The Cleric Quintet: The Fallen Fortress

 

"Keep moving!" Shayleigh bade the dwarves, for with her keen elven hearing, she had heard the approach of enemies from behind.

Cadderly felt the air beside his face move as the elf put an arrow into the air. He did not take serious note of Shay-leigh's movements, though, for he was fumbling with the straps of his backpack, searching for his light tube, or for the wand, to battle the conjured darkness.

Apparently sensing that he had stopped moving, Danica grabbed the young priest's arm and pulled him along - gently, so that she would not disturb his efforts.

There came a loud click and a scrape of stone against stone, followed by a diminishing, "Ooooooo ..."

"Domin illu.r Cadderly cried, holding up the wand, and the darkness fled. Cadderly stood ready with his wand, Shayleigh with her bow, and Danica and Vander were into similarly defensive crouches, feeling their way along the walls.

But Ivan and Pikel were gone.

"Trapdoors!" Danica cried, spotting tiny lines in the floor ahead. "Ivan!"

There came no response, and Danica found no apparent way to open the neatly fit portals, no cranks or handles anywhere in sight.

"Go on!" Shayleigh yelled suddenly, pulling Cadderly past her and drawing back her bowstring. Enemy soldiers were at the door behind them, barely fifty feet away.

Danica leaped the trapped region; Vander reverted to his full size and stepped across, hoisting Cadderly behind him.

"Close your eyes," the young priest whispered to his friends, and he thrust the wand back toward the door and uttered, "Mas Ufa!" A burst of brilliant lights shot forth, green and orange and popping in all colors of the spectrum in a myriad of blinding flashes.

It was over in an instant, leaving the soldiers rubbing their eyes and stumbling about the end of the corridor.

"Go on!" Shayleigh said again, firing off two more arrows into the confused throng. The other three started for the door at the corridor's other end, calling for Shayleigh to catch up.

When the elf maiden turned back around to follow her friends, they realized that she, too, had been caught in Cad-derly's magical 0ash. Her once-clear violet eyes showed as dots of bloodshot red, and she inched down the corridor, trying to discern when to jump.

"We'll come for you!" Danica called out, but Shayleigh had already begun her leap. She landed with her heels on the edge of the trapdoor, which clicked open, and she balanced on the edge of the fall for what seemed an eternity.

Vander dove headlong, spread out wide on the floor, grabbing desperately.

He caught only air as Shayleigh fell backward into the pit, the devilish door swinging tight behind her.

Danica was beside the firbolg, pulling at his sleeve, and Cadderly was beside her, his wand extended once more.

"Mas illu" he said again, his voice subdued, and the brilliant burst hit the recovering soldiers once more. Many of them thought to close their eyes this time, and the charge, though slowed, would not be halted.

Vander led the rush to the far door and almost got there, but a ten-foot section of the corridor shifted suddenly, its entire perimeter turning diagonal to its original position. The surprised firbolg fell to the side, into the suddenly angled wall/floor, and disappeared from sight as that corner of the trapped area rotated on a central pivot

Danica leaped past the angled section of corridor and snapped a kick into the door, breaking apart the locking mechanism. The door creaked open, back toward Danica, just an inch, and the monk grabbed it and pulled it fiercely, as if she were daring another trap to go oft

Cadderly, overwhelmed, came up to her, still looking back to the floor where three of his friends had djsap-peared, and to the wall that had taken the firbolg.

Danica grabbed his hand and pulled him in - a short passage this time, its walls bare of tapestries, that ended in another door just a dozen feet away. As soon as they crossed the threshold, a solid slab of stone dropped behind them, sealing off any possible retreat, and a portcullis fell in front of the door before them, blocking the way. They knew instantly, of course, that they were trapped, but did not appreciate the depth of their predicament until a moment later, when Danica noticed that the small passage's side-walls had begun to close together.

The Holy Word

Danica threw her back against the wall, pushing with all her strength while trying to plant her feet firmly on the smooth floor. She only slid forward, and the corridor narrowed relentlessly.

