There was a curious motion of Shing’s shoulders, a rush upward, followed by a swing up of his right leg and another rush upward. Orlon held on tightly, refusing to open his eyes, and he feared they might fall—and thought how sad that would be. To think they traveled all this way, faced all they had faced, only to reach this point of the quest and lose the one they had brought to save the world from an age of evil by a fall. It would be…tragic.
"We are here," Shing announced and knelt.
Orlon’s brow furrowed. He slowly opened his eyes, saw nothing but blue sky and a scudding cloud or two. He blinked. They had made it! Careful of the weapon in hand, he climbed off the Oriental Ranger’s back to stand on the rim of the volcanic mountain. A breeze rustled his hair, reminding him where he was, how high up he was. He looked over the rim edge to see the ground so far below. Startled, he hopped back, into the arms of quick thinking Tarl.
"Watch it, buddy o' mine," he said. "I’d hate to see you’d made it all the way up here only to see you fall into the pit."
Frowning, Orlon looked at his best friend, who jerked his head to urge him to look behind himself, and he did. If his shock had not frozen him in place, he would have jumped away from the sight to plunge to his death, Tarl’s restraining arms notwithstanding.
While to a man, and woman, they successfully surmounted the volcanic mountain’s dizzying heights, to continue their journey meant another climb down into the pit. And this new climb—despite its heading in the right direction to Orlon’s way of thinking—looked quite dangerous indeed. The sun’s early afternoon position in the sky cast the lower half of the inner sheer wall into darkness.
Not even the fact Ty the Parson, in as dramatic a fashion as the narrow rim allowed, pointed out the walkable ledge circling down into the pit alleviated their insecurity over the descent. No one liked the idea of traveling any part of such a precarious ledge in the dark. What guarantee did they have the ledge continued uninterrupted to the pit bottom? Their worries were eased somewhat when Rae announced:
"I, Rae, will lead the way."
His position amongst them was not best for him to do as he pronounced. It forced him to pass each and every member of the Party to take the lead at the ledge, and to do so on the rim’s little more than two foot surface proved risky in its own right, especially squeezing by plump Tarl Bimbo. But he reached his goal nonetheless…. When he stepped to the forefront he held up his staff. The globe of light popped into dim existence around the perfect crystal ball at its top.
Rae’s first step onto the ledge was cautious, testing its solidity. Once satisfied it was safe, he began the downward journey, one careful step at a time. Ty the Parson followed and close behind him were Shing, Grash and Marcol. Expendendale started down next, with Tarftenrott, Shibtarr and Majestus Sinobe hot on his heels. Brak Dugan was next, followed by Tarl. Sharna and Orlon, as always, brought up the rear.
Round and round and round they went along the ledge, ever downward, ever nearing the darkness that enveloped the pit bottom. And as they worked their way down, the darkness worked its way up as the sun drifted down the afternoon sky.
When they and the darkness met, Rae slowed even more, brought his staff in closer. He descended into it, and with each step the globe of light grew brighter… Yet when he and his staff were engulfed in darkness that bright globe of light allowed him vision no more than two feet ahead. He continued anyway, stretching out a hand to slide against the stone wall.
Down and down and down he led them, and the further they went the hotter the air became, the more musty its scent.
The ledge ended at the pit bottom, bringing Rae and those behind him to a halt. He lifted his staff, thrust it forward to examine what lay ahead with what light the globe allowed, which really was not much. The pit bottom looked smooth but solid enough, and the wall continued on. That was it. After a glance backward, he stepped off the ledge, hand sliding along the wall, and found the smooth floor safe enough. He continued slowly along the wall, the Party close behind him.
Within ten paces the wall disappeared—and stopped the teenage boy so quickly Ty the Parson bumped into him, as Shing bumped into the Parson, as Grash bumped into the Oriental Ranger, as… When stillness finally prevailed, he felt up and down the edge. They had reached either a doorway or a tunnel. He brought his staff in close and, the Party bunched behind him, rounded the corner.
A long, sharp toothed snout crowned with beady red eyes came into the light.
"Eunuchs!" A juicy crunch punctuated Rae’s frantic warning.
The staff fell from limp fingers to roll a fair distance before bursting into flames.
Rae collapsed where he stood, revealing torn cloth and gore where once resided his genitals.
But his tragedy only earned him a glance by his fellow questers.
To a man, and woman, their attention was captured by what the burning staff’s light disclosed about their location. They stood in one of ten sizeable doorways spread equal distance around a large circular cave. Cut into the wall between doorways directly across it was a stairway leading up to a narrow doorway. All this was noticed in no more than a glance as well, their eyes drawn to what was in the cave with them.
Every doorway but their own and the one at the top of the stairs was filled with nude, gray scaly looking skinned, bipedal…creatures. Oh, they were human-like in body shape, but their sharp toothed snouts, beady red eyed faces were something else. And not a one had genitalia.
A moment passed, with every beady red eye on the Party…. The Eunuchs attacked.
"Sharna," Ty the Parson screamed above the snapping of innumerable jowls, leaping free of the doorway, a short length of noosed rope appearing in his hand, "protect the One."
"I will," she responded, stepping clear of the doorway along the wall, pulling Orlon along behind her, and drawing her saber, told him: "Hold on tight to me."
He wrapped an arm around her waist, the other behind his back, the Holy Pike carefully held in hand, body pressed against her silky pivot leg. With swift saber action, she met the attack of the creatures.
Quickly, the warriors leapt away from the doorway, swords in hand, to meet the endless stream of Eunuchs pouring through the other doorways. The sound of snapping jowls grew deafening—the close calls of losing genitals uncountable. Nearly lost in the cacophony was the sound of heads being sliced off in the nick of time.
There was one other threat they had to be wary of. It came in the form of a sword wielding Midget farmer.
Copying the warriors around him brought Tarl Bimbo clear of the doorway with a yell, his newly acquired sword in hand. And in pure amateur fashion, he met the Eunuch onslaught with wild sweeps of the blade he had christened "Wasp," that time and again not only saved his bacon but endangered his comrades-in-arms around him. To his fellow swordsmen his handling of the weapon made him more the threat of a swarm of wasps.
Shibtarr leaped into the thick of the creatures with a triumphant roar. He used his spear to skewer two or three Eunuchs at a time, shaking them off to meet more without trouble, but his tendency to seek out the biggest crowds of them led him away from the others—and into overwhelming forces. He held up his own, for a moment, before they overran and swept him through a doorway.
Orlon held on tightly to his protector, bouncing up and down on her pivot leg as she met the attack. Time after time Eunuchs snapped at her crotch in search of the male genitalia they sought, only to snap on thin air, startled confusion in their red eyes as her saber sent their heads flying from their bodies. Other than gagging at the blasts of urine, crotch rot breath, he slowly grew less and less aware of the horrid faces or action. With each bounce, his mind became clouded by a new sensation surging up from his inner gut. A smile played at his lips.