Chapter 0 - The Forge of Gramarye

The Forge of Gramarye
Aranthir IX
 
              “This must be the place,” said the elf. She and her three companions stood at the lip of a ravine, looking down to where the river below ran just before the mouth of a cave. The cave’s entrance was tall and narrow, stretching perhaps twelve feet up the opposite face of the ravine, but standing perhaps only three feet wide.
              “It’ll be a tight fit,” one of the three men with her. He was no older than thirty, with reddish brown hair that reached his shoulders and a well-groomed mustache. He wore a jack coat and splinted breeches, with a sallet helm hanging from his belt. Beside the helm hung a slender broadsword and its companion rondel, and thrust through the belt were a pair of wheellock pistols. The man bore a scare across his right cheek, and presently he rubbed it thoughtfully. “I don’t know how we will be able to see in there.”
              “Sorcery,” replied the tallest of his male companions, as the slender half-elf moved up beside him. The half-elf was tall and muscular, beneath a sallet helm and cuirass. He wore a longsword and poignard on his belt beside two wheellock pistols of the same make as the red-haired man’s. He shifted a heavy traveling pack on his shoulders. “I can make us a light to see, but whatever lives in there will be drawn to us.”
              “We can we expect?” the red-haired man asked with a twist of his lip. The half-elf shrugged.
              “The entrance wasn’t hard to find. Something must be keeping the locals out of there.”
              “Like these bandits you’ve had us watching for?” the third man grumbled. He was a short man nearly past middle age and wore a battered coat of brigandine with an open-faced barbute. His worn face was scarred on his right jaw and above his left eye. He squinted his brown eyes as he peered skeptically into the ravine, then back to the forest that surrounded them. “We haven’t seen anything out here but beasts and trees.”
              The greenery of the forest stirred in the soft breeze, but beyond the babbling of the ravine’s stream, they could hear only the birds and their own words.
              “They’re out there,” the half-elf replied sternly. “I can smell them on the wind.”
              “Aranthir speaks truly,” the elf woman added, cutting off a sharp retort from the other mercenaries. Her eyes narrowed. “They are close. Perhaps they watch us even now.”
              “And how can you know they’re bandits? They might be hunters, woodsmen, or just kids playing in the trees.”
              “They’re elves, Malgran,” replied the redhaired man. “They know things. Now shut up and get a rope ready for us to climb down.”
              “That tree, Janguld,” said the elf. “It is the sturdiest.” The redhaired man nodded and removed a thick rope from his pack. He and Malgran went to the tree, leaving her at the ravine’s edge with Aranthir. The two of them stepped closer together, their pointed ears on alert.
              “How many of them do you think?” she asked softly, and Aranthir shrugged. 
              “It is hard to tell. The birds have gone quiet to the south and to the southwest. At least two groups, likely four or more in each group. I cannot say how well they’re coordinating but battle against one will surely bring the other down on us.”
              “I am unconcerned about battle,” the elf said. She tossed her long golden hair, bound up in a single lock by a silver chain and jeweled pins, over her back and took a heavy book from her pack. “Once we get into the cavern, we will no longer be their concern.”
              “I am not so sure. In any case, once in, we must find our way back to town once we’re done.”
              “The river makes a convenient guide,” she replied. Aranthir stifled a sigh. He respected her drive, but the elf woman’s dismissal of obstacles had proved a problem ever since he had signed on to her expedition. The other mercenaries were impressed by her, but he had spent more than one night wishing he had found another employer instead.
              “Ilytha!” called Janguld. The elf’s ears, standing out tall from her golden hair, twitched at the sound of her name. The two of them turned to see that Janguld and Malgran had fastened a knotted rope around the trunk of a sturdy oak. “We’re ready to descend.” Malgran scowled and spat into the dirt.
              “Good. I’ve waited long enough,” Ilytha replied. She settled her pack about her shoulders and straightened her white robes that were somehow still unsoiled despite a long journey through the wilderness. Janguld threw the rope down into the ravine, where it landed in the shallows with a splash. Gritting his teeth, the redhaired mercenary took the rope in both hands and slowly began to descend the rocky walls.
              “Stay on your guard,” Aranthir warned the other two. “We’re far from Bruscair, and this is bandit country.”
              “So you keep saying,” Malgran grumbled before following Janguld over the edge. 
              “You worry too much, Aranthir,” Ilytha said with a smile. Aranthir sighed to himself. The elf woman looked so beautiful in the sunlight. They stood in a pool of sunshine that broke through the trees, and the blue in her eyes danced as delightfully as the gemstones on her collar. Is that why I put up with her? he wondered. Or am I still conditioned from my youth to obey elves?
              She seemed to notice his look and her mouth crooked upward in a bemused smile. Without a word, she stepped past him and she grabbed the rope in both hands, hiked up her robe and dropped gently over the edge, leaving Aranthir alone at the top of the cliff. With practiced ease, she abseiled to the ravine’s floor in little time. 
              At the top, Aranthir sniffed the air. Even under the forest canopy, the air was thick with the smells of summer. Somewhere nearby, a honeybee buzzed about. His nostrils detected the lingering scent of Ilytha’s perfume, but also the rank smell of men living in the woods for too long. They were close. He cast a sharp eye over the trees and furrowed his brow. Close, but not quite here, he thought. He grabbed the rope and jumped over the edge. 
 
              Five men watched from the woods, their sunworn faces just peeking through a screen of leaves.
              “There they go,” said the lead man, a broad-shouldered giant of a man in a padded jack. “Down into the river.”
              “Old Stinky oughta make short work of them,” snickered another. Two more of them laughed together. “Make toothpicks outta their bones, ‘e will.”
              “I hope he leaves me an ear from the elves,” snickered the giant’s shadow, a wiry man in a black gambeson and open barbute. “I’ve got me necklace to add to.” He lifted a tattered string around his neck that was adorned with a dozen grisly trophies. “I’ve been looking for an elf for a long time now.”
              “Wait and see, the boss says,” cautioned the giant. “Elves are always trouble.”
              “Tarnilaen take all elves,” spat a handsome young man in a green cloak. “Let me crawl to the edge, Drabent. I’ll put ‘em facedown in the water with me bow!”
              “Keep it together, boy,” warned the giant. “Elves are always trouble.”
              “Trouble’s the name of me bow…” the young archer grumbled. “Shoulda killed five miles back, when we first saw ‘em.”
              “I agrees with the lad,” said another man. “Riling up Old Stinky will come back on us, mark my words.”
              “I’ll mark your teeth if you don’t shut up,” the giant growled, and his companions fell silent. “Good. Now, we wait and watch the show. Old Stinky never disappoints, eh?”
              The bandits nodded as one and Drabent the giant smiled. “Let’s grab a spot afore it’s all over, then.”
 
              Aranthir alit in the rocky shallows at the edge of the ravine and quickly drew his sword. Janguld and Malgran had already done the same, but Ilytha approached the cave mouth with only her book in her hands.
              “Mistress,” Aranthir hissed, “We still do not know what is inside.” She turned to face him and smiled a haughty smile.
              “Fear not, Aranthir. I can handle myself. Perhaps more importantly, I will survive to pay you at the end of all this.”
              “If that were true, why waste so much silver on the three of us?” Aranthir muttered a charm and yanked on the rope. It untied itself and slid down the slope into a neat coil for him to restow in his pack. He then turned to take the lead from Ilytha before anything came rushing out of the cave.
              “It was weighing me down. Now, if I let you take the lead, will that assuage your fears?”
              “At least somewhat,” Aranthir admitted. Sword in hand, he turned to face the cave mouth. With the others safely behind them, he produced a torch from his pack and lit it with a spray of sparks from his hand. The warm orange of the torchlight licked at the cave mouth, which seemed to drink the light from both torch and sun. Torch held high and sword at the ready, Aranthir advanced.
              Stepping inside, he held his breath while his eyes adjusted. The interior was dark, but his elven vision let him see all the same. The walls were of granite, covered in thick green mossy and carved by rivulets of water that flowed from above. The cave sloped away into darkness. The earthy scent of the underground was overwhelmed by a foul stench that assaulted Aranthir’s nose as soon as he stepped inside. He choked back a bit of bile and steeled himself. I have smelt worse, he told himself. If he thought it enough, it might become true. 
              He took a step forward, and something crunched beneath his feet. He looked down and recoiled at the sight. A carpet of bones stretched from the mouth into the cave’s depths, yellowed and broken. Great teeth had carved long grooves in skulls, and other bones had broken cracked in half or outright shattered by some mighty force. He felt his lip curl in disgust, and the others crept up behind him.
              “Ugh, what is that smell?!” Malgran retched, but Aranthir silenced him with a harsh glare and a finger to his lips. He turned and looked into the depths of the cave. Nothing stirred, and he at last felt safe enough to answer the question.
              “Bones,” he whispered over his shoulder, casting his torch about to illuminate the macabre sight.
              “Say a prayer for the less fortunate,” Malgran whispered.
              “And hope they stay dead,” Janguld added. “I am ill-equipped to deal with the undead, loremaster.”
              Ilytha knelt to study the bones with a curious eye. “Broken, gnawed on, shattered. These might represent decades of fortune seekers here, but it seems more likely that the occupant of this cave hunts, then drags live prey back to its lair to devour them. We must be dealing with something intelligent.”
              “And deadly,” Aranthir muttered, checking the soles of his boots. “You’re sure this forge is worth it?”
              “Among the three of you, I should hope that you most appreciate the potential here, Master Aranthir. Did you not here tell of the forge’s power when you were at the College in Ildranon?”
              “I’ve read many tales. The forge was lost an age ago, and we persevered all the same. I cannot say the same for these poor souls. Why should we inflict upon ourselves what the cruelty of fate inflicted on them?”
              “If not for the power of the forge,” Ilytha answered somewhat testily, “Then think of the silver I’m paying you. Surely it will buy you some good wine and a woman or two.”
              “Wine and women,” Aranthir sighed. “Are all that keeps a mercenary going back into battle. Very well. If you’re so determined to make a meal of us, let’s get this over with.”
              He took a step toward the tunnel leading deeper into the earth and stopped. The air had grown fouler, and the bones trembled beneath his feet. “It’s coming,” he whispered. “Back outside where we can maneuver!”
              The others rushed for the exit, while Aranthir backed slowly, his eyes on the tunnel. The rumbling beneath his feet grew louder, dust began to rain from above, and the carpet of bones clacked together. Slowly, a shape began to emerge from the darkness. It was tall, half again Aranthir’s height. It lumbered forward on two legs and long, crooked arms hung by its side, dragging behind it a heavy tree trunk club. Yellow eyes glared forth from the darkness, and Aranthir felt his stomach tighten. 
              It shambled forward into the light and Aranthir could see its green and gray mottled skin and long, oily black hair that hung down its back. More of the hair grew in patches beneath its arms and between its legs. Cruel tusks jutted out from its jaws, dripping bile as the troll emerged into the cave. It fixed its baleful gaze on him and snorted in derision. The troll took another step forward and shouldered its club. Bones crunched beneath its feet. The foul miasma in the chamber doubled in strength and it was all Aranthir could do to keep his stomach in check. He stepped backward out of the cave mouth, pausing only to cast a magic snare at the mouth.
              In the ravine outside, the others waited. Ilytha held her sword, a slender thrusting blade, in her hands. The jewels in its hilt glittered in the sun. She nodded to him as he retreated from the cave mouth, hoping to draw the troll into the open where it could be surrounded. Aranthir cast aside his torch on dry ground and drew a pistol from his belt. Janguld held a pistol in his hand as well, sword at the ready. Malgran readied a flanged mace in both hands. Already, beads of sweat were forming on his brow. Aranthir paid them little mind.
              The entrance to the cave shook as the troll emerged, one wide, warty hand covering its face from the sun. A huge, hairy foot stomped down inside Aranthir’s magical snare, and strands of sorcerous energies snapped tight around the troll’s leg. It snarled in surprise and turned its yellow eyes to the ground. 
              Aranthir leveled his pistol and pulled the trigger. The wheel spun and sparked, the flashpan burst into flame and the pistol roared. A puff of white smoke poured from the muzzle, followed by a gout of flame. The shot flashed through the air faster than even Aranthir’s elven eyes could follow and struck the troll in its left elbow. There was a spray of blood and bone that spattered the cave wall. The monster howled in pain, and Janguld fired his own pistol.
The second shot struck the troll in its potbelly, drawing another burst of blood. The troll snarled with rage, its wounded arm hanging limp by its side. Two eyes, yellowed with hate, latched onto Aranthir, who shoved his spent pistol into its holster and drew his second. The troll lunged forward, the tree trunk club raised high overhead. The snare strained against the ensnared leg, but the strands were not enough to hold the enraged troll back any longer. The snare snapped and dissipated, releasing its energies with a loud crackling and a spray of sparks. 
              Aranthir leapt aside as the tree trunk came swinging down at him. The club struck the rocky bottom of the stream, sending up a spray of water and rock chips. Aranthir scrambled up onto a large boulder and readied his pistol. 
