came a deep guttural sound, and Cadderly, with his exceptional training in the various languages of Faerun, understood that an ogre outside the door had just insisted that the walls must be finished with their business by then.
Cadderly ran back, slipped under and around Danica, and placed his crossbow arm across her back for support He also put his spindle-disks atop Danica, within easy reach, and clutched his enchanted walking stick in his free hand.
There came a cranking sound as the portcullis began to rise, and Cadderly heard a key slip into the door's lock. He steadied his crossbow and his nerves, realizing that he had to fend off the enemy long enough for Danica to dislodge herself and rush out behind him.
The door swung in, and with it came the face of an eager ogre, stupidly grinning as it looked for the squished remains of the intruders.
Cadderly's dart hit it right between the gap in its two front teeth. The young priest charged boldly, scooping up his spindle-disks.
The ogre's cheeks bulged weirdly, its eyes nearly popped free of their sockets, and then its lips flapped, spewing a stream of blood and broken teeth.
"Dun, Mogie?" its stunned companion asked as the splattered monster slid down to the floor. The second ogre bent low, trying to figure out what had happened, then looked back toward the trap-room just in time to catch Cadderly's flying adamantite spindle-disks on the side of its nose.
Cadderly flicked his wrist hard, sending the disks spinning back to him, stinging his palm, then hurled them again fiercely. The ogre's hand started up, but didn't get high enough for a block, and the beast caught the missile in the eye.
The ogre's arm, continuing its upward motion, hooked the wire, though, and Cadderly could not properly retract the disks for a third throw. Always ready to improvise, the quick-thinking young priest took up his walking stick in both hands and bashed it hard against the dazed ogre's thick forearm.
He came lower with his next strike, slamming exposed ribs, and the ogre, as Cadderly had expected, reflexively brought its arm swinging down. Cadderly's next cut came in high again, smashing the ogre on its already splattered nose. He followed through, reversed his grip, and came back around the other way, the ram's head of his walking stick connecting solidly on the base of the ogre's skull.
The monster was kneeling suddenly, its weakened arms down at its side.
Back and forth slammed Cadderly's walking stick, three times, five times, and then Danica raced past, driving a knee under the kneeling monster's chin. The ogre's head snapped back viciously, and finally, the huge thing toppled to the floor beside its dead companion. <
"Load it!" Danica instructed Cadderly, handing him back his crossbow. Behind them, they heard the crunch of wood as the closing walls bit against the opened door. Neither one of them cared to look back.
The chute was slick and steep, and Shayleigh, for all her frantic efforts, could hardly slow her descent. Finally, she go* her back tight against the sloping floor and pushed up into the air with her longbow, searching for some hold.
There were none. The chute's ceiling, like the floor, was perfectly smooth.
A dozen unpleasant images rushed through the elf maiden's head, mostly ones of her being impaled against a wall of poison-tipped spikes beside Ivan and Pikel. Or behind Ivan and Pikel, slamming against her already stuck friends to drive them deeper onto the imagined spikes.
Still holding fast to her bow, Shayleigh angled herself to put her feet against one wall and her shoulder diagonally across the narrow chute against the other. She lifted her head and peered down into the darkness across the length of her body, hoping for some warning before she hit With her heat-sensing eyes, she could make out traces of the dwarves' passing, residual body heat from Ivan and Pikel still showing in spots along the floor and against the curving walls.
And then there was just a blank wall, the end of the chute, and Shayleigh understood, in the split second before she collided, that since the dwarves were nowhere in sight, it must be some type of swinging trapdoor.
She hit and pushed through, but grabbed both sides of the door with widespread arms. Her bow fell below her, and she heard a dwarf grunt, followed by a small splash.
The trapdoor swung back, pinning Shayleigh's forearms between it and the stone wall. She held on stubbornly, guessing that this might be their