Sea of Death (28 page)

Thanks," Gord said with a heavy sigh. Then he remembered something he wanted very much to check on. "Did you see the one drow, the lone one I mean, after that?"

"No."

"I've got the picture of what happened," Gord said, turning to the one called Smoker. "Now, what is it you want me to do?"

"You can see in the dark better than any of us – we know, because some of us have seen you in operation. We have scouts out now, rounding up everyone else we can find who has escaped."

"You are hereby appointed our captain," Post added with a tinge of challenge in his tone. "You lead the way, and the whole lot of us will follow – until we get above!"

Gord wasn't sure he wanted to be saddled with the responsibility. After all, he had a dwarf and a couple of drow to chase down. However, his chances of getting out were better if he had a group around him… "What if I refuse?" he asked in a casual tone.

"That's what I thought you'd do," Post said grimly, "and that's why I was against wasting our medicines on you. Speaking for me, I'd say we should kill you for refusing, but that's up to Smoker, Edge, and Shade."

Not waiting to hear what those worthies had to say, Gord decided to take initiative in the matter. "Well, I hate to disappoint you, Post, but I do not refuse. Let's just say that I wanted to know who was fully behind me and who might be slow to assist."

The others laughed at that, and the lean man glowered. Gord had settled the matter to the apparent satisfaction of everyone, but had made an enemy in the process. "What are your orders, cap'n?" a burly man asked, a huge grin splitting his ugly but honest face. "I'm called Barrel, and we're all willing and able to do as you say – only get us out!"

"First I'll need my weapons and my armor. Where are my dagger and sword, and my mail shirt?"

Post grumbled for a second, then produced the dagger and its sheath, the sleeve slightly burn-damaged but intact. That little episode explained a lot, thought Gord. Then someone called Grubstepper handed forth the sword, saying honestly that he did not know Gord had possessed it. The young thief forgave this man, since Gord had not been wearing the weapon when he climbed the chain. Someone else produced the elfin mail from just a few paces away where it lay on the floor; it had simply been removed so that Gord's body could be covered with the healing balm. Now the young thief took charge, and giving orders seemed to come naturally to him.

"One of you go to that body over there, the man in old-fashioned armor," he said. "You'll find he wears the belt and scabbard for this sword, and I want both. Smoker, or anyone else, get some runners out and spread the word – we move out in half an hour, and not a second longer! The albinos seem to be in shock at the moment, but there must be plenty of them left. Maybe they've lost their sacred relic, but they surely will want their slaves back – or, at least revenge upon them – once they gather their senses and regain courage. All of us are goners unless we move quickly."

"I'll tell them a quarter-hour, Gord," Smoker said. Then he passed instructions to a trio of rugged-looking escapees and all four ran out.

"Get ready, men," Gord said to those who remained inside the chamber. "Scavenge what you can from these corpses, but don't burden yourselves with treasures – and by all means, stay away from the bodies that are standing." While the rest were occupied, Gord went to search the wing where Shade had said he'd seen the lone drow. If the half-elf was right, it could only have been Leda. He went to the vestibule and called her name softly once, then tried the same with more volume. No reply. There was no trace of her in either of the side passages or the rooms beyond – quarters and vestries for senior clergy and acolytes, from all appearances. Then, just as he was about to think the worst, he noticed a bundle in the corner by the door leading to the street. It turned out to be the short, black cloak that Leda had been wearing under her Yoli robe – and in the pocket sewn into the lower edge of the garment was the wand she had taken from the pygmy spell-caster!

Leda had deserted him, but not without reason; Gord could hardly blame her for trying to get away when they were taken by surprise. After all, as she had once said to him, their mission was more important than either of their lives. Gord assumed that she had fled in order to be able to take up the chase after Obmi and Eclavdra later, and he saw the wand as a token that she cared about him, something left behind for him in case he also managed to escape somehow. After replacing the wand and donning the cloak, Gord strode back to the central chamber.

He spent the next few minutes searching for more suitable garments and a case to protect the wand. He found both in a small side room, its contents apparently left over from when human-sized residents inhabited this city. As he returned to the central chamber, little brown Dohojar came smiling up to him. "Gord Zehaab, Smoker says that all is in readiness. Those that are able are gathered outside. You are to come now, please, and take charge."

