Lynn Abbey - The Nether Scroll

Their horses were restless with hunger. Tiep went to work spreading the last of the grass they'd brought up from the bogs while Rozt'a ransacked her gear for clothing and Dru settled Sheemzher on the rock. The goblin's left eye fluttered open.

"Sky," he murmured.

"We made it out of there," Dru assured him. "All of us."

"People, too?"

Dru dodged the question. "Save your strength, little fellow. We'll take care of you."

Sheemzher closed his eye and appeared to sleep. Rozt'a came over. She'd dressed herself in layers of everything. Her movements were calm and confident as she washed the goblin's wounds with water from the run-off.

"He's lost the eye," she said, bandaging it. "And a lot of blood. A hole like that-" She indicated the thrust wound in Sheemzher's right flank."-Is beyond my skill."

"Wyndyfarh will heal him."

It was the least Lady Mantis could do.

The very least she would do after they delivered the golden scroll and reclaimed Galimer Longfingers from her behind-the-waterfall glade.

"How will we get there? Which way should we go? Back through the rocks and bogs? Or the other way?"

The other way was back to the High Trail, down the steps, and across the quarry to the eastward gorge. Did they want to take their chances with the Zhentarim on the Dawn Pass Trail? Or with the gods-knew-what on the bogs?

"We'll go faster astride on the trail."

Rozt'a looked east. "If we get that far."

There were new words for fear written on her face. Druhallen imagined similar words were written on his own beneath the blood and swelling.

"We'll get through while the sun's shining. They're creatures of the Underdark. They won't come into the light."

Clouds were thickening in the north and west.

"We'd best hurry," Rozt'a concluded.

"I'll get the gear loaded while you patch him up as best you can."

"What about you?"

He wasn't ready to think about his own wounds. "Later. Talk to Tiep. Help him if you can. He's young enough to care what the ladies think about his nose. Me? As long as my mother can recognize me when I'm hung-"

"Druhallen, it's been twenty-five years since you've seen your mother. She wouldn't know you if she fell over your corpse!"

Rozt'a sounded like her old self when she mocked him. He tried to return the favor with a laugh, but turned away, wincing as the effort opened the lacerations.

Sheemzher was unconscious and rust-colored when Rozt'a finished binding his wounds. The horses were saddled and packed, but there'd be no riding until they got down the quarry steps. They rigged a blanket-sling over Dru's shoulder to leave his arms free for leading a horse while he carried the goblin.

The quarry remained deserted with a wall of clouds a few shades lighter than the mountains themselves squeezing down. Rain fell before they reached the bottom, a hard rain with heavy wind behind it and lightning, too. They mounted and headed east, glancing north and west over their shoulders until they were out of the quarry. By mid-afternoon they'd ridden from rain into warm sunshine.

It was like waking up from a nightmare.

Sunset found them on the abandoned portion of the Dawn Pass Trail. Sheemzher had stirred twice during the day. They'd given him water both times and told one another that he was holding his own against his injuries, which was a lie. Tiep's ravaged face was swollen and purple. He'd shut both eyes and ridden blind. Dru was tempted to do the same before Rozt'a called a halt.

"We've gone far enough," she said.

Druhallen's lips were too big and sore to argue. He handed Sheemzher down-let him drop into Rozt'a's arms, if the truth were told-and flopped out of the saddle like a top-heavy sack of grain. A season's worth of grass grew trail-side. Dru hobbled the horses in it and made rough sheaves to form a pallet for Sheemzher before hauling their empty waterskins to a brook on the low-ground side of the trail.

Glancing west, Dru saw clouds towering over the Greypeaks. It was raining in Dekanter as it did almost every day, but their campsite was dry and the brook was seasonably low. He had to climb down the bank and rearrange some rocks before he could fill the skins. The first skin was bloated, tied, and sitting atop the bank and he was working on the second when Rozt'a shrieked.

Drawing on a reserve of strength he hadn't suspected, Dru leapt the bank and raced across the trail, looking for trouble as he ran. The trail was clear of monsters and Zhentarim, but Tiep was in the midst of a seizure. The youth was sprawled on the ground, his heels pounding the ground and his arms flailing through the air. Druhallen dropped to his knees to help Rozt'a restrain him and took a fist on the nose. The pain was exquisite and for several moments he could do nothing at all. When his muscles unlocked, Tiep was lying quiet.

"Are you all right?" Rozt'a asked.

He didn't bother answering as blood leaked from his nose and tears burned his cheek.

Rozt'a brushed her hands vigorously as she stood. "That's it. I'm steeping Wyndor's herbs for both of you."

Dru winced. Wyndor's herbs were a last resort, a very bitter last resort that tortured a man as they healed him. "If you do that, we'll be stuck here until tomorrow night plus the day after if we wait for the sun to ride."

"If I don't, you might be dead," Rozt'a countered as she flipped open their medicine chest, "or too sick to drink it."

That was another problem with Wyndor's-if the patient were too far gone, the herbs would kill before they healed.

"We've got to keep moving, Roz. As little as I wanted to bump into Amarandaris before, I want to see him even less now when we're traveling with that golden scroll. It's a miracle he hasn't caught up with us before this. We used up our miracles last night."

"That's why I'm steeping the Wyndor's. Don't argue with me, Druhallen. You're in no condition to win. Did you leave the skins by the stream?"

He stood up. She was right about his condition but he hadn't reached the point where he couldn't haul two waterskins back to their camp.

Tiep, whose eyes had opened during his exchange with Rozt'a, wobbled up and followed him.

"You don't have to worry about Amarandaris," the youth said from the top of the stream bank.

Dru braced the skin in the cool water and, while the water flowed into it, bathed his throbbing face. "You know something about him that I don't?"

The youth didn't answer right away. Dru worried he might be having another fit, but what he saw when he looked up was worse: guilt, deep and old.

"He pretty much told me I was on my own. He figured you'd find a way out of Parnast before he was ready to leave. Told me what to look out for, with you and the goblins and all, and told me to leave a written message in Yarthrain. He wouldn't have given me the name of someone in Yarthrain if he thought he'd catch up with you-us-before we got there."

Druhallen let the waterskin slip through his ankles. "You think that, do you?"

Tiep nodded.

"How long you been working for them?"

"Two, maybe three, years."

Anger quickened Dru's pulse; his lacerated face burned. "Come on, Tiep. I'm not a fool. What is it? Two years or three?"

"I tried to tell you! I've tried every time they ask me a favor. I knew how you'd react so I didn't dare-until now. It's safe to camp a day or two. Safer than on the main trail. No one's coming here."

"Amarandaris isn't-if I believe you. That doesn't say no one's coming."

The youth bolted for the camp. Dru let him go. He tied off the waterskin and hoisted one to his left shoulder, opposite the pain, the other under his right arm. Rozt'a had a fire going and was waiting with a pot for the water to steep Wyndor's herbs. He had half a mind to tell her to prepare half the amount she'd measured out, but that would mean that he'd be telling her what Tiep had been up to, and he wasn't feeling that generous.