James Lowder - The Ring of Winter

Kaverin clubbed two of the warriors with his stone hands. Skulls crushed, they crumpled to the ground. Chaos broke out around the bridge. Goblins hefted spears and bows, but couldn't attack because of the press of bodies surrounding Kaverin. Phyrra lifted her arms to cast a spell. M'bobo, who'd seen enough magic in her time to recognize the threat, clobbered the sorceress with a spear shaft.

Artus broke free of the goblins and pushed to the center of the bridge. He grabbed a torch from the railing, then used it like a club to keep the Batiri at bay. No one dared attack him with spear or bow for fear of killing Grumog's sacrifice. The explorer locked eyes with Kaverin, who was being held by Balt and ten of his warriors. For an instant, Kaverin's cold, lifeless eyes showed a spark of something-anger, surprise, fear perhaps. Artus didn't stick around long enough to find out. Torch in hand, he vaulted over the railing and disappeared into the mist-filled pit.

He managed to slow his fall a little by grabbing an outcropping of rock. That maneuver probably saved Artus from breaking his neck, but the rough stone sheared the skin from the side of his hand and his wrist. His fingers slipped from the blood-slicked stone, and again he fell, rebounding painfully off the uneven wall. The torch was battered out of his hand just before he hit the ground, but fortunately it stayed lit.

The air exploded from his lungs when he landed, facedown atop a pile of clothes, wooden plates, and old bones. The latter cracked and splintered under his weight, slicing dozens of shallow cuts ail along his chest. For a moment, Artus gasped frantically, concerned only with breathing again.

Then he saw the glint of four beady eyes staring at him from the shadows.

"Pardon us, old man," came a cheerful voice out of the darkness, "but could you be bothered to point the way to the exit from this drab place?"

Artus grabbed his bow, which lay nearby. It had no string, but that didn't matter. The elf-crafted wood had served well enough as a club before. "Don't come any closer," the explorer warned.

One set of eyes narrowed. "There's no need for that sort of rough stuff. We was only looking for a way out of this trench." This voice was deeper than the other, with a mournful tone that made Artus think of the huge cloister bells in the House of Oghma.

Two dark figures detached themselves from the shadows and came warily forward. At first Artus took them for pygmy bears, for they walked on all fours, had stout bodies and coarse fur. As the two creatures moved fully into the torchlight, though, he saw that they were something else entirely. Short legs supported their chubby bodies, which were half as long as Artus was tall. Their heads seemed to grow right from their shoulders, with rounded ears, flat noses, and bristling whiskers.

The larger of the pair was dark brown, with sad eyes. "I 'ate being stared at," he grumbled. "Better if 'e tried to club me than stare at me."

"Now, now, Lugg," the smaller, gray-furred creature chided happily. He held up a thickly clawed front paw. "The gentleman has obviously never seen a wombat before." He turned vacant blue eyes to Artus, who could only stare at the duo, dumbfounded. "See," he continued. "Completely awed by our unheralded entrance."

Artus shook his head, certain the lumps he'd gotten from the goblins and the blow from Kaverin's fist had rattled his brains somehow. First Pontifax's ghost, now talking wombats. He closed his eyes. That had dispelled the phantom Pontifax quickly enough.

"That won't 'elp a bit," Lugg noted flatly.

The creature was right. When Artus opened his eyes, both wombats still stood at the edge of the junkpile, staring up at him. "You're not Grumog, are you?" he asked.

"Sorry," the gray wombat replied. "Don't know the chap. I'm Byrt, and this is Lugg. Who-"

A bellowing roar echoed up from the lone tunnel sloping out of the pit. It rattled the loose stones in the walls and sent a shower of dirt cascading from the roof. Artus took a quick survey of his surroundings. Mist swirled all around, but he could easily see that the walls of the circular prison were too steep to climb, even if he did want to face Kaverin and his goblin allies again.

"Wait a minute," Artus said. "How did you two get in here?"

Lugg shook his head. "We pushed through that 'ole over there. I don't think you'd fit in it, if that's what you're thinking."

Artus cursed. After snatching up the quiver of arrows, he began to turn over the pile of bones, tattered clothes, old cookware, and broken pottery in search of his dagger-and any other weapons he could find. Byrt quickly joined in the hunt, digging into the possessions of those sacrificed to the goblins' god. "By the way," the gray wombat asked, "for what, may I ask, are we searching?"

Artus spared him a withering look. "Go away," he said simply.

"Good idea, that," Lugg murmured and trundled off toward the hole in the wall.

"Just a moment," Byrt said. "If that was Grumog bellowing a moment ago, he sounded quite large and quite mean-rather like Nora, my kid sister. And if Grumog is indeed anything like her, this fellow may need our help."

Lugg's response to that was a derisive snort. Nevertheless, he turned back around and sat down.

Artus found his dagger inside a cracked goblin skull and his journal resting in a rib cage. Grateful to have them again, he slipped the blade into his boot and the book into his pocket. Whatever Grumog was, it was thorough in stripping the flesh from its victims. In fact, it had tried to eat most of the bones and rubbish, too. There was little in the pile that wasn't scored with teeth marks.

"If it's weapons you seek, here's a spear, in relatively good condition," Byrt called. He bit down on the pole, dragged it to Artus, and spat it out. "Only one previous owner-a headhunter who used it to do in little old ladies on their way to the market. Yours for a song."

Again Grumog's roar rang through the cavern, this time underscored by a rousing cheer from the goblins above. "Ah. That's just the song I had in mind," Byrt chirped and hurried off in search of more weaponry.

"That's a bunch of them Batiri up there, ain't it?" Lugg asked mournfully. "Brrr. Those rotten twisters are a lot of-"

"Look, Lugg," Byrt interrupted. "Why don't you go on up ahead and delay Grumog a bit. You know, use what little grace you still possess to keep him occupied. Dazzle him with fancy footwork and the like."

"What for?" Lugg shouted.

"I just came up with a plan," Byrt said proudly. "You slow Grumog up, and I'll widen the hole enough for our friend here, Master-" He paused meaningfully.

"Artus Cimber," the explorer said, not looking up from ransacking the refuse pile. He had uncovered another goblin spear, a bent and rusted sword, and a small shield made of palm fronds. "Thanks anyway, but I can take care of myself."

"Yeah, maybe 'e don't need protecting," the brown wombat said truculently. "Besides, why me?"

Byrt flashed him a fatuous grin. "Because you would be a mouthful and a half to a starving monster. I would merely be a mouthful. Being a ravenous beast, which would you choose?"

"I'd choose not to go," Lugg grumbled.

Byrt didn't wait for a more serious answer before he set about widening the hole. He tore into the loose rock with his claws, scattering dirt and rubble in a wide arc behind him. Artus wasn't certain, but he thought he heard the wombat whistling a tuneless song as he worked.

At the point where the tunnel opened into the pit, Lugg took up his post as unwilling sentinel and would-be decoy. "I can't see a thing out there," he said.

Just then, the mist grew thicker and a spade-shaped head poked into the cave above Lugg. It was fully equal in size to the wombat, with bulbous eyes and a huge, gaping maw. Teeth like garden spades jutted up around its scaly lips. Mist poured from two sets of gills that flapped along the thing's snaking neck, obscuring the long, serpentine body coiling slowly out of the tunnel.