Will Power (15 page)

“Will you stop that,” hissed Renthrette, making me jump two feet in the air.

“What?”

“That gasping, breathy thing you’re doing.”

“Sorry,” I said indignantly. “I don’t like it here. And I do have to breathe, you know.”

“Debatable,” she muttered, walking away. Of course she started developing her withering banter when I was too petrified to think. I inched blindly after her, my right hand (no longer cradling the useless crossbow) stretched out in front of me.

Renthrette struck a shower of sparks from her flint and steel onto a tiny square of alcohol-soaked cotton: a standard and annoyingly useful part of her campaign equipment. With this she lit a tiny terracotta oil lamp that sat like a perching sparrow in her right hand. The walls around us flared up amber, every detail of their surface flickering tiny shadows as the lamp flame fluttered. Suddenly the tunnel was
something quite different and, awful though it still was, it had a dark beauty. This was no natural cavern but a carved passage with a vaulted roof and rows of columns against the walls, rising like perfectly symmetrical stalagmites. So many months, maybe years, of work, now left to the darkness and damp and goblins! What a waste of bloody time.

And did I believe in goblins now? Tough not to, really. I’d seen them, and now I was poking around in their yard, as it were. Still:
goblins
, for crying out loud? Talk about difficult to swallow, especially for one as brutally realistic as me. And I suppose there, right there in the dark with the threat of these irrational monsters around the next corner, it finally dawned on me that we, or at least I, had been deliberately brought here. I remembered the ambassador’s references to my sense of what was real and I knew that he was involved up to his neck, though where this got me I couldn’t say. All I knew was that I was now living in terror of things which I hadn’t believed in three days ago: no, things that
didn’t exist
three days before, not in the world I knew, anyway.

I was exploring this seemingly important distinction when Renthrette hissed at me. I turned to find her standing on a great pile of rubble. Part of the ceiling had fallen in (not a terribly encouraging sign in itself), and the corridor was blocked right to the roof. It seemed we could go no farther. Ah, well.

“So,” I said, “back to the pub?”

Renthrette, of course, had other ideas, and had already started clearing the rocks out of the way. She set her lamp down and gave me a wordless look. I helped, but slowly, far from sure I wanted to see what was on the other side.

Predictably enough, the blockage was minor and, after only a few minutes’ work, we were able to clamber over the rubble. Renthrette went first, lamp and sword in hand. As soon as I heard her low, pleased whistle, I knew we were in trouble. On the other side of the rubble was a door, wooden with iron fittings. Judging by the webs across its hinges, it had been undisturbed for some time. Well, it was going to get disturbed now, I thought ruefully as Renthrette put her hand carefully on the latch and set her shoulder to the wood.

“Cover me,” she whispered and, before I had chance to respond, she twisted the handle. With an agonizingly loud creaking and scraping, the door shuddered open and we found ourselves looking into a wall of barrels and crates, all dusty and apparently discarded. The timbers were broken and rotted, the metal bands rusted into nothing. Renthrette
pushed a couple of the larger ones aside and we found ourselves in a corridor just like the one we had been in, apparently abandoned to low-priority storage. We paused, listening, then Renthrette stepped carefully past the barrels to where the passage ended in another door. This one was unlocked, and she dragged it open with little effort and almost no noise. For a moment she was absolutely still and silent, holding the lamp back within the doorway. Then she was gone and I was left darkling.

Fear and anger blended, leaving me in a blundering panic. I sprang through the door after her, collided with the hard stone edge of the jamb, and went sprawling on the floor of the corridor beyond. The noise seemed to have been deafening, but when I looked up, there was still only Renthrette, lamp held up so that its warm light made her faintly bored exasperation all too apparent. She motioned at me to get up, turned her back, and trotted silently off down the corridor on her toes. I limped after. God alone knew why she’d asked me to come here; I was obviously more than capable of maiming myself even if no goblins were around to do it for me. Moreover, taking me on a stealth assault was a bit like strapping a marching band to your ankle. We may as well have sent them formal notice of our visit a week ago. At least then they might have laid out a few drinks.

