The Dungeoneers (34 page)

Colm went and put his hand on Quinn's forehead and jerked it back. The mageling's skin sizzled at the touch. He was drenched from head to foot in sweat, and yet he continued to shiver. “It's all right,” Colm whispered in his ear. “We are going to get you out of here. I have the crystal. Hopefully it has enough juice left in it to get us back.”

“Except this isn't all of us,” Serene said.

“We don't know where they took the others,” Lena added. “But apparently the orc chieftain knows Master Thwodin personally. Said he was going to put them all on trial and then execute them.”

“Some trial,” Ravena said.

“If you were an orc and got your hands on the dungeoneer who had spent the last twenty years stealing your gold from under your ugly nose, what would you do?” Serene retorted.

“We have to find them,” Colm said. He turned toward the door.

“Wait. I'm not going out there unarmed.” Lena moved from one fallen orc to another, picking up each of their blades and giving it a swing before dropping it to the ground in disgust, muttering something about balance and tang. Finally Colm
just bent down and picked up the sword of the orc lying closest to him and shoved it at her.

“Is it pointy?” Colm asked.

“I suppose,” she said.

“And how do you handle an orc?”

“Stab it,” she said.

“Then let's go.”

Lena sighed but took the sword, then growled when both she and Ravena tried to squeeze through the entry at the same time, each trying to take the lead. Finally Ravena stepped back and let Lena through. Rule number five.

Colm helped Serene with Quinn, nearly dragging him along as they worked their way through the dungeon, following the pounding and thrumming that echoed off the walls. They avoided the larger corridors, sneaking through side tunnels, peeking into open chambers to find them all empty. Apparently the whole tribe was gathered together in one place. Colm didn't think that would make rescuing the masters any easier at all.

The drums grew thunderous. Colm could feel the vibrations in the walls, like the hum of an enchanted lock. “We're close,” Lena said, wrinkling her nose. “Nothing like the smell of a thousand orcs crammed in one room.” She led them through a narrow archway and down a steep staircase, then through another hole in the wall. Suddenly the din grew overpowering, and Colm found himself staring into a chamber easily twice the size of the great hall, completely awash in
club-brandishing, skull-necklace-wearing, growling, spitting, snarling, stinking orcs, all dressed in bits of leather and iron, studded with spikes and hooks, each one more vicious-looking than its neighbor.

“That's a whole lotta ugly,” Lena said. Serene, surprisingly, didn't argue.

The mass of orcs was writhing and undulating to animal-skin drums thumped with polished leg bones. Whose legs, Colm didn't want to know. And in the center of it all, on a circular stone platform raised high enough for all to see, stood the largest orc of them all.

“That's him,” Serene said. “Gutshank, they call him. He was there when we were captured. He was the one who said we'd be on tonight's menu.”

Colm didn't need an introduction. You could tell Gutshank was the chief by the full plate of armor, scarlet-stained steel that he had probably ripped off one of his victims. He also wore a dragon on his head. Or at least the skull of one, minus the lower jaw, to make room for his own knotted face.

“And look there.” Serene pointed.

On the stone stage, lined up in a row, kneeling before the orc chief, were the masters of Thwodin's Legion. All except Herren Bloodclaw, who was bound at the wrists and stuck in a wood cage barely tall enough for him to crouch in. They all looked to be alive, though the giant ax that Gutshank was leaning on suggested that condition was only temporary.

“I guess the trial's over,” Lena said.

Luckily, Colm thought, the swarm of creatures before them was so preoccupied with the impending execution of their prisoners that they didn't notice the small pack of fledgling dungeoneers hiding in the shadows at the back of the vaulted room. “All right,” Colm said. “We need a plan. There's all of them.” He indicated the horde with his short-fingered hand. “And the five of us.”

“Four,” Serene said, nodding toward Quinn. She was right. The boy was barely conscious. If he could be certain how much power was left in the crystal, Colm would teleport Quinn back to the castle and leave him there, but there was a good chance such a trip would use up whatever energy the jewel had left and would leave the rest of them stranded. It was only guaranteed to make one round trip, after all, and it had already made one and a half.

