We snuck along the tunnel, which graded down at a fairly steep angle. The air in the tunnels stunk—at first I thought because of the goblins, but then, I wasn’t sure. I knew the creatures had a stench to them, but this tickled my memory as to something different. It smelled like wet dirt, sour and tangy, with mushrooms and mold growing in it. Like the forest in autumn.
Up ahead, the tunnel split off in two forks: straight ahead, and to the left. Thornhold reached out to catch my hand and motioned for me to slip behind him. “I’m a dwarf,” he whispered. “I understand the tunnels of the world.”
I let him take the lead. A moment later, at the fork, he walked over to the wall of the tunnel leading left and placedhis ear against it, closing his eyes. Then, he did the same to the tunnel heading straight.
“They took the fork,” he said, turning around. “They aren’t that far ahead of us, so we should be able to catch them.”
“How do you know?” Reggie asked.
“Remember that dwarves can speak to the rocks, and if we’re lucky, they’ll answer us. The rocks tell me that they’ve gone ahead in this direction. And the rocks don’t lie.” He sounded so assured that I motioned for him to continue in the lead. Truth was, being underground bothered me more than I ever remembered. Back in the real world, I had very little claustrophobia, but ever since I’d turned into an elf, I had felt uncomfortable walking under a canopy of rock.
Thornhold led, Reggie followed him, I came next, and Ray took up the rear. We wound our way through the labyrinth of stone, passing several more turnoffs. At each one, Thornhold would listen, then choose our direction based on what he heard.
“I just hope that you aren’t under some spell to fool your senses,” Ray said at one point.
“I’m not. I can hear the stones. And goblins don’t have much magic, remember?” Thornhold answered.
But eventually, we descended the sloping tunnel, and up ahead, a larger exit appeared, leading into what I could only guess was another cavern. Voices echoed out from the cavern, and at one point, I thought I heard Brynn shouting, but her words sounded garbled, as though they had partially gagged her.
Thornhold motioned to me. “Sneak up and peek in. You’re better at skulking around than the rest of us,” he said.
I gave him a nod. I was better at sneaking, and we all knew it. We were coming to trust the specialties each of us possessed.
I crept toward the opening, keeping close to the wall so that I wouldn’t be seen. The others hunkered down, trying to remainsilent. As I neared the exit, carved into the stone, I heard Brynn. At least she was alive.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing? Put me down, or so help me—” Her voice trailed off, and she let out a short scream. “You have to be fucking kidding me!”
Worried now, I edged around, trying to see what the hell they were doing. As I peeked around the corner, I found myself staring at what looked like a makeshift temple—a grungy, rusted looking metal plinth covered with what appeared to be dried blood and dried bits of flotsam that might—or might not—have been dried guts.
Atop the plinth, four goblins were trying to drag Brynn over to the altar table, but she had broken free of the sleep spell and was fighting back. The fact that they were using weapons and she was still kicking the hell out of them gave me secondhand embarrassment for the little freaks, but it also triggered me to yell, “Come on” and rush in to help our fair Amazon.
CHAPTER 53: SERIOUSLY, GOBLINS?
As we burstthrough the opening of the tunnel, Brynn leaned over and bit into one of the goblins’ hands. The goblin shrieked, dropping her as he hopped around, shaking his wrist. Brynn reached across her chest to grab the other goblin, who had hold of her other side. She grabbed his ear, yanking so hard that he screamed and let go. The two goblins holding her feet gave each other a strangled look and then raced away.
The rest of the horde started shouting, but as we charged toward them, they cut their shrieks short and headed for the opposite side of the cavern, through another tunnel opening. I wasn’t sure whether to go after them or not, but decided to check on Brynn first.
She was pushing her way off the floor, looking disgusted.
“Nasty little vermin,” she said. “They’re low-level, I’ll tell you that. They had to resort to spells in order to go after us.”
“What were they going to do with you?” I asked, walking over to the altar.
The stone had channels cut in the shape of a human size body, and as I saw the dried blood covering the bottom of each channel, I realized that they were going to bleed her out, probably offering the blood to their equally odious god.
Shuddering, I turned back to the others. “What do we do? Do we go after them?”
Thornhold shook his head. “Do you remember the scene in Lord of the Rings? The one in Moria, with all the goblins?”
I thought about it for a moment, then nodded.
“You make a good point,” I said. “There’s no way that we want to run into their central horde. As for a smaller group of goblins? We can take them on. But a goblin city? Not so much. Okay, so what do we do about the cave upstairs?”
“We fill in the holes,” Ray said. “We can build fires in front of all the entrances until morning, then before we take off again, we do a little earthshaking and bring the ceiling down. That way it will make it safer for any other travelers coming this way.”
“An admirable thought,” I said. “But it doesn’t take into account the possibility that we’ll bring the ceiling down around our shoulders as well.”
“I have an explosion spell,” Reggie said. “I’ve never used it before — either in-game or out, of course, now. But it’s like time-released medicine. I can set it, and then we can hurry out and see if it works. I think I have all the components.”