The corridor ended in another door, this one so small that even I had to stoop a little to get through it. It was dusty, but not disused, and it swung open easily and without a sound. This struck me as good, since not alerting the demonic hordes to our presence seemed crucial to our momentary survival, but Renthrette looked less happy. She touched the hinge and her finger came away oily. That meant that the enemy was at hand. I tried to ready myself mentally for meeting them. Fat chance.

The door admitted us to a triangular chamber, carved as before but lit by torches bracketed to each wall. Each wall also had a door like ours, so there were two others to pick from. Renthrette looked at me with something that might have been encouragement, blew out her lamp, and chose, either randomly or on some tip from Sorrail which she chose not to share with me, the door on the left.

Again, it opened quite easily, admitting us to another long, torchlit corridor. It was narrower than before and the ceiling was lower, the effect being oppressively confining. The torches smoked and filled the air with the scent of burnt fat. I began to wonder what animal grease
the goblins used, and then thought better of it. We were halfway along the corridor when we heard heavy footsteps approaching from round the next corner.

There was nowhere to hide, so I froze to the spot and did nothing. Renthrette flung herself against the wall farther up and waited. A second or two later a dark figure appeared, walking swiftly, a dull jingle that might have been armor accompanying each labored step. The goblin’s silhouette filled the corridor, large and square, its head set on broad shoulders, its arms long and ape-like, its legs short and stocky, splayed to balance the weight of its barrel chest. As it stepped into the torchlight and its huge shadow flickered around the tunnel walls, I saw first its great shield, then the cleaver-like weapon in its immense fist, then its face. It was heavy-jawed, with teeth that seemed to protrude beyond its lips. Its nose and cheeks were broad and flat, and, glittering blackly in deep pits were small, malicious eyes which fell upon me and narrowed slightly.

The goblin, if such a name could apply to this hulking and savage creature, stopped and lowered its head. It began to say something in its own tongue, but the sound dried up quickly and a change came over its face and body. It became tense, and the blade of its cleaver, long and angular, moved forward and glinted in the torchlight. Then it grinned, or its face made something like a grin as it swung the vast shield in front of its chest. It advanced, its eyes on mine.

I suppose this had been the plan, for it gave Renthrette a fractional advantage as she launched herself at it, lunging with her sword as best she could in the confined space. Her adversary bellowed, forgot my existence, and slumped against the wall, blood rushing from its ribs. But however big and clumsy it looked, there was an astonishing agility in the way it wheeled its shield arm toward her second attack, fending off the sword point. In almost the same instant that Renthrette withdrew her blade, the goblin drew itself up and hacked at her. Its reach was astonishing—grotesque, even—and it was with a small cry of surprise that she responded, reaching up and catching the massive cleaver with her shield. The force of the blow seemed to drive her into the stone floor and her shield splintered, split quite in two. She crumpled to her knees and the creature loomed over her.

Enter Will the comrade-in-arms. I didn’t know what else I could do, so I raised my axe and roared as maniacally as I could, running full tilt at the monster and hoping against hope that something would
stop me from reaching it while it was still alive. The goblin eyes turned to meet mine again, and as its body twisted to face me, it raised its heavy blade to strike. I lifted my shield and slowed to a halt. Fear overpowered me and I felt the axe slipping from my grasp under the goblin gaze. It grunted and I thought drool dropped from its lips. It took a step toward me and its jaw fell open slightly, teeth showing tusk-like. I sagged still further.

Then, quite suddenly, Renthrette rolled from beneath her shattered shield and stabbed once, precise and hard. Once more, a change came over the goblin’s face, its eyes losing their focus, its jaws becoming slack as blood trickled out. Its legs gave out and it fell forward with an echoing boom. I squatted and began to breathe quickly.

“Thanks, Will,” said Renthrette.

“What?” I said, presuming sarcasm.

“I owe you one,” she said, smiling sincerely. “I wouldn’t have thought you . . . Well, thanks.”

I nodded dumbly, trying to figure out why she couldn’t smell the fear that was oozing out of every pore on my body. The axe had slid to the floor and was merely resting against the open palm of my hand, so I grasped it quickly, before she saw just how utterly useless I would have been if she had acted a moment later. And with that little dissemblance came words: “No problem,” I said in a voice so calm and confidant that I felt like a ventroliquist’s dummy. “You can count on me.”