That was it. No direction, no plan. He was to go out of the ancient building, "take charge," and find a short way out of the maze of this subterranean city just like that. The whole affair was crazy, but even as he thought that Gord had to grin a little. Didn't he still hope to somehow catch up with whomever possessed the Final Key before it was too late? Of course he did! What these ex-slaves expected of him was no more daft than what he expected of himself… Tell Smoker and the rest that I will be with them in a moment, Dohojar," said Gord, the smile still crossing his face. "Are they all well armed?"

"Oh, most assuredly, Zehaab!" The dark-brown fellow raised his right arm, holding aloft one of the pygmies' small arbalests that shot a half-dozen bolts before having to be reloaded. "See? And we have swords, spears, and glaives too. Each of us has a weapon or two."

Gord nodded, dismissing Dohojar, and then turned to the one man in the whole group that he was least sure of. "Post, get everyone in this place together, now! You and this bunch will be with me, understood?"

He had a black look on his face, but Post didn't argue. In a moment or two he had rounded up a score of others. "Let's go, then," Post said as he reported back, standing defiantly before the young thief.

Gord ignored the affront, and the one who delivered it, instead addressing the assemblage. "Boys, I'm happy to see that none of you broke the other cases – the ones with the lifelike statues inside them."

"Not likely, cap'n!" Barrel shouted back. "One look at the guy whose sword you got was enough. Those things come alive, don't they?"

"You bet your ass they do, Barrel," Gord called back with a laugh. "And that was good reasoning, too, by the way. You, and any of your mates who you know to have thought the same thing, are hereby promoted. Barrel, you're my Serjeant, and it's up to you to say who are to be corporals – a half-dozen is fine."

The burly man began his selections, and Gord turned back to the truculent Post. "You," he told the lean man, "are to be at my side every moment. When there's something that needs doing, you'll be the one who gets the job if I say so. Clear?" The man nodded, a little less cocky now. "That's fine. Now get some help and see if you can pry loose a half-dozen of those globes," Gord ordered, pointing to the golden spheres that were each only as large as a small melon but shed sufficient light to make a big room as bright as day. Post walked away to speak with two others, even offering a half-hearted salute before he turned. Gord noticed but did not return the gesture, for he was already busy considering the next step in his plan.

"Barrel!" he hollered as his Serjeant approached. "Find leather or cloth bags, heavy ones, for those lights Post is getting for us. If you can't find bags, gather dark cloth to wrap them in."

"Sure thing, Cap'n Gord," Barrel called back. Behind him, men were already gathering and contributing the needed materials. After a minute or so, Barrel said, "We got your globes covered as soon as Post brings them to you – and here he comes!"

The lean fellow had two of the shining spheres. Freeing them from the mesh of wire that held them was evidently not harmful to their power, and Gord saw that they could be grasped without discomfort. Post's two assistants each brought a pair as well. Gord directed the three over to the waiting sergeant. "Now we go," he told the group after the globes had been contained and covered.

Gord led them outside to where a crowd was gathered. A rapid scan indicated about sixty men and a handful of women. He quickly noted a couple of gnomes and a dwarf. "Serjeant," he said loudly enough for all the men to hear, "hand three of the globes to that dwarf and those two gnomes over there. I'll need some volunteers to carry the other three," he said to the crowd as he looked from face to face in the reddish dimness. "These bundles contain the golden lights from inside the temple," he explained. "Those carrying them will be in the front, at the rear, and on each flank. If we're attacked, they'll move away and uncover them. Then the humans here will be able to see and fight – and the hateful pygmies will be hindered at the same time, since they can not stand bright light."

"Good enough," Smoker affirmed. "This is our leader – and I say he's the best we've got, just in case anyone has doubts. His name's Gord – only the lot of you will call him captain. He'll get us to the surface, and then everyone's on their own."

"Smoker said it," Gord told the throng. "I'm captain, and Smoker and his mates Edge and Shade are lieutenants. Dohojar, I'm making you a serjeant, just the same as Barrel there is. Agreed?"

"Very good, Captain Gord Zehaab!"

