Quag Keep (20 page)

“Deav Dyne—no warrior, but a healer, a worker of spells, one who can draw upon potent powers which or who would not answer to any other's voice. And you, yourself, Naile Fangtooth—all know the gifts of the were-kind, both their powers and what trouble may follow the use of them. I am what I am. I have the spell that I used and perhaps one or two others I can summon.
However, I am no true daughter of such learning, rather one schooled to war. Yet again, I may have what each of the others of you lack. While you,” she looked last to Milo, “are a swordsman, a rank that marks you as a seasoned fighting man. Still, it is what you wear upon your thumb that guides us through this desert.

“So, each of us having our own talent to offer, can we say that Gulth does not also have his?”

“Being what?” demanded Naile. “So far we have had to coddle him as if he were a babe. Would you now dowse him with all our water so he may stumble on, say, another day—or night's—journey? What then? Having used up our supplies—he is no better and we are the worse. I tell you, girl, battlemaid or no, such an action is a foolishness that only the greenest of country lads who has never borne the weight of a shield might decide upon—”

“However, she is right!” Milo slewed around to front the berserker, knowing well that perhaps he might also face a disastrous flare-up of the big man's murderous temper. What Yevele had just said was logical good sense. Their very mixed party differed from any questing company he could remember—so diversified that there must be some reason for its assembly. Certainly Gulth had contributed nothing so far but the weight of a burden. But he did wear the bracelet, so it followed he had his place in the venture.

For a moment, the swordsman thought that Naile would vent his anger. Milo was sure that he could never stand up to a berserker's attack. Then—

There came a ripple of notes. Milo, his own blood pounding heavily in his ears, was confused. A bird—here in this death wilderness?

He saw the flush subside in Naile's face, felt his own hand fall away from his sword hilt. Then he realized that Wymarc was smiling. His fingers on the harp strings made them sing once more.

Naile looked at the bard. “You play with magic, songsmith, and sometime you may find those fingers of yours burned.” But there was no real threat behind his warning. It was as if the music had drawn the poison of anger out of him as speedily as a sword could let the life out of any man.

“My magic, berserker,” returned Wymarc. “We may not be blood comrades, but the battlemaid has the right of it. Deserve it or not, we are bound fast together in this ploy. Therefore, I have one small suggestion to offer. This Afreeta of yours, if she is like all her kind, she can smell out both food and drink. Suppose you loose her, berserker. In the meantime, if our scaled fellow here needs water to keep life within that long body of his, I say give him of my share. I have often tramped roads where wells lay far apart.”

Deav Dyne looked up from his beads. “Give of mine also, daughter.” He pushed the skin he had borne closer to her.

The elf said nothing, only brought his skin, while Milo tugged at the stopper on his. For a long moment Naile hesitated.

“A snake-skin,” he growled, “struck my shield mate's head from his shoulders. On that day I took oath, as I laid Karl under his stones of honor, that I would have vengeance for his blood price. That was three seasons ago and in a far part of the world. But if you all agree to this folly, I shall not be lessened by you. As for Afreeta—” He raised his hand to his throat and the pseudo-dragon crawled out, to sit upon it. “I think she will find
us nothing beyond what we see here and now. But I cannot answer for her. She shall do that for herself.” He loosed his small flyer into the night.

Deav Dyne, the girl, and Milo worked together, laving the skin of Gulth, until the lizardman coughed. His eyes, dull and nearly covered by the extra inner lid, opened.

They could not wet down his cloak again, that would have taken all the water of a small pond, Milo imagined. Perhaps though, with it about him the moisture on his skin would not evaporate so soon. At least the burning sun was gone. As they freed the cloaks they had used to roof their day shelter, the swordsman looked to his ring. To his great surprise fortune at last favored them a little, for, even in the dark, a spark of light shone there on what they hoped was their path.

Deav Dyne stepped up beside Gulth, pulling one of the lizardman's dangling arms about his own shoulders, lending him part of his own strength. The rest shrugged on their packs, Naile, without a word, slinging the cleric's along with his own. There were a few stars, high and cold, very remote, but tonight no moon. Still, the dust itself seemed oddly visible though Milo could discern no real radiance out of it—merely that it stretched as a pallid field ahead.

They wobbled and fought for balance until their aching muscles perforce adjusted to a gait necessary to maintain them afoot. At least the blowing of dust powder, which had accompanied them during their half-day's travel, appeared to have died away. Their surroundings were clear enough of the punishing haze for them to breathe more easily and see to a greater distance.

Milo moved out, his attention ever divided between the ring
and the way ahead, for they had to detour from time to time to avoid the rise of dunes. They had halted twice for rests before Afreeta's hissing call brought them to a quick third pause.

The pseudo-dragon sped directly to Naile, hooked claws in the folded back hood of his cloak, and pressed her snout as close to his helm-concealed ear as she could get.

“That way—” Naile gestured with his hand to the right. “She has made a find.”

He stepped out of the line of their advance, apparently quite confident of Afreeta's report. Because the others had some hope in that confidence, they fell in behind him. Weaving a way through a miniature range of dust hills, they came out into a wide open expanse. From its nearly flat surface jutted upward two tall, thin columns, starkly dark against the pallid sand. Afreeta took wing once more, hissing loudly. She reached the nearest of those pillars and clung with taloned feet, her head pointing downward to the smooth dust. Her hissing became a squawk of excitement.

Milo and Naile floundered on until the berserker set hand to the pillar below the perch of his winged companion.

“Wood! Wood!” Now he pounded on it. “You know what this is? I have seen service aboard the free ships of Parth—this is a mast! There is a ship below it!”

