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CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

Although uneven, the increasing play of torchlight on the target tunnel’s walls outlined its opening. And as the flickering grew brighter, it sparked red glints from eyes that were approaching about a foot above the floor: big rats, or something similar.

Ahearn leaned back into his ready position halfway across the chamber; if he could see them, they could see him, black cloak notwithstanding. Sword at the ready, he pressed his left foot against the stone floor. With a sound like a crystal whisper, the sole of his boot crushed the small ampule Elweyr had given him. The resulting smell added a second, even more intense carrion stink to the scent they’d already put out around the entrance. Ahearn had never heard, or even thought, of using a sudden, intense odor as both bait and a ready signal for defenders. And if Elweyr had conceived of it before now, he’d not shared it.

Although Ahearn was no longer in a position where he could see the torch-lit eyes, his ears told him everything he needed to know about the creatures’ reactions. Frenzied skitterings vied with voices shouting commands that reminded him of handlers trying to bring dogs to heel—and then the urgent orders were drowned out by eager squealing and a scrabbling rush toward the chamber: toward the redoubled, irresistible smell of rotting meat.

Ahearn couldn’t make out individual silhouettes among the roiling clutter of shadows that burst through the entrance. But instead of continuing deeper, the creatures stopped just beyond the threshold. Outlines of questing noses rose frantically above that dark, turbulent mass. The smell—the delicious smell that had swept aside whatever training they had—was all around them.

Or, more accurately, was beneath them.

In the other half of the room, and similarly offset from the entrance, a brief flicker picked out the lines of Elweyr’s own cloak, leaning down—but there was nothing visible within it. As the flame touched the floor, a heavy smear of oil lit just beyond the fringe of the garment, which then fell, suddenly empty. As it did, three narrower trails of oil flared and raced toward the door like a trident of fire.

One of the tines sputtered and died, but the other two reached the spot where the monstrous rodents were suddenly silent and alert, the threat of fire having taken a moment to push through their frustrated feeding frenzy. Three yards from the door, the carrion-scented oil ignited with a sound like the breathy flap of a ripped sail. The five calf-high creatures, having crawled through the oil, did not merely catch fire; they exploded into writhing, squealing balls of flame.

One ran beyond the edge of the blaze, sparks trailing behind as bits of its wiry hair burned off. It ran in a mad serpentine as it realized enemies were all around it and finally darted into one of the other tunnel openings. The light of its flaming fur faded even more rapidly than its infantlike screams.

Another’s eyes were seared in the first instant, and, bumping into others that had followed it in, succumbed to the flames and fell, twitching and shrieking.

But the last three knew to turn tail and sped back down the tunnel like a brace of frantic meteors—and as they went, they illuminated startled dry-men who pressed themselves to the walls as the monstrous rodents swept past them. Darkness drew across the dozen or so warriors again, but with their numbers revealed, they would attack as soon as they adjusted their plans for the rout of their rats.

Well, Ahearn allowed, they weren’t rats, actually. They were some cave-bred version of hodpaqt—swamp cavies—with wide, bulbous eyes and brittle fur that burnt like dry hay. But most importantly, they were even more distracted by a carrion scent than their surface-dwelling cousins.

But Ahearn and his lot had their own, unexpected reaction to the scent; they were all gagging on the thick, putrid smoke now spreading through the chamber. The esters Elweyr had mixed into the oil doubled the intensity of the smell and its appeal to the “cave cavies” but each breath now prompted retching. And as the flames died down, less of the greasy residue was burned away, becoming heat-vaporized smoke, instead.

Well, Ahearn allowed, one can’t think of everything. And at least the surprise to the dry-men had been much, much greater. As their questions and commands filled the tunnel with the sounds of the dry-men’s harsh, unfamiliar language, Ahearn leaned back toward their wrist-bound captive. “Can you make that out?”

“They are discussing mancery,” the prisoner whispered in Commerce.

“Ours or theirs?”

“Theirs. They mean to still the fire. Then charge in. If they suspect you used—or even have—mancery, they did not mention it.”

More or less what Elweyr expected. Ahearn swallowed back a wave of vomit before he could speak again. “Well, the better for us and the worse for them. You stay still, now, or I’ll have to—”

Without any current of cooling air or other evident change, the flames in front of the entrance died down swiftly. It was as if they were being smothered by a blanket, but the effect was too uniform to be natural.

Ahearn drew his cloak closer, black side facing out, and knelt closer to the makeshift apparatus that Elweyr had set up, angled toward the tunnel mouth. A few stealthy sounds came out of that dark opening, then silence. Ahearn poised a finger above the most crucial part of the apparatus: the small metal light sphere, reflecting dim spindles from the guttering flames sheltered beneath the mass of the burning cave-cavy. Ahearn held his breath. Nothing but silence, then more silence—and then an abrupt thunder of charging feet.

