The Wyvern's Spur

8 Steele’s Rescue

Olive took only a moment to consider her options. On one hand, she was sure she didn’t want to run into whatever had made Steele scream that way. On the other hand, if whatever it was happened to swallow Steele and Giogi, she was stuck in the catacombs—as a burro—with Cat, possibly for the rest of her life, as short as that might be.

Not an amusing prospect, Olive thought. I have to keep the boy from doing something rash. She trotted down the corridor after the shrinking light of the finder’s stone.

There was another scream, and Giogi dashed down a narrow side passage to follow it. The ceiling was lower there, and he had to stoop as he ran. Shrill cries of anger and laughter echoed down the hall. The nobleman slowed. There were no further cries from his cousin. The laughter had a sinister tone, which chilled Giogi to the marrow. He stopped.

Olive bumped into the nobleman. He gasped and whirled around. “Birdie, you naughty girl. You were supposed to wait with Mistress Cat.”

Cat drew up behind the burro. “What is it?” she asked.

“You should have stayed with the burro. It could be very dangerous,” Giogi chided.

“I am with the burro,” Cat pointed out. If it’s dangerous, why don’t we leave?” she asked.

“That was Steele. He’s my family. I have to help him.”

“But if you don’t come back, I’ll never get out of here. I’ll die down here,” Cat said. Her lower lip quivered.

What she said, only without the dramatic touches, Olive thought.

“If Steele and I don’t come back, my Cousin Freffie will come down looking for us. If you wait in the crypt for him, he’ll let you out.”

Cat frowned with displeasure. Olive thought, She doesn’t want to take a chance on Freffie. He might not fall for her story as easily as Giogi did.

“I’m not leaving you,” Cat insisted.

Giogi sighed with defeat. “Then you’d better stay behind me,” he stated, holding an authoritative finger up to her nose. He turned about and crept down the passage.

The corridor turned, and there Giogi halted, peering around the edge. Cat stopped behind him and peeked out from behind his back.

The passage opened into a larger chamber ten feet farther down. Inside the room, a tangle of white-horned, black-scaled creatures smaller than halflings jumped up and down on a massive mahogany tabletop. The monsters wore nothing but raggedy red shifts with belts of rope and dagger sheaths.

The table rocked on the splintered stumps that had once been its legs, and on a prone human body. Protruding from beneath the table were Steele’s head and shoulders; the rest of him was pinned by the tabletop and the weight of the creatures swarming on top of it. A moan escaped Steele’s lips and his head lolled to one side. From Steele’s stillness and closed eyes, though, Giogi guessed his cousin was mercifully unconscious.

“Kobolds,” Cat said with scorn. “Just a few stupid kobolds.”

Giogi counted at least twenty, which ranked slightly higher than a few, in his estimation, but he kept his growing sense of alarm in check. He could hardly convince Cat that he could protect her from her master, he realized, if he cringed from a battle with kobolds.

“Right. You wait here,” he ordered. “And I mean right here.” Having laid down the law, Giogi plunged into the room, foil drawn in his right hand, finder’s stone raised high in his left, shouting an inarticulate battle cry.

“What does he think he’s doing?” Cat muttered.

Proving himself, obviously, Olive thought.

“Idiot,” Cat said, pulling something out of one of her robe pockets. As Cat dangled it in front of her, Olive got a closer look at it: a finger bone. Cat began chanting softly. Motes of light began to sparkle about the bone.

The burro pulled back quickly. Don’t want to get in the way of a spell that involves anyone’s finger bone, Olive decided.

Oblivious to the magic being cast behind him, Giogi rushed to his cousin’s side. The kobolds, alarmed by the sudden loud intrusion and the finder’s stone light, scattered before him.

Their surprise gave way to rage, however, when they realized they were beset with only a single foe armed with nothing but an oversized skewer. With cruel smiles on their muzzles, the kobolds drew sharp daggers, which glittered in the light of Giogi’s stone. The beasts began encroaching on him in groups of three or four, snarling like dogs set to bait a bull.

Assuming a combat stance, Giogi pivoted about his left foot, lunging with his foil in the direction of any kobold who came within range.

Back in the corridor, Cat ceased her chanting and the bone she held crumbled to dust. Suddenly, the kobolds surrounding Giogi fell back in terror. Impressed with the effect his prowess seemed to have had on the creatures, Giogi jabbed his foil a few times in their direction to test their reaction. The kobolds cowered like whipped dogs.

The nobleman didn’t have the heart to skewer any of them. Keeping a wary eye on the little monsters, he bent over to examine his cousin. Steele’s breathing was shallow and his face pale.