With the troll’s attention fixed squarely on him, his companions were freed to attack. Ilytha darted forward and plunged her blade into the back of the troll’s knee, then slashed upward in a maneuver designed to hamstring it. But the troll’s skin was thick and leathery, and though the blade plunged in half a hand’s length, it could not cut. Malgran met with more success as he lunged it and swung his mace against the troll’s kneecaps. There was a terrible crack, and the leg buckled. The troll sagged into the dirt, but as it did, it seized Malgran’s arm with its wounded limb and pulled him close. The terrible jaws opened, and a cloud of yellowish-green breath oozed into Malgran’s face. The mercenary cried out as he struggled in the monster’s grip. He shut his eyes and mouth as a defense against the foul breath, but could not shut his nose.
              Ilytha came to his rescue. The elf darted around the troll’s kneeling form and stabbed it in the cheek. It snarled and swatted at her with the club, but the nimble woman withdrew from his reach just in time. Aranthir hopped down from his rock and approached the troll with his pistol raised. Another shot from Janguld struck the monster in its back, evoking another howl. Its grip loosened, and Malgran skittered free, clutching his freed arm in pain. The troll whirled on Janguld, who holstered the pistol and readied his broadsword in both hands. It tried to rise to its feet, but the injured leg failed it and it collapsed to the ground again. Janguld advanced on it, then retreated from a furious strike of the club. The errant blow hammered a boulder in the stream, splintering the head of the club, but the troll paid it little mind. Instead, it stared daggers at Janguld, bile dripping from its jaws to splash sizzling into the water beneath it.
              From behind it, Aranthir rushed the last few yards and jammed his pistol against the troll’s skull. It started in surprise, but it was too late. The pistol sparked and fired, and the shot tore through the troll’s head and out its eyesocket. It spasmed and slowly slumped forward into the water, its thick red blood rushing into the clear stream. 
“Well done,” Ilytha congratulated as she stepped up to the monster’s corpse. She nudged it with her foot, and the body twitched. In response, she plunged her blade through its ear and twisted. “Perhaps this will inspire some confidence in you at last.” She drew the sword out and wiped it clean. 
              Aranthir sighed. He looked from Ilytha to Malgran, who was still holding his arm. 
              “I think it’s broken,” he whined, and Aranthir sighed again. He stepped over the corpse and crossed to Malgran.
              “Let me see it,” he commanded, and the other man held out his arm with a wince. Aranthir pulled back the sleeve and inspected the injury. “You’ll be fine. I’ll cast a spell for the pain, but there’s not much more to be done.”
              “God’s blood,” Malgran hissed. “That bastard’s a strong one.”
              “Not anymore,” muttered Janguld. He also nudged the troll’s broken form with his boot. Then he perked up. “Well, into the cave now?”
              Aranthir murmured the words to his spell, and the red, raw flesh of Malgran’s arm soothed itself. The man stopped his anguished writhing and his breathing slowed. “There,” Aranthir muttered. “Better now?” Malgran nodded.
              “Now that that’s done with,” Ilytha sheated her blade as she talked. “Into the earth we go.”
 
              “Well, that’s something,” muttered Drabent. 
              “I’ll miss Old Stinky,” said the archer. 
              “I’ll miss picking through the carrion outside his cave for scraps and coins,” grumbled the shadow. “But I won’t miss the reek of his shit.”
              “What do we do now, Drabent?” 
              “You two go back and report to the boss that the intruders killed the troll. See what he wants to do and, if he’s undecided, send us reinforcements. Feltham, get to a watch position with that bow. Alvard, get us a rope down into the ravine.”
              “And what do you mean to do?”
              “Yorven’s band was supposed to be heading them off to the north. I’m going to find him. If they can kill a troll, the three of us don’t stand much of a chance. We need Yorven’s gang.”
              Feltham nocked an arrow to his bow and stole forward to the edge of the ravine. Alvard turned to look up at Drabent. “Are we going to kill them?”
              Drabent frowned. “We’ll see. There’s a ruin in that cave, and spoils to be found, I’ll wager. But I see no reason in taking the risks ourselves. We’ll let these newcomers do the hard work, then take what they find.”
              Alvard smiled. “Why learn new tricks when the old ones still work? We’re going to be rich, Drabent.”
              “Apliss willing. Come on, let’s get moving.”
 
              “You’re sure this is the place?” Janguld asked. He raised his torch to shed light on the cave’s moss-covered walls. The stone was rough, but showed signs of having been worked.
              “Something was here once,” Aranthir murmured. The stonework was unfamiliar to him, but he could not rule out that this was the place Ilytha was looking for.
              “It is as I saw it in my dream,” the elf said, her voice tinged with reverence. “The Forge of Gramarye.” She smiled, and Aranthir felt his own lips broaden sympathetically. “This is the place.”
              “So we get paid now, yes?” Malgran asked. He was stretching his wounded arm as he studied the walls with concern. 
              “In time,” answered Ilytha offhandedly. “I must explore. I must determine that what I seek does indeed rest here.”
              “We were paid to bring you to the forge,” protested Malgran. “What you seek wasn’t part of the deal.”
              “Do you intend to quibble over terms now? Still yourself and wait. You’ll get your money, mercenary.”
              Malgran shot a look to Aranthir, who merely shrugged. The elven loremaster ignored them, instead walking slowly along the walls as she inspected the stonework. Malgran rolled his eyes with impatience. “Smells like a troll’s ass in here,” he muttered. 
              Aranthir could not disagree. Even with its occupant dead, the cave’s foul odor was undiminished. He looked to the darkened opening of the tunnel. Moving deeper into the earth was sure to bring them closer to the source of the stench, but somewhere beyond the troll’s den they would have to pass into cleaner air. Or so he hoped. Perhaps it will be just another one of the lies I tell myself, he sighed.  
              The three of them waited impatiently as the loremaster studied the walls, seemingly oblivious to the stench. Aranthir tried to occupy the time by reloading and rewinding his pistols, but the task only took so long and he was soon reduced to standing at the far end of the cave and looking down into the darkness below. 
              The builders of this ruin had carved a stone staircase into the floor of the tunnel, but it was worn away by time and water, leaving many parts cracked or outright missing. Where the stone had been broken away the soft dirt floor beneath was pitted by the troll’s heavy footsteps. The air that floated up from below was thick with the troll’s heavy stench, and Aranthir fought down the urge to throw up. 
              At last, Ilytha stopped her scrutinizing. “Down we go,” she declared, and Aranthir heard Malgran stifle a groan.
              “Down?” Janguld asked. “Toward the stench?”
              “Down toward the forge,” she answered. “Surely you’ve smelled worse smells.”
              Janguld groaned, but the three mercenaries shouldered their packs, lit their torches, and started down the tunnel. Aranthir took the lead, pistol and sword at the ready while behind him Janguld carried a torch for light. The tunnel wound its way into the earth, the stench of troll growing ever stronger until they debouched into a cavern before a massive door of engraved bronze. High overhead, he could make out murder holes in the flickering torchlight. 
              To one side sat a rude hut, crafted from bone and rotting wood and surrounded by refuse and carrion. Here the stench of troll was strongest, but Aranthir found he had grown inured to the smell, and his stomach no longer rebelled against him. His companions, however, lacked his fortitude. Janguld looked pale, one hand on his stomach as he wavered on his feet. Malgran had wrapped a cloth around his face, soaked with wine, but when he spoke his voice betrayed his illness.
              “Gods above and below, the stench is strong! Is this enough for you, elf?”
              “Enough?” Ilytha retorted, her voice as clear as it had always been. “We are at the gates of an ancient ruin, and you want to turn around and return to town?”
              “I want not to drown in my own sick,” Malgran replied, stifling a gag. “Haven’t you got a charm for this, half-blood? How is it that the two of you are not dying on your feet?”
              “Elves are made of sterner stuff,” Janguld replied, and Aranthir turned away from them to study the gate.
              “How do you intend to get the door open?” Aranthir asked Ilytha quietly. The loremaster was studying the graven runes without a concern for the two men behind her. In her hand was her open book, one finger tracing the lines of text as she examined the door.
              “I thought I’d knock,” she replied offhandedly. “Do you think anyone will answer?”
              “I hope not. If anything is left alive in there, we wouldn’t want to meet it.”
              Ilytha turned to him from her book and smiled. “That is what I brought you for. You don’t mean to run on me now, do you?”
              “Run? No, but those too might gag themselves to death if we take too long.” 
              “Well then, stop bothering me and wait.”
              Aranthir turned away with a sigh and looked to the others. Janguld had taken after Malgran in wrapping a cloth around his face, but judging by his posture it was not having the desired effect. Aranthir looked upward into the gloomy recesses of the cavern. High above his head where the rock hung in uncarved vaults, he could see the dark eyes of the murder holes staring down at him. They were arranged in rows above him, affording the long-dead defenders the opportunity to hurl rocks, arrows, naphtha or other weapons down at those battering their heads against the gates. Each hole was almost perfectly round, though some sported shallow grooves on the side nearest the gate. Aranthir squinted into the darkness at them, trying to discern their purpose.
              Ilytha interrupted him. She spoke suddenly in a strong, clear voice. While Aranthir did not recognize her words, he recognized her tone as that of a sorcerer. The smell of spice was at once thick in the cave, drowning out the stench of troll and carrion for a welcome moment. Her alien words rang out loud and clear, echoing off the cavern walls and the great bronze gate in front of her. Ilytha raised an imperious hand, palm outstretched, and delivered her command. 
              The chamber fell silent. Aranthir waited, the hairs rising on his neck. For an interminable moment, he could hear nothing but the breathing of himself and his companions and the faintly audible trickle of distant flowing water.
              The bronze doors creaked. Groaning under their own enormous weight, they scraped across the worn stones. Centuries of dust cascaded from the doors’ crevices to the floor, where clouds billowed forth. Aranthri hastened to cover his face with cloth as the other men had done, but Ilytha stood unperturbed. Her eyes and mouth were instead wide with triumphant wonder. She clutched the book close to her breast, staring through the widening crack between the doors into the ruin beyond. 
              With a bang, the doors came to a halt. The yawning portal between them was open and, as the dust began to settle, Aranthir could see through it and into a wide promenade with an expertly cut stone floor. A cold wind blew forth, rustling their hair and scarves and banishing with it the stench of troll. Aranthir raised up his pistol.
              “In we go,” breathed Ilytha, and she stepped through the doors without waiting for a reply. Shaking his head, Aranthir followed and the other two trailed slowly behind him. 
              The promenade was lined with stone buildings that would not have been out of place in many of the towns on the surface. Empty sockets where signposts may have hung stared out at Aranthir as he passed before the empty doorways.
              “What was this place?” breathed Janguld. “A dwarfhold?’
              “A settlement of smiths,” the elf answered unhelpfully. “They built their forge where the fire runs hot and the water runs cold, then a settlement sprang up around it.”
              “Does fire run cold some places?” Janguld asked wryly. 
              “It does,” Ilytha answered, “There are places where things fall up, water burns and fire freezes. Though they are not places where a mercenary such as yourself would go.”
              “What does that mean?” Janguld challenged, but Ilytha merely shrugged without looking back. 
              “Ask Aranthir. He has been beyond the reach of night and into the land of eternal sun. These things are known to him.”
              “I have gone north, to Hyperborea,” Aranthir answered, “But I have never seen fire freeze or water burn. You must be mistaken, loremaster.”
              “Am I?” she mused. “Perhaps the tales are tall, or perhaps you have reason for keeping to yourself.”
              “I dislike being called a liar,” he said darkly. Ilytha merely laughed.
              “I understand your reasons for keeping silent, Aranthir. I will not hold them against you.”
              “You’ve been to Hyperborea?” Janguld asked. “I should like to hear that tale.”
              “Not now,” Aranthir retorted. “There are enough ghosts around us already.” He looked into the gaping doorway of one house they passed by. The room inside was empty but for fallen stones and dust covering the floor. Where did the people go? He wondered. There were no bones about, no signs of war or flood. Perhaps a famine killed them all? There would be precious little food down here.
              The wind died down, and the smells of the deep earth returned to him. He smelled refuse, the troll’s miasma, and now a newer scent. Not as rank as the troll’s, this new scent still smell foul and spelled trouble. It was familiar to his nose, but try as he might, he could not place it. Instead, his mind conjured images of a frozen swamp and distant, dancing lights.
              In addition to the foul smells, somewhere nearby he could both smell and hear running water. The scent was deep and earthy, like that of a cold mountain river that ran through fertile fields. The music of water on rocks was dimly audible in the depths of the ruined city, always to one side and never ahead of him. Also in the distance were faint chitters. Rats? he wondered. Or worse?
              “This place is haunted,” Malgran muttered. The mercenary clutched his sword in a white-knuckled grip, his eyes searching the open doorways on either side of the promenade for an ambush. Janguld walked behind him, pistol and sword ready for battle. 
