The Fallen Fortress - By R. A. Salvatore Page 0,69
with one hand and get it up to me," Ivan instructed. "Ye ready?"
"Open it," Shayleigh begged, and slowly, Pike! began to push.
As soon as the pressure lessened, Shayleigh reached back for Ivan.
She missed, and her grip with her other arm was not solid enough to support her. With a cry, the elf maiden began to fall.
Ivan caught her wrist, his stubby fingers wrapping her tightly and holding her fast against the slimy wall.
"Oooo," Pikel wailed as the whole group began to slide back dangerously toward the end of the chute.
But Ivan growled and straightened his powerful back, locking himself firmly into place. And Pikel, though his arms ached with the strain of the awkward angle, kept the pressure on the heavy door, kept it open enough for Shayleigh to scramble through. She came over Ivan, up beside Pikel, and he let the door slam shut Then he straightgned perpendicularly to his braced brother, and Shayleigh climbed above him and turned as Ivan had turned.
Ivan climbed up Pikel next, as Pikel held fast to the braced elf maiden. Ivan went across Shayleigh, standing straight up the chute. Pikel clambered up to the top, turned sidelong to Ivan, and set the next brace, and so it went, the three working as a living ladder.
"Eh?" Pikel squeaked as he set another stretching brace, around a bend and far out of sight of the chute's end.
"What ye got?" Ivan asked, climbing even with him. Then Ivan, too, saw the lines in the chute's wall - even, parallel lines, like those of a door.
The dwarf planted himself across Pikel's back, his hands fumbling about the wall He felt a slight depression - only a dwarf would have been able to detect so minute an inconsistency in the unremarkable wall - and pushed hard. The secret door slid aside, revealing a second passageway, angling up as was this one, but with an easier grade.
Ivan looked back to Shayleigh and to Pikel.
"We know what is above us," Shayleigh reasoned.
"But can we get through the trapdoor?" Ivan replied.
"Sssh," Pikel begged them both, motioning with his chin toward the new passage. When the others quieted, they heard some scuffling from within, far away, as though some battle had been joined.
"Might be friends and might be needing us!" Ivan roared, and he went into the new passage, pulling Shayleigh, and then Pikel, in behind him. Fumbling again for the depression in the stonework, Ivan managed to close the secret door behind them, and with the lesser slope, the three made better time.
They came to a fork a short time later, the passage continuing up one way, but angling down in a narrower chute to the side. Their instincts told them to keep climbing - they had left their friends on a higher level - but the sounds of battle emanated from the lower tunnel.
"It could be Cadderly," Shayleigh reasoned.
"Giant dog!" came a familiar voice from down below.
Traitor!" roared another powerful, and even deeper-toned, voice.
Pikel was into the chute, sliding headlong, before Ivan even cried out "Vander!"
Chapter Sixteen
Which door? Cadderly wondered, looking around at the many possible exits from the large circular room as he crossed over the bodies of the two dead ogres. He noticed, too, the many symbols carved into the walls, tridents with small vials above each point interspersed with triangular fields holding three teardrops, the more conventional design for the evil goddess, Talona.
"We must be near the chapel," Cadderly whispered to Danica. As if in confirmation, the door across the way opened and a horribly scarred man, dressed in the ragged gray and green robes of a Talonan priest, hopped into the circular room.
Danica went into a crouch; Cadderly brought his crossbow level with the man's face.
The priest only smiled, though, and a moment later all the doors of the circular room burst open. Cadderly and Danica found themselves facing a horde of ores and goblins and evilly grinning men, including several more wearing the robes of Talonan priests. Both friends looked back to the trapped corridor, the only possible escape, but the walls were tight against each other by this point and showed no signs of opening.
For some reason, the enemy force did not immediately attack. Rather, they all stood looking from Cadderly and Danica to the first priest who had entered, apparently the leader.
"Did you think it would be so easy?" the scarred man shrieked hysterically. "Did you think to simply walk through our fortress unopposed?"