He dropped to his knees scooping away dust with his cupped hands, sending its powder flying over his shoulder as a hound might dig at the burrow of prey gone to earth.

“But”—Milo moved away from the flying dust that swirled out from the berserker's exertions—“a buried ship—what might that still hold after all these years?”

“Anything.” Ingrge's voice was calm, yet it would appear he
was infected with the madness that had gripped the berserker only with a little more logic in his action. For, before he squatted down a short distance away, he had drawn off one of his dust shoes and was using it as a shovel, doing greater good with that than Naile had been able to accomplish with his hands.

Milo was certain some madness born of this alien and threatening world (perhaps, even an outreaching of that which they sought and which must have defenses they could not conceive) had gripped both of them. Then Wymarc moved closer and deliberately knelt to unfasten his own webbed foot gear. He glanced up at Milo, his dust-begrimed face showing that lazy smile.

“Do not think they have taken leave of all senses, swordsman. Any ship that breasted such a sea as this must have gone well provisioned. And do not underrate our winged friend there. If she was told to seek water—that was what she quested for, nor would she make a mistake. It seems that perhaps miracles may yet be with us, even in these unregenerate and decadent days.” With that, he, too, began to dig.

Though Milo could not really accept that they would find anything, he discovered he could not keep apart from their labor. So, save for Gulth, who lay on the dust well away from the scene of their efforts, they united to seek a ship that might have lain cradled in the dust since before even one stone of Greyhawk's wall had been set upon another.

It was a back-killing and disheartening task, for the dust shifted continually through their improvised shovels. And, though they mounded it as far away from where they dug as they could, streams of dust continually trickled down the sides of the hole to be lifted out again. They tried to steady these
walls with the fabric of their cloaks, but Milo believed they were wasting their strength in folly. Then Naile gave a shout mighty enough to move the dunes themselves.

“Decking!”

Long ago Deav Dyne had produced his light-giving globe to aid their sight, and now he swung it below. It was true enough—what Milo had never really expected to see was firm under the berserker's boots—a stretch of planking. Afreeta fluttered down from her perch on the mast and landed on a ridge of yet uncleared dust. There she began to scrabble with her feet, again uttering her high squawk.

Naile pursed his lips, hissed in turn. The pseudo-dragon fluttered up, keeping her wings awhirr while he scooped vigorously at the site she had indicated. Within moments his sweeps had uncovered what could only be the edge of a hatch.

At the same moment, Milo looked down at his wrist. His bracelet had come to life.

“ ‘Ware the dice!” he cried out, as he strove to concentrate with all the energy his tired body could summon on the beginning whirr of those warnings of danger. He did not even know if his warning had reached the others.

Heat warmed the metal as the points of light glinted. On, his mind urged. On—give me—give me—

The dice stopped, allowing their pattern to blaze just for a moment before they were dead, metal and gem together again. Milo snatched up the shield he had been using to carry off the up-thrown dust from the edge of the pit they were digging. His sword was already drawn as he swung slowly about, searching for an enemy he was sure must exist. He saw Gulth throw off
the heavy cloak, pull himself to his knees, his hand fumbling weakly at the hilt of his own quartz-studded weapon.

Yevele, dumping a burden of dust from her own shield, scrambled to her feet and sank calf-deep in the loose ground. For the first time Milo thought of this impediment to any battle. To fight on their dust shoes would make even the most dexterous of swordsmen unsteady, unable to use even a fraction of his skill. To discard the webbing might plunge them instantly into a trap, keeping them fast-pinned at the pleasure of the foe.

Where
was
the enemy?

The pale stretch of the dust above the pit and the hillocks of powdery stuff they had dumped at a distance were clearly vacant of any save themselves. Ingrge crawled up, made for his bow and the arrow quiver that he had left beside the depleted water skins. The elf's head swung from side to side, and, though in this half-light Milo could not be sure, the swordsman believed Ingrge's nostrils expanded and contracted, testing the air for a scent human senses were too dulled to discover.

Deav Dyne was the next to crawl into sight. He must have left his light globe below in the pit, though his prayer beads swung from his left wrist. Now he stooped a foot or so away from the edge of their pit to gather up a fistful of dust. Chanting, he tossed this into the air, pivoted slowly, throwing similar handsful to each point of the compass as he used one of the archaic tongues of the temple-trained.

What he strove to do, Milo could not guess. But as far as he himself could gauge it, the spell achieved nothing.

“Heave, man, I have the lashing cut.” Naile's bellow sounded from below. Had the berserker not heard the warning or taken
heed of his own bracelet? Milo, reluctant to leave his post above, shouted back.

“ 'Ware, Naile—”

“Take watch yourself!” roared the other. “I have seen the dice spin. But what we must face lies—”

There was a crash. Dust rose out of the pit in a great billowing cloud to blind their eyes, fill their mouths and noses, render them for a long moment helpless.

Then came another shout, fast upon that the warning grunt of a battle-mad boar many times louder than any true boar could utter. Without clear thought of what might happen, Milo, still wiping at his watering eyes with the back of his left hand swung around to wade toward the lip of the pit. For there was no mistaking the sounds now. Battle was in progress there.

13

THE DUST ITSELF CHURNED AND MOVED, UPSETTING MILO AS A
wave might sweep the feet from under a man. He heard cries through the murk, fought to keep his feet, instinctively threw up his shield arm to give him a small breathing space between the billow of rising grit and his body which the dust threatened to bury.

Already the swordsman was held thigh deep in the outward spreading flood of gray-brown powder. More than half-blinded, gasping for breath, Milo reeled and fought against the powder that entrapped him. For all he could tell he was alone, the others might have been swallowed up, buried by this eruption. Yet he could still hear faintly that infernal grunting, even what might be the clash of steel against steel.