Making sure his movement wouldn’t topple the shield they’d propped up behind Elweyr’s light sphere, Ahearn tapped the small device on the side facing the entrance. As it had in Gur Grehar, the little ball sprouted legs with a snap and its top snicked open, revealing the blinding white light of a manas crystal. But this time, only two of the eight slivers of its cover opened, sending a narrow, sharp-edged beam of light toward the entrance—just as the first two dry-men charged into the room.

They came in with their two-handed swords held in a close high guard, the point of the blade aiming straight out in front of them, just above the line of the shoulder. Their prisoner had told them to expect that stance; given the awkward length of their hereditary weapons, they felt it was the only way for two men to enter abreast while ready to attack or defend. But with a sudden light shone in their faces—?

Unable to see whatever opponents, or pits, or traps might be before them, both reflexively threw up a hand, trying to orient themselves as they stumbled through the smoking oil.

Off in the dark, S’ythreni’s ironpith crossbow snapped. The leader of the two—judging from his necklaces and strings of withered trophies—took the bolt in the center of his chest. He staggered and fell forward at the very instant that the softer slap of two bows—Varcaxtan’s and Cerven’s—sent a pair of shafts at the one beside him.

Varcaxtan’s long arrow caught that intruder in the belly, but his isharti armor kept it from penetrating deeply. But, in the space of a heartbeat, he began convulsing; the arrowhead’s hsitsé poison had begun its grim work. And although Cerven’s shaft went just low and wide of the same mark, it punched into the kirtle of yet another dry-man coming in right behind him. It inflicted little more than a flesh wound on the thigh beneath the lighter armor, but that was enough for the shaft’s venom-painted point to induce similar spasms.

The other attacker in the second rank stepped to the side as he entered, angling for the darkness as one hand came away from his heavy weapon’s hilt to shield his eyes. As he squinted into the shadows, looking for the source of the arrows and bolts, he took a second long step—and ran directly into Umkhira’s axe.

Hiding flush against the wall and just a yard beyond the edge of the darkness, the Lightstrider’s ambush gave her the rare opportunity to employ precision in lieu of strength. Her first cut almost took off the hand he’d raised to his eyes; it looked and flopped like a gutted fish before he could get it back to the hilt. Umkhira stepped in as she muscled the axe through a back cut which found his neck. Before he’d fallen, she’d stepped back into the dark—but not to the same spot.

Yet another attacker charged in to replace the dry-man that Cerven’s arrow had dropped, quaking, to the ground. He, too, entered at an angle and dodged sideways, trying to slip into the shadows on that side and get his back against the wall. But R’aonsun was there, waiting in ambush just as Umkhira had been on the other side. Armed with an even larger greatsword than his opponent, what he lacked in skill at weapons was amply offset by his size and brute force. Starting from a high guard, he brought his blade down on the still-blinded intruder’s shoulder. The actual wound was diminished by the isharti armor, but did little to lessen the sheer impact; the sound of the dry-man’s shattering collarbone foretold his fate a full second before the dragon’s neck-level back cut dispatched him. And, following the plan and Umkhira’s example, he leaped back into the shadows. Across the light’s cone of brightness, Ahearn could not tell if R’aonsun had remembered to change his position as he fell back.

Low swift muttering resumed in the tunnel. “What are they saying?” Ahearn asked.

The prisoner sounded as though he might gag on every word. “They speak about alchemy. About mancery.”

“Theirs, again?”

“Yes. But they are cautious. They assume you have resources they do not know.”

Ahearn nodded, leaned in the direction he’d last seen Ahearn—or rather, the cloak that had hidden his invisible body. “Hsst! Elweyr! Word from our captive.”

Ahearn started when Elweyr’s voice whispered from only a few feet away. “I heard.”

“Blast it! What are you doing here?”

“Moving to a new position. And keep your voice down.”

“And what’s wrong with your first—?”

“I acted from the first position. Could have been seen. We certainly saw their numbers.”

Ahearn nodded. “They’ll play their high card now or not at all. Not enough of ’em left for anything else.” The muttering in the passage fell silent.

“Any moment, now,” Elweyr predicted. “I’ve already given the sign for Umkhira and R’aonsun to stand farther back. And Ahearn, remember: you don’t go closer than this.”

“But if you’re—!”

“We talked about this. You agreed.”

Without liking it a bit, damn you. Ahearn nodded. “Be where yeh must.” He had no way of knowing when Elweyr drifted off; the unguent worked like a chameleon’s skin, so long as one didn’t move too abruptly. And, since the thaumancer was unclothed, there was no rustling of cloth or tapping of boots on stone.

Ahearn heard the murmuring resume… then abruptly realized it was too singsong to be speech. It was more akin to what he’d heard some austere monks do…

“Wetgut, that drone: that is mantichant.”

“It’s what?”

The captive’s voice was impatient. “Our mantics achieve focus through repetition and voice, not writings.”

