The Ghost King

CHAPTER 24

WANDERING IN THE DARKNESS
How can I be tellin' ye what I ain't for knowing?" Ivan grumbled, putting Temberle back on his heels. "I thought ... you might know ..." the young man stammered. "You are a dwarf," Hanaleisa added dryly.
"So's he!" Ivan fumed, poking a finger Pikel's way. His obstinate expression melted when he looked back to the Bonaduce siblings, both wearing skeptical expressions. "Yeah, I know," Ivan agreed with an exasperated sigh.
"Doo-dad," said Pikel, and with an imperious "harrumph" of his own, he walked away.
"He's durned good in the higher tunnels, though," Ivan said in his brother's defense. "When there's roots pokin' through. He talks to 'em, and the damned things talk back!"
"Our current plight?" Rorick reminded, walking over to join the discussion. "The folk are sick of tunnels and growing ever more agitated."
"They'd rather be out in Carradoon, would they?" Ivan retorted. It was sarcasm, of course, but to everyone's surprise, Rorick didn't blink.
"They're saying that very thing," he informed the others.
"They forget what chased us here in the first place," said Temberle, but Rorick shook his head with every word.
"They forget nothing - and we've been fighting those same monsters in the tunnels, anyway."
"From defensible positions, on ground of our choosing," said Hanaleisa, to which Rorick merely shrugged.
"Do ye think ye might be finding yer way back to the tunnels near to Carradoon?" Ivan asked Temberle and Hanaleisa.
"You cannot ..." Temberle started, but Hanaleisa cut him short.
"We can," she said. "I've been marking the tunnels at various junctures. We can get back close to where we started, I'm sure."
"Might be our best option," said Ivan.
"No," said Temberle.
"We're not knowin' what's still there, boy," Ivan reminded. "And we know what's waiting for us in the mountains, and I know ye didn't see nothing the size o' that damned wyrm in Carradoon, else ye'd all be dead. I'd like to give ye a better choice - I'd like a better choice for meself!  -  but I'm not for knowing another way out o' these tunnels, and the one I came down can't be climbed, and I wouldn't be climbing back that way anyhow!"
Temberle and Hanaleisa exchanged concerned looks, and both glanced across the torchlit chamber to the haggard refugees. The weight of responsibility pressed down upon them, for their decisions would affect everyone in that chamber, perhaps fatally.
"Choice ain't for ye, anyway," Ivan blustered a few heartbeats later, as if reading their thoughts, certainly reading their expressions. "Ye done good in gettin' these folk from Carradoon, and I'll be sure to tell yer Ma and Da that when we get back to Spirit Soaring. But I'm here now, and last time I bothered to look, I've got a bit o' rank and experience on the both o' ye put together.
"We can't stay down here. Yer brother's right on that. If we were all kin dwarves, we'd just widen a few holes, put up a few walls, call the place home, and be done with it. But we ain't, and we got to get out, and I can't be getting us out unless we're going back the way ye came in."
"We'll be fighting there," Hanaleisa warned.
"More the reason to go, then!" Ivan declared with a toothy grin.
And they went, back the way they had come, and when they weren't sure of either left or right, because Hanaleisa's markings were neither complete nor always legible, they guessed and pressed on. And when they guessed wrong, they turned around and marched back, double-time, by the barking commands of Ivan Bouldershoulder.
Bark he did, but he added a much-needed enthusiasm, full of optimistic promise. His energy proved contagious and the group made great headway that first day. The second went along splendidly as well, except for one unusually long detour that nearly dropped Ivan, who insisted on leading the way, into a deep pit.
By the third day, their steps came smaller and the barks became mere words. Still they went along, for what choice did they have? When they heard the growls of monsters echoing along distant tunnels, though they all cringed at the notion of more fighting, they took hope that such sounds meant they were nearing the end of their Underdark torment. Hungry, as they had fed on nothing more than a few mushrooms and a few cave fish, thirsty, as most of the water they found was too fetid to drink, they took a deep breath and pushed forward.
