Chapter 20
Chapter
Twenty
The sweat dribbled down the end of Braiden’s nose, striking the ground as he watched his own slowing footfalls. Hot. Too hot.
A belly full of stew had offered a delicious advantage in their first go around the dungeon, but this time, the warmth inside Braiden’s body only contributed to the discomfort of the heat coming from outside.
The dungeon, while not quite sweltering, was far warmer than before, certainly the polar opposite in terms of temperature.
Braiden took a moment to struggle out of his rucksack, slipping the straps off his shoulders. He grunted as he pulled his sweater up and over his head, his undershirt already damp. This was too much for the heat.
“We must be coming closer to the fires,” Elyssandra said. She unclasped her own cloak, sighing with relief as she shucked it in favor of a far more sensible travel tunic. “We don’t know what’s coming up ahead. We need to stay on guard. This should help.”
She ran her fingers through her hair, searching at a familiar spot for a golden hairpin tipped with a sprig of red berries. She brought the pin to her lips, whispered something elven and secret, then twirled it between her hands.
Within moments, Elyssandra had sent forth a second red berry pin, recalling the first one and whispering to it hoarsely as she caught it between her fingers.
Braiden thought they looked familiar. These hairpins were used for scrying and scouting ahead. It was how they’d found Augustin while he did his shopping around the Noose.
Oh, gods. That was right. These things needed to transmit whatever images and information they received.
This was an extended game of sending the berries back and forth. It wasn’t a simple matter of automatically scrying, of viewing through a floating crystal ball as if it were the other end of a spyglass.
They hadn’t turned more than two corners before Braiden realized that Elyssandra was panting.
Loose strands of her hair had come undone in all the places where she’d removed her pins, blond locks now plastered to her forehead with sweat.
It was all the heat, but it clearly had much to do with her expenditure of magical essence, too.
“You don’t have to do that,” Braiden told her. “We’ll just be extra careful as we continue onward.”
“No, it’s all right,” Elyssandra said, wiping the back of her hand against her forehead.
“I’ll just make them take longer trips. It’ll be easier for me that way.
And just so you know — nothing ahead but boring brown earth.
It’s the same sloping rocky passages we’ve been seeing in the rest of the dungeon. ”
“I wonder where the frozen cavern from before might be located,” Augustin said. “Perhaps, with all the ice melted away, what we’ve seen in the past may now be barely recognizable.”
Braiden turned his head to answer, then nearly jumped out of his skin when he saw that the wizard had already stripped to the waist.
Beads of sweat clung to his tanned, powerful torso. Braiden would be more scandalized if the others weren’t too tired to truly pay his half-nakedness any attention. Even Elyssandra couldn’t drum up the excitement she might once have reserved for a glimpse of his chiseled physique.
“This feels like the same way we went as before,” Braiden said. “You might be right. Now that the ice has melted away and evaporated, all that’s left is rock. Hot rock.”
Much too hot, Braiden thought. And what happened when you combined fire with rock? Magma, wasn’t it? The stuff that volcanoes were filled with?
“Back in the old days of the burrowfolk,” Warren said, panting for breath, “I heard that it was the custom to shear one’s fur in times of warmer weather.
Of course, that had more to do with when the burrowfolk actually lived above ground.
I couldn’t imagine how I’d look. Sure, it must feel so much cooler on the skin. But what’s a hare without his hair?”
Braiden chuckled weakly, reaching for his rucksack to find his flask. As he reached over his shoulder, he caught a glimpse of the infuriatingly unruffled Elder Bahul, who hadn’t slowed at all in his step, and, in fact, appeared completely unperturbed by the slowly growing heat.
Braiden licked his lips and allowed himself a small mouthful of cool water from his flask. Not nearly enough to sustain him or slake his thirst.
Gods, if only they’d had more time. He might have considered preparing more for the trip down by stitching cooling moongrass enchantments into a new set of accessories to help them stave off the heat.
But there had been no time to prepare, much less sit down to stitch and weave when they knew that their friend was in danger.
“I know we’ve only been walking for a few hours,” Augustin said, “but if there are no objections, I propose we rest for a spell.”
“A capital idea,” Elyssandra blurted out, almost as if she’d been waiting for someone else to suggest it. She reached for her hairpins again. “Perhaps I can set down the cottage, and we can have a nice little rest.”
Braiden dragged the back of his arm against his damp upper lip. Yes, surely they could spare an hour to get their energy back. There was no way to go and rescue Bones if they themselves were reduced to piles of bones.
But before Elyssandra could even pull the hair comb free from her hair, a loud roaring came from behind them.
Braiden froze. It wasn’t the stomping of some great rockwalker, no shuddering in the earthen tunnel around them. But what did rush down the tunnel was a sensation of almost stifling heat. And what was that orange glow coming from far behind them?
“Look out,” Warren said, straightening up, fighting against his exhaustion. “It’s one of those firewalkers come to harass us again.”
