The Living Dead

28

Mialee saw-with some disbelief-Devis shake his head and launch into a panicked, singsong prayer. She could barely hear his words, but it sounded to her as if he was begging for his ears to grow back, or something similar. Yet his softly pointed ears seemed to be one of the few body parts that had escaped injury.

Then she realized that Devis wasn't asking for his ears, but for his hearing. She tried to stand, to assure him the effect had to be temporary-she herself could not hear very well-but pain lanced through her leg and she dropped back to the floor with a yelp.

Her bruised, cut legs stretched straight out in front of her, but the toes of her left foot still pointed at the floor. Blood ringed her ankle, and she could see bits of white bone sticking through the flesh. She winced and bit back a scream. She wouldn't be standing or walking without serious help. Fortunately, she knew just the goddess-filled healer for the job.

"Zalyn," she gasped, "ankle."

The elder elf, looking older and more tired than ever, opened her cupped hands and a little raven flew up, fully healed. Mialee didn't even want to think of what the flames had done to the bird. Darji landed on her shoulder and chirped. Mialee sensed that the line dividing Zalyn and Ehlonna was fading, and it was definitely not Zalyn's impish voice that reached her ears whispering a soft, healing refrain. Mialee's mangled foot turned, toes up. A greenish-gold glow swelled around the bloody wound, then dissipated. The blood was still there, but it had already dried.

She flexed her toes. Not a bit of pain. She thanked Ehlonna/Zalyn wordlessly, and decided not to mention to the goddess that she still hurt everywhere else. She pulled herself to her feet and went to Devis. He pointed to one ear.

"I CANT HEAR A THING," the bard said with ridiculous volume. Mialee laughed. Despite his condition he embraced her in relief. They were alive.

After a long time, during which their goddess in cleric's clothing went to each of them in turn to treat their most grievous injuries, including Devis's hearing, Mialee raised her head and looked the bard in the eye. Those eyes grew wide as Mialee placed a hand on either side of his face.

As luck would have it, an earthquake chose that exact moment to strike. Devis lost his balance and they fell to the floor of the cart in a tangle. Their massive vessel gave in to the demands of cruel gravity and tipped onto its side, spilling them all across a field of rusted, jagged metal.

Devis cried out as he felt something pierce his side deeply. All around him, the ocean of rusted metal, corroded beyond belief, roiled like a stormy sea.

Wincing, he pulled himself off the jagged thing that may have once been a long sword and felt blood well inside his vest. The bard pulled a filthy, blackened handkerchief from his pocket in one shaking hand and balled it up. He choked back a wail as he stuffed the cloth ball beneath his vest and into the wound. It might keep him from bleeding to death today only to kill him with an infection in a week.

Mialee! He frantically scanned the area for the elf woman. She'd been about to-

There. She lay on her back, maybe ten feet away. He saw her breast rise and fall. Unconscious, but alive. He looked for the others and found them fanned all around him. All of them but Mialee were moving about, tending to fresh injuries. Zalyn, completely unharmed as usual, floated-floated? Yes, that's exactly what she did, Devis saw-to Hound-Eye, who had gotten the worst of it. His patch was gone and the empty, black socket reminded Devis of the peril they had yet to face. The little halfling still held Nialma tightly to his chest. Hound-Eye had once again put himself between the little girl and harm's way, and this time had truly suffered for it. Two ancient, rusted steel bars were rammed up through his torso on either side of Nialma. Halfling blood streamed down his waist and legs. Somehow Hound-Eye remained conscious and calm. Perhaps, Devis hoped, he couldn't feel it. The halfling had earned that much mercy.

Zalyn/Ehlonna leaned against Soveliss as she shouted more loudly in the din of shrieking metal. Hound-Eye's body rose slowly into the air, the bars grinding out of him. Twin torrents of claret drained from his back onto the rusted surface of the nightmare floor. Nialma, stoic as ever, watched intently as the possessed cleric finished her lengthy incantation and the bleeding trickled to a drip, then stopped completely. Hound-Eye let out a "Wha!" as he spun in mid-air and came to rest gently on his feet. His other wounds still bled, but he would not die today. Not from this particular impalement, anyway.

A low rumbling grew under the groaning metal, and a small, red-brown hillock rose beneath them. Devis felt with dreadful certainty that the cart had not been upset by an earthquake. Something was alive far below them, and it was moving to the surface.

"Run!" he shouted to the others.

"Where?" Hound-Eye yelled over the din.

"That way!" Soveliss shouted, pointing at a distant, narrow opening that Devis could barely see.

The only light in the cavern was coming from the cleric's spells and her eerie, glowing body. The others stumbled toweard the exit, but Devis headed in the exact opposite direction.

Mialee still lay on her back, her only movements the drawing of breath. Scrambling as carefully as he could over the rising tide of jagged-edged metal, Devis reached Mialee just as something huge and brown, with the head of a massive cockroach, burst through the iron shards behind him. Bars and blades and barrel hoops filled the air. Devis ignored the thumping and stabbing pains in his back as he bent over Mialee's form.

She lay unconscious, eyes closed. An ugly bump had risen on her head. Devis's bleeding side made him cry out as he scooped the elf woman into his arms. The cavern reverberated with a keening, screeching explosion of sound unlike anything Devis had ever heard, even in the last few days. The giant, insectoid head reared above the overturned mine cart. With a deafening crash, the creature dived into the metal like a breaching whale. A massive wave rolled toward Devis and Mialee as the creature moved toward them, submerged in the wreckage. The bard faced the wave and saw with relief that Soveliss, Hound-Eye, little Nialma, and the cleric/goddess were nearly to the tiny exit. Devis stumbled across the churning, rusted sea.

"Keep going!" he shouted to the others, though the urging may have been directed as much at himself.

The others were almost out and probably couldn't hear him anyway. Devis knew with grim certainty that he and Mialee were expendable. He had done his part, and Favrid, Ehlonna, and Soveliss would do the rest. Hound-Eye stood at the crack in the stone wall until the last possible second. Then the halfling flipped him a rough imitation of Clayris ranger salute, turned, and disappeared into the exit.

Devis did the only thing he could think of as the deadly wave rolled closer. He charged as fast as he dared into the massive iron cart, still tipped on its side and only feet away. It was between them and the screaming wake spreading out from the giant insect. He held Mialee close and waited for the end with little hope.

As the wave rolled ever closer, the bard felt wet warmth spread over his hands. He groaned and struggled to see Mialee's face in the dim light from the tunnel far above. She still had not awoken, and now he knew why. The landing had been far worse than he'd realized. Mialee was bleeding to death in Devis's arms.

The bard felt their iron tomb lurch forward with the arrival of the wave. He clutched the dying elf woman to his chest and prepared to go with her.