              “Not ghosts,” Ilytha called softly. “Vermin. Keep your blade ready, for it will be of use.”
              Ahead of them loomed an archway of carved stone. Ilytha stopped before it to continue her studies, which made the mercenaries anxious. With his sword at the ready, Aranthir stepped through the archway to the street on the other side. The street ran in both directions, curving inwardly as it did. The buildings that lined it were indistinguishable from those that lined the main street, but the interior of the looping road was a single great tower that rose all the way to the roof of the cavern. It was windowless near the ground and only a single entrance presented itself, a tall set of double doors made from more of the bronze that he had seen at the entrance. 
              The sound of running water was louder here, though still muffled. He took a few steps closer to the tower’s great door, and the sound of water seemed to grow louder. Yet that was not what brought him to a halt. Instead, his eyes went to a pile of animal bones left in the street’s gutter. They were piled together, clearly not the result of an animal having died. Beside it was a pile of ashes and a makeshift spit. He stepped closer to examine them and saw small teeth marks on the creature’s skull. He knelt and picked it up. 
              The scent of death was still near, the teeth marks fresh. He set the skull aside.
              “What have you got there?” Janguld asked. Aranthir turned to his companion, who was standing just on the near side of the arch with his weapons at the ready. He looked from Aranthir to the gloomy darkness above them and seemed to suppress a shiver. “This place is evil, I can feel it.”
              “Bones, a fire,” answered Aranthir. “A recent kill. Something lives here.”
              “Something that makes fires,” Janguld added, and Aranthir nodded.
              “Be on your guard.”
              Ilytha stepped through the archway and Malgran hurried up behind her. “This place is fascinating,” she breathed as she looked up toward the tower. Malgran shifted uncomfortably behind her, casting a wary glance back the way they had come. “That must be the forging tower. Come on!”
              “There are things about,” Aranthir declared, rising from the pile of bones. “Things that lurk in the darkness, chittering. They are intelligent.” He pointed to the small firepit.
              “They cook their meat,” Ilytha scoffed. “That does not make them intelligent, or a danger.”
              “They have been watching us since we passed beneath the gate,” Aranthir replied. “I can hear their voices. I can feel their eyes.”
              “They are intelligent enough not to trouble us,” Ilytha replied. “They will not stop us from reaching the forge.”
              “You do not know what things live down here, loremaster. Your book is centuries old. What might have changed between its writing and now?”
              “I know that I’ve hired three of the deadliest mercenaries in Taralan to protect me. What cause have I to fear?”
              Aranthir pointed past her toward a trail of footprints that lead through the dust and into one of the open-doored houses. “There. Goblins, no doubt.”
              “Then I have even less cause to fear. It would take many goblins to overcome the four of us.”
              “Goblins travel in groups,” Aranthir warned. “And are cunning little devils. We had best be cautious.”
              “And so we will. But first, we should get the door to the tower open.”
              Seeing no point to further arguing, Aranthir left the bones behind and headed for the tower door. He reached it ahead of Ilytha and called for a torch, which Janguld brought to him. By its light, he examined the runes engraved in the bronze facing. They were old, and of a script he did not know. But Ilytha stepped up beside him and began to read.
              “Another spell of warding,” she said. She touched a pensive finger to her lips. “Do you know your charms of opening, Aranthir?”
              He looked at her skeptically. “Has this door defeated you?” She laughed.
              “Hardly, for I count you among my tools. There are many ways to open a warded door. How many of them do you know, I wonder?”
              “Enough to get by. What kind of spell is this?”
              “An ancient one. It is of an old lineage of spells long dead, I would struggle to categorize it according to our ways. But it depends on graven runes and a silver layer beneath.”
              “Defacing the runes will take too much time,” Aranthir mused.
              “And I wish to preserve them all the same. There is much that could be learned from this ruin.”
              “Then I must be careful. This spell is applied merely to the door, not the tower as a whole,” he mused. “Careless, perhaps. But it makes my task easier. I say I must for I presume you will not be offering assistance?”
              Ilytha smirked at him. “You are the studied sorcerer here, are you not?”
              “I thought as much.” Aranthir sighed. He set down his pack, stowed his weapons and ran a hand over the door. The script seemed to run from top to bottom, an oddity among the local languages.
              “Come on, Aranthir,” urged Janguld. “I’ve seen you crack tougher spells than this.”
              “Have you?” he replied. “You do not know what sort of spells this is.”
              Janguld shrugged. “I merely assume.”
              “I have not a clue what sort of spell this is. I cannot even read it.”
              “Can you not surmise enough to know the important parts of the spell? Like the margrave’s chest you opened.”
              “Perhaps, but this script is too alien. It does not even read sideways.”
              “What do you mean?” Janguld asked. Aranthir waved his hands up and down the door.
              “Clathi is written right to left, Elvish left to right,” Aranthir explained. “This script goes from top to bottom.”
              “Elvish is written right to left?” Janguld echoed in mild surprise. Aranthir raised an eyebrow.
              “That is what surprises you?” His companion shrugged.
              “I thought I had seen enough Elvish to know how it was written.” Aranthir shook his head with a wry smile. He turned to the loremaster.
              “What sort of people lived here?” Aranthir asked Ilytha. “The spell likely allows for its masters to pass. Perhaps I could disguise us as its masters.”
              “I am not sure,” she replied. “the Forge is ancient, but its builders remain shrouded in myth.”         “Have you any idea at all?”
              “I’ve heard they were elves,” Janguld offered.
              “Mortals think that all the other kindreds were elves,” Ilytha scoffed. “They were not elves.”
              “Your confidence may be warranted, but it brings us no closer to your goal,” Aranthir remarked sourly. He looked to her with slight annoyance, but her sapphire eyes dancing gaily in the torchlight stole his anger. He sighed. 
              “If I cannot fool the ward, and I cannot deface the runes, then I must pierce the spell. Have you any silver?”
              Ilytha rummaged through her packs for a moment before producing a silver pen. “Here,” she pronounced. “But be careful with it. It was a gift from my first teacher.”
              “I always am,” Aranthir muttered. He turned the pen over in his hand and cast upon himself a seeing spell. Slowly, the glimmering strands of magic began to form in his vision. These were unlike those he had seen before. While most mortal magic appeared as thin, gossamer strands, these strands were thick, nearly rigid, and pulsed with a dull glow. Aranthir squinted at them, momentarily wondering if his seeing spell was playing a trick on him.
              No, he decided, this is ancient magic indeed. There are likely none alive who could cast a spell like this. He spared a moment’s thought for the sorcerers in Ildranon who would give their colleagues’ lives to study this. But the woman with the silver said she wanted through, so he would cut her a path. He studied the strands for the opportune place to strike. Behind him, he could feel the loremaster’s eagerness, and the growing impatience of Malgran. There is no time like the present, he thought.
With fresh spice from his pack, he cast an enchantment over the pen that he hoped would allow it to pierce the warding spell. “Alright,” he said with a deep breath. “Stand back. This might spark a bit.”
              The others dutifully retreated, and Aranthir readied the enchanted pen in his hand. He studied the strange lettering and took a deep breath. Raising a hand to shield his eyes, he muttered a prayer to Felitharna and thrust the needle forward. 
              The silver struck the bronze, and there was a piercing shriek like a sword blade dragged over plate armor, though the needle did not scratch. The beaten bronze seemed to ripple away from the point of impact, and the strands of magic shuddered, then went dark. 
              “Did it work?” Ilytha whispered, and as if in answer the door rang out in a heavy, mournful tolling. The strands flared to life, so bright that Aranthir covered his eyes with a hand. It was of little use, for the baleful light even pierced his closed eyelids and seared the orbs beneath. He heard Malgran and Janguld cry out, and Aranthir staggered back. The door tolled again and there was an awful creaking of metal. 
              A spray of sparks erupted forth, stinging and scorching Aranthir’s hair and skin. One spark struck inside his ear, the hissing and cracking so painfully loud. Another struck his throat and danced its way down his collar, burning its way down his chest as he yelped and slapped at his armor in a vain attempt to get at it. Sunspots danced in his eyes as he opened them and he gasped as he looked out. Malgran and Janguld were dancing and slapping at themselves, sparks still thick about them. But Ilytha stood undisturbed, he eyes on the door.
              Aranthir turned to face the bronze portal. The magical strands were gone, and the door had opened just a crack.
              “Well done,” she breathed, and stepped forward. Janguld and Malgran had staved off the sparks at last, but her lack of concern for them was clearly stinging as well. Ilytha stood before the door and raised a hand. “We are so close now,” she whispered. Aranthir scowled as he straightened himself and shook off the stinging sparks. Ilytha touched her hand to the door and he held his breath.
              But the wards lay silent. Aranthir raised his hand, which he suddenly remembered still held the borrowed pen. Its tip was slightly scorched, but otherwise it was unharmed by the ordeal. He held it forward and tapped Ilytha on the shoulder, but she could not tear her attention from the door. She put her other hand on it and smiled to herself. “Here we go,” she murmured in Elvish, the familiar accent of Ildranon’s aristocracy summoning a surge of memories in Aranthir’s mind.
              Pushing gently moved the door back on its hinges. The portal swung open on silent hinges to reveal an antechamber of bare stone. What appeared to be the remains of wooden benches lay along the walls, long since rotted into little more than splinters. Checking the floor for any wards, Aranthir stepped cautiously into the antechamber and drew his weapons again. 
              Ilytha was less cautious. She swept past him into the tower, snatching the pen from his grasp at last, book in hand again as she ran a hand over the carvings on the wall. They were geometric patterns, flecked with paint, that did nothing to illuminate who had built the place. Yet the loremaster leaned in close, somehow able to find meaning in them. She quickly inscribed notes in the margins of her tome in a flowing script Aranthir had not seen her use before. He knew it from his time in the Colleges of Ildranon, where many princelings and royals had sought out an education. 
              He frowned. The running water was louder here, and he knew the source of it was close. The halls curled away from the foyer to either side, the running water echoing toward him from both directions. Aranthir cracked the door to a hall opened just a hair, and he heard Ilytha perk up behind him.
              “The Forge sits beside a running stream,” she said. “It must be within these walls. Come along, we are near our goal!”
              Without waiting for her guardians, she pushed past him into the hall. It was dark, illuminated only by their torches that played long, dancing shadows down the curving hall. The loremaster pressed ahead and Aranthir could only sigh to himself as he followed. They wrapped around the central chamber to the far side of the tower, where they came to another door. This one was again made of bronze, but they would need no charm of opening here for the door stood partly open. Ilytha stopped before it, torch in hand. Aranthir heard her inhale.
              “This must be it,” she whispered. “My long search is nearly over. I feel it in the air. Do you?”
              Aranthir nodded wordlessly. The air was excited with arcane energy. He could feel it in his skin and hair, as if he had swallowed a fistful of raw spice. Something nearby was positively coursing with power and the open door could not contain it.
              Ilytha pushed open the bronze door and gasped with wonder. Here at last lay the forge. The chamber was circular, with a domed ceiling broken by a clear stream of rushing water that fell into a carven stone trough and ran out the side of the room and into a tunnel that plunged into the earth below them. At the center of the room lay the forge, its ancient bellows dusty and cold, but otherwise seemingly in working order despite its age. It was roofed in silver, untarnished by its long disuse, and the base of it was banded in gold. In the flickering torchlight, Aranthir saw that the gold leaf was engraved with more of the strange script he had seen elsewhere in the lost city. Around the edge of the room was a wide stone ledge serving as a workbench. Old tools, the wood nearly rotted away and the iron rusted, lay where their makers had left them uncounted centuries ago. 
              Piled below the forge was a mound of assorted objects. Most of it was junk, broken tools, weapons, shards of pottery, and animal bones, but scattered around were baubles of copper, silver, and the rare gold. Aranthir spied a pile of golden coins and a dented silver goblet studded with emeralds. 
              “That’s some treasure,” breathed Malgran from behind him. “That can be my share.”
              “Stay your hand, mercenary,” the elf replied. “Some of this may have value to my studies. I’ll not part with anything that might shed light on the origins and loss of the forge.”
              Aranthir could hear Malgran frown. Ilytha paid him little mind and went instead to the forge. She opened her book again and knelt to read the inscription carved into the golden bands. Behind her, Malgran and Janguld eyed the pile of loot.
              “Strange,” Aranthir muttered. “Everything else in here is neat, like it was carefully arranged before the place’s builders disappeared. But this pile is something else.”
              “It’s mostly junk,” Malgran complained. “But there’s enough gold and silver in here to make this all worth it. Even if the elf doesn’t pay.”
              Ilytha doubtlessly heard them, but made no response. Janguld picked up a golden bracelet and set it on his wrist. “Whoever these builders were, they were human-sized,” he said. Aranthir inspected a pair of silver rings. Unlike the silver forge roof, these were beginning to tarnish.
              “These items are not from the forge’s builders,” he said, understanding coming to him now. “This is an offering pile left by the goblins.”