Cadderly's frantic gaze darted all about, from the stone slab to the portcullis, to the closing sidewalls. He tried to summon the song of Deneir, but remembered nothing immediately within its lyrical notes that might aid them now.

The walls were barely eight feet apart Seven feet

Cadderly fought back his panic, closed his eyes, and told himself to concentrate and to trust in the harmonious music.

He felt Danica grab his arms roughly, but tried to ignore the disturbance. She pulled again, harder, forcing Cadderly to look at her.

"Hold your hands stiffly in front of you," she instructed, turning Cadderly's palms upward. He watched curiously as Danica turned horizontally across his palms, planting her feet against one wall and holding her arms out past her head to "catch" the other, approaching wall.

"You cannot," Cadderly started to protest, but even as he spoke, the walls closed within Danica's reach, closed and then were stopped by the meditating monk's stiffened form as surely as if a beam of metal had been placed between them.

Cadderly moved his hands away from Danica's belly -  her stiffened position supported her fully - and forced himself to turn his attention away from the amazing Danica and consider the larger predicament If the enemy detected that the walls had stopped moving, then he and Danica might soon expect some unwelcome company. Cadderly drew out his hand-crossbow and loaded an explosive dart

He heard some mumbling from beyond the portcullis and the far door, and moved closer, straining to hear.

"Buga yarg grrr mukadig," came a deep guttural sound, and Cadderly, with his exceptional training in the various languages of Faerun, understood that an ogre outside the door had just insisted that the walls must be finished with their business by then.

Cadderly ran back, slipped under and around Danica, and placed his crossbow arm across her back for support He also put his spindle-disks atop Danica, within easy reach, and clutched his enchanted walking stick in his free hand.

There came a cranking sound as the portcullis began to rise, and Cadderly heard a key slip into the door's lock. He steadied his crossbow and his nerves, realizing that he had to fend off the enemy long enough for Danica to dislodge herself and rush out behind him.

The door swung in, and with it came the face of an eager ogre, stupidly grinning as it looked for the squished remains of the intruders.

Cadderly's dart hit it right between the gap in its two front teeth. The young priest charged boldly, scooping up his spindle-disks.

The ogre's cheeks bulged weirdly, its eyes nearly popped free of their sockets, and then its lips flapped, spewing a stream of blood and broken teeth.

"Dun, Mogie?" its stunned companion asked as the splattered monster slid down to the floor. The second ogre bent low, trying to figure out what had happened, then looked back toward the trap-room just in time to catch Cadderly's flying adamantite spindle-disks on the side of its nose.

Cadderly flicked his wrist hard, sending the disks spinning back to him, stinging his palm, then hurled them again fiercely. The ogre's hand started up, but didn't get high enough for a block, and the beast caught the missile in the eye.

The ogre's arm, continuing its upward motion, hooked the wire, though, and Cadderly could not properly retract the disks for a third throw. Always ready to improvise, the quick-thinking young priest took up his walking stick in both hands and bashed it hard against the dazed ogre's thick forearm.

He came lower with his next strike, slamming exposed ribs, and the ogre, as Cadderly had expected, reflexively brought its arm swinging down. Cadderly's next cut came in high again, smashing the ogre on its already splattered nose. He followed through, reversed his grip, and came back around the other way, the ram's head of his walking stick connecting solidly on the base of the ogre's skull.

The monster was kneeling suddenly, its weakened arms down at its side.

Back and forth slammed Cadderly's walking stick, three times, five times, and then Danica raced past, driving a knee under the kneeling monster's chin. The ogre's head snapped back viciously, and finally, the huge thing toppled to the floor beside its dead companion. <

"Load it!" Danica instructed Cadderly, handing him back his crossbow. Behind them, they heard the crunch of wood as the closing walls bit against the opened door. Neither one of them cared to look back.

The chute was slick and steep, and Shayleigh, for all her frantic efforts, could hardly slow her descent. Finally, she go* her back tight against the sloping floor and pushed up into the air with her longbow, searching for some hold.

