Return of the Damned

9

Tasca stowed his rapier, uncorked a silvery flask, and handed it to Whitman.

"If you hadn't been so ugly, she probably wouldn't have wanted to leave so quickly."

The dwarf downed the potion in one long gulp. The wound on his forehead immediately stopped bleeding, and the blood dried into a scaly scab. He dropped the empty flask and slapped Tasca on the arm.

"Who says I wanted her around anyway." The dwarf smiled. Hefting his hammer over his shoulder, he stepped over a dead soldier and headed for the other side of the room.

He looked back over his shoulder. Regdar and Clemf were downing potions of their own.

"Well," said Whitman in a rather gruff voice, "are you two going to stand there and drink all day, or are we going after the bitch?"

Clemf tossed away his empty flask. "That's not a very nice thing to say about Regdar's woman."

Whitman stopped altogether and turned around. He leaned forward, toward the tattooed human, and narrowed his eyes.

"Not Regdar's woman, you oaf. The blackguard." He shook his head and continued climbing over the dead. "If you weren't so enormous, I'd have no use for you." He flung his head back. "You know that?"

Tasca grabbed Clemf's arm as he passed. "Welcome to my own personal plane of Hell," he said.

Regdar, Clemf, and Tasca followed the dwarf to the shadowy end of the room. There they discovered that the black bricks and the darkness had concealed from them a narrow passageway that led deeper into the fortress. Whitman proceeded into the pitch-black hallway, but slowly as if looking for something.

"Hold up there, you sewer rat," chidedTasca. "The humans can't see in the dark."

"You can't see in the dark," replied the dwarf, and he continued searching in the darkness.

Tasca turned toward Regdar and Clemf. "Hold on," he said, nodding.

The elf walked a short distance back into the room, along the wall. Above him, suspended about twice his height in a black iron sconce, hung one of the lit torches that lined much of the chamber. Squatting down on his haunches, he leaped into the air. Easily passing the torch on his way up, Tasca shoved on its shaft to knock it free. Pushing off the wall at the height of his jump, the elf grabbed the tumbling torch on his way down before landing softly on both feet.

He handed it to Clemf with a bow.

The tattooed human accepted the torch. "How do you do that?"

Tasca winked. "I'm part frog."

Regdar grabbed the elf's right hand and lifted it up. "He has a ring of jumping," indicating the plain-looking band on Tasca's finger. He let go of the elf's hand and grabbed the torch from Clemf. "Come on."

Regdar headed into the dark corridor, following after Whitman.

The hallway continued in a straight line deeper into the mountain. The passage was much smaller than the grand entrance hall, and any resemblance this building had to other, more regal palaces stopped at the end of that enormous chamber. Water seeped through cracks between bricks to run in rivulets across the floor. Where the water collected in small puddles, slippery algae grew in patches matching the shape of the puddle above it. The damp corridor gave off a musty, stagnant smell.

Ahead of Regdar, Whitman crouched, his hammer on the floor beside him. He was examining the base of the wall.

Regdar came up behind the squatting dwarf. "Find something?"

"Yep." Whitman's hand disappeared into a depression in the brick. The wall slid away, grinding against the stone floor as it did. As the wall opened, light creeped around the brick, flickering weakly into the hallway.

Whitman stood up and retrieved his hammer.

Clemf and Tasca stepped up behind Regdar, their weapons at the ready. Whitman looked at each of them in turn, nodded, then headed into the room.

The chamber Whitman had revealed was small, maybe large enough for twenty to twenty-five armed and armored men to stand side by side without bumping into each other. The ceiling was perhaps the height of two dwarves, one standing on the other's shoulders.

On the far wall, two lit torches flickered in heavy, iron sconces. The flickering light played through masses of cobwebs along the walls, revealing the bony remains of perhaps a dozen long-dead soldiers on the floor. Dust and bits of cobweb covered the exposed bones and rusted armor.