              “Offering? To what?”
              “To the spirit of the forge,” Ilytha replied. “This golden plaque is engraved with a spell of binding. A mighty spirit is bound here, powering the forge with its energies and infusing its products with magical power. That is the secret of the legends.”
              “A spirit?” Aranthir asked. “A demon, or a djinn?”
              “Perhaps. It is not malevolent, or at least these spells of binding are not spells of protection. We have nothing to fear from it, I should think.”
              “That is not as definitive as I have hoped,” Janguld replied cautiously. “I am no sorcerer, but even I can tell that the air here crackles with power.”
              “Indeed.” Ilytha looked from the forge to the stone ledge around the room. Ingots of iron and other metals sat stacked neatly against the outer wall. “If I can figure out how to activate it, I may be able to have it forge a weapon for you.”
              “A weapon?” Malgran was suddenly suspicious. “What kind of weapon?”
              “Perhaps a sword,” Ilytha replied, her thoughts elsewhere. “Warriors always want a magic sword. Never an axe or spear, I can only wonder why.”
              “I’ve heard legends of sorcerers’ weapons,” Malgran went on. “Spells that can lay waste to an entire town in a day. We should stay well clear of that.”
              “It is a forge, Malgran,” Aranthir replied. “Forges make weapons for soldiers, not sorcerers.”
              “It is a magic forge,” Malgran replied.
              “Right now, it is just a forge,” Ilytha cut in. “It will only be a magic forge if I can determine how to call upon the forge spirit within. The plaque speaks of a way to summon the spirit, but I do not know the way. Just give me a few moment’s peace to figure it out.” She looked to the ledge on the far side of the room, where it was empty of tools or ingots, then with annoyance she looked to where the water plunged into the chamber from above and ran through a stone trough into the earth below. “And don’t touch anything.”
              With an annoyed roll of his eyes, Malgran took a seat on the stone, staring avariciously at the pile of loot before the forge. Ilytha laid her book out before the forge and began leafing through it. The mercenaries waited impatiently while she worked. The loremaster paid them no mind, instead searching her book for insights into the spells. Aranthir heard her muttering to herself a few times as she tried to determine the name and proper calling of the bound spirit, but to no avail. His companions were growing restless, their eyes ever on the pile of loot that she would not let them touch. 
              At last, Malgran stood up from his seat and crossed to pick up the silver goblet. The pile rattled as he did, and Ilytha at last turned from the inscription.
              “I said not to touch anything.”
              “It’s a fine goblet in a pile of junk,” Malgran retorted, his eyes only on the goblet. “There is nothing to worry about.”
              “I had not examined the goblet,” she said testily, “it might have clues about the builders of this place and their fate. Put it back, you will get your pay soon enough.”
              Malgran lowered the goblet and fixed her with a stare. “You promised us a share of the loot.”
              “I promised a share of what we found that was not pertinent to my studies. I have not yet ascertained whether the goblet is.”
              “Then examine it now,” Aranthir put in, “so that he might claim it or choose something else. We cannot spend forever down here. The depths of the earth quickly prove inhospitable to the good folk of the surface.”
              “Goblins,” the loremaster said with disdain. “We have nothing to fear from them. We are prepared to camp down here for a time. You must have patience. I am close to unlocking the power of this forge.”
              Malgran defiantly thrust the goblet into his pack. “I’ve had enough patience. Three weeks we’ve wasted on this, and with nothing to show for it until now.”
              “Put it back,” she snapped, but Malgran remained unmoved. Aranthir slowly rose from his seat, sword in hand. Malgran fixed Ilytha with a stare, and her mouth twisted with anger. “I will not repeat myself,” she warned.
              “Good,” he shot back. “I grow tired of hearing your voice.”
              Ilytha took a menacing step forward. Her blade sprang into her hand and Malgran took a step back, drawing his mace from his belt. Aranthir raised a hand.
              “Calm down, there’s no need for violence.”
              “Then put the goblet back,” Ilytha commanded. Malgran spat at her.
              “Come take it, elf. I’ll not be cheated by you! Go back to your books, scholar.”
              “Curse you!” she spat back. “Your refusal to abide by our contract shows the falsehood of your profession.”
              “You curse me as false when you withhold my payment?” Malgran shouted back. “I ought to remind you why I was hired in the first place.”
              He took a step forward, mace raised above his shoulder, but stopped when he found Aranthir’s blade at his throat.
              “There will be none of that,” Aranthir said quietly. “Lower your weapon. I will still honor my contract, and I suggest you do the same.”
              Malgran smiled a grim smile. “I should have expected this. What swayed you, her pretty face or her pointy ears?”
              “Her purse,” Aranthir lied. “Now set down your mace and return the goblet.”
              Malgran stared hard at him. His eyes flicked over Aranthir’s shoulder toward Janguld and his sneer fell.
“Very well,” he sighed. His arm dropped, and his mace fell to his side. But his glare toward Aranthir did not abate. “Though if I’m not paid, there will be blood.”
“Oh, there will be blood,” said a new voice from the door. Aranthir grimaced, and turned half toward the door even as he withdrew his swordpoint from Malgran’s neck. In the door to the forge chamber stood a giant of a man, and behind him an archer in a green cloak. The tall man stood a head over Aranthir, and carried a long broadsword in one hand. The newcomer stepped boldly into the room, and from behind him a procession of other men emerged from the hall.
“Unless of course,” the tall man continued, “you just hand over your valuables now and save us the trouble.”
Aranthir’s free hand fell to the pistol at his belt, and he looked to Janguld by the wall. The red-haired mercenary had the same thought, one hand on a pistol and the other on his own broadsword. 
              “You’re going to need more than this to take anything from me,” Aranthir warned. “Leave now and I’ll spare your life.”
              The giant laughed. Beside him, a wiry man with a necklace of severed ears stepped forward, a vicious sneer beneath his barbute. “There’s ten of us,” the giant said, sweeping his free hand across the assemblage of bandits.
              “Aye,” Aranthir agreed. “Hardly seems fair. Should I wait while you find some more friends?”
              “You’ve got quite the mouth on you, elf,” the wiry man snarled. “I can’t wait to add your ears to my collection. I’ve never killed an elf before, and now I’m going to kill two.”
              “You won’t be killing anyone today, I can promise you that,” Aranthir replied. He thrust his swordpoint at the man. “If this comes to blows, you will be the first to die.”
              Ilytha pushed past him to stand before the bandits. “Lower your weapons,” she commanded. “I am Ilytha ar Kantalias, a scholar from the colleges at Ildranon. My interest here is entirely academic. We have no quarrel with you.”
              “Quarrel?” the giant echoed. “Perhaps not, but there’s a lot of valuable things in this room. And on your person. We like valuable things. They let us buy all the wine and whores we want, and we’re a thirty, lusty lot.”
              “These three men with me are the finest blades I could hire in Bruscair.” Ilytha went on. “And I myself am trained by the colleges’ swordmaster. If we come to blows, you stand to lose many drinking companions today. Do you see enough gold in here to drown that grief in drink and women?”
              The giant seemed to consider her words a moment, but then scoffed. “You stand to lose your lives over this gold, scholar. Perhaps you should weigh that before asking anything of us.”
              Aranthir cast a look over his shoulder at a sound from behind. Malgran had drawn his mace again and now held it at the ready. His eyes were narrowed with determination. The silver goblet glinted from within the pack on his shoulder. He caught Aranthir’s eye and nodded grimly. Ilytha continued.
              “I won’t give up anything I have found here without a fight. So turn around and leave, or else make your peace with Kanaron.”
              “Bold words,” sneered the giant man. “Let’s see if you’ve the steel to match them!”
              He lunged at them, and Aranthir’s blade leapt forward to meet him. Steel rang on steel, echoing about the chamber, and all those arrayed against each other joined the battle. 
              Their foes had them outnumbered ten against four, and Aranthir determined to strike hard and fast to even the odds. He parried the giant’s following stroke, then cut beneath the man’s blade to appear at his side, where Aranthir’s left hand tore a poignard from his belt and thrust it into the giant’s flank. The big man cried out in pain, staggered, and nearly dropped his sword, but Aranthir paid him no more mind for he had other prey.
              A spell of ironskin shimmered into existence over him and he turned to face the wiry man with a string of ears about his neck. The battle swirled around him, and Aranthir dodged two more sword blows from other bandits before he clashed with the wiry man. The bandit snarled and cut down at him with his sword. Aranthir batted the blade away and thrust a riposte at the man’s throat. The bandit fell back on his heels, retreating before the deadly swordpoint, and Aranthir came on.
              He sensed motion behind him, another bandit rearing for a strike. He could have turned to deflect the blow, but his ironskin spell would hold. The blow clanged off his shoulders harmlessly, and he drove on against the wiry bandit instead. Their blades rang together again, and the man’s sneer of contempt began to give way to genuine fear as Aranthir defeated each of his strokes with ease, even stopping to parry the strike of his companion. His foe was quickly tiring, and well off balance. The wiry man could tell his end was near.
              Somewhere behind him, he heard Malgran cry out in pain. Time to put the fear in them, he told himself. He feinted against the wiry man, who fell for it easily. Aranthir stepped to the side, shrugged off another blow to his ironskin, then slashed the man’s underprotected legs out from under him. The wiry bandit fell to one knee, his injured leg stretched out wide. Aranthir rotated to face another bandit descending on him, a wild-haired man with red hair, and parried the man’s sword up high. Blades locked above their heads, Aranthir plunged his poignard into the man’s throat.
              His eyes went wide, blood bubbled up from his mouth, and Aranthir tore the blade out. The man toppled to the floor. Another bandit made to move on Aranthir, but froze in fear at the sight of his dying companion. Aranthir seized the moment, and plunged the bloody poignard into the wiry man’s neck. The man slumped to the ground.
              Wasting little time, Aranthir discarded the poignard and drew a wheellock pistol. The man frozen in fear, started, raising a useless hand to shield his face, and Aranthir fired. The sharp crack echoed about the room, and his target sprawled to the floor, smoke filling the room. 
              “Halt!” the giant man cried. Aranthir turned to face him, spent pistol in one hand and his longsword in the other. The man held Malgran by the hair with a messer to his neck. Around them, the battle slowed to a halt. “Give up the treasure, or your man dies!”
              “You think you can cut his throat,” Aranthir asked. “Before I shoot you?”
              “Aye,” the man answered, though the tremor in his voice betrayed the weakness of his position. “I’m quick with a blade.”
              “Not as quick as an elf,” Aranthir warned him. “You’ve already lost three men. Leave before your day gets any worse. Go and bury your dead while you still have men to do it.”
              The giant man hesitated. His eyes darted about the darkened room where discarded torches lay strewn about the floor. Malgran grimaced in his grasp, blood running from a wound to his swordarm. The surviving bandits stood uneasily. 
              “Aye,” he breathed softly. “Aye. We’ll leave. There’s nought much more to be won here today. Here, take your man.” He shoved Malgran back toward Janguld and lowered his blade. “Gather up our dead. Alvard, you poor bastard…”
              Aranthir holstered his spent pistol and felt himself relax. Janguld and Malgran retreated toward Ilytha, and he kicked a dropped torch toward the bandits’ archer. The young man considered him a moment, dagger in hand, and cautiously picked up the torch. Aranthir backed away from them toward Ilytha and the others, his hand on his other pistol and his eyes sharp. 
              “Hurry up,” he snapped. “And don’t let us see you again, or there will be trouble.”
              The archer fixed Aranthir with a murderous glare, but made no reply. The giant picked up a dead bandit and slung him over his shoulder. 
              “You’ve won this time,” he warned. “But out there is our territory. Stay on your toes when you come back out, for we’ll be waiting.”
              “Let’s not let them get back out then,” Janguld whispered. “Come on, Aranthir, we’ve got Malgran back. Let’s finish them off.”
              Aranthir saw the wisdom in his proposal, and made to draw his pistol when he heard a sound from above.
              “What was that?” he asked, turning his head to look up. 
              “What was what?” the giant sneered. “You playing a trick?”
              In answer there came a sudden screeching. It sounded from all around them, terrible and piercing like the wail of a dying animal. But it was no death cry, for Aranthir right away recognized a goblin warcry.
              “Goblins!” he shouted, drawing his pistol. As if summoned, they burst into the forge chamber from all sides. They swarmed through the doorway, from holes in the floor and ceiling, and from a loose stone in the wall. More than a dozen of them were in the room before Aranthir’s companions realized their danger. Naked, snarling, and wielding ropes and knives, they burst from their hidden tunnels like a swarm of hungry insects.
              Aranthir snatched his second pistol from its holster and fired into the mass of swarming green monsters. He heard a scream of pain, but the billowing smoke denied him confirmation of the kill. Stowing his pistol, he locked eyes with an approaching goblin and swung his long sword with both hands. 