Cat padded into the room, smiling with pleasure at the effect her scare spell had on them. The creatures trembled at her gaze. Olive stood watching from the shadows near the room’s entrance. According to common adventurer lore, pack animals were seen as a delicacy among kobolds and other underground races. She didn’t want to take the chance that the sight of dinner on the hoof would prick up the monsters’ courage.

“I thought I told you to stay put,” Giogi whispered to the mage.

“They won’t hurt me with you to protect me,” Cat insisted. When she looked down at Steele, she gasped softly. “This is your cousin?” she asked.

“Yes. Why?” Giogi asked.

“Nothing,” Cat said, shaking her head.

“Well, now that you’re here, I suppose you can help,” Giogi said with a sigh. “Take these,” he ordered, handing Cat his foil and the finder’s stone so he could use both hands to lift the table off Steele. He strained under the weight, unable to shift the massive piece of furniture.

“How did they move this thing on top of him in the first place?” Giogi gasped, sweat beading on his forehead.

“Look up,” Cat suggested, holding the finder’s stone over her head so he could get a better look. A great length of rope ran from the table to a pulley mounted in the ceiling twenty feet above, to a second pulley at the edge of the room, and finally to a spool controlled by a winch.

“Keep an eye on them,” he ordered Cat. He crossed the room to examine the winch. Whimpering kobolds backed away from him. It took him a minute to find and operate the toggle that engaged the spool’s gears. He cranked the rope taut, then began lifting the great table off the floor. Even with the ingenious machine, it was hard work. Sweat trickled down the sides of Giogi’s face by the time he’d raised the table a few inches.

“That should be enough,” Cat said, peering under the table at Steele’s body.

Giogi returned to her side and slid Steele clear of the crushing weight. “I wonder how these little monsters managed to get this table in here,” Giogi said aloud. “I think it used to be in the anteroom beneath the crypt.”

“No doubt they bribed something bigger to do it for them,” Cat guessed. “So, unless you want to meet whatever that thing is, I suggest we leave now.”

“Good idea,” Giogi agreed. “Just as soon as Steele recovers. I need to fetch a healing potion from Birdie’s pack.”

Cat placed a slender hand on Giogi’s sleeve. In a soft but urgent voice she said, “If you bring him around now, he’ll see me down here. Didn’t you say he’ll think I’m the thief?”

Giogi nodded. “Yes. He’ll make a tremendous fuss, too. Steele can be quite vicious when he has his heart set on something, as he does on the spur. I’ll have to carry him.”

“But that will slow us down awfully,” Cat argued. “Why don’t you load him on the burro and wait until we’re back out in the graveyard before you use your potion?”

Oh, no, you don’t, Olive thought from her hiding place in the shadows.

“Birdie’s got a full load, and even if I unpacked her, Steele would weigh too much for her.”

Cat gave an annoyed sniff. “I might be able to manage a spell to handle him,” she offered.

Handing Giogi his weapon and the finder’s stone, she drew a vial of silver liquid and unstoppered it. Murmuring a chant, she tilted the vial so a drop of the liquid fell from it. Just before it reached the ground, the droplet spread out into a shimmering disk, rose three feet, and hovered there. “We can lay him on that,” Cat said.

“Are you sure it will hold him?” Giogi asked.

“Hurry” Cat whispered, putting away the vial, “before the kobolds begin to lose their fear of you.”

Even before Giogi looked back at the little monsters cowering in the cavern, some of them had begun making muttering, discontented sounds. He lifted Steel up and laid him on the disk. It held the wounded man off the ground without sinking. Cat headed slowly for the doorway. The disk and its cargo followed her.

Giogi followed, too, walking backward, his weapon at the ready. If the kobolds attacked en masse, he was sure he would not be able to hold them off.

Suddenly, one of the grimy creatures stepped from around the table and began shouting angrily. Its weapon was sheathed, but its tone was hostile. Cat stopped by the entrance and turned around. The disk hovered beside her. She listened with some interest to what the creature had to say.

Giogi backed into the mage. “Do you know what he’s gibbering?” he asked in a whisper.

“She says,” Cat explained, “that it’s not fair. Your cousin captured and tortured her, but she hasn’t had her chance to give as well as she got.”

Aghast, Giogi asked, “Why would Steele do such a thing?”

Cat made a series of hissing and growling noises, which Giogi could not begin to comprehend. The belligerent kobold answered in kind.

“To find out about the spur and the thief,” Cat explained. “She convinced him to follow her into this booby trap.”

“Can you tell her I will take him away so he can’t hurt any of them again?”