Around a bend in the corridor, where the tunnel soon widened into a large chamber, they saw their enemies - not undead monsters, but the crawling fleshy beasts that Ivan knew so well - at the same time their enemies saw them. Driven by the knowledge that he had led those poor, beleaguered folks, including Cadderly's precious children, into danger, Ivan Bouldershoulder was fast to the charge. Fury drove his steps, and determination that he would not be the cause of disaster brought great strength to his limbs. The dwarf hit the advancing enemy line like a huge rock denying the tide. Crawlers flowed around him, but those nearest exploded under the weight of Ivan's mighty axe.
Flanking him left came Temberle and Hanaleisa, a great slash of the blade and a flurry of fists, and to the right came Pikel and Rorick. Rorick attempted only one spell, and when it utterly failed, he took up the dagger he carried on his belt and was glad that he, like his siblings, had been taught how to fight.
For Pikel, there was no magical glow to his club, no shillelagh enchantment to add weight to his blows. But like his brother, Pikel had gone to a deeper place of anger, a place where he was fighting not just for himself, but for others who could hardly defend against such enemies.
"Oo oi!" he yelled repeatedly, emphasizing each shout by cracking his cudgel across the head of a crawling beast. He could only swing with one arm, it was true, and swung a weapon absent its usual enchantment, but crawler after crawler was bowled back or fell straight to the ground, shuddering in its death throes, its skull battered to shards.
With that living prow of five skilled fighters, the embattled refugees pushed on and drove their enemies back. Any thought that they should slow and close ranks, or flee back the way they had come, was denied by Ivan - not with words, but because he would neither slow nor turn. He seemed as if he cared not if those flanking and supporting him kept up.
For Ivan, this wasn't about tactics, but about anger - anger at all of it: at the dragon and at the danger that threatened Cadderly's children; at the frustration of his brother, who felt abandoned by his god; at the loss of security in the place he called home. Left and right went his axe, with no thought of defense - not a blocking arm or a creature leaping at him deterred his cuts. He sliced a grasping arm off where his axe hit it, and more than one fleshy beast did leap upon him, only to get a head-butt or a jab in the face from the pommel of the axe. Then, as the foolish creature inevitably fell away, Ivan kicked and spat and ultimately split the thing's head wide with that double-bladed, monstrous weapon he carried.
He waded along, the floor slick with blood and gore, with brains and slabs of flesh.
He got too far ahead of the others, and creatures came at him from every side, even from behind.
And creatures died all around the frenzied dwarf.
They grabbed at him and clawed at him. Blood showed on every patch of Ivan that was not armored, and creatures died with strands of his yellow hair in their long fingers. But he didn't slow, and his blows rained down with even more strength and fury.
Soon enough, even the stupid crawlers understood to stay away from that one, and Ivan could have walked across the rest of the chamber unhindered. Only then did he turn back to support the line.
The fight went on and on, until every swing of a weapon came with aching arms, until the whole of the refugee band gasped for every breath as they struggled to continue the battle. But continue they did, and the crawlers died and died. When it was at last over, the remnants of the strange enemy finally fleeing down side corridors, the wide chamber full of blood and bodies, the ranks of the refugees had not significantly thinned.
But if there was an end to their battle, none of them could see it.
"To Carradoon," the indomitable Hanaleisa bade Ivan and Pikel, raising her voice so that all could hear, and hoping against hope that her feigned optimism would prove contagious.
The meager food, the constant fighting, the lack of daylight, the smell of death, and the grieving of so many for so many had depleted the band, she knew, as did everyone else. The reprieve that was Ivan, adding his bold, confident, and fearless voice, had proven a temporary uplift.
"We'll be fighting, every step!" complained one of the fishermen, sitting on a rock, his face streaked with blood - his own and that of a crawler - and with tears. "My stomach's growling for food and my arms are aching."
"And there's nothing back the way we came but dark death!" another shouted at him, and so yet another argument ensued.
"Get us out of here," Hanaleisa whispered to Ivan. "Now."
They didn't bury their dead under piles of heavy stones, and they made no formal plans for their wounded, just offered each a shoulder and dragged themselves along. They were moving again soon after the fight, but it seemed an inch at a time.
"If it comes to fightin' again, the two of ye will make us win or make us lose," Ivan informed Temberle and Hanaleisa. "We can't move along as fast, 'tis true, but we can't fight any slower or we die. They'll be lookin' to you two. Ye find that deeper place and pull out the strength ye need."
The twins exchanged fearful glances, but those fast became expressions of determination.