              The blow struck a goblin in its neck, and the ugly creature’s severed head flew away to bounce off the stone wall. The other goblins who swarmed toward him hissed in fury, baring yellowed fangs dripping with bile. Aranthir swept his longsword in front of him in a wide arc, fending off the attack of three vicious little creatures holding jagged knives.
              A pair of goblins tackled one of the bandits to the floor, bludgeoning him in the face and chest with the pommels of their crude knives as another goblin tried to bind his feet with rope. Janguld shot dead another goblin, letting Malgran stand on his own. The wounded mercenary staggered, holding his mace in his offhand. He ducked to avoid a goblin’s hurled spear, and the silver goblet fell from his pack to roll across the floor.
              Aranthir wasted little time in splitting the skull of another goblin with an overhead blow. The little monster’s companion fell back with a terrified cry, and he let the creature go. Behind him, he heard Ilytha cry out. She had hewn down an attacking goblin, but then turned to retrieve the rolling goblet. She snatched it up off the floor, but a pair of goblins then dropped onto her back from above. They pinioned her arms and beat at her with simple clubs as she tried to shake them off.
              Aranthir charged to her aid, ignoring the wider course of the battle about him. The bandits were quickly being overwhelmed, and Malgran and Janguld were being driven into a corner. Ilytha shook herself violently, attempting to throw off the goblins on her back. At the same time, she stabbed over her shoulder with her thin sword as best she could, even as they restrained her arms. Another goblin vaulted over the forge with a knife in hand, its jaws open wide in a cruel smile and its fat green cock swinging between its legs. 
              It arced over the forge and landed in a run, only to be cut short by Aranthir’s blade. The longsword sliced straight through the creature’s chest and it flopped to the floor in two halves. Just ahead of him, Ilytha had stumbled her way toward the opening of the forge chamber where the waterfall’s stream exited. Stabbing over her shoulder, she had wounded one of her attackers, who now fell off her back to the floor. In his rush to aid her, Aranthir made sure to land a heavy footfall on the creature’s throat. 
              It sputtered a yelp and he felt the creature’s throat crush underfoot but he paid it little more mind. He reached Ilytha and seized the goblin by the shoulder and pulled. Its claws dug into her white robe, tearing at the fine fabric, but it would not loose its grip. Aranthir smashed the hilt of his blade into the creature’s temple and it fell loose, arms and legs hanging limply as it muttered and sputtered in his hand. 
              He hurled the creature to the ground and stomped on its face. The goblin jerked, its arms and legs flailing upward. They flopped back to the ground and showed no motion except in the rise and fall of its belly.
              “Janguld!” Aranthir called. “Back to me!”
              The mercenary replied but did not turn to face him, for he was under heavy assault by a throng of goblins. 
              “Damn,” Ilytha hissed, dropping into Tirannion elvish in her moment of stress “We must go to him instead.”
              “Aye, keep your guard up and—Look out!”
              From above, two more goblins dropped from a hole in the ceiling, one onto each of them. Aranthir cut at the creature and carved a gash on its leg, but it clung to his shoulders and set about beating him with a crude wooden club. Aranthir found his longsword quite useless in such close quarters, and reached for the poignard in his belt, only to find it was no longer there.
              Raising his arms up above his head to shield off the strikes of the club, he backed toward the wall hoping to bash the little monster against the stone. He ran backwards into Ilytha, apparently hoping to do the same, and their goblins screeched in confusion as they became entangled. Aranthir and the loremaster became entangled as well, and his foot slipped from the flat stone of the forge floor and into the slick rock of the stream. He flailed about for something to arrest his fall and caught only Ilytha’s sleeve.
              He heard the goblin screech, the loremaster cry out, and then the squeak of his boots losing their footing on the stone. 
              They plunged into the cold stream and were swept away.
 
              They tumbled down a steep, slick tunnel carved through the earth. In the deepening darkness, Aranthir heard Ilytha cry out, the words to a spell form and die on her lips, and then the crack of bone as they struck off the rocks. The goblin about his shoulders screeched a hideous wail and clawed at him as the rushing stream battered them against stone walls. Aranthir fought against the battering rocks, spraying water, and flailing claws of the goblin to no avail. 
              Swept down the tunnel to a precipice, they were carried over its edge and into the dark. Aranthir felt the bottom drop out of his stomach as they plummeted to a certain doom. For what seemed an eternity, they fell through the impenetrable black, goblins and elves crying out in terror as one.
              They crashed into water. By some stroke of Apliss’ favor, Aranthir landed atop the goblin, the little wretch breaking his fall. But they were not altogether saved, for beneath the water lay a rocky floor to the subterranean pool, and Aranthir felt the breath blasted from his body as he crashed against them. When his breath went out, the cold water came rushing in. He choked, spat, and gagged, his hands and feet scrabbling about on the slick stony floor while the rushing current pushed him deep into the earth. 
              His hands found purchase on the rock, and with a mighty gasp for air, he pulled his head up above water struggling against the weight of his armored and waterlogged clothes.
              “Ilytha!” he cried, casting wild looks into the darkness. He could see nothing. “Damn it all,” he muttered, a spell of illumination forming in his mind. He called for light and a softly glowing orb of cool white light winked into existence. Aranthir looked around. They were in the depths of a low, narrow cavern with the thunder of the waterfall booming from one and the rushing river echoing up from the other. The goblin that had been about his shoulders drifted by limply on the current, face down in the water. Aranthir spared it not a second thought, his eyes searching the tempestuous surface of the underground river for any sign of the loremaster.
              The surface roiled and burst upwards, revealing the soaked elven woman as it retreated. Ilytha gasped for air, her long golden hair now dark with water, and her bun fallen loose about her shoulders. Strands of dark gold wrapped about her face and neck like a noose. Thick black mud was smeared across her fair face and the left side of her body. She steadied herself against a slippery rock with her offhand and looked about, her chest rising and falling with each labored breath.
              “Thank the gods for your light,” she heaved, “I could not tell which way was up without it.”
              “Are you alright?” Aranthir asked with more concern that he thought himself capable of after the argument above. Ilytha slowly managed a nod.
              “I think so.” She looked down into the water. “The goblin’s dead. I ran him through, even though I could barely breathe. But the little wretch is no more.”
              “They will get no burial down here,” Aranthir replied grimly. “We had best be moving before the spirits of the restless dead call us to join them.” He cast a look up the stony riverbed whence they had come. In the light, he could see the white mist of the waterfall at the end of the tunnel. “Come on. We can’t be far.”
              They picked their way up the tunnel from rock to rock in waist-deep water, all the while struggling against the strong current trying to wash them further into the bowels of the earth. Aranthir’s globe of light followed them, casting long shadows up the tunnel. The cold was beginning to get to Aranthir. His clothes were soaked, his armor turned chill. Wet hair hung down into his eyes and he could see Ilytha laboring under the weight of her clothes as well. 
              The mist grew thicker and Aranthir felt droplets form on his face. The deepening cold was unwelcome, but he reassured himself it was a sign that the waterfall was close. The roar of the waterfall grew louder and spray thicker until at last they pulled themselves from the tunnel and into a domed chamber where the waterfall plunged into a dark pool from high above. The roar of the falls seemed quieter here, and Aranthir saw that in many places the walls were caked in the same dark mud that Ilytha was covered in, the soft, wet earth deadening the drone of water. Arched over the tunnel mouth was a great tree limb, fallen through the subterranean stream long ago and wedged here since. Where its branches had once blocked the flow of water, they were worn away, but the rest of the tree remained. 
              “This stream must lead back to surface eventually,” Ilytha mused, her fingers brushing through her mud-caked hair. “I wonder what else has found its way down here?”
              “I am more interested in how we might climb back up,” Aranthir replied. “That tunnel looks steep, and there is much water coming down it.”
              Ilytha looked away, toward the edges of the chamber. There a number of passages led away from the chamber, all narrow and twisting. Aranthir frowned. He disliked the thought of getting lost in them, and some looked too narrow for them to pass through. And there were always the goblins to worry about. They would have a warren nearby, he knew. Though who knew if they were prowling these tunnels. He feared an ambush here more than above, where they had been taken completely unawares.
              “We cannot climb that,” Ilytha said, looking up the waterfall. She looked to the same passages that Aranthir had eyed. “We must brave the twisting labyrinth instead.”
              The thought was unpleasant to Aranthir, but he saw little other way. Together, they dove into the confusing tangle of tunnels.    They soon became lost. Twice, Aranthir thought that he was ascending toward the surface, only to come upon a place that he already knew and realize he had approached it from below. The only constant was confusion and the sound of the roaring waterfall from somewhere nearby. He began to grow frustrated at the lack of progress, and Ilytha was not helping his mood.
              The loremaster moved without hurry, sometimes stopping to examine roots or stones protruding from the wall. Her face was caked in mud, but she seemed unconcerned about that or the mud on her robes. Aranthir cared little for her appearance, but her preoccupation with their surroundings and disinterest in their escape ground on his nerves. 
              At last, he thought they were making progress. They were in a new passage and seemed to be ascending again, but Aranthir’s hopes were dashed when they emerged back into the waterfall chamber.
              “Damn it all! This maze must have been built by Felitharna herself to torment those who blunder into it.” He slammed his fist against the stone wall and immediately regretted it. Grimacing, he turned to Ilytha. The elf regarded him with slight amusement, which only angered him further.
              “To Tarnilaen with this maze,” he growled. “We came down the waterfall, we can go back up it as well.”
              He splashed into the pool up to his waist and waded out to the base of the waterfall. The roaring of water filled his ears as he searched for a handhold. He could dimly hear Ilytha calling to him from the shore, but he ignored her. Far above him he could see the opening where the water rushed through the rock to plummet into the cavern’s pool. It was perhaps forty feet up a nearly sheer face slick with water. Aranthir would not have tried it unless he was desperate or mad, but on this occasion he was both.
              Hand over hand, he went up the wet rock. The spray from the waterfall fell heavy onto his back, glittering in the light of his magical orb.
His hand slipped. Aranthir grabbed for the wall again, but could not find purchase on the wet stone. 
              He fell. 
              The waterfall rushed by beside him as he flailed about for a handhold in vain. His glowing orb grew smaller above him, and then he crashed into the water. The water roared about him, the orb high above distorting in his eyes. He thudded against the mud, feeling its cold embrace all around his body. He sputtered with frustration in the water and hauled himself to his feet, still submerged beneath the cold surface. 
              Hauling himself above water on a boulder, he thanked the gods he had not landed there. All about where the waterfall plunged into the pool were strewn heavy boulders and only by the grace of Apliss had he and Ilytha avoided breaking themselves on the rocks as the goblins had. With his waist about water, he shook himself off like a wet dog. Through the water clinging to his eyes, he could see Ilytha on the shore, doubled over in laughter.
              “I told you that wouldn’t work,” she called over the roar of the falls. “Are you alright?”
              Aranthir scowled in red fury and plunged back into the water. Under the weight of his armor, he swam through the shallows back to shore where he hauled himself out. Ilytha had covered her mouth with one hand, but her smile betrayed her around the edges and her belly still shook with laughter.
              “I suppose you think us being stuck down here is terribly amusing,” Aranthir fumed. 
              “Take your laughs where you can get them, Aranthir.” She raised a finger to dab at the mud on his face. “Now you look more like I expected a mercenary to look,” she said, stifling another laugh. Aranthir scowled and pushed her hand away.
              “You look worse than I do,” he grumbled. 
              Ilytha touched a hand to her own face and let out a small chuckle.
              “I had not even noticed,” she said. “Well, if we are stuck down here, I might as well clean myself up.” Aranthir turned a quizzical eye on her, but she paid him no mind and instead knelt and removed her boots. His breath caught and he stood speechless as she stripped off her soaked robe and cast it aside. Naked, she waded into the cold cavern water, her dark golden hair falling loose as she pulled out her pins to let it loose. 
              The water rose up to her waist, and Ilytha spread herself forward, swimming out into the deeper portion of the pool with strokes of her long, white arms. Standing on the shore, Aranthir felt his heart quicken and his cock grow hard under his armor. Her pale form shone in the light of his magical globe, her body slender and smooth, glistening with cold droplets of water. Her hair trailed behind her in a wide fan, giving the appearance of a strange fish in the pool. 
              Turning herself over, she treaded water as she looked back to Aranthir on the shore. 
              “Won’t you come in? Or would you prefer to wait until the mud dries on your face?” she raised a hand to her face and wiped it clean. Now free of mud, her white face was even more beautiful than he had judged it before. Beneath the water, he could see the distorted image of her breasts, floating beautiful and shapely, weightless in the water. Aranthir’s cock was hard beneath his armor.
              Finding a rock beneath her feet, Ilytha stood herself up out of the water, raising her breasts above the waterline that Aranthir might have a better view. The chill made the white of her skin and pink of her nipples starker in their contrast. Even from this distance, Aranthir could see her skin rising with gooseflesh bumps. She cocked an eyebrow at him. “Well?”
              He considered the offer. Casting an eye to the waterfall, he wondered how he might climb it again. 