Whitman took a step inside the room, kicking up a plume of dust as he did. The dwarf sneezed. The booming noise echoed around the small room, bouncing from the stone walls and rolling down the long hallway.

Tasca whipped his bow around, pointing down the dark passage. He cocked his head, listening.

Whitman lifted his arm and wiped his face with his sleeve.

He looked back at Regdar. "Sorry. Dust."

The big fighter nodded. "Your sneezes could wake the dead."

As if on cue, the chamber began moving. Rusted armor clanked and scratched as the bones of dead, human fighters lifted themselves off the floor and prepared to fight.

Regdar stepped into the room to stand next to Whitman. He heard a twang, and an arrow whipped over his shoulder. The projectile passed directly through a skeleton's ribcage, flying harmlessly between the exposed bones and shattering against the stone wall behind.

The animated bones shambled forward. Whitman swung his hammer with a pounding blow. His target's skull, encased in a rusted helm, collapsed like brittle parchment. The hammer traveled on, unslowed, crushing ribs, spine, hip, and femur. Spiked bits of shattered bone flew all over the room as the creature exploded from the force of Whitman's attack.

Regdar swept his greatsword overhead in a one-handed strike. The sharp blade clove through a skeleton's shoulder with a sharp, cracking sound. The monster shambled on, minus its right arm.

A mass of rusted blades and sharp finger bones jabbed at Regdar and Whitman. Harsh scraping noises filled the chamber as the attacks scratched down the fighters' armor. The rattling of bones and the shuffling of feet continued as the undead pressed on.

Regdar stepped farther into the room, simply shoving three skeletons back with his extended arm. Clemf stepped in behind him, taking the spot directly beside Whitman. His longsword cut right through one skeleton at the waist and knocked the head from another. The thing continued lurching forward, unfazed by the lack of a skull.

Tasca let fly with another round of arrows, more carefully aimed than before. His first lodged in the spine of a skeleton in the back rank. The creature seemed unaffected at first but then its knees wobbled, and it fell, once again lifeless, to the floor. The second arrow struck dead center on a monster's pelvis. The shaft vibrated as the skeleton shambled on, the arrow pointing stiffly where the creature was headed.

Whitman's hammer never paused. The head struck one skeleton and knocked it into a second, sending both to the floor in a broken pile. Shifting one step to his left, the dwarf swung again, and a spine-tingling crunch scattered more bones across the floor.

The skeletons fought on, mindlessly scratching and hacking as best they could, but not a single blow landed on Regdar or his crew. Their heavy armor and fighting prowess kept them safe. In less than a minute, the long-dead soldiers were once again at rest, this time safely in bits and pieces.

Besides the rusted weapons, cobwebs, and broken skeletons, the room yielded nothing of worth, and the men continued down the passageway.

Several paces farther, on the same side of the hall, Whitman found a rotten wooden door, banded together with long, black lengths of iron. The hanging ring that served as a handle had long-since fallen off, and the hinges were rusted.

Holding an arrow nocked and ready, Tasca stood against the opposite wall. Regdar held the torch and his greatsword, his back against the wall beside the door. With those two in position, Whitman and Clemf grabbed hold of the old door and heaved.

The door came apart in their hands. Splinters of rotten wood and bits of rusted metal collapsed to the floor with hardly a crack or creak. On the other side, the chamber Whitman and Clemf had revealed was completely dark. The stench of rotten flesh and rancid blood wafted into the hall. All four of the men cringed back from the smell, covering their noses with their sleeves.

Whitman and Clemf readied themselves, and Regdar turned the corner, holding his breath as he entered the room.

The light from the fighter's torch illuminated a room about twice the size of the last one. Along the walls stood the dilapidated remains of a once-functional torture chamber. Iron maidens, racks, shackles, and other implements of despair littered the chamber. As Regdar crossed father into the room, he saw the dried-up outlines of brown pools of blood. Most of the floor was stained to some extent. The color of stone on the worked-tile floor was the exception, not the rule.

