Child of Fate (17 page)

“Good!” Alto blurted. “Uh,” Alto hesitated.
He had no idea what to say to her. He grabbed the first thing that
came to mind, a conversational tactic he’d seen his father use many
times when they went to Monterose for supplies. “What’s the weather
like where you’re from?”

Trina’s eyebrows scrunched together for a
moment, and then her mouth dropped open. She snapped it shut and
answered him in a tone as cold as the weather she spoke of. “The
weather? You want to know what the weather’s like? Most of the year
it’s cold and wet along the coast. If you can survive the storms
and the monsters, you’re sure to make a name for yourself!”

Trina turned and stormed away from him, going
to check on Karthor’s progress. Alto watched her go, confused. He
turned to Namitus and saw a sad smile on the man’s face. “What’s so
bad about the weather?” Alto whispered to him.

“Trina’s like the coast she speaks of,”
Namitus answered. “Stormy.”

“Frigid seems more like it,” William offered
from where he overheard them. The three chuckled but Namitus and
Alto’s laughs were short-lived. It was just as well; Karthor
finished with Tristam and it was time to be on their way.

They had only Karthor’s holy symbol and
whatever light Kar’s magic could provide to guide their way, so
Karthor replaced Alto behind Tristam. Kar conjured small globes of
light that resembled overzealous fireflies. His magical lightning
bugs floated above them as they walked out of the chamber and
through the tunnel that led upwards into the mountains above
them.

It curved slowly until a column of rock split
the tunnel in two. They approached it carefully, wary of a trap
after so much time without being harassed. Tristam saw an
opportunity for an ambush at the chokepoint. When they reached it,
they found it was more than a simple pillar of rock; it split the
passage off into new tunnels.

The larger cave lay on their right but the
one to the left showed more signs of passage in the way the rock
was scratched and worn smooth. They ventured left, hoping that the
upward slope of the tunnel indicated a quicker path to the surface.
After a few dozen feet down the new passage, Tristam called a halt
and forced everyone to back up to the junction again. The walls and
ceiling had closed in on them, forcing more than just a single
file; many of them had been forced to turn sideways just to ease
their passage.

“The cave’s too narrow; we’ll be jammed in it
and stuck,” Tristam told them. He swore and added, “I swear I felt
a touch of air on my face, too.”

“Let me go,” Namitus offered. “I’ve no armor
and I can wiggle into places only a goblin would dare go.”

“You’re too big!” Alto protested.

Namitus grinned. “Wait and see. I’ll scout it
and tell you what I find. Might be only a few small scrapes and it
opens again.”

Tristam frowned. “All right, but be
careful.”

Namitus unbuckled his belt and slid the
scabbard and sword off. He thrust it toward Alto. “This is my
share, you can be sure I’ll be back for it!”

“No weapon? What if you come up against a
goblin?” Alto said before taking it.

Namitus drew a dagger. “I’ll have this with
me,” he said. “I spent a lot of my youth with little more than a
knife.”

Alto nodded and took the sword from him. “Be
careful!”

Namitus smiled and moved to the lefthand
passage. He stared up in it and then closed his eyes. “I can feel
the air on my face,” he confirmed Tristam’s earlier claim. “I’ll be
back.”

Namitus slipped into the passage and
disappeared from view as the walls narrowed. The last they saw of
him was him working his way sideways around a corner while ducking
at the same time. The darkness and rocks claimed him, leaving them
staring into the dark passage with silent expectation. Within
moments, the faint sounds of his feet scraping against the rocks
faded.

“Now we wait,” Tristam said. He turned.
“William, Alto, put an eye to that other passage. Trina, Karthor,
look to the tunnel behind us.”

Alto glanced at Trina and saw her jerk her
eyes away from him. She turned and hurried down the passage, paying
no attention to whether Karthor was with her or not. Alto moved to
the righthand passage and stepped past the column. It widened and
continued into the darkness beyond the light that Kar’s wisps shed.
William took up a position near the column, his crossbow in hand
and cocked, but at rest to spare his arms.