              “You’ve tried it once already,” Ilytha reminded him, calling over the roar of the falls. “Are you so eager to try it again?”
              “I was almost out,” he countered. She laughed to herself.
              “You almost broke your neck. At least clean off the mud from the last time before you get yourself dirty again.”
              Aranthir sighed internally. His cock was doing his thinking now. He set down his pack and began stripping off his clothes and armor. Ilytha lowered herself back into the water until only her eyes were showing above the water, but he could tell she was smiling.
              When the last of his armor clanged to the floor, he gingerly began to wade naked into the water. Its icy grip crept up his legs until it reached his hard cock and he heard himself gasp. Ilytha raised her head above the water again to call to him.
              “The cold does not shrink your cock. I am impressed.”
              “Give it time,” Aranthir grimaced, and she laughed again. The water deepened and he dove forward into the water. His hand brushed the muddy bottom before he rose up on the boulder before Ilytha, his hard cock swinging before him.
              “Nice of you to join me,” she purred.
              “We should find a way out of here,” he muttered, suddenly bashful. Ilytha shrugged.
              “The battle will be over by now. If they are dead, they are dead. If they life, we can find them. In the meantime, you and I are here, our clothes are over there, and you have mud on your face. Come, I will clean you up a bit.”
              He knelt beside her and Ilytha reached up to wipe the mud from his face. His cock stiffened at her touch. It had been many years since he last touch the delicate touch of an elven lady, and a flood of memories came rushing back, most good. He exulted in the touch of her silky smooth skin against his cheek, half-closing his eyes at the sensation.
              Ilytha grinned at him, flicking the last of the mud from her hands into the water. “Much better,” she murmured. “Now you look less the mercenary and more the scion of a high house.”
              Aranthir gave her a bemused look. “You do me much flattery.”
              “Do I?” she mused. “Perhaps I should do you more.”
              She leaned in and kissed him. Aranthir breathed in with shock, the sensation of her red lips against his overpowering his other thoughts. Her hands closed in about his head and Ilytha moaned into his mouth. Recovering from the shock, he returned her embrace with passion. Their lips locked together, tongues entwined, and bodies pressed against each other. Aranthir felt the elf’s nipples, hard with the cold, press into his chest and tried to keep from coming already. 
              She kissed him up and down his neck, entangling her fingers in his hair even as he grabbed fistfuls of her golden locks. Ilytha’s soft hands caressed his sides until they reached his waist, where she grabbed hold of his cock. He tingled everywhere with her touch and as she wrapped her fingers around his manhood, Aranthir gasped in ecstatic delight. He bit her lip, harder than he meant to such that he feared he might draw blood. 
              He unclenched his jaw and Ilytha pulled away. But she was not deterred, instead staring into his eyes with her beautiful blue orbs shining in the light of the floating globe. She smiled, a crooked smile that reached up her left cheek as she began to stroke him. He sat back on the boulder, suddenly unaware of the water’s chill or the pounding roar of the waterfall nearby. 
              She stroked him near to climax before Aranthir pushed him away. He brushed Ilytha’s hair back over her shoulder and bid her to lay against the cold rock. She did as bidden, displaying her nude body before him, one leg to either side of him. She was a vision to behold in the soft white light of the magical orb. Her small, shapely breasts called to him, and he crawled forward to put his mouth on them. She moaned with pleasure as he suckled at her breasts in turn. They were warm and soft, the smooth flesh playing against his tongue like no other woman he had lain with. He nuzzled against her breasts and Ilytha stroked his short hair with one hand, the other pinching her nipple for him to kiss again.
              Turning his attention from her chest, he ran his admiring fingers down the hairless expanse of smooth white skin above her pink sex. 
              “Beautiful,” he breathed, and Ilytha gave a soft snort of appreciation. He kissed her between the legs, a passionate embrace of his lips against hers, and she moaned in surprised delight. She was warm and soft between her legs and Aranthir kissed her sex with the hunger of a starving man. His tongue caressed the folds of pink skin and slid inside her. 
              Ilytha moaned, arching her back as her fingers clutched at his hair. Her bare feet scrabbled on the rock, toes curling with pleasure. Her chest heaved with the motion of her back, setting her breasts shaking. Aranthir clutched at them as he pleasured her with his tongue, kneading her soft flesh in his hands as he twirled his tongue around her sex. Ilytha moaned louder, her cries of delight echoing off the rocks until at last she pushed him away.
              “Enough,” she moaned, her eyes hungry for more, “Fuck me!”
              Aranthir did not hesitate to comply. He crawled atop her and thrust his cock into her warm purse, which she received with another moan of pleasure. Her arms wrapped around his body, nails digging into his back as she began to grind her hips against him in motion with the thrusts of his cock. He kissed her mouth again, stifling her moans with his lips. He felt them in his chest, however, as her moans reverberated through him, growing in intensity with each thrust. She broke the kiss and bit down on his shoulder, crying out with each thrust into her warm and wet sex. Aranthir thrust into her again and again, feeling himself drawing closer to the moment when he would come inside her.
              “Wait,” she cried suddenly, and Aranthir groaned in frustration.
              “Wait? I’m about to come!”
              “I know. I don’t want it to end yet.” Ilytha tried to push him off her, but Aranthir was in the throes of lust, and only by a great act of will was he able to stop himself from fucking to completion. He slowed his thrusting even as his cock was on the verge of orgasm, and Ilytha pushed him off her to lay naked beside her on the rock. He grabbed his cock in both hands, thinking he might need to hold it closed.
              She stood up, sweat and spray dripping from her naked form, and led him across the submerged boulders until they stood in the spray of the waterfall. White droplets of water sprayed across their naked bodies, the cool, fine mist soothing even in the cold cavern. Ilytha pulled him close again for a kiss and Aranthir wrapped her wet, golden hair about her. His hands grabbed at her ass cheeks, drawing a slight giggle from her as she pressed against him. 
Breaking the kiss, she turned away from him and looked over her shoulder, sticking her hips out for him to hold. He did, wrapping an arm around her waist as his other hand guided his cock into her from behind. He began with a powerful slap of his hips against her ass, and she giggled again. He lifted her leg from beneath her to allow him better access to her purse, and she braced herself against a large boulder with one hand as the around fastened around the back of his neck. The touch of her delicate yet powerful fingers was overwhelming, he could think of little else in the moment but how much he wanted—needed— to fuck her.
              Aranthir grabbed her long locks and wound them about his wrist like a horse’s reins as he fucked. Each stroke seemed powerful than the last, and he saw Ilytha’s toes curling again. Despite the closeness of their bodies, her cries of pleasure were half lost in the roar of the waterfall but Aranthir paid it little mind, his eyes and mind fixed on the sight of his cock driving into her over and over, her round white breasts bouncing on her chest, and her piercing blue eyes staring back into his own. The slap-slap-slap of his hips against hers echoed off the rocks, somehow louder than the waterfall. Ilytha’s moan undulated with the impacts of his hips, each one driving his cock deep inside her gushing wet sex. 
              She moaned louder and louder, her mouth a wide red circle, her brow furrowed in painful expectation of orgasm, and his hands pulling ever harder on her long blonde hair. He gritted his teeth with the exertion, an act that set Ilytha’s eyes dancing and her lips spread apart in a knowing smile.
              He was about to come again, he knew. She saw it in his eyes, and dismounted from his cock at the last moment to kneel before him as his cock spurted forth his seed. Aranthir cried out in orgasm, the echo of it breaking through the dull roar of the waterfall at last. His spurted thick ropes of cum across her beautiful face. There were so many that he thought he might never come again. When at last he had finished, there was hardly an inch of her face that was not covered in his seed. 
              She cracked a beautiful blue eye and looked up at him with a smile. A droplet of cum fell to her gorgeous breasts, trickling down her bust to dangle off a juicy pink nipple. Aranthir smiled exhaustedly at her and she giggled.
              “Nystra’s Tits,” she gasped, “I don’t think I’ve been fucked like that in all my life.”
              “You bring it out of me,” he heaved, bracing his hands on his hips as his cock throbbed before him.
              “All of it out,” she mused. She took his cock in one hand and licked him clean with a deft red tongue.
              “But now I’m all filthy again,” she moaned with a mocking pout. Then, with a delighted giggle, she dove off the rocks to swim in the pool beneath the waterfall. She surfaced just behind the waterfall, emerging naked through the spray with arms above her head and a triumphant laugh. Breathlessly, Aranthir applauded and seated himself nude on a rock to watch her play.
              Ilytha held her face forward, into the rushing water that wiped her face clean of cum. Then, with her arms held high, she leaned back until she toppled into the deeper end of the pool with a great splash. Feeling a smile break across his face, Aranthir settled lower on the rocks with his legs in the water. Ilytha swam in a circle around the pool, still submerged, before turning toward him and appearing between his legs.
              “Hello there,” she purred, as if meeting him for the first time. She batted playfully at his cock, hanging limp and spent between his bare legs.
              “Hello yourself,” Aranthir replied. She pushed herself further up out of the pool and swallowed his cock in her mouth. “I’m afraid I’m all out, my dear water nymph,” he teased, and she set her lips in a girlish pout.
              “Well, the cold has gotten to you at least. Won’t you at least come in and play with me?”
              She held out a hand, beckoning him into the cold water below the falls. He took her hand and followed her in. When they at last emerged, he could not recall how longer they had spent there, wrapped in each other’s embrace and kisses in the cold spray. But he did not regret a moment of it.
              As they splashed to shore where their clothes lay, Ilytha looked down toward his waist.
              “Why, look at that. You’re nearly hard again,” she said, and Aranthir saw that she spoke the truth. “It seems a shame to let it go to waste. Here, hold still a moment.”
              She knelt again before him and took his cock in her soft hands. She sucked him slowly and lovingly, staring up at him with her beautiful blue eyes as the touch of her silky smooth skin sent waves of ecstasy up his spine. Aranthir wound his fingers through her long hair, his toes curling on the cold, hard stone beneath his feet. Ilytha withdrew his cock from her mouth and slapped it against her cheek.
              “It’s ready,” she pronounced, “Lay yourself down, it’s my turn.”
              He obeyed, stopping only to spread his clothes on the rock before he lay atop them. Ilytha waited impatiently, naked and still dripping wet in the cool darkness of the cavern. He lay on his back and the elf wasted little time in mounting his cock. She sank herself down onto him, moaning as he penetrated her purse. Then, when both hands on his chest, she began to ride. Aranthir clutched her about the waist as she bounced her slender hips on his cock, her breasts heaving just out of reached of his lips as he craned his neck up to reach them. Ilytha smiled cruelly at him before relenting and lowering her chest to his mouth.
              Aranthir latched onto them with his lips, suckling at her soft, goosefleshed breasts with the fury of a man half-dead of thirst. His hands slid up her back to wrap about her and pull her close. Ilytha moaned with delight, her hips slapped against him and he felt her luxurious sex pulse around his cock. She kissed him again, pulling his head away from her nipples to lock lips with him as her hands clutched and scratched at his bare chest like a hungry animal. She moaned into his mouth, and Aranthir felt himself moaning back unconsciously.
              He found himself staring into her eyes as she whispered to him. “Fuck me, fuck me harder!” she hissed and he gritted his teeth and obeyed. His thrust his hips upward into her, feeling the tension build in his cock and he raced closer to orgasm. She was nearing it too, he could tell. Her brow furrowed again and her pleading became more and more insistent. She dug her nails into his chest, begging for his cock, begging for him to spank her, pull on her hair, slap her across the face. He complied with all of it, overwhelmed at the sudden rush of demands until she came undone suddenly. She gushed from her sex, soaking him in a woman’s moisture as she squealed and spasmed atop him. She collapsed onto his chest, her legs jerking as she lost control of her faculties.
              Seeing her convulsions of ecstasy was all he needed to finish, and he now came deep inside her. His seed mixed with her wetness to come leaking out of her in a hot mess, but he cared little. He groaned with release again as he shot his cum into her and convulsed beneath her. “Oh, Nystra’s Tits! Fuck!” he screamed into the gloomy depths, his hands squeezing her soft flesh between his fingers. 
              He could move no more, and lay there with his chest heaving and his legs wet with Ilytha limp atop him. 
              “Were this not a dark cavern crawling with goblins,” she murmured against his chest, her breath hot on his skin, “I could stay here, right here, forever.”
              “If only,” Aranthir replied, his breathing heavy. “We will soon run out of food, if the darkness does not drive us mad.”
              “Nystra blesses us with some small pleasures in Tarnilaen’s realm.”
              “You are no small pleasure, my good lady.” She laughed a breathless, exhausted laugh against him.
              “Nor are you, my good sellsword.” They silence a while longer, with only the roar of the waterfall in their ears.