In the middle of the chamber stood an unusual device. To Regdar, it looked like a heavy, wooden chair attached to a smallish catapult. The chair had metal straps on the arms, legs, and back. Whoever or whatever was unfortunate enough to be put in this throne of woe wasn't meant to get out.

The back of the chair was attached to a pair of thick wooden beams that extended above the seat. At the top of these beams, a heavy metal and wood structure was bolted between them. It looked as if it could move back and forth, balanced between the two beams. Had it been closer to the ground, it could have been a child's seesaw.

Above the chair, bolted to the suspended seesaw, was another metal strap-the same construction as the ones meant to hold a person's arms and legs into the chair. The opposite side of the balanced structure held a leather basket-woven in the shape of a spider's web-full of large stones. That end rested on the ground.

The four men spread out, looking at this odd device.

"What in the nine planes of Hell is that?" blurted Whitman.

Clemf shook his head.

"Beats me," replied Regdar.

Tasca stepped up to it, tilting his head to the side. "That, my good and excellent friends, is something I hoped I would never see in my lifetime." The elf circled around the huge machine. "My father used to tell me tales of a tribe of dark elves, drow, who would capture young wood elves who didn't obey their parents. Each time he told the story, he changed it a little bit. Sometimes the dark elves would eat the bad little children, other times they would simply enslave them." Tasca finished his circle around the grisly creation. "Once, when I was getting a little older, and I'd gotten into more serious trouble, he told me that the drow would come that night and take me away. He claimed they would torture me, and he even went so far as to explain this very machine to me."

The other three men stood silently, listening.

"It's called the Spider's Bite." He turned and walked to the chair. "The intended victim is strapped in, and the boom is lowered so the restraint can be put around his neck." The elf stepped up onto the seat of the chair. Reaching up, he tugged on the metal collar bolted to the end of the boom. "Once it's secure, the torturer puts rocks in the basket." He stepped down and began walking out of the room. "There is a point," he continued, "when the disks in the spine begin separating and the bones pull away from the ribs they attach to. Much past that point, and a man’s head will be torn right off his shoulders, sometimes with the spine still attached."

The other three followed him out of the torture chamber.

"Your father told you about this machine-as a child?" asked Regdar.

Tasca continued down the hall, simply nodding his head.

"Your father was a bastard," said the big fighter.

Tasca continued nodding.

The band of fighters made their way down the rest of the passage. At the end they found a final door, much like the last they'd entered, but this one was in much better shape. Though the wood was old and the metal tarnished, the hinges weren't rusted, and the dirt on the floor had been disturbed recently.

"This must be the place," said Regdar.

The others agreed, and they took up the same positions as last time. On Regdar's nod, Clemf and Whitman peeled open the door. A warm glow filled the passageway and a light wind blew dust into the air.

Regdar stood with his back against the wall, the torch flickering in his hand. He looked out at Tasca, his bow trained on the opening. The elf's eyes shifted back and forth, searching, then they settled on something inside the chamber, and they grew to twice their size.

That was all the big fighter needed to see.

Tasca let his arrow fly, and Regdar spun around the corner, following the projectile.

One step inside the door, he stopped and looked up. The torso, arms, and head of a huge, muscular man floated in the air before him. Where the man's legs should have been, a mass of dust and air whipped around in a swirling storm. The creature glared down at Regdar, its beady eyes set deep within its bald skull. It crossed its arms, setting its elbow on the hilt of a tremendous falchion. Tasca's arrow rested on the floor.

"You must be Regdar," said the floating half-man in a booming voice.

A heavy wind blew through the room, and Regdar's torch flickered feebly. He dropped it and gripped the hilt of his sword in both hands.

"And you must be an efreeti," replied the big fighter.

The swirling creature nodded, the long hairs of its beard whipping about its head.

Clemf and Whitman took up positions on either side of Regdar.

"I don't suppose you're going to grant us three wishes," said Regdar.

"No," replied the efreeti with a smile, "but I admire your spirit."