Lynn Abbey - The Nether Scroll

The goblin sagged. For a heartbeat Tiep thought he'd seriously damaged the dog-face. The stench was bad and sudden, like a man dying from the waist down. Tiep wrinkled his nose dramatically.

"What's the point of wearing clothes, Sheemzher, when all you can do is soil them?"

"Not Sheemzher!" the goblin insisted, and emphasized his point by kicking Tiep's kneecap. It was the first move he'd made in his own defense since Tiep had grabbed him. "Ask self!"

In point of fact, the stench wasn't radiating from the goblin. And it certainly wasn't coming from Tiep. Gritting his teeth, Tiep took a deeper breath and determined that the odor rose in the darkness beyond the ledge, out in the bog forest. It was getting stronger, too. Tiep gagged and nearly lost his hold on Sheemzher.

"What died?" he asked no one in particular.

The goblin didn't answer but the darkness did. Something soft and warm brushed against Tiep's leg. An instant later he was in the air, held by the ankle and thrashed against the stone. He emptied his lungs in a scream then lost his voice when he had to fill them with the foulest air imaginable. It was the youth's worst nightmare come to life, he was being held prisoner by a man-high mound of predatory manure.

Manure with a grip of iron. Tiep lashed out with his free leg. He might as well have kicked a rock. The reek-heap that had captured him was all strength within its oozy, soft flesh. Its arms were jointless, like the third arm of that demon who'd helped butcher Cardinal, but with a serpent's whiplash strength. Twice more the beast battered Tiep against the rock face behind the ledge. He managed to protect his head both times, but that wouldn't last.

Then the dung beast whirled him up high and, bad as it was, it got worse. At the top of one arc, Tiep caught a glimpse of three bulbous eyes growing near the tip of another serpentine arm.

Hunger… hunger… hunger! Soft. Warm-soft. Hunger.

Tiep's mind filled with visions of gore, viscera, and fist-sized chunks of raw meat. He realized the manure wasn't merely alive and moving and hungry, it was sentient-it had thoughts and it was projecting those thoughts into his head.

Tiep crashed into a rock. The blow across the shoulders left him stunned and defenseless when the dung beast smashed him to the ground a moment later. He was going to die. The dung beast was going to pound him to a broken-bone pulp, then pull him apart and eat him piece by dripping piece. Tiep could see it all unfolding inside his own skull. He was whipping through the air, headed for another bashing against stone, when the world lit up.

Druhallen! Druhallen had come to his rescue with magical fire.

The dung beast bellowed in Tiep's ears and inside his head, too. The twin sensations were agonizing, but it was the creature's breath that snuffed out Tiep's consciousness. He didn't remember getting free, only that suddenly he was free-flat on his back, aching everywhere, nauseated, and gasping, but free.

Dru had lobbed more fire while Tiep's mind was dark. The second spell plastered the dung beast with flames. It made enough light that Tiep could see Rozt'a dance forward with her sword angled for an ax-cut. She struck quick at one of the serpentine arms and was out of harm's way before it flopped to the stone. The beast shrieked, a sound that had physical force inside Tiep's head. He writhed on the ground, sharing the dung beast's agony until Dru hit it with more fire and it lost the ability to invade a man's mind.

Tiep pulled himself onto his knees and got a good look at Sheemzher using his spear to distract the beast while Rozt'a closed in for another sword cut. Tiep would have joined the fight, if he hadn't lost his knives during the thrashing.

Rozt'a got her second trophy-the eye-stalk-and after that it was only a matter of time before they drove it from the ledge to the bog. Dru hollered, "Clear!" and kindled one of his big fireballs. The beast became a bonfire in the bog, but it wasn't close to dying when, suddenly, it was gone, dragged down by some other beast with absolutely no sense of taste or smell. They weren't tempted to investigate. Tiep tested his ankle and found that, though sore, it worked just fine, thanks to the second-skin cloths still wrapped around his feet.

"What in blazes was that?" Dru asked while they were all getting used to quiet again.

"Demon," said Sheemzher, predictably.

"Not a chance," Dru replied, stomping out last flaming bits of the beast and kicking them off the ledge. "Ansoain had a thing about demons and she made sure we knew what she knew. Demons smell, but they don't smell like that. We all know what that smelled like… I never knew it could move."

Rozt'a spun on her heels awkwardly. She wouldn't sheathe her sword until she'd cleaned it, and she wouldn't clean it on her breeches the way she often did. "The pig wallows at home didn't smell that bad-but they came close. I know you can raise the dead, Dru, but can you raise manure?"

"You're talking to the wrong magician," he replied with a laugh. "I have trouble raising myself each morning." He handed her a scrap of cloth. Magicians carried bits of everything with them. "But I recall Ansoain rattling on about a cave and catacomb dweller that collected dung and fed off it. She never said what it looked like. I imagined a rat of some sort and never thought about the smell. Who knows, maybe we just killed an otyugh. Can't figure, though, what a critter like that would be doing out in the open."

"War," Sheemzher said. "Dark war. Beast-Lord war… war under Dekanter."

"Under Dekanter," Rozt'a muttered, adding a few choice oaths. "Right. Look at what the rain's done to these mountains-there must be caves everywhere." She finally sheathed her sword and turned to Tiep. "No offense, but you reek of that thing. Strip out of those clothes, wash yourself off, and stay downwind until you do!"

Tiep pulled off his shirt but left his breeches alone. He started for the heap they'd made of their gear. Sheemzher, spear in hand, side-stepped to block his path. Tiep decided he could bear the smell a bit longer and was glad he'd stayed when Druhallen started thinking aloud.

"Not caves. Not just caves, anyway. The Mines of Dekanter. Dwarves built 'em, the Netheril mages expanded them, and sure as water flows downhill, there's drow living in them now. Ever see the drow, Sheemzher?"

The goblin lowered his spear when Dru looked their way. Tiep could have made his escape, but he lingered.

Sheemzher shook his head. "Demons. All demons. Sheemzher not know demons. People not go under Dekanter. People fight demons; fear demons."

"No demons, Sheemzher. We've got dragons overhead and the gods know what under our feet, but no demons." Dru walked toward them. "Let me get back to the camp. Maybe I can still catch the tide with my spells."

Tiep realized they didn't know he and Sheemzher had been outside the camp when the otiyo-or whatever Dru had called it-crawled out of the bog. There hadn't been time for Sheemzher to make accusations… yet. Tiep gave the goblin a nasty look, but it was hard to intimidate someone, even a dog-faced goblin, when he had a spear and you stank like an open sewer in summer.

Rozt'a tossed Dru's rag into the bog. "You can't be sure, Dru. Remember what Amarandaris said about problems he couldn't fix or control in Dekanter. Demons would be a damn good reason to move the trail."

"He'd have told me if it was demons. Anything to get my sympathy."

Dru stepped aside to let Rozt'a go ahead of him. The goblin followed Rozt'a. That left Tiep alone with his foster father.

"Thanks. Thanks for saving my life. I was a goner."

"Thank Sheemzher. I woke up when I heard you screaming, but Rozt'a and I, we'd have wasted precious time looking for you, if he hadn't been right there pointing the way with his spear. What were you doing out here?"