 
              Laying on the stony ground, the chill soon set in. Aranthir reluctantly rose from the embrace and retrieved his pack from where he had left it. Taking from it a light hatchet, he hacked branches from the marooned driftwood and built a fire on the shore. They set their clothes out to dry near the fire and seated themselves naked before it after a quick swim to cleanse their lower regions that were still soaked in the moisture of orgasm. Ilytha pulled a blanket from her pack, somehow mostly dry still, and wrapped it about herself. They sat for a moment, Aranthir with his sword laid across his naked legs and Ilytha staring into the fire. He stoked it again, listening to the crackle of sparks echo about their stony prison.
              “How are we to get out of here?” he asked when the fire was roaring. The smoke rose toward the cavern ceiling and in the dim light cast by his orb, he could see it drift slowly toward and up the waterfall.
              “These tunnels must led up,” Ilytha mused. “It should be a simple matter to find our way.”
              “We tried,” he reminded her, “tried and failed.”
              Aranthir pried the shot from his pistols and cleaned out the wet powder before reloading them both. When they came face to face with the goblins, he wanted the option of shooting them dead before closing in with his blade. 
              “We know the tunnels better now,” Ilytha countered. “I will mark the way we have come. Would that I had a ball of string, but markings on the wall will have to do.”
              “Would that you had thought of that earlier. We might be out of here by now.”
              “But surely then we would not have fucked,” she teased. “Wouldn’t you miss that?”
              Aranthir smiled without reply. The elf chuckled. 
              “Come,” she bid, “warm me with your body while we wait.”
              Aranthir moved across the fire to sit against her. She lifted her blanket and wrapped it around both of them. Aranthir said nothing, content to sit there for a time as the fire crackled and their clothes dried.
              He was not sure how long they sat there before he grew impatient. Rising, he dressed himself and checked his weapons.
              “Leaving so soon?” Ilytha said dreamily, still wrapped in her blanket.
              “Though the battle is surely long over, our companions may yet live,” Aranthir replied, “and I grow tired of this dark cave in any case. That globe will not last forever.”
              Ilytha sighed. “I suppose you’re right.”
              She shed her blanket and began to dress herself. Already having done so, Aranthir paused and watched her go about naked. He allowed himself a little sigh as she covered her beautiful form with her robes once again. Noticing, Ilytha laughed.
              “Once we’re out of here, we’ll find some place quiet and secluded,” she promised. “You won’t have to wait long to see me naked once again.”
              “From your lips to the ears of the gods,” Aranthir replied. “But we must steel ourselves for the task ahead. Think no more of Nystra’s pleasures until we have completed our work.”
              Into the maze of tunnels they plunged. The passages narrowed and widened seemingly at random, carved not by the predictable flowing of a river but instead by some unknown power. They crisscrossed over and through each other, sometimes too narrow to pass through at all. Aranthir twice thought they were nearing the underground city again, only to reemerge into the waterfall chamber. He and Ilytha resorted to carving markings on the wall to denote their passage and in time, the whole labyrinth became covered in them.
              After what seemed like an eternity of marking their paths through the tunnels, they at last found their way back up into the city. They emerged onto the empty streets of the city, the dark bulk of the tower rising up towards the cavern roof in the distance. With their eyes peeled for any signs of goblin activity, they hurried toward the tower.
              Aranthir was not sure what to expect at the tower. Goblins took prisoners, so the survivors of the battle were likely alive, but to find them in the endless tunnels below was a task as dangerous as it was difficult. Having just escaped them, he did not relish the thought of going back in. 
              Silence gripped the streets. Aranthir held his sword and pistol at the ready, cautious to the point of paranoia as they approached the tower, but nothing stirred. The door stood open, its black maw threatening another ambush as the light globe cast long shadows across the face of the tower. Aranthir examined the dusty floor for footprints, but found only those of his party and the bandits. The goblins had entered and exited a different way.
              Inside, the tower was as dark as before. Spent torches lay near the entrance, not of Aranthir’s make but clearly cut from branches in the forest. Aranthir proceeded slowly. His eyes studied every loose stone for signs of a goblin lying in ambush. Yet they made it to the forge chamber unmolested.
              The chamber was a scene of carnage. A half dozen goblins lay scattered about the room, shot dead, cloven in half, or otherwise slain in grisly fashion. Four bandits also lay dead amid the corpses and finally, to Aranthir’s dismay, Malgran lay cold before the forge. The room was abuzz with a low hum of magical power, but Aranthir ignored it in favor of his fallen companion. 
              Stepping over the corpses of bandits and goblins, Aranthir went to his fallen companion. Turning him over, he saw that the man’s throat had been cut.
              “He couldn’t walk,” coughed a voice from behind, and Aranthir turned toward the source. Against the wall sat a young man in green, a broken longbow across his lap. He held his side, where his clothes had turned dark with blood. “The goblins wanted a prisoner,” the man continued weakly, “but your man couldn’t walk, so they cut his throat and left him.”
              “But the rest live?” Aranthir demanded. The bandit coughed again, blood flying from his lips. His lip curled in a sneer.
              “Live? Aye, they live. If you can call existence as a goblin’s slave living. They won’t live long, I’ll reckon.”
              “But they were alive when they went below,” Aranthir said, “And likely still live.”
              “We might find them,” Ilytha suggested softly. Her blue eyes burned in the soft light. 
              “In the warrens?!” the man sputtered. “You’re mad.”
              “No, angry,” Aranthir replied.
              “They’ll catch you. And eat you alive,” the man said with a grimace, “And the lady… Best to just kill her now.”
              “They caught us unawares once, they will not do so again,” Ilytha promised. The bandit stared up at them, horror and wonder on his face.
              “Do as you will then, but don’t leave me here.”
              “We cannot carry you,” Aranthir replied, looking over the man’s wounds.
              “Nay, not that. I’m done for, but I wish for a proper burial. You’ll give me that at least, won’t you?”
              “Aye,” Aranthir said softly. “That I can do.”
              “Thank you. My name’s Feltham, and… I am sorry. For trying to rob you.”
              “Feltham,” Aranthir repeated. “I’ll make sure Kanaron knows you’re coming. This forge ought to make a fine pyre.”
              Feltham closed his eyes and turned away. “I know a blademaster like you will make this quick and---” he cut off as Aranthir thrust a dagger into the back of the man’s neck, just at the base of his skull. He slumped over, mouth hanging open.
              “Goodbye, Feltham,” Aranthir whispered. “Ilytha, help me pile the bodies together atop the forge.”
              Together they piled the dead into the open pit of the forge. “I’ll have to find out how to activate it another time,” Ilytha complained. “I just hope this doesn’t interfere with its operation.”
              Ignoring her, Aranthir piled fuel from the ancient stores about the bodies. It was good quality coal, somehow preserved in usable form despite its long slumber in the ruin. The forge seemed to hum louder as they prepared the pyre, and Aranthri felt his hairs stand on end as energy surged about them.
              “Are we disturbing something?” he asked, and Ilytha took a step back. 
              “No. Light it.”
              “Are you sure?” she turned to him, understanding in her eyes.
              “Yes. We’ll say the prayers together, and then light it. I know what to do now.”
              Aranthir skeptically furrowed his brow. Her expression was as sure as he had seen her. She no longer consulted her book, but instead stared at the forge with eager anticipation. He decided to trust her. Turning back to the forge, he intoned the prayer for the dead that had been engraved in his mind by both priests and countless ceremonies for fallen companions.
              “Kanaron, we ask that you grant the restless spirits who perished here in this ancient city, Malgran, Feltham, and the nameless others, a final rest.”
              He set one of the discarded torches alight and cast it into the forge pit. There came a great rush of wind and the forge burst into flames. Aranthir felt the heat sear his skin and warm the armor beneath his coat. Instinctively, he reached to close up the flashpans on his pistols lest a stray spark set them off. He squeezed his eyes shut as the piercing rays of light blazed in his vision, but as he did, he thought he saw a figure emerge.
              Never before have I seen a soul ascend to the heavens, he thought. The figure blazed brighter and Aranthir realized that it was not a soul, nor was it a figment of his imagination. Its shape solidified and it stepped forward from the pyre. He reached for his sword, but Ilytha put a hand to his shoulder.
              “No,” She whispered in awe, “this is it.”
              “So I am,” answered a voice. It was deep and strong, reverberating about the chamber and rattling Aranthir’s bones in his chest. Standing before him, just at the edge of the pyre, was a white hot figure of a nude man, powerfully built and fair of face. It folded its arms across its chest and stared down at the two of them. “You stand before Alakimohr, spirit of the forge. I have received a sacrifice, and I answer in accordance with my ancient pact. But you are not my masters, for them have not called me in many long ages. Who are you?”
              “I am Ilytha ar Kantalias, loremaster of Ildranon,” answered Ilytha, “and this is my companion Aranthir of Ildranon. We have come to learn of your ancient city, and unlock the legendary power of this forge.”
              “Your land of Ildranon is unknown to me,” the spirit replied in a slightly milder voice. “I am not bound to answer questions, only to perform tasks of artifice. Speak your task, and it will be done.”
              Ilytha looked crestfallen. She has come all this way and stands face to face with an inhabitant of this ancient city, but still cannot get the answers she seeks. He felt for her in that moment, but his mind went to Janguld as well, trapped somewhere below them in the warrens.
              “I would have a weapon,” he said as Ilytha mulled over this disappointment. “My companion is captured by the goblins who have taken up residence here. We must go below and rescue them.”
              “Goblins,” the spirit mused in a voice of booming brass. “These creatures are known to me. In days of old, my masters forged blades that shone light in the dark, even when all other lights went out. I will make for you a sword that will warn you of their approach. And for you, loremaster?”
              “Legends speak of the rings forged by your people, or perhaps by you. I would have one for myself, that I might see the ancient power of your city revived and with it bring in a new age of knowledge.”
“Very well,” the spirit said. “I shall make for you these tools, and then take my leave to await the next invocation of the pact.”
“I will not keep you waiting long,” Ilytha eagerly promised. Aranthir could see grand ideas dancing through her head, but the spirit merely gave her a solemn nod.
“So it shall be.” Alakimohr threw up its arms and plunged backwards into the blazing pyre. The flames climbed higher, crackling white fingers licking at the stone roof, and Aranthir covered his eyes against the heat and light. He felt himself take an involuntary step backwards as the heat intensified. It grew hotter still, driving him back against the opposite wall. 
              The light began to dim, and the heat waned. Daring at last to peak through his fingers, Aranthir saw the pyre dwindling fast. Where there had once been the bodies of men and goblins, there now remained little but ash. His hand fell from his face and he stepped forward to look closer. A gust of wind emanated from the forge, sweeping aside the black ash to reveal a sword and ring. 
              The sword was kindred in shape and size to the one he already carried, though forged of a single piece of brilliant silversteel, gilded at the hilt and studded in pommel and crossguard with jewels. Silversteel, he breathed, this is truly the stuff of legends. With a breathless Ilytha at his side, he approached the forge in awe. 
              Brushing aside the remaining ash, she carefully picked up the ring and held it before her. It was filigreed silversteel, set with a single diamond of a thousand facets and wreathed in a garland of tiny gemstones of every color. It sparkled in the white light of Aranthir’s globe, throwing a constellation of starry pinpricks of light across the room’s walls. 
              “Absolutely marvelous,” she breathed in wonder. She held it up to her eye before slipping it onto a long, delicate finger. “It is everything that the legends say. I can feel the magic within this ring. It will serve me well.”
              From where he stood, Aranthir could feel the ring’s power as well. Unable to contain his interest in the sword any longer, Aranthir lifted the blade from its ashy bed. It was expertly balanced and finely sharpened he felt, as fine as anything the forgemasters of Ildranon could make, if not more so. He bounced it in his hands, cutting the air to test its measure. 
              The action activated something in the sword. It surged to life in his hands; his breath caught in his throat. White runes flashed into being on the sword’s hilt, fading almost as fast as they had appeared. While his eyes had not been fast enough to read them, Aranthir knew in his heart what they said. This was his sword, as much as part of him as his arm or heart. He smiled. The goblins would rue the day they ambushed him.
 
              Finding the entrance to the warrens proved easy enough, for the dragging of captive feet had left easily traced markings in the ancient dust that covered every floor in the tower and city. Beneath an abandoned house they found a great wound clawed in the earth through which they could descend into a maze of tunnels not unlike the one they had navigated by the waterfall. Aranthir led the way with his forge-fresh sword at the ready, trusting in its power to warn of the goblins’ approach. 
              The tunnel wound through the earth, crossing over itself more than once, but the goblins’ trail in the dirt remained clear enough to follow. The air grew thicker and stagnant, accompanied by the musty smell of goblins. Aranthir dimmed him globe and then extinguished it entirely as the distant rumble of goblin chanting reached his ears. As promised, his sword began to glow with a pale light. 
              “We are getting close to the heart of their warren,” he whispered and in the darkness he saw Ilytha nod. The ring on her finger sparkled in the blackness. 
