giogi sighed with defeat. “Then you’d better stay behind me,” he stated, holding an authoritative finger up to her nose. He turned about and crept down the passage.
The corridor turned, and there Giogi halted, peering around the edge. Cat stopped behind him and peeked out from behind his back.
The passage opened into a larger chamber ten feet farther down. Inside the room, a tangle of white-horned, black-scaled creatures smaller than halflings jumped up and down on a massive mahogany tabletop. The monsters wore nothing but raggedy red shifts with belts of rope and dagger sheaths.
The table rocked on the splintered stumps that had once been its legs, and on a prone human body. Protruding from beneath the table were Steele’s head and shoulders; the rest of him was pinned by the tabletop and the weight of the creatures swarming on top of it. A moan escaped Steele’s lips and his head lolled to one side. From Steele’s stillness and closed eyes, though, Giogi guessed his cousin was mercifully unconscious.
“Kobolds,” Cat said with scorn. “Just a few stupid kobolds.”
Giogi counted at least twenty, which ranked slightly higher than a few, in his estimation, but he kept his growing sense of alarm in check. He could hardly convince Cat that he could protect her from her master, he realized, if he cringed from a battle with kobolds.
“Right. You wait here,” he ordered. “And I mean right here.” Having laid down the law, Giogi plunged into the room, foil drawn in his right hand, finder’s stone raised high in his left, shouting an inarticulate battle cry.
“What does he think he’s doing?” Cat muttered.
Proving himself, obviously, Olive thought.
“Idiot,” Cat said, pulling something out of one of her robe pockets. As Cat dangled it in front of her, Olive got a closer look at it: a finger bone. Cat began chanting softly. Motes of light began to sparkle about the bone.
The burro pulled back quickly. Don’t want to get in the way of a spell that involves anyone’s finger bone, Olive decided.
Oblivious to the magic being cast behind him, Giogi rushed to his cousin’s side. The kobolds, alarmed by the sudden loud intrusion and the finder’s stone light, scattered before him.
Their surprise gave way to rage, however, when they realized they were beset with only a single foe armed with nothing but an oversized skewer. With cruel smiles on their muzzles, the kobolds drew sharp daggers, which glittered in the light of Giogi’s stone. The beasts began encroaching on him in groups of three or four, snarling like dogs set to bait a bull.
Assuming a combat stance, Giogi pivoted about his left foot, lunging with his foil in the direction of any kobold who came within range.
Back in the corridor, Cat ceased her chanting and the bone she held crumbled to dust. Suddenly, the kobolds surrounding Giogi fell back in terror. Impressed with the effect his prowess seemed to have had on the creatures, Giogi jabbed his foil a few times in their direction to test their reaction. The kobolds cowered like whipped dogs.
The nobleman didn’t have the heart to skewer any of them. Keeping a wary eye on the little monsters, he bent over to examine his cousin. Steele’s breathing was shallow and his face pale.
Cat padded into the room, smiling with pleasure at the effect her scare spell had on them. The creatures trembled at her gaze. Olive stood watching from the shadows near the room’s entrance. According to common adventurer lore, pack animals were seen as a delicacy among kobolds and other underground races. She didn’t want to take the chance that the sight of dinner on the hoof would prick up the monsters’ courage.
“I thought I told you to stay put,” Giogi whispered to the mage.
“They won’t hurt me with you to protect me,” Cat insisted. When she looked down at Steele, she gasped softly. “This is your cousin?” she asked.
“Yes. Why?” Giogi asked.
“Nothing,” Cat said, shaking her head.
“Well, now that you’re here, I suppose you can help,” Giogi said with a sigh. “Take these,” he ordered, handing Cat his foil and the finder’s stone so he could use both hands to lift the table off Steele. He strained under the weight, unable to shift the massive piece of furniture.
“How did they move this thing on top of him in the first place?” Giogi gasped, sweat beading on his forehead.
“Look up,” Cat suggested, holding the finder’s stone over her head so he could get a better look. A great length of rope ran from the table to a pulley mounted in the ceiling twenty feet above, to a second pulley at the edge of the room, and finally to a spool controlled by a winch.
“Keep an eye on them,” he ordered Cat. He crossed the room to examine the winch. Whimpering kobolds backed away from him. It took him a minute to find and operate the toggle that engaged the spool’s gears. He cranked the rope taut, then began lifting the great table off the floor. Even with the ingenious machine, it was hard work. Sweat trickled down the sides of Giogi’s face by the time he’d raised the table a few inches.
“That should be enough,” Cat said, peering under the table at Steele’s body.
Giogi returned to her side and slid Steele clear of the crushing weight. “I wonder how these little monsters managed to get this table in here,” Giogi said aloud. “I think it used to be in the anteroom beneath the crypt.”
“No doubt they bribed something bigger to do it for them,” Cat guessed. “So, unless you want to meet whatever that thing is, I suggest we leave now.”
“Good idea,” Giogi agreed. “Just as soon as Steele recovers. I need to fetch a healing potion from Birdie’s pack.”