“I can probably take ten,” Ravena said, then looked over at Lena, whose face had turned gray.

“Twelve,” she said, refusing to be outdone. “Maybe fifteen.”

That left only a few hundred or so. Colm turned to Serene. “What have you got?”

The druid shook her head, started reaching into the pockets of her cloak, to the few small vials and packets of powder that her captors hadn't stripped her of. “Let's see . . . I can heal gout and shrink warts. Sorry, Colm. I'm not really cut out for the whole taking-out-a-throng-of-bad-guys thing.”

“That's all right,” Colm said. “We don't need to take them out. We just need to find a way to free Master Thwodin and
the others and get out of here.”

“If we could get down there without being noticed, we might be able to hold them off long enough for you to release them,” Lena proposed. “Then we would only need to clear a path.”

“
If
we could get down there,” Colm repeated. But he wasn't skilled enough to move through hundreds of orcs without getting noticed. Slipping by his sisters was one thing. His sisters weren't usually armed with spiked clubs. They could try disguises, but none of them were near ugly enough to pass for orcs. Still, there had to be
something
. He scanned the room until his eyes fell on a couple of large, dome-shaped steel cages along the back. He tugged on Serene's shirtsleeves.

“Are those what I think they are?” he asked, pointing.

She took one look and shrank back, grimacing.

“You can't possibly—” she started to say.

But Colm was already dragging her in that direction.

“I can't do it,” she hissed, refusing to go a step closer. “It's terrifying!”

Colm switched Scratch to his less sweaty hand and gave Serene a reassuring touch on the back that was actually more of a push. His idea wouldn't work without her. She was the only one who could pull it off.

“Think of it like Mr. Tickletoes, only a hundred times bigger.”

“That is
not
Mr. Tickletoes!”

Colm looked at the giant spider skittering about in its oversized cage, its glassy black eyes reflecting the flash of the torches, its long, spindly legs tapping against the bars of its prison, its bloated, hairy black abdomen rocking up and down. She was right. Compared to this thing, Mr. Tickletoes was adorable. Colm wasn't even sure what orcs used the giant spiders for, unless it was to torture prisoners. Or maybe they just had questionable taste in pets.

“You can do this, Serene,” Lena whispered. “I know you can. You just have to talk to it.”

Serene took a gingerly step forward. The giant spider in the last cage scuttled around to face her, its furry mandibles working furiously on the steel bars. Serene began mumbling to herself.

“This is just like back at the Grove. ‘It's just a bear,' they said. ‘Just another of nature's beautiful creatures,' they said. ‘Just talk to it,' they said. But do you know how big bears are? Have you seen their claws? And those jaws? It had rabies, I'm sure of it. And this. There's no way. That thing was twice my size.
This
thing is twice my size . . .
ewwwwww
. . .”

“You can do it,” Lena whispered again, but Serene just turned and glared at her. On the center podium, the drumming had reached a feverish tempo, the heart of the dungeon about to burst. Chief Gutshank was walking back and forth behind his prisoners now, as if taking stock, measuring necks, deciding which one to start with. Colm saw Serene kneel in front of the cage and look up at the gigantic spider. He could
see her face in its four biggest eyes. She turned back to look at him, and Colm nodded. She shuddered and faced the spider again. He heard her whisper something to it, then louder, a language he couldn't begin to understand.

But the spider understood. At first it raised up, arching its abdomen and raising its two front legs through the slats in its cage, but as she continued to talk, it lowered itself till, finally, it knelt down to her level. Almost as if it were bowing.

Serene turned to Colm, a surprised smile on her face.

“What did it say?” Colm asked.

“It said that if we let it out of its cage, it will do what we ask.”

“How do you know it won't eat us?” Lena asked.

“Because the orcs are the ones who stuck it here to begin with,” she answered.