              “I can see light up ahead,” she replied, pointing a finger. Aranthir followed her lead and saw that she spoke truly. Ahead of them, where the tunnel turned one last time, the wall was lit by the faint red glow of flames. With great trepidation, they crept around the corner and looked down into the goblin warren. 
              Beneath them was an open square surrounded by rude huts built from bone and other refuse. Ragged wisps of bark, leaves, and hide lay stretched across frames of wood or bone, bound together with rotting sinews. The whole village reeked of goblin, but the stench was currently drowned out by the acrid smoke wafting up from a bonfire the goblins had built in the center of their square. Two score of the little wretches danced naked about the fire, chanting and waving their arms at the direction of a pot-bellied goblin king in a patchwork cloak and a crown of scrap metal who stood on a dais of hewn stone. Before his throne of bones knelt Janguld and the remaining bandits, battered, bound, and bloodied.
              “They don’t look so bad,” Ilytha whispered hopefully. “At least they look able to walk. And they’re still alive.”
              “We may need them to do more than just walk. There are a lot of goblins down there.”
              “Indeed, but we have your sword and my ring now.”
              “I should have asked before, but what can you do with that ring?”
              “The legends speak of many powers of these rings. I have not set my mind to mastering them yet, but I should at least be able to call upon the light of the stars to dazzle and stun our foes. This is the most simple power of the ancient rings, but anything more will take time to unlock.”
              “I suppose it will have to do. We must strike quickly and be gone even more quickly. There are many goblins and sure to be more about. Strike terror into them, free the captives, and head for the surface without delay.”
              Below them, the goblin king cried out to his subjects, who slowed their dancing and turned to listen. The king began to speak in a horrid, screeching tongue full of stops and starts. He waved his arms about above him, his fat belly shaking with each motion. His subjects called back to him, some falling to their knees as the others danced. The king raised a discarded helm, beating on it with a stick like a bell. The awful pealing echoed about the cavern and Aranthir grimaced. 
              “Do you know what they’re saying?” Ilytha whispered. Aranthir shook his head.
              “No. Do you?”
              “I don’t speak goblin,” she replied disdainfully.
              “I learned a few words of the dialect common to the northern tribes, but it is not universal. It was a fairly simple language when you get down to it. It must be, they are simple creatures.”
              He noticed that Ilytha was staring at him with an arched eyebrow.
              “You are a man of many surprises, Aranthir. I would not have expected you to be such a linguist.”
              “The road is as much a teacher as the Colleges, and I have spent many more years on the roads. But come, we must set about freeing Janguld and the others.”
              They crept down a narrow path cut from the rock to the floor of the cavern. Moving from one dancing shadow to another, they approached the goblin bonfire with barely a sound. The goblins danced, chanted, and banged raucously on shields and armor, helpfully providing a great din to cover their approach. Aranthir paused at the edge of the village to check his pistols. Finding them in order, he signaled to Ilytha to separate and each strike the village assembly from opposite sides. 
              Trying his best to hide the glow of his sword, Aranthir stole from hut to hut around the edge of the village. Apliss smiled on both of them, for the goblins were too enraptured by their king and ceremony to notice their approach. He pressed himself against a tall hut near the base of the king’s dais and looked across the bonfire for a sign of Ilytha. 
              The loremaster was not yet in position, but he did catch the eye of Janguld. His friend’s face lit up in shocked wonder, and Aranthir raised a finger to his lips to signal a need for silence before Janguld’s elation gave them away. He looked across the village square again. This time, Ilytha stood ready, her sword in hand and the enchanted ring glinting on the clenched fist of her other hand. He nodded to her to signal the attack.
              Springing from ambush, Aranthir clove through the head of the nearest goblin. The blade jolted on impact, but easily cracked open the goblin’s skull, shearing through its head to come to a halt halfway through its chest. Runes in the sword’s fuller flashed brilliant white and then blood red, washing the village square in a dread glow. The chanting and dancing stopped. All stood staring at Aranthir in shocked horror, mortals and goblins alike. 
              Aranthir wrenched his sword out, spraying blood across the bare chest of the nearest goblin. He tore a pistol from its holster and leveled it at the king. At the sight of their monarch in danger, the goblins shook off their shock to burst into terrified action. Some ran screeching for cover, others charged at Aranthir in maddened fury. One goblin on the far edge of the square fell dead, Ilytha’s slender blade trailing blood from its throat. 
              But Aranthir remained fixed on the goblin king. The fat goblin’s eyes locked onto him in stunned paralysis. Beady, yellow, and dull, they widened with the realization of what he faced. The pistol whirred and snapped, the powder sparked and there was the roar of flame. White smoke obscured his view of the goblin king, and so Aranthir turned his attention to the goblins rushing to the attack.
              With a contemptuous flick of his wrist, Aranthir slashed a bloody rent in the face of an approaching goblin. The little wretch fell shrieking to the stone floor, clawing at the wound. Another goblin came on, naked except for a necklace of teeth, but screaming and frothing at the mouth in bloodlust all the same. Aranthir cut its legs outs from beneath it and delivered a sharp kick to its head. 
              Ilytha was beset by three goblins, but she thrust up her fist toward the roof of the cavern and cried out in an ancient tongue. Light burst forth from the ring, illuminating the chamber as if the sun itself had been brought down here. The goblins cried out in pain, covering their eyes and cringing from its terrible glare. Some of them clutched at smoking skin, hobbling and crawl for cover within their crude huts.
              From the dais, Aranthir heard a goblin cry, and turned to see the fat king stagger off his dais unharmed. Moving with speed foreign to his bulk, he disappeared into a hut behind the dais. 
              “Unbind us!” Janguld cried, raising his hands and the ropes around them. “Let’s get out of here!”
              Aranthir and Ilytha rushed to undo the bindings as the goblins fleeing in screaming terror. The coarse ropes pricked his fingers as he unbound the captives, but soon enough they fell to the floor. Janguld was freed first and led the rush to gather their arms and armor that lay piled up before the dais in tribute to the goblin king. With Aranthir and Ilytha standing guard against rallying goblins, they hurriedly dressed themselves for battle.
              “I never thought to see you again,” Janguld called over his shoulder as he pulled on his jack coat. “I had resigned myself to making an escape on my own.”
              “You’d have never made it by yourself,” Aranthir challenged. He could not see Janguld’s face, but he knew that his friend was smiling.
              “I suppose we’ll never find out now.”
              “If you can’t get your armor on quickly, just carry it,” Ilytha called. “It’s time to go.”
              Aranthir could hear the goblins rallying. A chorus of squeaks and snarls emanated from the huts, followed by a strange barking. He raised a hand to the nearest hut and conjured a spray of sparks. The dry hide of the hut caught fire, quickly growing to match the heat and intensity of the bonfire that already burned. He heard a goblin yelp inside and scrabbling against the far wall.
              “Damn it all!” roared the giant bandit as he struggled with the buckles on his jack coat. “Fuck it, I’ll leave it open.”
              “Aye,” muttered another. “Time to go!”
              “I’ll take the lead,” Ilytha shouted over the roar of the flames. “Let’s go!”
              She charged ahead without waiting for the others to respond, but they assumed her urgency into their own actions and raced to follow. Aranthir, with pistol and longsword in hand, cast one final look around before falling into the column as the rearguard.
              The village was boiling around them as panic turned to fury. Aranthir knew they had mere moments before goblins rushed to the attack. Their little column raced toward the cavern exit as fast as they dared, throwing anxious looks over their shoulders. As they passed through the mouth of the tunnel, goblins surged from the village with a piercing scream. They brandished crude knives and spears. Some wore shirts of rusted mail along with battered helms. Their eyes burned bright and red in the light of the bonfire and burning hut.
              Slowing long enough to discharge a pistol into the mob, Aranthir continued his run up the tunnel. The snaking corridors echoed with the war cries of the goblins and with horror he realized that some of the passages that crossed about their escape route could be reached quickly from the ground. The goblins would be able to use their knowledge of the tunnels to get ahead of them. 
              “Watch up above!” he called, “They will drop on us from the upper tunnels when they catch up!”
              As he spoke, a goblin fell onto Ilytha from above, but the agile elf slid to the side and slashed the goblin across the face. It felt screaming to the floor, where it was deliberately trampled by the others coming up the tunnel. By the time Aranthir reached it and slammed a heavy boot onto its neck, it was dead. 
              Yet all around them they could hear other goblins baying and snarling on the hunt. The rattle of loose-fitting mail and helms echoed throughout the tunnel warren, along with the clank of iron. 
              “They’re everywhere,” one of the bandits whispered. 
              “Keep running!” urged Aranthir. 
              They hastened up the sloping tunnel toward the old cellar where they had entered. Twice more the goblins tried to attack and were beaten back. Instead, they took to throwing or shooting from afar. Aranthir responded with conjurations, though it had been too long since he had taken the spice and his sorcery was too weak to be of much effect. 
              But Ilytha led them back the way they had come, able to follow the trail in the stone even at a dead run, and soon enough they climbed back up into the cellar. Aranthir and Janguld hauled a slab of fallen masonry across the hole in the floor to block any pursuit.
              “We made it!” cried the giant bandit, but no sooner did he begin to celebrate than a dozen goblins burst into the cellar from above. They wore shirts of worn mail and old iron visored helms. In their warty green hands they carried curved blades of pitted and dented iron. With dark red eyes glowing, they glowered down the staircase at their former captives. 
              In the door behind them appeared the goblin king. With beady golden eyes above a bulbous nose, it stared hard into Aranthir’s soul. The king raised a crooked hand and pointed to him. 
              “Die, elf-blood! Die and go into the stew!” he barked to his soldiers and the armored goblins clanked their way down the stair to join battle. 
              Aranthir looked to his companions. They were a motley lot, still battered and bloodied from captivity and many still with their armor only half-on. Yet their enemies’ numbers counted for little in the confined space and the escaped captives outweighed their foes decisively. It would come down to will, and on that count Aranthir took the lead.
              “At them!” he cried, and charged forward with his blade held high. He brought it down on the helm of a goblin and the enchanted steel split the iron like paper. The goblin squealed a death cry, and the others each drew back a step in fear. Aranthir turned toward another target and thrust his blade forward again. This time, it was batted just aside by a goblin blade that riposted against his legs. The goblin’s stroke screeched against armor, but Aranthir felt the blow through the metal.
              The goblins overcame their fear and pressed forward again. Their short little swords worked against his blades, the ringing of steel deafening in the small cellar. Aranthir stood alone against the goblins as he fended off strike after strike.
              There was suddenly a great light that filled the cellar. The goblins cried out, Aranthir shut his eyes in stunned surprise, and there was again the sizzling of flesh. Cracking his eyes open, Aranthir saw Ilytha advancing, her ring held forth and blazing with furious light. The goblins fell back, and the bandits surged forth. They fell upon their foes in a fury, hacking and stabbing at them as the goblins tried to flee. Janguld seized one by the visor, pulling its head back to expose the throat for a mortal blow. The giant bandit caught one goblin by its neck and bashed it against the wall until it went limp. 
              Seized by terror, the goblins fled up the stairs toward their king, who stood frozen in shock. His great bulk blocked the door, and the press of his terrified soldiers against him bowled him over. His crown clattered to the floor. Aranthir bounded up the stairs in pursuit. He trampled one fleeing goblin, knocking the unfortunate creature back into the cellar where it was hacked to pieces by Janguld and the furious bandits. 
              The goblin king cowered on the floor before him. It raised one wart-speckled hand, pleading.
              “No kill,” it begged, “No kill, please!”
              Aranthir stabbed it through the belly and twisted his sword. The goblin king howled in pain, its hands clasping the smoking wound until they too burned. Its blood rushed out of its belly to pool on the floor of the house and Aranthir leaned on the sword until the wretched monster died. With a sneer, he drew out his sword and looked back toward the cellar. 
              Carnage reigned below. Not a single goblin had escaped and their pieces lay scattered about. Janguld stood above a small pile of four goblins, wiping his sword. 
              “This place reeks,” he complained with a scowl. “Can we leave already?”
              “Aye,” the tall bandit agreed. “I thought the troll smelled awful…”
              “Unless you have more to study here, loremaster,” Janguld grumbled. Ilytha shook her head as she cleaned off her own sword.
              “I have proven that the forge exists,” she replied. “For anything more, I will require a larger expedition. For now, I will return to Ildranon to spread news of the discovery.”
              “And when she returns,” Aranthir said sternly, “It would be better if you bandits were not here.”
              The giant bandit stared hard at him before nodding slowly. 
              “You’ve got nothing to fear from us, elf. We’ve had enough of this place now. Apliss be praised that you can for us. In gratitude for your unbidden rescue, we will leave you alone.”
              “Well, that is an unexpectedly peaceful resolution,” Janguld mused. “And here I was afraid we would have to sour our escape with a little more killing. But now that we’ve brought you to the Forge, loremaster, might we finally get paid?”
              Ilytha smiled. “Let us make it to the surface so you can count your coin in the sunlight. Then we’ll head back to Bruscair for drinks and some rest.”
              