"Smoker, you three lieutenants have to decide on other corporals. Barrel will tell you who his choices are – about six, I think. I want to divide this bunch up into fighting groups before we set out. One corporal to a group, and each squad no bigger than ten, no smaller than five. Let the men decide who is in each squad – but the ones with the globes are not in any unit. They operate alone, so they can move when needed."

"What about the ones who can see well in this gloom?" Smoker asked.

"Divide them between the squads," Gord said.

"so there's at least one up in the lead with me, one back in the rear, and the rest spread out along the flanks, I'd say. Are there enough?"

The newly made lieutenant scratched his mat of hair. "We got Shade for sure, and maybe another seven or eight – although it won't surprise me a bit if some others of elvish sort happen to join up along the way. Some of them we approached didn't like our chances, you might say. But when they see you leading, that'll change."

"Bull," Gord mumbled wryly, pleased at what the man said. "Organize on the march, Smoker. I was the one whining about time, and I've been dithering around ever since. There's enough of the reddish lights on our line of march for everyone to manage for the time being. Let's get on with it."

After making certain that Post was right behind him, Gord walked quickly to get to a position ahead of the others. He was headed down the avenue the drow had taken in getting to the temple, figuring that where the dark elves had entered, they could leave this little, cystlike nest of albino cannibals and sunless horror. He thought it should be a fairly simple matter to trace the path the invaders followed, for there would be signs of fighting along most of the route. The young man went slowly, missile-shooting wand in hand.

After Gord had traveled away from the temple for five minutes, he told Post to locate a lieutenant and find out if everyone was now formed in a fighting team. In a bit the lean man returned; all was according to Gord's wishes. So far they had encountered no opposition nor seen any of the little albinos, other than the dead bodies of those slain by the drow advance.

The company was passing through a large plaza littered with pale corpses when the first attack came. It turned out that not all of the bodies scattered about were dead ones, and for that Gord had to give the runts credit for being clever. Almost a dozen of the ex-slaves fell after the initial discharge of the pygmies' crossbows, the poisoned bolts giving any normal man hit virtually no chance of surviving. The revolutionaries were tough and determined, however. As soon as the attack was apparent, everyone dropped prone. Those able to find a target shot back, using the albinos' own weapons and poison to retaliate. Then golden light sprang up on both flanks and ahead. There were shrill screams at that, for as Gord had said the little men couldn't abide such illumination so suddenly.

A pair of violet streaks caught Gord full in the chest. They hurt dreadfully, and his heart skipped a beat as each nerve-searing hit scored. Vowing to fry the nasty little bugger who did that to him, the young thief darted into a place of concealment and watched. The albino revealed himself a moment later, seeing an opportunity to kill one of the men nearby with another pair of glowing missiles from the wand he pointed.

"Got you, grub," Gord muttered with content as he aimed his own wand and pressed his thumb into a hollow in the shaft. Sure enough, as he suspected, that was the way to trigger the thing. But his aim was off; he was not instinctively good at using the wand, especially since he was holding it in his left hand while grasping his sword in his right. The shot of energy zipped past the pygmy harmlessly, and the little fellow ducked and sought to locate the source of the potshot. Gord could see him despite the crouch his target had assumed.

The next streak from the wand caught the fellow just as Gord had hoped. With a screech, the pygmy dropped his own wand and hopped around for an instant. Then he disappeared from view, probably searching for the object. While the little man was thus engaged, Gord darted to a nearer position and again waited. The pygmy's head reappeared, scant feet from where Gord was hiding, and then the hand with the wand crept out from behind the cover the little man was employing. The albino saw a figure crawling toward him in the distance, assumed it was the one who had used a wand to attack him, and straightened out his arm to aim at the prone shape.

"Gotcha!" Gord shouted in triumph, as loudly as he could to paralyze his foe for the split-second he needed to strike. The albino froze in shock and horror at the proximity of his foe. Gord's longsword came down, and the pygmy's hand and wand were both on the cobbles as the pale cannibal ran howling away, gripping the bloody stump of his arm. After pulling the wand free from the now-useless hand that still gripped it, Gord scurried back to where his fellows were holding off the pygmy assault.