Chapter Eight #4
“If it was not Bait, it would be some other matter,” said First-Sister.
“Nithscalpa will not rest. He is in a mood to keep gnawing until the bone cracks. I fear he shall force another Levelling over some other question – over my poor Sister, perhaps – and force the Denizens to either support him, or openly stand against him. And then shall the Rules be in abeyance, and there will be fire and bloodshed in the Dungeon.” She licked some dried poison from the tip of her tail and frowned at the bitter taste. “More than usual, that is.”
“I hoped Old Throte would have spoken up more. All this is his fault, really. If he’d argued for Bait, or if the ghast had supported us—”
“The ghast rules the lower levels,” said First-Sister. “Nithscalpa cannot squeeze down there, and the ghast can afford to wait until the dragon slumbers again.”
“How long will that take?” asked Bait. “How long before Nithscalpa goes back to sleep?”
“Oh, he’ll snooze now – especially after a big meal,” I said, “but the deeper dragon-sleep’s another matter. His fires are stoked and angry now. It might be years before he sleeps properly again. Not until he’s glutted with triumph and treasure.”
“Nithscalpa will not rest,” said First-Sister.
Second-Sister returned. She dropped the carcass of a kobold from her mouth so she could speak.
“The dragon’s minions are out in force. All swarming up from the Chasm Hall.
” She scraped her shoulder against a pillar, trying to dislodge a troublesome spear that had lodged there.
Bait hurried over to help. “Mostly nothing but kobolds, but some of the trolls have gone over to him. Sister, with only two of us, we shall be hard pressed to defend our lair against so many.”
Both Bait and the Sister were suddenly alert. They pressed their ears to the east wall.
“I hear digging,” said Bait.
We abandoned the lair of the manticores, and with it any protection of custom.
The kobolds might not have dared attack us in a lair, but while we were tied to a fixed place in the Dungeon, they could besiege us.
They might have barricaded the corridors and the western stairs with kobold corpses, walled us up with endless waves of shrieking lizard whelps until a much bigger and fierier lizard dug his way down.
Instead, we became wandering monsters. No lair, no shelter – but no way for the kobolds to bring their weight of numbers to bear on us.
Sometimes, one of their hunting packs would find us, and learn the truth of the old proverb “make sure when you’re hunting a pair of very angry manticores that they’re not actually the ones hunting you”.
Let us simply say that Bait had plenty of kobold scraps to feed to Gloop, and the slime regrew more quickly than I expected.
At first, we wandered in familiar levels; the Trapsmiths’ Arcade, the Hall of Pillars, even one daring visit to the Chasm Hall.
The goblins and other friends sheltered us, despite the risk that came with defying the dragon.
But those regions were familiar to the kobolds, too, and the risk of them catching us unawares was too great for comfort.
There were too many hiding places, too many secret ways.
Bait might have known them all, but the manticores could not follow her into the narrows.
Cats can squeeze through almost any gap, but tack on bat bits and scorpion bits and – in the case of Second-Sister – regrettably broad shoulders. The middle levels were not safe for us.
We debated the lower levels of the west (the lower levels of the east being the region around Nithscalpa’s lair).
Bait was all for this, despite the risk – there are things down there, like the ghast, that are inimical to human life.
Both Sisters argued against it. First-Sister pointed out that it would be folly to flee from the dragon into the teeth of something almost as nasty, and Second-Sister was unwilling to give up any chance of vengeance on Nithscalpa.
The manticores had two votes, Bait one, and Gloop and I abstained. So, up.
The Entrance Hall was still blocked by debris, but there are other ways in and out.
Trolls and kobolds both fear sunlight, so sometimes we sheltered in the open air.
The manticores could sleep through the wan light of the chilly spring day, while Bait slipped down to the forest and gathered supplies – and I watched over them.
I watched them, too. I saw how each new indignity made First-Sister dig her claws into what order she could impose on the group.
She dictated timetables, routes, tactics, even table manners.
“Sister, I am the eldest. I get the first bite of the kill”, she might say, or “we shall make for the Buried River. Remember to tie back your mane, Bait, so it does not get wet.”
I saw how Second-Sister’s hunger for revenge was not sated by killing kobolds.
