Anthology: Realms of Valor

The ragged animal again sprang forward, disappearing behind the large rock. It popped up a dozen paces ahead, its face turned alertly back to see if the halflings still followed.

"Yeah, yeah. Wait a minute!" muttered Pawldo, irritated at the ease with which the animal negotiated the rough terrain.

"If he's coming with us, we ought to give him a name," Stefanik suggested, struggling over a fallen trunk that bristled with prickly branches.

"Be my guest," grunted the older halfling as he, too, worked his way over the obstacle.

"How about 'Half-Ear'?" suggested Stefanik, taking Pawldo's frustrated mumbling for acquiescence. "Hey, wolf! Half-Ear-how about finding a better path?"

But Half-Ear only regarded them impassively. For several minutes they scrambled silently along the streambank to the wolfs latest vantage. By then, of course, the animal had bounded forward another two dozen paces.

Pawldo and Stefanik grunted and cursed their way up the narrow canyon. There was no path-indeed, deadfalls, rockslides, and thorny thickets all choked the base of the narrow chasm, making every step a struggle. Always Half-Ear remained before them, crawling under logs that blocked the halflings, scrambling up a steep surface of tumbled rock in a few bounds. Following slowly, the two-footed explorers climbed with painstaking care, hoisting their packs by rope only after they had made these perilous ascents.

The stream continued to flow beside them, rushing with silent power along a deep channel, for the most part free of the rocks that so typically obstructed the streambed lower down. Finally the walls to either side began to lean away from them, and soon they reached the top of the tangled chute. Struggling up a pile of boulders that spilled along the shore of the stream, Pawldo paused to catch his breath. Half-Ear waited patiently in a forest glade a short distance ahead.

"Open space," grunted the lord mayor as his young companion joined him. "Looks like the same kind of forest we saw below."

"Thank the Earthmother for that!" moaned Stefanik, collapsing on the rock pile in exhaustion. Then he looked around. "Where's Half-Ear?"

"Wait a minute, you mangy cur!" barked Pawldo as the wolf started through the glade toward the shadowed forest on the other side. "Give us a-" His shock swallowed the rest of his complaint.

"What is it?" asked Stefanik, following his companion's gaze. Then his voice, too, faded into stunned silence.

The structure in the woods before them was at first barely visible, so dense was the screen of tree trunks. Yet as the halflings squinted, a blocky outline came into view- a rectangular shape, like a long, high wall, pale gray or even white in color. Pawldo's first thought was that the outline was far too regular to be a clump of rocks or a hill.

"It-it's some kind of building," Stefanik said, unconsciously lowering his voice to a whisper. "And Half-Ear's going toward it!"

"Well, best not let him go alone," muttered Pawldo, surprised at his lack of enthusiasm. Something about the appearance of this bizarre structure-they had yet to get a good look at it-unsettled him in a way he found difficult to ignore.

"Uh, is it me, or do you think it's starting to get dark?" asked Stefanik. He glanced nervously at the dim forest surrounding them.

Pawldo didn't answer, but the growing twilight made him realize that they had spent the bulk of the day climbing through the tangled canyon. The usually shaded wood had already begun to sink into heavier shadow. Cautiously, as if he expected attack at any moment, he crept toward the edifice, darting from tree trunk to tree trunk, examining his goal from each vantage before moving forward again.

Half-Ear, in contrast, trotted right up to the thing and sat down expectantly, as if impatient for his companions to join the bold expedition.

Soon the halflings were close enough to see the details of the building, looming behind a screen of huge pines. As they emerged from the trees the whole structure opened up to view, and they stared in wonder. The white surface they had first spotted was the front wall, and it was not as smooth as Pawldo had originally thought. A multitude of turrets and parapets extended along the top, and a single doorway-large and yawning open-stood in the exact center. The wolf sat directly before this entrance.

And though they thought they had taken full stock of the castle from their vantage, only as the halflings approached the entrance did the true nature of the structure become apparent.

"The whole place is made of bones!" whispered Stefanik. "Look-skulls- human skulls! The legends are true!"

Pawldo felt a deep chill shudder through him as he stared at the wall of eyeless sockets. Most of the castle's surface, he saw, consisted of these grisly remnants stacked neatly together, as if placed by a master bricklayer. The frame of the doorway was formed by only three bones, like thighbones, only each was at least ten feet long.

"Even firbolgs don't have legs that big!" Pawldo murmured, awestruck.

"Do you think that's where the knife came from?" Stefanik asked reluctantly. "Maybe we were, uh, wrong about the mark."

"I'm sure it came from here," Pawldo replied and stepped boldly forward. Though the garish structure awakened feelings of abiding terror within him, it also drew him forward with the thrill of discovery, adventure . .. and treasure. He had, after all, earned his reputation as a hero by facing supernatural threats even more threatening than this phantom castle.

"Say, what about the ponies?" Stefanik looked back at their path, his face wistful. "We can't leave them alone all night."

"They'll be all right. There's plenty of grass around there."

"What about wolves?" Stefanik wondered.

"I'm sure Half-Ear's the only one, and he's with us. You might even say he's showing us the way. Come on." Pawldo started once more toward the looming entrance. His mind whirled with images-mounds of coins, gleaming gem-stones, fabulous artifacts. Half-Ear bounced to his feet and paced ahead of them through the doorway.

One boldly, the other reluctantly, the halflings followed the wolf under the bone arch.

Enough light filtered through gaps in the crude stonework- bonework, Pawldo reminded himself-to light the interior just a little. Before the halflings had advanced two dozen paces, however, the darkness grew heavier and they paused to remove lanterns from their packs. Filling them with oil, touching spark to wick, they soon resumed their exploration under brighter illumination.

The entryway was a wide corridor, smoothly paved below their feet-apparently with actual stone, Pawldo saw with a measure of relief. The walls to either side, however, formed an array of eyeless sockets and grinning teeth, for they were built exclusively of skulls.

"There are thousands of them," gasped Stefanik as they came to an intersection and saw three other corridors, each lined with leering skeletal faces. The air was dry and odorless, but each breath seemed to parch the halflings' tongues and throats of moisture. They each gulped a swallow from the waterskin, as much to calm their nerves as quench their thirst.

"Which way should we go?" asked Stefanik. A longing glance back to the entrance registered the youngster's vote on that question.

"The dagger!" Pawldo hissed. He took the platinum weapon from his belt pouch and held it before each of the three passages. "The Palace of Skulls," the lord mayor intoned, picturing vast piles of treasure in his mind. He waited for several moments, remembering that the effect had been delayed before. Yet now, perhaps because they were in the palace, it gave them no clue. "We'll have to guess. Let's g6 this way," Pawldo announced without pause.

Pawldo had taken only a half-dozen steps down the hall straight ahead when his lamplight reflected with a telltale gleam from a scattering of metal along the base of one wall.