There were none. The chute's ceiling, like the floor, was perfectly smooth.

A dozen unpleasant images rushed through the elf maiden's head, mostly ones of her being impaled against a wall of poison-tipped spikes beside Ivan and Pikel. Or behind Ivan and Pikel, slamming against her already stuck friends to drive them deeper onto the imagined spikes.

Still holding fast to her bow, Shayleigh angled herself to put her feet against one wall and her shoulder diagonally across the narrow chute against the other. She lifted her head and peered down into the darkness across the length of her body, hoping for some warning before she hit With her heat-sensing eyes, she could make out traces of the dwarves' passing, residual body heat from Ivan and Pikel still showing in spots along the floor and against the curving walls.

And then there was just a blank wall, the end of the chute, and Shayleigh understood, in the split second before she collided, that since the dwarves were nowhere in sight, it must be some type of swinging trapdoor.

She hit and pushed through, but grabbed both sides of the door with widespread arms. Her bow fell below her, and she heard a dwarf grunt, followed by a small splash.

The trapdoor swung back, pinning Shayleigh's forearms between it and the stone wall. She held on stubbornly, guessing that this might be their only way out of the devious pit

"Glad ye could make it, elf," Ivan said from below. "But ye might think of getting away from that door if any more are on their way down."

Shayleigh managed to look straight below her, to see the blurry, heated forms of Ivan and Pikel, standing waist-deep in some murky pool. She couldn't tell the exact dimensions of the room, but it was not large, and there was no other apparent door.

"Are you all right?" she asked.

"Just wet," Ivan grumbled. "And I got a bump on me head where me brother fell on me."

Pikel began to whistle and turned away. A moment later, the green-bearded dwarf spun back, frantically, and leaped onto his brother, nearly knocking Ivan under the water.

"What are ye about?" the surly dwarf demanded.

Pikel squeaked and worked hard to get his feet out of the water.

Ivan gave a sudden yell and heaved Pikel into the air. As the green-bearded dwarf hit the water, Ivan, axe in hand, began chopping wildly, his splashes even reaching Shayleigh, high on the wall.

"What is it?" Shayleigh cried. Both dwarves scrambled about, slapping at the water with their weapons.

"Something long and slimy!" Ivan bellowed back. He rushed to the wall directly below the hanging elf and began jumping up, trying futilely to reach her boots. Pikel was at his back in an instant, clambering over him, but Ivan ducked low, sending Pikel facedown into the murk, and then he leaped atop Pikel's back.

All the while, Shayleigh begged for them both to calm down. And finally they did, exhausted, without coming close to reaching the elf.

"Use my longbow," Shayleigh reasoned.

"Eh?" Pikel squeaked confusedly, but Ivan understood. He splashed about, finally retrieving the dropped bow, then came to the wall and reached up with it, hooking Sh*y-leigh's foot

"Ye sure ye got a good enough hold?" the dwarf politely asked.

"Hurry," Shayleigh replied, and Ivan jumped and grabbed, pulled himself along the bow to get high enough to catch a handhold on the elf's boot.

"Come up over me," Shayleigh instructed. "You will have to get into the corridor first and find some way to brace yourself."

Sturdy Ivan felt guilty climbing over a slender elf maiden like that, but he understood the practicality of it, especially when his brother, stifl below, gave a worried, "Uh-oh."

Ivan looked down to see Pikel standing very still; a serpentine head lifted clear of the water and swayed slowly, back and forth, only a foot out from Pikel and nearly eye-level with the dwarf.

"Me brother," Ivan whispered, hardly able to find his voice. He thought of leaping back to the water and jumping between Pikel and the serpent

"Climb," Shayleigh said to him.

Pikel began to sway with the snake, whistling as he went from side to side. They seemed somehow in harmony, dancing almost, and the snake gave no indication that it meant to strike out at the dwarf.

"Climb," Shayleigh said again to Ivan, ''Pikel cannot get up until you are out of the way."