* * * * *
In a quiet chamber not far from where the Bouldershoulders, the Bonaduce children, and the other refugees earned their hard-fought victory, the absolute darkness was interrupted by a blue-glowing dot, hovering more than six feet above the stone floor. As if some unseen hand was drawing with it, the dot moved along, cutting the blackness with a blue line.
It hung there, sizzling with magical power for a few moments, then seemed to expand, moving from two dimensions to three, forming a glowing doorway.
A young drow male stepped through that doorway, materializing from thin air, it seemed. Hand crossbow in one hand, sword in the other, the warrior slipped in silently, peering intently down the corridor, one way, then another. After a quick search of the area, he moved in front of the portal, stood up straight, and sheathed his sword.
On that signal, another dark elf stepped into the corridor. Fingers waggling in the silent language of the race, he ordered the first scout to move back behind the magical entry and take up a sentry position.
More drow stepped out, moving methodically and with precision and discipline, securing the area.
The portal sizzled, its glow increasing. More dark elves stepped through, including Kimmuriel Oblodra, who had created the psionic dimensional rift. A drow beside him began to signal with his fingers, but Kimmuriel, showing great confidence, grabbed his hand and bade him to whisper instead.
"You are certain of this?" the drow, Mariv by name, asked.
"He is following Jarlaxle's recommendation and request," answered the second drow who had come through the portal, Valas Hune, a scout of great renown. "So, no, Mariv, our friend is not certain because he knows that Jarlaxle is not certain. That one is always acting as if he is sure of his course, but all of his life's been a gamble, hasn't it?"
"That is his charm, I fear," said Kimmuriel.
"And why we follow him," Mariv said with a shrug.
"You follow him because you agreed to follow him, and promised to follow him," Kimmuriel reminded, clearly uncomfortable with, or condescending toward, such a line of reasoning. Kimmuriel Oblodra, after all, was perhaps the only drow close enough to Jarlaxle to understand the truth of that one: the appearance of a great gamble might be Jarlaxle's charm, but Kimmuriel knew that the source of the charm was truly a farce. Jarlaxle seemed to gamble all the time, but his course was rarely one of uncertainty. That was why the logical and pragmatic, never-gambling Kimmuriel trusted Jarlaxle. It had nothing to do with charm, and everything to do with the realization of that which Jarlaxle promised.
"You may, of course, change your mind," he finished to Mariv, "but it would not be a course I would advise."
"Unless he'd prefer you dead," Valas Hune remarked to Mariv with a sly grin, and he moved away to make sure the perimeter was secure.
"I know you're uncomfortable with this mission," Kimmuriel said to Mariv, and such empathy was indeed rare, almost nonexistent, from the callous and logical drow psionicist. Mariv had been Kimmuriel's appointee, and had climbed the ranks of Bregan D'aerthe during Jarlaxle's absence, when the band had been fully under Kimmuriel's direction. The young wizard was in Kimmuriel's highest favor, one of three in the third tier of the mercenary band where Kimmuriel was undisputed second and Jarlaxle was undisputed leader. Even with the drawdown and current unpredictability of magic, the resourceful Mariv retained Kimmuriel's good graces, for he was possessed of many magical items of considerable power and was no novice with the blade as well. Well-versed with the sword, having graduated from Melee-Magthere, the drow martial school, before his tenure at Sorcere, the academy for wizards, Mariv remained a potent force even in a time of the collapsing Weave.
Kimmuriel stood quiet then, and waved away all other conversation, waiting for the rest of his strike force to come through the gate, and for all the preparations around him to be completed. As soon as those things were done, all eyes turned his way.
"You know why we have come," Kimmuriel said quietly to those around him. "Your orders are without exception. Strike true and strike as instructed - and only as instructed."
The psionicist knew that more than a few of the Bregan D'aerthe warriors remained confused about their mission, and some were even repulsed by it. He didn't care. He trusted his underlings to perform as instructed, for to do otherwise was to face the wrath of not only the ultimately deadly Jarlaxle, but of Kimmuriel, and no one could exact exquisite torture more profoundly than a psionicist.
Two score of Bregan D'aerthe's force had entered the tunnels beneath the Snowflakes not far from the destroyed town of Carradoon. They moved out, silent, methodical, deadly.