“What? Why?!” Erika asked, still reeling from the pulse of power that had rang through her body, normally you couldn’t lean galdr that quickly… she wasn’t sure how she had but it didn’t feel good at all.

“The noise lady vitki, the ravening and the thunderarms flinging it will have echoed for miles!” Solvor said, her voice sounded even more scratching and breathy than usual and Erika noticed her nursing her ribs. “Any other malformed in here will steer right for us, hoping to deviate easy prey.”

“Oooh.” Erika said, she really hadn't thought of that, maybe the headache was to blame? Slapping her cheeks with her hands Erika managed to scramble upright on her second attempt and forced her thoughts to speed up.

“Right right… OH I saw an offshoot just before we got the kitchen, anything heading here will have to go past, we’ll see them before they see us… that’s good right?”

“You mean that right hand turn? That could work boss.” Olaf said to Bjorn who for his part was looking more thoughtful by the moment.

“You both sure you can find it?” He asked after a moment.

Erika had gotten turned around in the endless identical corridors but she was still sure she’d be able to at least get them close, “mostly,” Erika admitted. “I’d be more confident if Olaf says he can?”

“Oh, definitely young miss.” Olaf said with a laugh. “I spent years as a hunter for this little no named village back north, spent months in the deep woods all on my lonesome, a few corridors aren’t gonna make me lost.”

“Good… ok that’s the plan, everyone follows you two and we get a good vantage point, we hide if anything powerful comes or ambush and break out if something weak shows up. Any objections?

Erika realised Bjorn was talking to her and mentally kicked herself, she’d forgotten the whole sort of kinda being the leader a bit, by the Aesir she wished Sigurn was back, now she was a good leader.

“Right yeah… uh no complaints, yeah let’s go with that.”

Bjorn raised an amused eyebrow at her but otherwise kept quiet and got organising, first waterskins were refilled now that the giant contaminated water was agreed to have washed away, then Erika saw to the wounded (just a few bruises luckily although on man had managed to stab himself in the thigh with his own dagger), then packs were strapped on and weapons raised and the delvers set out, moving in a loose double lined column at a leisurely jog Erika was easily able to keep her spot at the front of the pack, directing the group back down the pantry passageway, across a large central room and then back up into a side passage she had only noticed by accident before. The way the doorway and the step framed the entrance caused an effect like a mild optical illusion, probably entirely unintentional Erika guessed but it made the wall seem flatter which stopped it standing out.

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Bundling into the slightly two small passageway the delvers stacked themselves up tightly, Erika smelt the sweat and blood all around her and thought longingly of soap as more people moved past her in the tight press, elbowing themselves a place to stand in the line-up, Erika was once again thankful that she was a vitki and got to stand at the front, at least here she had a chance at getting clean air.

“Back off…”

“…elbows in my ribs!”

“Stop touching my hair!”

“Get your head out of my face!”

“Get those torches out!”

“Quiet!” Bjorn hissed, silencing the muttering just before it became mutiny or murder. In the pall of silence that followed Erika could hear something, distant and rapid footsteps.

“Not as heavy as that messed up giant.” Bjorn whispered over his shoulder, his head pressed right up the edge of the wall and his ear just poking over the lip. “Light and heavy mixed together… armour?... the footsteps are echoing but I think, the rhythm is familiar… a formation?”

“That deformed monster had been trained, it used an actual boxing stance.” Erika reminded Bjorn who responded by running his hand through his red hair again and again as he visibly struggled with his thoughts.

The thumping grew closer and closer, stomping echoed by metal clattering. The cold smooth stone rang with the sound, the darkness closing in around them now that the torches had been doused, or it should have been.

Erika watched as, along the corridor, the darkness was cut apart and turned into angled shadows, whoever was approaching had light with them. Monsters could use lights of course but this seemed to smooth, a straight beam of light?

“It’s a lantern.” Whispered Bjorn, resting his hand on the head of his axe. “Could be smarter lokispawn, could be assassins, get ready.”

Erika passed the whisper down the line which was echoed by spears and shields being near-silently set down and the now empty hands filled with long daggers, this would be a close and brutal tunnel fight.

The light got brighter, the sound got louder, rhythmic and disciplined and accompanied by the distinctive tap tap sound of spear-butts hitting the ground in time. The rustling now seemed to fill the world, the delvers barely even letting themselves breathe, still and silent but taught like wires they waited in the darkness as the light grew brighter and brighter.

A dark figure crossed in front of the passageway, backlit by the lantern their armour shone… it was covered in bones and stained with blood, twisted and matted and plating their limbs.

“AHHHHHHHH!” Bjorn didn’t wait any longer, he lunged for the figure axe swinging right for its neck. Behind her Erika felt the others rush in even as she wove together a galdr, the bolt of acid joined a handful of thrown knives in the air as Bjorn both stabbed and jinked to the side with the speed and skill of a true veteran, leaving a space for a firing line whilst still getting a blow in of his own.

It was a textbook ambush, one that was unstoppable and utterly lethal against any enemy of the same weight class as the ambushers, which this one was not.

The daggers were knocked from the air, Erika’s galdr was dodged by a lazily fingers width, Bjorn’s blade was smacked from his hand even as he was hefted up and used as a human shield. The lantern light filled the world as the passage was illuminated, the firing line now packed in, like rats in a trap, with nowhere to run.

The figure dropped Bjorn and smiled; its teeth shone in the darkness with an oddly familiar gleam.

“I told you guys we’d find them.” Said Sigurn.