Ivan had always been protective of his brother, and a big part of him wanted to leap back atop that snake, to rush wildly to Pikel's defense. He managed to light back the impulse, both because of his agreement with Shayleigh's logic, and because he was terribly afraid of snakes. He carefully picked handholds along Shayleigh's clothing and got up even with her, taking solace in Pikel's continued whistling, a calm song that took much of the tension from the nasty situation.

Ivan worked his way around to Shayleigh's back and squeezed through the narrow gap between her and the heavy door. When he got fully into the sloping chute, he turned sideways, bracing with his hands and feet on opposite walls.

"Pikel?" Shayleigh asked breathlessly, for the whistling had stopped.

"Oo oi!" came the hearty reply from below, and Shayleigh felt the weight on her foot as the second brother began his climb up the longbow. Pikel thoughtfully took the bow with him as he scaled Shayleigh, then slipped into the corridor and crossed over Ivan, planting his wet sandals firmly against the stretched-out Ivan's side and reaching back over his brother to help Shayleigh. This was the trickiest part of the maneuver, for Pikel and Ivan had to somehow open the doorway wide enough and long enough for Shayleigh to get through, and at the same time give the elf something solid to hold on to.

Pikel braced his club against the door, between Shay-leigh's outstretched and aching arms.

"When me brother pushes, ye gotta let go with one hand and get it up to me," Ivan instructed. "Ye ready?"

"Open it," Shayleigh begged, and slowly, Pike! began to push.

As soon as the pressure lessened, Shayleigh reached back for Ivan.

She missed, and her grip with her other arm was not solid enough to support her. With a cry, the elf maiden began to fall.

Ivan caught her wrist, his stubby fingers wrapping her tightly and holding her fast against the slimy wall.

"Oooo," Pikel wailed as the whole group began to slide back dangerously toward the end of the chute.

But Ivan growled and straightened his powerful back, locking himself firmly into place. And Pikel, though his arms ached with the strain of the awkward angle, kept the pressure on the heavy door, kept it open enough for Shayleigh to scramble through. She came over Ivan, up beside Pikel, and he let the door slam shut Then he straightgned perpendicularly to his braced brother, and Shayleigh climbed above him and turned as Ivan had turned.

Ivan climbed up Pikel next, as Pikel held fast to the braced elf maiden. Ivan went across Shayleigh, standing straight up the chute. Pikel clambered up to the top, turned sidelong to Ivan, and set the next brace, and so it went, the three working as a living ladder.

"Eh?" Pikel squeaked as he set another stretching brace, around a bend and far out of sight of the chute's end.

"What ye got?" Ivan asked, climbing even with him. Then Ivan, too, saw the lines in the chute's wall - even, parallel lines, like those of a door.

The dwarf planted himself across Pikel's back, his hands fumbling about the wall He felt a slight depression - only a dwarf would have been able to detect so minute an inconsistency in the unremarkable wall - and pushed hard. The secret door slid aside, revealing a second passageway, angling up as was this one, but with an easier grade.

Ivan looked back to Shayleigh and to Pikel.

"We know what is above us," Shayleigh reasoned.

"But can we get through the trapdoor?" Ivan replied.

"Sssh," Pikel begged them both, motioning with his chin toward the new passage. When the others quieted, they heard some scuffling from within, far away, as though some battle had been joined.

"Might be friends and might be needing us!" Ivan roared, and he went into the new passage, pulling Shayleigh, and then Pikel, in behind him. Fumbling again for the depression in the stonework, Ivan managed to close the secret door behind them, and with the lesser slope, the three made better time.

They came to a fork a short time later, the passage continuing up one way, but angling down in a narrower chute to the side. Their instincts told them to keep climbing -  they had left their friends on a higher level - but the sounds of battle emanated from the lower tunnel.

"It could be Cadderly," Shayleigh reasoned.

"Giant dog!" came a familiar voice from down below.

Traitor!" roared another powerful, and even deeper-toned, voice.

Pikel was into the chute, sliding headlong, before Ivan even cried out "Vander!"