James Lowder - The Ring of Winter

The disguise gone, Phyrra rubbed her olive skin and stretched. She turned to Artus, and her round glasses caught the light of the torches, flashing like tiny suns. "Please, tell me they captured you because you were coming back to save me."

Artus forced a calm facade to slam down over his fury. "Hardly," Artus murmured. "I was knocked out of the tree by a giant spider."

"They're plentiful in this part of the jungle, from what the Batiri tell me," Kaverin noted. He knit his smooth stone fingers together. "The queen will be here in a moment to toss you into the pit. I hope you know how satisfying this is for me, to see you beaten when you're so close to the ring. You can go to the Realm of the Dead knowing you led me right to it-well, you and Theron."

Artus kept his eyes masked. "So that's it. You were spying on Theron. That's how you knew to follow me here."

Idly Kaverin waved the comment aside. His eyes, as always, showed no life, no emotion. "Theron Silvermace was beneath my notice. I've had agents of the Cult of Frost trailing you for years, Cimber. That's an honor, you know. Up until recently, they all had orders to gather information, but leave you alive. Quite sporting, no?"

Phyrra straightened her white robes. Then, dusting sand from her hair, she came to Kaverin's side. "You'll be better off dead, Artus," she taunted. "All your friends are waiting for you in Cyric's realm-Pontifax, Theron-"

Artus's facade slipped. "Theron, too?"

"I had hoped to spare him that sadness, my dear," Kaverin gently admonished. "He'd have met up with the batty old fool soon enough."

"I'll see you dead, you bastards," Artus shouted. He struggled against the goblins' hold. "If I have to come back from the grave to do it, I'll-"

Savagely, Kaverin backhanded Artus. A fist-sized bruise purpled on the explorer's cheek, and his ears rang from the pain. "You'll do nothing, Cimber. This is the end." Kaverin removed a small book bound in wyvern hide from his pocket. "I know all your thoughts, all your petty desires, all your sordid little romances. The only thing Quiracus did right was steal this from you. It proved to me you weren't so worthy an opponent after all."

"And you killed him, too," Artus said.

"No, I killed him," Phyrra gloated.

Artus turned to her. "You're going to die at Kaverin's hands, sooner or later, no matter how loyal you are."

Kaverin frowned. "How predictable. Trying to set us against each other." He ran a cold jet hand along Phyrra's cheek, and she smiled. "Phyrra knows full well she's on her way to the afterlife the moment she fails me. She knows, too, I can offer her more power than she could obtain through more… legitimate allies. Right, my dear?"

"Of course," she said. Taking a small stick of charcoal from her pocket, Phyrra moved close to Artus. "Don't move, or I'll use your own dagger to cut your eyes out. You don't need to see to be sacrificed to Grumog."

Carefully the sorceress lifted the medallion from Artus's chest. She studied the white casing that had so successfully trapped Skuld, then drew a Mulhorandi picture-glyph on it. The metal vibrated and hummed. Blue fire ran along the chain; Artus could feel it tingling on his neck.

"You don't know how much it galled me to save you from the dinosaurs," Phyrra said coldly. "If you had let me talk the bearers into camping at Kitcher's Folly, the goblin raiding party would have caught us there as planned. Instead, I had to cast a spell to mislead the dagger's compass and trudge through the jungle, pretending to be your trusted servant…"

"Why not just let the damned monsters kill me?" Artus asked. "Better yet, why didn't you just send more assassins to the port?"

"Frost minions are too difficult to conjure here and terribly difficult to maintain," Kaverin replied. "Besides, I've decided I need to murder you myself, to stop your heart beating with the hands you forced upon me. I wouldn't trust anyone else to do it." He tossed Artus's journal into the dirt. "After the minions killed Pontifax, I knew I had beaten you. It was only a matter of sending someone trustworthy to fetch you for the slaughter."

Phyrra lifted the chain from Artus's neck and handed the medallion to Kaverin. Tossing his hat aside, he slipped it over his shock of red hair. "You won't be needing this, Cimber," he said casually. "I thought it a shame to waste such an interesting artifact."

The tolling of a gong brought an appreciative murmur from the crowd of goblins that had gathered in front of the central building. Slowly they began to file toward the pit. The seven warriors who held Artus hefted him over their heads and followed. Kaverin walked close behind, as did Phyrra, once she had picked up Artus's journal.

The pit gaped like a ghastly open wound, mist seeping from it like blood, snaking in long, thin wisps over the ground. A huge gong stood at the widest point, next to a small wooden bridge. A bored young goblin leaned upon the gong's supports. He watched the procession with heavy-lidded eyes, then smacked his lips and raised a cloth-wrapped club. Again he struck the gong. The sound filled the air, echoing back in distorted tones from the pit.

"We ready to offer chow for Grumog?" came a voice from the throng.

The crowd parted and a female goblin sauntered forward. She had the same general features as the rest of her tribe-mottled red and orange skin, yellow eyes, and a broad, flat nose-but she also possessed a full head of flowing, golden hair, the likes of which would have made any lady in King Azoun's court jealous. In fact, despite her decidedly goblinlike physiognomy, she might have been considered quite attractive.

It was clear to Artus then how Kaverin had managed to win the Batiri to his cause. The queen wore a beautiful silk dress and sported a dozen brooches and necklaces. Her hands were heavy with rings.

"Queen M'bobo," Kaverin said smoothly, in his most polished Goblin. He bowed to the monarch and held out a hand. She took it and gracefully came forward. "This is the scoundrel I was telling you about."

She raised a thin eyebrow. "He not so much." With her finely manicured claws, she pinched Artus's arm. "Not much to eat anyway. OK. We throw him in."

"Wait!" Kaverin exclaimed.

"What wrong?" M'bobo asked.

"You-you can't just drop him into the pit."

The queen thought about it for a moment, then nodded. "You right. Balt! Get Grumog's new stuff."

The goblin warrior with dinosaur-hide armor limped forward. He used Artus's bow as a staff, and the quiver of arrows hung on his back. Without a word, he walked up to Phyrra and jammed a hand into her pocket. She tried to push him away, but he still came away with the dagger the centaurs had given to Artus. "This all," Balt grumbled, holding up the bow and the dagger. He limped to the foot of the bridge and tossed them into the pit, then dumped the quiver of arrows.

"The book, too," Artus said. He gestured with his chin to his journal, still clutched in Phyrra's hand.

The sorceress started to object, but Kaverin silenced her with a look. "It won't do him any good," he said softly.

She handed the book to Balt, who unceremoniously heaved it into the pit. Then the queen gestured to the warriors holding Artus, and they started toward the bridge. Kaverin quickly blocked their path, drawing the ire of both M'bobo and Balt. "What now?" the queen sighed.

Trying his best to maintain his calm, Kaverin spread his hands before him. "Why don't we kill him before we send him to Grumog," he suggested. "I thought you'd allow me to prepare him for-"

M'bobo wrinkled her face in disgust. "Grumog like us, not eat dead food."

The warriors pushed past Kaverin, who suddenly found his carefully designed plan falling to pieces. No matter how dangerous Grumog might be, the creature might prove to be no match for Artus Cimber. He'd certainly shown himself adept at battling such strange creatures in the past. If the goblins tossed him into the pit alive, he might escape. And that just wouldn't be satisfactory, not at all.