Cat spoke again in the tongue the kobolds understood. The lead kobold growled and chittered some more, and Cat snarled back at it. The gaze of both, human woman and kobold female, locked onto one another with a long, menacing glare.

After a minute, the staring contest ended. The kobold looked down, spat on the ground in Cat’s direction, and ran off into the darkness. The other kobolds followed.

“She would have preferred that you left him here. I think you spoiled their fun,” Cat said with a wry smile.

Giogi shuddered. “Let’s get out of here.”

When they’d rejoined Olive, Giogi pulled a blanket out of the burro’s saddlebags and covered his cousin’s unconscious body. Then the party began carefully retracing its steps using Giogi’s map and the numbers painted on the walls.

Olive plodded beside Cat’s magic disk and took advantage of the time to study the unconscious Steele. He had the Wyvernspur face, all right. Considering Steele’s sadistic streak, which Cat had just revealed to them, he seemed even more likely to be Jade’s murderer. Unfortunately, while the murderer had looked far younger than Nameless, he had also looked somewhat older than Steele. Steele wasn’t any older than Giogi. Besides, Steele had a mole by the right side of his mouth, which Olive was certain the murderer had not possessed.

Of course, that left the possibility that Steele might have been disguised. It was hard to imagine, though, that a young man foolish enough to walk into a kobold ambush was really a powerful mage. Ruling out Steele left the halfling with Frefford and Drone, and any other male relatives Giogi might have who he hadn’t yet mentioned.

Plodding along behind Giogi and Cat, Olive hadn’t paid much attention to their progress. They’d crossed or turned at six intersections when Giogi looked up from his map with a puzzled expression. “We can’t have come this far already,” he said, reaching out to touch the numbers on the wall. His fingers came back with paint on them. “Odd. This should have dried by now.”

From one of her robe pockets Cat drew out her own crudely drawn map.

A sinister giggling echoed around them.

“The kobolds,” Cat whispered with alarm. “They’ve tricked us with false markings.”

Giogi held the finder’s stone up high to see if he could catch a glimpse of the monsters. The light sprang out down one corridor of the intersection, but left the other three in the dark. Giogi spied no kobolds, but he did spot a piece of paper on the floor. He led them toward it and picked it up.

“This is from your cheese sandwich,” he said. “I can find our way from here.” He rolled up his map and slipped it back in one of the burro’s packs. Remembering what Samtavan Sudacar had told him about the finder’s stone, the nobleman followed its light with confidence. Whichever way it shone the brightest, he turned.

“Are you sure you’re headed in the right direction?” the mage asked uncertainly.

Giogi nodded with a sly grin.

Olive, aware of the finder’s stone’s powers, thought, The boy’s smarter’n he looks, girl. Take his word for it.

Giogi’s party wasn’t too far from the stairs to the crypt when a huge shadow blocked the corridor ahead.

“Bother!” Cat growled. “Not him again.”

“What is it?” Giogi asked nervously, trying to make out the great shape’s identity by squinting.

“Bugbear.”

“Right,” Giogi said with a gulp. Maybe if I charge with a yell, he thought, I can send it running, as I did with the kobolds. He raised his foil and took a deep breath.

Cat put her hand on Giogi’s sleeve again. “Let me handle this,” she said. She pulled out Giogi’s hip flask—which she had never returned—and unstoppered it. With two fingers on her tongue, she gave a shrill whistle and held up the flask.

The bugbear looked up at the newcomers, then came lumbering down the corridor at them.

Giogi froze with fear, and the burro tried to press her heavily loaded bulk flat against the wall. If she has a death wish, Olive thought, I wish she’d leave us out of it.

The halfling couldn’t tell for sure which smelled worse, the bugbear’s matted red fur or the lice-ridden wool sweater it wore. Its fangs were a dull yellow, but its eyes shone bright red. It stood much taller than Giogi. Giogi grabbed at Cat’s arm to pull her behind him, but she evaded his grasp and walked right up to the bugbear.

“Wine?” the mage offered with a smile. “More wine?”

The bugbear snatched the flask from Cat’s hand and poured its contents down its throat.

Cat stepped back.

“That’s not wine,” Giogi whispered. “It’s straight Rivengut.”

“I know, but he doesn’t. In another moment, he won’t care,” Cat replied, smiling.

The bugbear roared once, wobbled, and passed out.

“See?” the mage asked. She stepped over the monster and continued down the corridor with the disk and Steele floating after her.

Giogi and Olive hurried to catch up.

“I bribed him a few hours ago with a skin of wine,” Cat explained.