Braiden crooked his fingers, steeling himself to conjure another smothering blanket. Several hells — he’d made that joke about the squirts to himself earlier, but he really should have asked Mother Magda for a couple just to see how they would work against the elementals.
But something nagging at the back of Braiden’s brain told him that this wasn’t just another stray firewalker. For one thing, an elemental’s fireball would have soared clear through the passage. It was a missile, after all, as speedy and relentless as a fired arrow or a launched cannonball.
A wide gout of fire flooded the end of the passage, then receded again.
“What was that?” Elyssandra cried out. “I can’t send my hairpins down that way. They’ll be destroyed.”
“I’m not sure what it is,” Augustin said. “Perhaps a different manifestation of the elementals. Either way, our only choices are to stand our ground or run deeper down the dungeon.”
Warren twirled his quarterstaff in much the same way as he had before, the wood whirring into a blur before him. Braiden thought that the steady breath of wind it produced was quite nice and cooling.
“Then we stand our ground,” Warren said. “It’s going to take more than a pair of measly firewalkers to — ”
He fell silent once the gout of fire cleared, making the source of the flame clearly evident even from where they were standing. It was a brass cube, spinning menacingly in mid-air.
“It’s a messenger,” Elyssandra hissed.
“Or is it the messenger?” Braiden said. “The same one that the demon sent after us?”
“One and the same,” the cube droned in its menacing monotone. “Did you miss me? I’m certainly not going to miss you, once I’ve reduced you to ashes.”
Augustin turned to the others with a wild look in his eyes. Quietly, he said, “I suggest we run.”
Braiden hung on to his rucksack and took off like a bolt. He remembered well how quickly the messenger could zing through the air, how it had, in fact, ricocheted merrily around the shop at high speed and with sheer destructive force.
It had also demonstrated its ability to superheat its body — but to actually launch flame out of thin air? Where was the fire even coming from? Perhaps a slit or an opening of some kind? Braiden was too busy running to keep himself unroasted and uncooked to check.
Curse that demon Valefour and whatever it was he wanted from them, and curse the brass messenger, too. Several hells, this thing was like a fireball and a cannonball, all in one.
But shouldn’t it have caught up to them by now?
Hugging his rucksack to his chest, Braiden risked a glance. The cube was advancing far more slowly than Braiden knew it to be capable of. But why?
Even Augustin wasn’t moving as quickly to get out of range, a similar quizzical expression creasing his eyes and forehead. They exchanged a look, shrugged, then both stopped to face their attacker.
Elder Bahul sprinted silently past them, the contents of his chest rattling and clinking as he jogged at a steady and annoyingly comfortable pace. His retreating footsteps and clattering treasure chest echoed temptingly down the passage behind them.
“What are you two doing?” Elyssandra cried.
“It’s forcing us down the passage,” Braiden said, fingers crooking as he prepared a spell.
“It must be herding us toward the demon,” Augustin said, his hands and wrists moving in practiced motions even as he spoke. “Then we’ll be sandwiched between them, helpless.”
Warren stopped, too, twirling his quarterstaff anew. “I like sandwiches, but this is indeed too fishy for my taste.”
Elyssandra skidded to a stop, twisting at the hip as she brandished her golden dagger. With a flick of her wrist, it extended into a golden spear.
“Fine. I batted this thing clear across Beadle’s Needles the first time. I can just as easily do it again.”
“Ha. Ha. Ha. Stupid humans. Stupid elf. And stupid — well, whatever you are.”
Warren bared his teeth and thumped the ground with one angry foot, his ears standing at attention. The brass cube’s flat and distressingly ominous laugh set Braiden’s hackles rising.
“I am indeed the messenger that visited your pitiful excuse for a shop. But I am only one among a vast quantity. Know that the denizens of the many hells are innumerable, the deepest fires of our furnaces immeasurable in their intensity.”
Innumerable? A strange thing to brag about, since most of Aidun was already so familiar with the legends about demons.
Parents certainly liked to use the old stories to frighten disobedient children.
The only thing more frightening than their devilry, or so the stories went, was their sheer number.
The expression was “several hells” for a reason.
Still, sweat dripped down Braiden’s nape, trickling into the dip between his shoulders, sending an odd, wet shiver down his spine. This sounded too much like a villainous monologue. Why was the messenger monologuing?
It hovered closer, still spinning, bright amber glyphs blazing on each of its gleaming faces.
“I am legion,” the cube intoned. “For we are many.”
Out from the darkness of the distant passages came yet more orange glows. Half a dozen of them, floating and burning as lovely as lanterns, reminding Braiden of the strings of lights hanging over the night market.
If only these fires were as benevolent. Six copies of the brass messenger approached the first, flanking the original to form a line of spinning, glowing boxes. Their glyphs burned brighter and brighter.
“Run,” Augustin whispered. “As hard and as fast as you can.”