Chapter Ten #6
Adventurers trespassed in our halls, drawn by rumours of the dragon’s death, by tales of an unguarded hoard.
They came seeking gold, they came with torch and sword, and they found only death – for keeping watch on the entrance is the common task of all.
The clash of steel on scale, shouts of alarm, and then screams of pain echoed through the Dungeon, and Bait tried not to care.
Then, one night, she heard the malicious neepery of kobolds close at hand.
Gloop had not eaten that day, and Bait had no love for kobold-kind.
They were out in the corridors, so whatever happened to them was fair game.
Quiet as a shadow crept Bait. She found them in the Green-Walled Room on the second level.
They were not alone.
The old woman clutched a guttering candle in one hand, a long-bladed knife in the other.
The candle cast a dwindling pool of light, and the edge of the light was like the surface of shark-infested waters.
Teeth flashed and vanished, scales and horns boiled up then sank back into the dark.
The old woman slashed at the kobolds with her kitchen knife, and cut only shadow.
They laughed at her. The light flickered, and they drew closer, and closer still. “Meat!” they chorused. “Meat meat meat!”
The old woman did not speak the Dungeon Tongue. She heard only neep. Neep. NEEP. Scaly hands reached for her. The light guttered and failed.
“Mine!” roared Bait, so loud and furious the kobolds mistook her for a manticore. They fled in a clatter of dropped spears and panicked neeps.
“Who’s there?” asked the old woman, querulously. “Oh, oh, oh, take mercy. Take mercy.”
It was dungeon-dark now, casket-dark, not even a glimmer.
Neither Bait nor the human – the other human – could see anything.
Bait was unfazed – four steps left to the south wall, nineteen steps forward and six right to the far door, and there’s a crack in the floor under my foot that runs straight to the near door.
She’d marked her place in the eye-blink before the light fled.
The old woman, however, was like a wanderer on the shore swept off her feet by a sudden wave.
She stumbled about, arms outstretched like sticks.
She let the knife drop, too – the blade rang once off the stone floor, and Bait snatched it up before it bounced again.
“Who’s there?” The crone shuffled fearfully towards Bait, and Bait slipped to the side. Six steps left to the south wall, nineteen and four to the far door.
“Please.” The old woman’s voice cracked. “Is my boy here? Offa? Offa, is that you?”
Mistress Clove. Bait’s grip on the kitchen knife tightened.
“He is dead.”
“Oh!” Like she’d been struck in the heart.
“Aah!” An old body tripping and falling in the dark.
The rustle of old skin and bone on stone.
You learn to listen in the Dungeon.
“Aaah. Aaah. Aaah.” The wheezing of a broken thing.
The sound of cloth dragging across the floor.
She was crawling in the wrong direction.
The old woman whimpered, and something in Bait thrilled at the sound.
Something dragonish woke in her, something cold and cruel and remote. She need do nothing. This kill is mine.
But that would be unjust. That would be unworthy. Sir Peledon would not have approved.
Bait nudged the old woman with her foot, and Clove froze. “Who’s there?”
“Bait,” said Bait.
“Eel.” Clove spat.
“Bait.”
The sound of old fingers scrabbling for a dropped knife.
Bait smelled fear in the air. She squatted down next to Mistress Clove, and poked her with the knife.
I couldn’t have done this in her kitchen, she thought.
Even though I wanted to do it. We hate each other above and below, only here we can be truthful about it.
Nothing has to be complicated. “Rules say you’re not allowed here.
This is not your place. I could kill you for being here.
Keeping watch on the Entrance Hall’s the common task of all.
” The last words in the Dungeon Tongue. Bait wrinkled her nose. “Why’d you come here?
“I’d nowhere else to go. No one wanted me. They didn’t need me at the castle. No one would take me in. But Offa—”
“I told you. He’s dead.”
“I knew you’d be the death of me, changeling,” spat Clove, with a little of her old venom, then she crumbled.
She lay back and rested her head on the hard ground.
“I know my boy’s dead, but is he here? They say the ghosts came down the mountain.
They say they’re all down here in the dark. Is it true?”
“No ghosts. Wraiths are different. They’re down on the temple levels. I don’t think Offa’s with them. He died in the dragon’s lair.” She put the knife back down where Clove could find it. “He helped kill the dragon, and the dragon was my enemy.”
Bait stood. “If you lie there, the wraiths will find you. It’s not far, and the smell will draw ’em. But they might not be kind. They’re monsters, too. Like me.”
Nineteen steps and four to the far door, and Bait paused at the threshold.
“Or you can follow me, and I’ll show you how to live down here.”