Against the Giants

11

Faced with nothing better to do in the quiet dark, Lhors satand watched Nemis go through his supplies. The mage’s hands were steady and hismien thoughtful as he brought out the bottles he’d taken in the maids’ quarters.He seemed to be testing them, though he never removed any of the stoppers. Lhors wanted to ask how he did that, but he felt a little foolish around the self-contained Nemis. The man’s story about dark elves had made little sense tohim, but it sounded frightening and the tale had certainly upset the rangers.

He couldn’t ask the mage anything now anyway. Nemis had justmurmured a spell of some kind and looked as if he were in a trance, eyes closed but lips still moving.

Lhors glanced at the watch-vial Vlandar had pulled from his pack: a sand-shifter that marked time, much like the one Lharis had owned. The warrior only turned the thing over once before Agya and Malowan returned.

Vlandar settled them down near the closed door and handed them water.

Malowan passed the water bottle to his ward. “The main roomis joined by passages, north and east. They’re as narrow as this one but longerand unlit. They seem deserted-no one lives in either, and they are seldom used.There is an apartment about this size just across from here, and the giant Agya heard lives there with his two apes. All three are inside and sleeping. To the south, a long passage ends in a cross-corridor. We did not check further, but I sensed guards: bugbears or possibly orcs.”

“Bears?” Agya’s voice rose sharply. “You dint say nothin’bout bears! Bears and apes?”

“Bugbears,” Nemis replied. “Bears are animals. These aredifferent. They’re intelligent as half-witted humans and good fighters, muchlike ogres, very strong and evil. They hate our kind.”

“Don’t care,” the thief replied flatly. “Long’s they ain’tbears. Nasty things, bears. One used to juggle in th’ market and et ’ismaster. I know, ’cause I saw ’im do it. Filthy way to die. These… bugbears,is it? Let ’em hate. I’ll hate ’em right back.”

Malowan gave her a distressed look but went on. “At the farend of the south corridor, I could see a door. There are prisoners kept there. Somewhere beyond that is a smithy. The whole area was quiet, oddly so, to my mind. Still, it is daylight up there. Nosnra and his followers may believe that we are trapped and that they can sleep the day away as they normally would, then seek us out at their leisure.”

“Perhaps,” Nemis said. “I just completed my own search. It isvery quiet out there-except for the manticores to the west. I also sensed asmithy southward and prison cells here and there.”

“Very good,” Vlandar agreed. “We won’t trust to our beingalone here, but it is reassuring. I think we can trust to this, however. Nosnra and his fellows have no magical communication with those down here, or else we would have had company waiting when we opened that door.”

“Maybe they wanted to lure us into the open instead?” Maerasuggested.

“Why,” Vlandar asked, “if they could surround this passageand take us without a fight? Sensible of you to suspect such a trap,” he addedwith a smile, but Maera did not smile back, “but there’s no sense in ouranticipating traps within traps. If hill giants were good at tactics, I would never have come against them with so few companions.”

Khlened laughed. Maera gave the barbarian a dark look but let it drop.

Nemis smiled briefly. “I found more. I am not sure what allof it means, but I can also help you map this place. One of my own spells is a variant on one the drow taught me: how to let the shape of a maze come to you.”

Malowan puffed up at this. “That would have been nice to knowbefore I risked my life and Agya’s-twice now! — in scouting out this place.”

“Forgive me,” Nemis said, “but the magic works only todetermine the layout of caves and buildings. It would not help in finding guards and such, which is what you and your ward were searching for.”

The paladin nodded, but still looked very unsatisfied to Lhors.

“What’s done is done,” Vlandar said. “What have you found,Nemis?”

“Two ways out, but neither is useful to us. One is at the endof a long, black passage that leads to a pool. To reach the outside, we would have to swim below a wall deep inside the pool. Beyond that, if you survive the depths, is a way out.”

“I’m not one for swimmin’, way out or not,” Khlened said.

“Peace, Khlened!” Vlandar said. “All of you! Let the manfinish.”

Nemis nodded thanks to Vlandar, then continued, “The otherway out follows an underground stream, but the way soon narrows such that I fear we would soon be forced to swim again.”

“Then it’s swim or fight our way out?” Lhors asked. Hecouldn’t decide which would be a worse way to die.

“No,” the mage replied, “I think not. There is a vast complexof caverns south and east of here, and I think they are cells and slave-pens, which will surely be filled with those who have no love for the giants and their allies.”

“But that does not make them our allies,” Vlandarsaid.

“Of course,” the mage said as a mischievous smile spreadacross his face, “but if we do not find those who would be willing to aid us, wemight at the least free them and loose enough chaos that the giants will have more to worry about than finding us.”

Malowan stirred. “The plan has merit. If for no other reasonthan it is the lesser of three evils.”

“Yes,” Vlandar said in resignation. “Well then, let’s be-”

“Shh!” Rowan broke in. “Do you hear that?”

Lhors sat still, not even breathing. Everyone else did the same. At first, there was utter silence, then ever so faintly, he caught the distant echo of picks and faint voices.

“Can you hear that?” Rowan said. “Unless I am very mistaken,Nosnra or his underlings are digging their way down through the rubble of the staircase.”

“All the more reason to be off,” Vlandar said. “This passageis no longer a haven for us-if it ever was.”