She took to hunting away from the company, returning hours or days later with reddened lips and claws – and later, as fatigue caught up with her, with kobold spears in her hide.
She claimed that the wounds did not trouble her, but she was limping again, and the membrane of her left wing was shredded by a troll, leaving her unable to fly.
(Manticores are not strong flyers; their wings are used mainly to extend the length of their springing leaps.
They fly poorly, but being more than half-cat, they land nicely.)
More than anything else, Bait was offended by the dragon.
She’d returned to the Dungeon joyfully, freed of both Sir Peledon’s expectations and the need to act human.
She’d intended to live by the Rules and dwell in the Dungeon like any other denizen.
The dragon had singled her out, made her an outsider once again.
She was determined to reclaim her place in the Dungeon, and so she would not take my advice to flee.
Instead, she questioned me endlessly about my days as Master – how I’d found the Master’s Tower (diligent research and a fair bit of luck), how Orphir and I had overcome Old Throte and the other guardians (a hired band of cut-throat adventurers, a willingness to step over their mangled bodies, and a lot more luck), what I’d found there (no sign of Yrn Kyos, beyond some suspicious mouldy remnants) and how I’d claimed the throne and the title of Master (getting my former arse into the seat before Orphir).
Even then, I guessed she would seek the tower.
The dragon found us on the surface. I think it was only the lack of an audience that prevented him from killing all of us. He wanted the other Denizens to witness his supremacy. He wanted to force us back underground.
He toyed with us, first, circling high above the mountain, letting us feel the chill as his shadow blotted out the sun.
He spat gouts of flame, herding us this way and that, never landing or coming within reach of a manticore’s spikes or Bait’s little bow – not that either weapon had much chance of striking him in a vulnerable spot.
Only First-Sister got close. She too could fly, in the clumsy fashion of her kind.
She scurried up an oak and flung herself in the air, gliding for a few long moments, hoping to land a blow.
One hesitates to compare a manticore to a fat wood pigeon.
A manticore has claws that can rip through steel, jaws that can break bone or recite poetry (or, in the case of the lamented Third-Sister, both at once), a poisonous sting that brings agonising death.
They are beautiful in their polyglot nature, a paean to the creative possibilities of flesh and sorcery.
In all these things, they are very much unlike wood pigeons.
One hesitates to compare a manticore to a wood pigeon, but one does not hesitate at all to compare the way Nithscalpa stooped on First-Sister to the way a falcon catches prey.
He was on her in an eyeblink, one claw gripping her hindquarters to fend off the lashing, stinging tail, the other holding her by the human neck, his talons buried in her mane.
He did not bite, even though her throat was exposed. He was too cunning for that. He knew the venom of the manticore suffuses the whole of the creature’s body, and that to eat manticore flesh is to risk death. He did not bite.
His forelimbs twisted. We all heard her bones snap.
She was still alive when we got to her. Her breathing was horribly laboured.
Both her hind legs were dislocated. Second-Sister dragged her by the scruff of the neck, with Bait darting about to free tail or wing when one caught in the underbrush.
There was a cave mouth nearby that led back into the Dungeon, and the dragon let us crawl towards it.
But not without commentary.
Nithscalpa perched on the mountainside above the cave and addressed us in a conversational tone.
“One I have burnt,” he said. “One I have broken. Does the third wish to try her luck? Or perhaps you’ve learned the error of defying me. Maybe if you brought me the human, I might spare your life.”
Second-Sister’s tail lashed, whipping a spike towards Nithscalpa’s good eye. But the dragon was on his guard. His head darted to the side, and the spike splintered on the rock behind him.
“Foolish,” he said, “but I shall give you time to consider wisdom.”
He soared into the sky, dwindling into a reddish dot above the clouds, then circled back, growing in size and brightness as the flames mounted in his gorge. In a fluster of wings and limbs, Second and Bait hauled First-Sister into the shelter of the cave before fire scorched the mountainside.
Nithscalpa doubled back again. He whipped his own long tail against the cave mouth, collapsing it.
The familiar dark swallowed us once more.
We waited for First-Sister to die.
It was a long vigil, and mostly silent.