Colm wasn't sure he could trust a giant spider, but the last hour had proved he wasn't always the best judge of character. Besides, he trusted Serene, and she said it was all right. Colm stepped to the cage, keeping a wary eye on the creature's jaws. He pulled Finn's picks from his cloak and found one that looked like it might work. There was hardly anything to the lock; it took him less than ten seconds to undo. The door swung wide and the spider scurried out, stretching itself to its full height, taller than Colm by a head. For a moment he was certain he was about to be sucked dry, but the creature quickly bent down again, four of its legs curled beneath it. It made a strange clacking with its jaws.

“It says to get on,” Serene said.

Colm scrambled onto the back of the spider, trying not to pull too hard on the thick hairs that sprouted from the creature's body, then motioned for Ravena and Lena to do the same. When all three were aboard, Serene whispered something else to the spider, then reached up and petted the slope of its head, just above its jaws.

“Take care of my friends, Mr. Fuzzyfangs,” Serene told it.

“Watch over Quinn,” Lena said, looking at the mageling left in the shadows with his back to the wall. He wasn't shivering anymore. Colm didn't know if that was good or not. He wrapped both hands around the spider's thorax, Lena wrapping both her arms around his. Serene whispered one last thing into the spider's ear, and the creature suddenly crawled toward the cavern wall.

And then straight up it.

Just like riding a horse,
Colm told himself.
A horse with giant fangs and eight legs that eats flesh and hangs upside down.
He held on tight as he could as it scurried along the jagged stone. It was almost to the ceiling when the drumming suddenly stopped. Colm glanced down to see that the giant orc with the dragon-skull head stepped forward, holding his ax above him. The orc's shouts reached up to the ceiling, where the giant spider had attached its silken thread.

“Behold, my brothers and sisters,” the orc chief bellowed. “The pack of murderous thieves!”

There was a tremendous cheer from the frenzied crowd of
orcs. Chief Gutshank gave Tye Thwodin a swift kick in the back, causing him to topple forward. No one bothered to look up. If they had done so, they might have seen Colm about to tumble off the back of the spider, which was slowly descending along its own crystal-silk thread. Ravena and Lena were both pressed up behind him, digging in with their heels.

“For continued crimes against all orckind,” the dragon skull continued below them, “I, Gutshank, chief of the Bloodtooth Clan, sentence these trespassers to death!”

There was another wave of hollers, accompanied by the banging of weapons on shields and helms. Colm could see the whole lot of them clearly now. Master Stormbow straining at her chains. Master Velmoth trying to shake free of a collar that glowed a soft blue and must be stifling his power somehow. Tye's muscles bursting through his torn shirt. Only the ranger didn't seem to struggle, though Colm was certain he saw Master Wolfe glance up briefly, then cast his eyes back down to the floor.

“But who should be first?” Gutshank roared. “Do we start with the wolf?” He kicked the ranger hard enough that he toppled over. “Or the lion?” The orc chief held his ax above Tye Thwodin's head, but the crowd began chanting the ranger's name.
“Wolfe. Wolfe. Wolfe.”
He remembered what Quinn had told him once—that there were plenty of nasty things that would love to see Grahm Wolfe's head on a pike.

They were about to have their chance.

Colm heard Lena gasp as Master Wolfe was forced to his
feet by two other orcs, then pushed to the edge of the platform in the center and back on his knees. It took three orcs to hold him down. Another stood by with one of those ten-foot pikes, ready to collect the ranger's head once it rolled free. The orc chief raised his ax again and gave it a few practice swings, whipping the already frenzied crowd into a froth. Down below, Tye Thwodin made another attempt to escape, but with his hands and feet in chains, he was easily subdued by the trio of orcs guarding him.

The spider was still fifty feet away, descending slowly, no doubt used to sneaking up on its prey. As a rogue, Colm could admire the approach, but they were out of time.

“We need to do something!” Ravena hissed from behind him. The drummers suddenly took up their pounding again. Colm saw the chief take his ax in both hands, raising it above his head. Heard the collective growl from the many hundreds of orcs who were watching. He saw a few of them with their fingers pointing up toward the ceiling.

He heard Lena say, “Hang on!” Heard the metallic tang of her sword coming free.

Then he said good-bye to his stomach, leaving it somewhere in the air above him as the spider's silken thread snapped, severed by a blow from Lena's sword.