The Goblin Corps (38 page)

They stared silently at the bones below.

“Why don’t we move on,” Gork said finally, “and if we don’t find anything elsewhere, we can come back?”

“I’d really prefer to…be sure, however improbable it…may be.”

“And if I refuse?”

“Feel free to go on…ahead alone, then.”

Sigh.
“Fine. Move that bar, would you?”

With a grunt, Katim heaved. The bar slid from its brackets with a hideous screech, clattered to the wall/floor beside the door with a deafening clang. The entire door
flashed
, as though the sun had been hidden behind that bar, and then the light was gone—not counting the spots in Gork’s and Katim’s eyes—as rapidly as it appeared.

The door shuddered as something slammed against it, hard, from the other side.

“It occurs to me, albeit a tad belatedly,” Gork said as they scrambled to their feet and backed away from the juddering portal, “that anything imprisoned in a wizard’s tower might, uh, be magical enough to survive the centuries.”

“A
tad
belatedly?” the troll snarled, obviously ignoring the fact that she hadn’t thought of it either.

“Well, better late than never, right?” Gork asked. With a final earthshaking thump, the door blew open.

The thing that emerged was pulled straight from someone’s nightmares, possibly the same lunatic who had dreamed up the worm-folk. It hovered a foot or so above the ground, bobbing and swaying like a ship at sea. Its uppermost parts were a humanoid skeleton: grinning skull, collarbone, shoulder blades, arms—they were all there. Even a spine, a thrashing and twisting tail, hung from that skull. But beneath the shoulders was nothing but a spinning vortex of air, a whirlwind in miniature made visible by the centuries of dust and grime it sucked into itself as it spun. The spine lashed about, a whip in that wind, taking small chunks of stone out of the bricks wherever it struck. With an earsplitting laugh that came from the midst of the raging winds, rather than from the mouth above, it lunged toward its “rescuers.”

Katim’s first thought, just before she brought her axe around to intercept it, was
Who the hell would create such a thing?

Gork’s first thought, as he glanced down at the
kah-rahahk
in his hands, was
What the hell am I going to stab with this?

Even as he backed away from the hell-spawned creature, he watched Katim knock the first of its bony claws away with the flat of her blade, then bring her axe down straight into the rictus grin. Bone chips flew, and the skull howled in pain—or Gork hoped it was pain, at any rate—but rather than do the polite thing and drop dead, the creature only retreated a foot or so, striking with its other hand even as it moved.

The troll cried out, staggering back to slam against the nearest wall. (Floor? Whatever it was.) Gork’s eyes tried their damnedest to pop from his own skull as her flesh contorted and a burst of wind—as dusty as the creature’s own—flowed from Katim’s wound and from her gaping mouth. She forced herself upright, choking something foul from her lungs, but her posture was stooped, and it appeared to Gork that the dancing axe was markedly slower than before.

Stars, what do I do?
His own weapon wouldn’t do a damn thing to a creature of bone, especially not one capable of laughing off a troll-wielded axe to the face. So far, the thing was focusing on Katim, but Gork had no doubt that if and when the troll fell, kobold was next on the menu.

And then, as his cheek was stung to bleeding by a small sliver of brick thrown loose by the whirlwind, he had an idea. It wasn’t
much
of an idea, granted, but this didn’t really seem the time to be choosy.

“Katim!” he shouted, gesturing wildly to attract her attention. “Down there!” He pointed to the door from which the beast had emerged.

Apparently, the creature didn’t appreciate his interference. Skull and shoulders rotated atop the miniature cyclone so that the empty sockets and gaping grin were suddenly aimed at Gork. Before even the nimble kobold could dodge, those bony fingers reached out to score two deep scratches across his other cheek.

For an instant, it felt as though the tower had abruptly righted itself. The room spun, and Gork staggered sideways in a clumsy dance as his entire center of balance became, well, uncentered. His arms were dead weights at his sides, and he felt exhausted to the point of tears. He struggled to breathe and broke into a horrible choking fit, exhaling gust after gust of stale air. He felt the winds rippling through his body, flowing from his wounds and his orifices.