They reached the anteroom and slowly climbed the stairs back to the crypt. Olive felt her stomach rumbling. She thought longingly, too, of the Rivengut that Cat had given the bugbear.

When they reached the top of the rough stairs, Giogi peered into the crypt, but the guardian was silent.

Giogi crept across the crypt without a word. Olive needed no warning to step as softly as she could, but Cat couldn’t leave well enough alone.

“So where’s the guardian?” the mage asked as they waited at the crypt door for Giogi to pull out his key.

“She’s here,” Giogi muttered as he inserted his key in the door and unlocked it. “Please, don’t disturb her.”

“Giogioni,” the guardian’s voice whispered. “Not long now, my Giogioni.”

Cat whirled around and saw the huge wyvern shadow on the far wall. “Mystra’s mysteries!” she whispered excitedly. “There is a guardian.”

Giogi flung the door open and smacked Olive through. The burro needed no further encouragement. She clomped up the stairs.

“What does she mean?” Cat asked. “Not long until what?”

“Don’t ask, please,” Giogi whispered, tugging on the mage’s arm to pull her through the doorway with him. As soon as the disk floated through, too, he slammed the door shut and relocked it.

“Why shouldn’t I ask what she meant?” Cat demanded.

Giogi closed his eyes. “Because I don’t want to know,” he whispered.

They trudged up the last four flights of stairs. Giogi hopped hard on the tenth step from the top, and the secret door slid open. He ushered them through the mausoleum and out into the graveyard beyond.

The noon sky was a cold steel gray laced with low clouds, but the trio blinked in the open air as if they had been prisoners exposed to full sunshine for the first time in months.

Giogi reached into one of the burro’s packs and pulled out a vial of healing potion. As carefully as he could, he poured it down Steele’s throat. His cousin stirred and sighed, but remained unconscious.

“That’s the best I can do,” Giogi said. “We’ll have to get him to a cleric. How much longer can you carry him like this?” he asked Cat.

“As long as you need me to,” the mage replied with a gentle smile.

“Thank you. For everything,” Giogi said.

What about me? Olive thought. I’ve pulled more than my share of the weight, too, you know.

As if reading Olive’s thoughts, Giogi scratched between the burro’s ears and said, “We’ll be home soon, Birdie. You’ll get your lunch then, and with any luck we’ll get an explanation from Unce Drone before teatime.”

Yes, Olive thought. Uncle Drone’s one mage I want to meet.

Their party hadn’t gone halfway down the graveyard hill when a man wrapped in a green cloak came rushing up to meet them. He was calling out Giogi’s name. As he approached, Olive realized he was another Wyvernspur. He had the same face as Steele, Nameless, and Jade’s murderer. Good grief, Olive thought, how do Wyvernspurs tell one another apart?

Now, that has the makings of a good joke, the halfling mused. She studied the newcomer. He didn’t have a mole like Steele, but he was just as young. His eyes weren’t the right shade. Jade’s murderer had ice-blue eyes, like Nameless’s eyes. The eyes of the man before them now were definitely hazel.

Beside her Olive felt Cat start for a moment and gasp softly. Funny, the halfling thought, that’s the same reaction she had when she got a good look at Steele. I wonder why.

“It’s just my Cousin Frefford,” Giogi explained. “Let me do the talking.”

Cat relaxed instantly.

So, this is Frefford, Olive thought. Well, he’s not the murderer. That leaves me with Uncle Drone.

“Good morning, Freffie,” Giogi greeted his kinsman when they stood face to face.

“Good morning, Giogi. What happened to Steele?” Frefford asked.

Giogi sighed with exasperation. “He went in without me. I found him under a kobold trap. I thought I’d better get him back before exploring further. This young woman was in the graveyard. She offered to give me a hand with him. He’ll be all right, I think. Freffie, how’s Gaylyn?”

“She’s fine,” Freffie replied. “Mother and daughter are both fine.” His grim tone, however, did not match his good news.

Giogi broke into a grin. “Congratulations! I’m so happy for you. But shouldn’t you be with them?” Frefford’s hard expression finally registered with Giogi. “Freffie, what’s wrong?”

“Aunt Dorath sent me to fetch you and Steele,” Frefford explained. He took a deep breath and put a comforting hand on Giogi’s shoulder. “It’s Uncle Drone,” he said. “Aunt Dorath said he went to his laboratory to cast some awful spell. We looked everywhere for him, but he’s disappeared. On the floor of his lab we found,” Frefford’s voice broke. He swallowed and continued. “All we found were his robes, his hat, and a pile of ash. Uncle Drone is dead, Giogi.”