The seconds turned into minutes. Alto kept
glancing back, wondering if he’d heard Namitus return. Every
scuffle of boot against stone distracted him, conjuring fantasies
of a quick escape. It wasn’t until the minutes stretched closer to
an hour that William hissed and hoisted his crossbow up.

Alto spun back to the dark tunnel and stared.
He saw nothing but the inky darkness. He was near to glancing back
when he heard a clank of metal against stone, coming from the
corridor ahead.

Alto glanced around, looking for a place to
hide. He heard a snort from William. When he glanced at the man,
William gestured behind him and up at the roof of the cave. Alto’s
eyes followed and saw the magical lights. William’s message
delivered and received: whoever was coming down the passage knew
they were there. Hiding was pointless.

The sound of feet slapping against stone and
a crude, guttural language reached them. Seconds later, six goblins
emerged from the darkness of the passage, rushing at them with
weapons brandished.

William’s crossbow made a thudding sound as
the bolt was fired. A goblin in the lead crumpled, clutching the
bolt in its belly and losing its balance. Another goblin tripped
over the first and fell, but it rose up and rushed on. Alto stepped
into the middle of the passage to buy William time to load his
crossbow again.

The goblins swarmed Alto, leaping and
grunting in spite of the territorial swipe he used to try to slow
them. The goblins gnashed their teeth, thrust their swords, and
swung their swords and axes. Alto managed to catch one of the
suicidal creatures on the point of his sword but he had to stumble
back to avoid their slashing weapons. A spear grazed his left arm,
leaving a burning sensation as the notched and dull blade tore his
flesh.

Alto swung his blade while he tried to back
away, glancing the sword off the raised knife of a goblin. The
force made the goblin stumble into the monster beside it but the
others kept coming. Alto felt an axe connect with the side of his
leg. The dull edge and the tough leather of his pants spared him a
crippling injury but the force of the impact bruised him and made
him jerk his leg back.

Alto staggered to the side, only to feel the
bite of a goblin sword on his side between his leather breeches and
tunic. The spear-wielding goblin tangled his legs up with a thrust
that missed his flesh. Alto fell, crashing onto his back and
feeling the air explode from his mouth.

Another goblin kicked him in the stomach and
climbed onto his chest. It raised its axe to deliver a killing
blow, giving Alto an opening. He grabbed the creature and thrust it
up in to the air, throwing it with the desperate movement. As soon
as he left his hands, a bolt slammed into his chest, spinning him
toward his feet and killing him.

The goblin with the spear jammed the
primitive weapon into his hip. He felt the aged metal tip grate
against his bone and it made him grunt as a shock made his entire
body jerk. He grabbed the spear by the shaft and yanked it away
from the goblin, tearing it free of his leg at the same time.

Panicked and desperate, Alto swung the spear,
knocking a goblin with a sword away until he bounced off a wall. He
put both hands on the spear and swung it the other way, catching
the weapon’s former owner on the shoulder and breaking the spear’s
shaft. The goblin collapsed, screaming and reaching for its arm.
Alto threw the remainder of the spear at a third goblin with a
short sword, forcing it to jump to avoid the twirling weapon.

Alto grabbed his sword and sat up fully. He
swung the blade, the tip biting into the goblin he’d swatted into
the wall as he started to come back toward him. He reversed his
swing and left the blade wedged in the rib cage of the creature. He
let go of it and rolled onto his good hip, and then found he
couldn’t swing his injured leg around to support himself. He rolled
back, gasping at the lance of pain that shot through his hip and
into his belly.

Alto pulled himself over farther, hissing
through clenched teeth and pulling his dagger free. The goblin with
the shoulder he’d broken stared at him and realized that Alto was
coming for him. He pumped his legs, trying to scoot across the
floor and get away. Alto grabbed one of his dirty feet and yanked
the creature to him; he drove the dagger into it blindly until the
goblin stopped thrashing and crying out.

“Get up!” William shouted, breaking through
the red haze that had overtaken Alto.

Alto struggled and felt fresh agony spread
through his hip and abdomen. “I can’t!” he gasped.