Ahearn nodded, moved farther out of the passage’s line of sight, considered switching to his bow… but never got a chance to finish the thought. The mantichant increased tempo a moment before two stealthy steps came closer to the entrance—out of which a vial flew, tumbling end over end. It smashed just beyond the limit of the oil. In the instant that it did, the droning abruptly ceased and a flame-flecked explosion spewed vapor in every direction. And then seemed to explode a second time.

But no, that wasn’t what happened; it was more like the force of the blast doubled in the first instant of its expansion. As a result, it produced twice the flame, twice the noise, and although not twice the smoke, the fumes expanded so quickly that a full-sized cloud appeared in the blink of an eye.

The greasy reek of the carrion was no longer the only scent in the chamber; a sharp new smell, like acid and rancid almonds, cut through the stink. The odor was vaguely familiar—from working with hsitsé, Ahearn realized. He didn’t even think of running, but barely kept himself from leaning into a first, sprinting step away from what he knew—knew—were lethal fumes.

As abrupt as the burst of smoke, a sharp, icy crackle echoed out of the passage, as if the air in it had frozen and broken. A brief wave of intense cold radiated from the entrance—but was gone in the same instant that Ahearn felt it. Instead, a stiff, outgushing gust pulled the deadly cloud to a stop and then back out into the passage itself.

Ahearn almost cried out in surprise as he realized what had happened; Elweyr had cast some strange thaumate into the passage, one that caused such a sharp drop in temperature that the difference in pressure was sucking the hot, poisonous cloud straight back at the dry-men who’d created it. Their panicked shouts confirmed their realization that, if they stood their ground, they would become the victims of their own attack.

As the sharp, dangerous smell rapidly diminished in the chamber, Elweyr’s cloak was snatched into midair. The next moment, his readied kit was yanked off the ground and came bobbing toward Ahearn. The motion caused the thaumancer to become partly visible; a vague gray figure that became more solid the faster he moved.

Varcaxtan had been the first to see Elweyr’s gear seemingly float into the air. He let loose one sharp, shrill whistle: time to go. As if answering that sound, the dry-men unleashed a final, verbal attack: hissed imprecations that had the cadence of profanities and which faded into the distance along with their footfalls.

Ahearn, bow drawn and ready to make reply to any unexpected movement from the other passages, fought a powerful instinct to abandon his post and press the advantage, to attack the enemy while they were still on their back foot. But in the very moment he struggled with that impulse, Varcaxtan approached with a knowing smile, repeating the words he’d muttered to Ahearn as they’d prepared their ambush: “We’re fighting so we can escape. We only take risks that we must.”

He patted Ahearn on the shoulder and led the others into the passage that their captive had deemed most likely to take them deeper. Ahearn stared after the Dunarran, annoyed. The dry-men might try to return as soon as the fumes subsided, and yes, Ahearn might be able to step out from the corner and put a shaft into a survivor or two, and yes, that might kill them or at least set them fleeing even faster.

But the other possibility was that they’d left behind some manner of trap, or, instead of charging back into the chamber, would wait for someone to pop around the corner and either put a hole in his gut, or send him to the Great Tract. And then, because Ahearn’s friends wouldn’t abandon him, he’d likely be the death of them all.

Meaning that the amiably insufferable old Dunarran had just proven himself that much more insufferable by being right yet again. So Ahearn stood rearguard as Elweyr sent his affined rat down one of the other passages, swaddled in their sanitary rags and carrying a smoking ember in its teeth. But rather than run after the others, Elweyr—marked by his floating gear—remained motionless.

“What are you waiting for?” Ahearn hissed at him.

“The longer the rat runs down that tunnel, the more likely he is to continue doing so when I release the thaumate. Which I will do… now.” The cape and kit started jouncing forward to follow the others. Ahearn was right behind, shouldering his bow and snatching up his shield.

But only fifty feet in, the cloak dropped to the ground. Elweyr’s swift hands—ghostly as his motion increased—rummaged in his pack and produced two smooth, onyx disks. He put one on either side of the passage, both snugged behind a small outcropping in the rough walls.

“What are you—?”

“Shhh,” whispered Elweyr, whose hands moved far apart, reaching across the width of the tunnel. He extended his index fingers, one hovering over each of the stones, then tapped them both at the same instant.

Ahearn stared. “What in blazes are those?”

Velitæ.” Elweyr translated when Ahearn shook his head. “Watch-stones. For a few hours, I’ll know if something moves across the line between them. Or touches either one.” The floating kit raised and the straps shifted—first one, then the other—to accommodate unseen arms.

“Well, that’s new!” Ahearn sputtered as they hurried after the distant light of the bobbing Uulamantrene periapt.

Elweyr’s voice suggested a smile. “Our sea voyages afforded me a lot of time for study… and the manufacture of a few simple artifacts. Now, give me the light sphere; I need to adjust it, make it less bright. We don’t want to attract unwanted attention.”


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Framed