The thing spun back again, clearly recognizing the troll as the greater threat. By then, however, Katim had already darted by it—slamming her axe into its shoulder as she passed, for all the good it did—and dropped through the doorway.

Gork cowered, struggling to catch some measure of breath, and actually sobbed with relief when the thing chose to follow the troll rather than turn its wrath on him. Sometimes, it’s good to be the little guy.

He watched as it drifted down into the sunken cell, determined to slay the troll first, and Gork gave serious consideration to just slamming the door. But he still wasn’t certain he felt up to facing the rest of the tower alone; there was no way he could move that bar by himself even at full strength, let alone in his current condition; and if he tried and failed, it was purely a question as to whether the skull-thing tore him apart before Katim did.

Come to think of it, I wonder if Katim only went down there because she
knew
I couldn’t move that damn thing on my own….

Every inch a struggle, Gork lowered himself into the cell, slipping and tumbling the last few feet, and began creeping—lurching, really—along the wall. The cell’s current floor was coated in a nigh-solid mass of ancient straw and an age’s worth of dust and insect carapaces. Some were flung about by the creature’s winds, but enough lay unmoving, ready to crunch beneath a careless foot. The kobold squinted, trying unsuccessfully to protect his sight from the stormy barrage. In fits and starts, fighting for every step, he drew near his goal. He just had to get there before Katim faltered….

He very nearly did not.

Katim crouched in the opposite corner, axe bobbing wildly in a desperate attempt to hold the spectral thing at bay. Deep scratches marred both skeletal arms, and the creature’s constant wail had risen in pitch, frustration now mixed with the hatred and fury they’d heard before. But still it came, clearly undaunted by the myriad wounds the troll had inflicted, and each time she drove it back. Stalemate.

But not for long. Her greatest efforts merely pained the thing, while it could kill with a glancing blow. She, for all her strength and trollish determination, would tire; and this odious apparition, she was certain, would not.

And speaking of odious,
where was Gork?
She’d gone where he indicated, assuming he had more of a plan than she did—in other words,
any
—but she’d seen neither hide nor, well, more hide of him since. If he’d trapped her down here without good reason, she would make damn sure she survived this monstrosity long enough to wring the little bastard’s neck so hard that his spine popped out his—

A loud clanking, not unlike the fall of a lazy portcullis, sounded from across the cell. His outline blurred by the spinning detritus of the whirlwind, Gork faded into view behind the apparition. He staggered as he walked, as though weighted down by some unseen encumbrance. Well, all right, it was heartening (if only slightly) that he hadn’t chosen to abandon her, but she wasn’t certain how much good he’d do.

The kobold shrugged, and Katim saw a strange, shapeless weight fall from his shoulder. More clanking and clattering, and he bent down to lift whatever it was he’d dropped. Hands clasped together, he rocked back and forth, building momentum. Between the haze of the whirlwind and the constant blur of her own axe, she still couldn’t see what he held.

And then, whatever it was, Gork heaved it into the air with the all the pathetic strength he could muster. Finally, Katim saw what it was, and she chortled with delight at her sudden understanding.

The heavy manacle, attached to the wall by its thick iron chain, hurtled across the cell and vanished into the spinning winds. The apparition didn’t even seem to notice.

Katim stepped to the side, parrying a bony arm, stepped again, and again, always waiting for the thing to follow.

It jerked to a halt, somehow stumbling in midair, the chain taut behind it, tethering it to the wall. Again Katim choked back laughter; for a creature without flesh or muscle on its face, it was astounding just how confused it managed to look.

It was a neat trick, quick thinking on the kobold’s part, but it wouldn’t hold the apparition long. The manacle hadn’t latched onto anything solid, but was held in place only by the spinning winds. Even as she watched, the thing yanked itself forward a few inches, two links of iron sliding obscenely from inside its “body.” It reached down and clasped the chain in skeletal hands, tugging another few links free. In moments it would be loose once more.

But for those moments, its attentions and its deadly claws were directed elsewhere. Katim took a deep breath, summoned every bit of strength remaining to her, and swung her axe at the now-defenseless skull.

Bone cracked and the creature howled, but still it lived, still it struggled against the chain. Three more links; less than half a minute, and only the manacle itself would remain within the vortex.

