Paul Kidd - Descent into the Depths of the Earth

“Why aren’t you dead, you shaven-headed git!”

Unconcerned, Jus stood beneath one of the monsters and cut himself a piece of spider meat, which he crammed into his mouth. He motioned to the monsters with his dagger, supremely unconcerned.

“Beholders are solitary psychopaths. Did you think theremight be something weird about seeing three beholders together all at once?” The man spat a piece of spider chitin toward a nearby slug. “They’re gasspores.”

“What?”

“A type of fungus. Dead ringers for beholders, exceptbeholders are waaay too paranoid to ever be this close to one another.”

Wings whirring and a disgusted scowl on her face, Escalla came out of the caves to glare at the floating gas spores. From a few inches away, she could clearly see that they were fakes-just blobs of fungi. Escallaaimed a kick at the nearest one, only to have Jus snatch her foot and tug her hastily away.

“Leave ’em be!”

“Why?”

“Poisonous. Touch it, and die young.” The big man tuggedEscalla’s makeshift dress straight as he released her into the air. “They’re atrap. Puncture the skin, and they explode.”

“Oooh.” Escalla instantly perked up her ears. “Really?”

“Really.” Jus forcibly propelled the curious girl away fromthe spores. “The explosion of each individual spore is enough to turn you into ashadow on the wall. Three of them would be apocalyptic!”

“Wow. Can I have one?”

“No.”

“But-”

“ No, Escalla.”

“Ju-uuus…”

“ No, Escalla. Absolutely not! End of discussion.”

Jus gave a courtly bow, inviting Escalla to lead the way. “This is where the passage turns. It heads toward the troglodytes.”

The faerie hmphed and acquiesced, but still remained obviously unconvinced.

As the party pressed on, they saw that the spores were growing from the body of a big lizard lying around the corner. The cadaver stretched almost twenty feet from nose to tail and wore a harness and a brand. Growing out of the damaged tarpaulins, packs, and rotten flesh were yet more floating spores-perhaps half a dozen bobbing booby traps, still tethered to therotting corpse.

The spores remained hanging in the still, cool air, drifting slowly forward from time to time as gas trickled from tiny holes at their rear. Carried over Jus’ shoulder, Escalla gazed back at them until they disappearedfrom view, watching past Private Henry as the boy walked nervously, cradling his crossbow.

The narrow, slimy tunnel curved and dipped, then suddenly opened onto a wider passageway. It was the old, familiar path that ran northwest, at least forty feet wide and user friendly. Escalla consulted the locator needle and pointed the way into the dim phosphorescent depths. She escaped from her perch upon Jus’ shoulder, using her sharp ears and clever eyesto hunt for dangers lurking far ahead.

Danger soon appeared. Escalla’s sensitive ears detected ascratching noise far ahead. Signaling the others to halt, the faerie turned invisible and flew softly forward down the passageway.

A few dozen yards beyond the adventurers, a dozen hideous monsters crouched in the dark. Working with great stealth, the savage creatures were pulling apart the rock wall with their claws.

Skeletal and horrific, the monsters were mere skin stretched over bone-human-like, but with bestial faces, and spreading a vicious stink ofrotting flesh. At the rear of the pack, two of the creatures crouched over a long bundle wrapped in rags. The bundle seemed to pain them, for none would touch it willingly. The beasts seem to be squabbling over which of them should drag the heap of rags closer to the new hole in the wall.

Jus moved silently beside Escalla and joined her in watching the creatures. Escalla nodded her chin toward the beasts, wrinkling her nose in distaste.

“Ghouls.”

Undead and carnivorous, the ghouls were also apparently working to a plan. Within the newly opened cave, a black pit could dimly be seen. The leader of the ghouls-a larger, wart-encrusted male-slashed at one ofits subordinates, which loped into the cave and began sniffing like a dog. It peered into the pit then began snarling to the other ghouls outside.

The creatures crowded up to the cave entrance, the hindmost ghouls jerking their hands away from the rag bundle until forced to drag it closer to the cave. The bundle was unwrapped. The rags proved to be a torn battle flag. Working with fungi stalks as tools, the ghouls began prying and levering at the contents of the bundle, scattering away in panic as something metallic fell to the floor at their feet.

One ghoul tripped as it fled, then screamed, flashed, and blew apart in a choking cloud of dust. The other ghouls fled from the bundle until forced back by vicious blows from their leader.

The ghoul leader snarled at a subordinate, shoved it aside, then levered up something bright and golden with its fungus staff. For a brief instant, a sword glittered in the eerie light, and then the ghoul flung it down the pit. After a long, long moment, a faint metallic clang came from below. The ghouls bellowed and capered in glee.

Escalla looked up as a black shadow loomed nearby.

Drifting quietly in the air behind the ghouls was a great, brooding sphere. The object floated in midair-a menacing presence topped witheye stalks and a single huge eye just above its mouth. The sphere drifted unnoticed behind the ghouls, and Escalla felt a malicious little plan flooding through her mind.

“Hey, guys!” she whispered sharply. “Watch this!”

She fired her magic bees toward the sphere before Jus could stop her. The stream of magic missiles blasted into the giant sphere in a blaze of light. Instead of triggering a titanic explosion to destroy the ghouls, the spell set off a furious roar. The sphere whipped about to face the faerie, eyes red rimmed and fangs gaping. The big central eye blinked closed, and from an upper eyestalk a spell blast disintegrated ten square feet of passage wall. Jerked out of the way at the last instant, Escalla hung in Jus’ grasp, staringin shock as the beholder shook the whole tunnel with its roar.

Ghouls screeched, leaping onto the sphere and sinking fangs and claws into its flesh. The beholder pounded itself against the wall, crushing ghouls and catching one of the undead creatures in its jaws. Bleeding, the beholder staggered as the ghoul leader jumped atop it and wrenched off several eyestalks. An instant later the ghoul was blasted into vapor by a shot from an eyestalk at its side.

The battle spilled back into the cave, injured ghouls falling screaming down the open pit and plunging to their doom. Jus pitched Escalla down the passage, grabbed Polk and Henry by the scruffs of their necks, and ran down the tunnel as if every legion of the Nine Hells were behind them.

A sharp zig-zag hid all sight of the fight, but howls and screams echoed through the gloom. Escalla whirred to a corner and clung to a stalactite in fright, covering the retreat of her friends with her wand.

Catching up with her, the Justicar shouted at her, “What arethey when they’re alone, Escalla?” Jus was not having one of his moreenjoyable days. “They’re beholders, Escalla!”

“All right! All right!” The girl angrily waved her hand. “Itstill worked! The ghouls are neutralized! The faerie scores again!”

Jus turned her around and pointed her northwest. “Move! Ifthat beholder comes after us, we’re toast!”

Weighed down by chain mail, Private Henry staggered and fell. Jus picked the boy up with one hand and set him on his feet. The boy looked back in terror as he ran.

“Is it coming?”

“Might not have seen us.” The Justicar put himself at theboy’s back. “If it comes, keep running! I’ll buy you time!”