“You’d better,” William warned. Alto heard
the release of the crossbow and looked up. A creature was lumbering
out of the darkness toward them. The creature was humanoid, but
humanoid in a way that made a knight wearing full-plate armor look
like a pixie.

It entered the light fully, holding a
stone-colored hand up to shield its eyes. Alto could see its lower
jaw, a blockish chin with canine teeth so large they looked like
tusks. Its chest was wide and covered with a dirty white pelt that
did little to shield the tree trunk-sized legs it stomped forward
on.

Something grabbed Alto under the shoulders.
He twisted and looked up in time to be blinded by something
slapping him in the eyes. He swung his hands and tried to beat off
his latest attacker.

“Alto! Stop it!” Trina hissed at him.

He blinked the tears out of his eyes from
whatever had smacked him and made out the blurry form of the
Kelgryn girl. Another form appeared beside her and helped her pull
him back away from the tunnel. William’s crossbow fired again as he
let them pull him back.

Free at last, Alto wiped at his eyes to clear
them. His right hand was covered in blood and made it worse at
first. When he could see at last, he saw Tristam facing off against
the creature that he assumed was a mountain troll. Tristam ducked
under the troll’s swing and slipped to the side, and then lunged in
and thrust his sword. The hide of the troll was tough as armor,
barely showing signs of the impact of Tristam’s blade when he
struck it.

“I need to help him,” Alto grunted. He
struggled to rise but his hip protested. He hissed and had to focus
hard on breathing through the paralyzing pain that gripped him.

“Hold still,” Karthor admonished him. He
looked at Alto’s wound, poking it with his fingers, and then
reached up to grab his glowing holy symbol.

Alto craned his neck to look past the priest
to where Tristam scrambled to stay ahead of the powerful troll’s
crushing blows. The troll wielded no weapons other than the
dangerous-looking talons at the end of its long fingers. Alto felt
his pain lessen as the priest prayed over him.

Kar stepped around them and threw a fine
powder onto the floor of the passage. His chanting continued as he
made gestures that invoked elemental powers of magic. Moments
later, he reached in from both sides as though the troll were in
front of him. Hands emerged from the stone wall on either side of
the troll and grabbed onto its arms, holding it still.

Tristam jammed his sword forward, trying to
impale the creature while it struggled to break free of the
wizard’s spell. Kar clenched his teeth and struggled to focus his
will against the might of the monster. The concentration required
caused his flickering lights to darken and fade away, leaving only
Karthor’s medallion of Leander to provide light in the tunnel.
Tristam’s sword dug in but the wounds were shallow against the
rock-like hide of the creature.

“There,” Karthor grunted. He slumped back,
his back leaning against the wall of the passage.

Alto stared at his side. The blood on his
flesh and clothing was still wet but he felt no pain. He tested it,
raising his leg slowly, and then gave a cry of surprise and
delight. He rolled onto his feet and started forward.

“Alto, here!”

He turned and saw Trina holding Namitus’s
sword. He’d left it leaning against the rock dividing the passages.
He pulled it free of the scabbard and felt reassured by the weight
of the blade, even though he knew it lacked the length of the
broadsword he preferred. Alto turned as Kar grunted and stumbled
back and to one knee. The troll had torn itself free of his spell
and sent Tristam stumbling with a glancing blow.

Alto charged toward the troll, shouting an
inarticulate cry to draw its attention away from the stunned leader
of the Blades. He held the scimitar in both hands and swung it as
he ducked under a powerful overhand swipe that would have crushed
his skull had he not ducked under it.

He felt the blade bite deeply into the troll.
He pulled on it as he stepped past and away from the troll, trying
to saw the wound in as deeply as he could. He spun around and
continued to backpedal in case the troll came after him. He saw and
felt the massive creature fall to its knees, facing away from him.
Both hands went to the gaping wound in its abdomen.

“Finish it!” Tristam shouted at him.

Alto snapped free of his surprise and stepped
up behind the troll. He swung again, using both hands to put every
bit of power he could into the blow. The troll toppled forward, its
head rolling forward wetly to rest at Tristam’s feet.

They stared at the troll and then looked up
to lock their gazes. Tristam grinned and said, “Nice sword.”