Katim dropped her axe, shook loose her
chirrusk
, and leapt. She wasn’t strong enough to make the doorway above on her own, but by hooking the weapon onto the stone lip she succeeded in hauling herself out, gasping and panting the entire way.

Like Gork before her, though of course she couldn’t know that, she considered slamming the door and leaving her ally behind. But the troll couldn’t be sure that replacing the bar would be enough to restore whatever magic had held the apparition at bay.

Which did not, she realized with a grin, make it useless.

Heaving the massive bar into the air, wincing as she felt muscles pull and threaten to tear in her stomach, she stumbled back to the edge of the cell-turned-pit, took an instant to orient herself, and dropped it end-on.

Beneath that plummeting weight, the creature’s skull became powder.

The winds ceased as abruptly as someone blowing out a candle, allowing masses of straw, clouds of dust, chips of stone, and one corroded manacle to rain loudly across the floor. The bones themselves, including shards of skull, landed at Gork’s feet. The troll watched as the kobold spent the next several moments gleefully pounding them into so much powder with the manacle.

He, like Katim, was obviously reveling in his newfound strength. When the creature died, the both of them felt an incredible rush of vitality; whatever the thing stole from them had now returned, and with reinforcements to boot.

“Well, that was fun,” Gork said once he’d climbed his own way out of the cell and the pair of them had progressed back into the horizontal stairwell.

Katim snorted loudly. “Kobolds have a truly…odd notion of fun.”

“Look on the bright side, Katim. It probably can’t get any worse.”

With a snarl, she backhanded Gork halfway across the hall. Trolls aren’t superstitious, as a rule—their efforts to gather slaves for the afterlife aside—but damn it all, some things you
just don’t say.

“Actually,” she said as he crawled his way back to her, “there
was
an upside…to us discovering that thing.”

“Do tell,” Gork said sourly, prodding at his jaw with two knuckles.

“If Trelaine had abandoned…the tower, he would surely have either taken…or destroyed that thing. Its presence…suggests that he indeed died here…as the rumors claim.”

Gork wrinkled his snout. “Um…Yay?”

“Yay, indeed. While you’re…celebrating, climb back down there and bring…back my axe.”

As it turned out, though, the kobold’s prognostications, however much they might have tempted fate, proved accurate. They encountered no further danger as they explored the last group of rooms: Trelaine’s own bedchamber and bath. There remained, finally, but a single door left. Had the tower been standing properly, it would have led to the room at the absolute top.

“Of course,” Gork grumbled, his words slightly slurred by a faint swelling in his bruised snout. “I knew it. I just knew it! Next time, we start at the top and work down!”

Katim couldn’t resist. “Okay, I promise. The…next time you and I have…to search a fallen wizard’s tower…for his bones, I will…listen to your advice.”

Gork’s left eyelid twitched. “I’m just going to go check that last door,” he muttered darkly, setting his shoulders and pretending not to hear the troll’s low chuckling behind him.

It was, they discovered, a most unremarkable door. It wasn’t even locked. Very slowly, Katim edged it open with the tip of her axe. This was, or rather had been, the absolute height of Trelaine’s abode. From all the tales Katim had heard of mages, the skeletal specter they’d faced was a well-heeled puppy compared to what they might find in here.

But the chamber, like the door, appeared mundane enough. Well, except for the fact that it stood right-side-up, despite the tower’s horizontal orientation, but that discrepancy didn’t bother them at all. At this point, such benign magics weren’t even worth noting.

An old, dust-covered table stretched the length of the room, cluttered with crinkled parchments, bowls and pestles, and crystal vials. A wizard’s laboratory straight from fairy tales, except for the other end of the table—perhaps a quarter of its length, all told—which was hideously blackened as if by some long-ago fire. That section was barren, suggesting that anything atop it had been hurled aside. Indeed, shards of broken glass, and chunks of metal melted into abstract shapes, were scattered across the floor nearby.

“Trelaine’s accident,” Katim said.

Gork agreed. “I don’t see any bones, though.”

“Nor do I. Let’s…keep searching. They’re bound to be…” The first of the swirling lights grabbed her attention and she peered upward.