She touched my arm and said, “Come on. We shouldn’t have far to go to get to the cells.”

Her apparent confidence in me struck home and I followed her with something ludicrously akin to eagerness. I knew I was a coward, but she had thought I was a hero, and that somehow made me into one. I have said this before and I will say it again: Nothing astonishes so completely or so regularly as man’s capacity for self-delusion. Mine, at any rate.

So the valiant adventurers proceeded. They found themselves, having rounded the corner, at a broad arch with caryatid gargoyles shaped like giant trolls, each supporting the roof on stone necks and hands, elbows turned outward and heads bowed under the weight. The chamber beyond was brightly lit with many torches, and from within came the sound of voices in some foreign tongue. My courage fluttered like a trapped butterfly.

“I thought there would be no guards?” I hissed.

“Sorrail said there wouldn’t be,” said Renthrette, peering cautiously around one of the columns. “But there are only two, and they’re a lot smaller than the last one. The cell doors are right there.”

She unslung her bow and nocked an arrow.

“This is pretty much always your solution to difficulties, isn’t it?” I hissed again.

“What?”

“If in doubt, kill something.”

“Do you have a better idea?”

“I’m just saying your approach isn’t very, you know,
inventive.”

“You take the one standing,” she answered. “I’ll take the one sitting at the table.”

“Take” was one of those little euphemistic expressions that she and her brother favored. It usually meant, as it did now, “kill.” Feeling that things were moving far too quickly for my liking, I swung my crossbow round and fiddled frantically with the cocking mechanism.

When she stepped out into the room, she did so with quiet ease and confidence, her bow already raised and the string drawn back. I scuttered after her and dropped to one knee. The standing goblin was in my sights before it knew we were there. It turned at the swish of Renthrette’s bow, but her arrow plunged into its comrade’s chest as it struggled to its feet. It barely had time to cry out before I fired and the bolt silenced it forever. Renthrette was already grabbing the keys and running to the cell doors calling Mithos’s name.

“Renthrette?” called a voice in answer. “Renthrette, listen, this is important!”

I was running over to join her, barely able to contain my delighted laughter, when there was a metallic sound behind me and I turned to find doors on either side of the arch we had come through, doors we hadn’t even seen, opening virtually simultaneously. A great goblin clad in dark, waxed leather and brandishing a huge scimitar was coming in through one door. There were others behind him. A pair of smaller goblins, their skin ochre and their limbs thin, had already come through the other, and there were darker, bigger forms following.

Renthrette drew and fired again, and one of the smaller creatures fell, holding its stomach. I took the keys and fumbled desperately at the lock, but the first key I could fit in would not turn at all. I turned to find the large goblin already bearing down on Renthrette, who had dropped her bow and drawn her sword. I thrust my crossbow head to
the ground, braced it against my stomach, and leaned all my weight on it until the slide clicked into position. By the time I had fitted a bolt and swung the weapon around, Renthrette was almost surrounded, and several blows had been struck. I picked the nearest goblin, fired hurriedly, and, as it fell, drew my axe. One of them was closing on me and there was no way I was going to be able to get Mithos and Orgos, who were shouting our names wildly, out to help. The doors behind the archway continued to breed goblin forms. Renthrette parried a goblin slash and looked wildly round. For a moment our eyes met, and for once the feeling was mutual: This was not going well. In fact, it didn’t look like it would be going much further.

One of the goblins strayed close to me, leering through its narrow eyes. I cut at its legs with a savage sweep of my axe. The blow went wide and threw me off balance, and when I looked up, the goblin had edged cautiously closer, a slim spear aimed at my vitals. Renthrette was backing off, leaving her riven shield on the ground. One of the large black goblins had collapsed at her feet, bleeding, but another was advancing steadily, wielding a two-handed weapon that looked like an axe/sword hybrid, but bright and keen edged. She held her ground as the monster brought down its hacking strike. Her sword flashed up and parried, but as it did so, its blade shattered and fell in glittering shards.