His bleary eyes squinting in the morning sunlight, Dellromoz peered out from underneath the blanket. He could hear a voice somewhere, but he wasn’t able to make out any of the words. Holding his hand in front of the sun to shield his vision from its unmerciful rays, he searched for the source of the noise.
It was Erasmus, as he’d suspected, though he seemed to be performing some strange spell or ritual. He was seated on a fallen tree, his foot resting on his knee, as he wove vines from a westrose into a thorny circlet interspersed with cheerful pink blossoms. His gloves sat on the trunk next to him; he was using the naked bones of his skeletal hands to assemble the circlet, as they weren’t bothered by the small, densely-packed thorns. The mistwalker was speaking some sort of incantation in a language of sinister-sounding whispers that gave Dell a headache when he tried to pick out the individual words. Every once in a while, he’d lift a hand and form some sort of esoteric gesture, or tilt his head, or move his torso in a pattern Dell couldn’t begin to understand. The air next to him would occasionally shimmer, or shift the light slightly as occult energies altered the fabric of the material world, and a couple of times Dell wondered if he’d heard another voice speaking back to the mistwalker in the same language.
Erasmus had never previously demonstrated any knowledge of magical principles, insisting on multiple occasions that he had no talent for magic. Dell wondered what had changed to cause him to perform a secret working while he was asleep.
Well, at that point they had me cornered, so I didn’t know what else I could do! I tore off all my clothes and put them on the bed, then dashed into the closet, stepped into the burlap sack I’d been using to carry my things, and collapsed into a pile of bones! Erasmus said, waving his hand for emphasis.
You didn’t! exclaimed Reda.
I certainly did! I laid in that sack and didn’t so much as twitch when they kicked the door in.
They must have been furious!
They were that! The one who’d been commanding the whole thing, Claudia I think her name was, tore the whole room apart looking for where I was hiding! The watch had to reimburse the widow I was renting the room from for the damage they did to her walls!
I hope she found the most expensive artisan in town to fix them,the indignant ghost replied,the nerve of them, to tear up a widow’s house!
That’s how I felt about the matter, I was well-tempted to hop out of that sack and give them a good thrashing, but if they found out I was undead, that would be the end of The Popinjay, let’s have no illusions about that!
Oh, she asked, her tone slightly mocking, are a few guards too much for a famous adventurer like The Popinjay to handle?
Don’t give me that ‘famous adventurer’ nonsense, you’d never heard of me until this morning!
She laughed. It looks like your little friend is waking up, so I’ll let you be on your way. Just turn at the marker, and the path should be easy to find.
Thank you very much Reda, and I hope you find what you’re looking for.
The ghostly explorer, surveyor, and cartographer smiled and nodded her head, then turned and walked away. Erasmus took the circlet of flowers he’d been weaving and placed it around the crown of his hat, like an extra hatband.
“Are... are you finished?” Dellromoz called from under his blanket, looking warily at him.
“Hmm?” said Erasmus, “Oh, I suppose so. How did you sleep?”
“I slept well, can I get up now? Is it safe?” the gnome asked cautiously.
Erasmus stood up and gave their surroundings a cursory glance. “I believe so,” he replied, “unless you know something I don’t.”
“I just didn’t want to interrupt a delicate situation, is all,” Dell told him.
Erasmus considered it. In retrospect, their conversation had been a bit flirtatious, but Reda was a remarkable woman, and it was a nice change of pace to talk to a someone and not only not have to conceal his nature as a member of the undead, but be able to commiserate with someone who understood at least some of his experience. Sure, he’d come across other ghosts before, but they didn’t always make for good conversationalists. They were still in the world of the living for a reason, after all, whether that was processing the trauma of a violent death, a desire for revenge, or an obsession that they couldn’t let go. He supposed he was in the latter category himself, and while he didn’t think it made him bad company, he did have to admit that sometimes he acted a bit... impulsively because of it.
Regardless, when Reda had wandered through their campsite in the dark of the early morning hours, he’d been delighted to talk to someone with a sense of humor, plenty of interesting stories, and the ability to hold up her end of a conversation. ‘Delicate situation’ seemed like a bit much though, he certainly wasn’t going to run off with her, and the temptations of the flesh no longer had any power over him. People were either good company, or they weren’t, and he tried to minimize the amount of time he wasted on the second sort.
“A tempest in a teapot, my boy,” Erasmus said, with a dismissive wave of his hand.
Dellromoz, who had been getting ready to make a cup of tea, jumped back from the pot as if it had suddenly become a poisonous snake.
“Well, get it out of there!” he shouted, “Why are you performing dangerous sorcery while I’m asleep?!”
Erasmus stared at him. “I’ve told you before, Dellromoz, I don’t have any talent for casting spells, much less the sort that would be required to stuff a storm into a teakettle!”
“I just watched you perform some sort of incantation while you were weaving that circlet of thorns!”
“Incantation?!” Erasmus could have slapped himself. “Dellromoz, you saw me chatting with a ghost who passed by and gave me directions.”
“... I didn’t see a ghost...” Dell looked terribly embarrassed.
“You usually don’t. I don’t talk to all of them either, some of them can be rather unpleasant."
“I’m sorry, I guess I jumped to conclusions,” Dell said sheepishly, “Wait, do we encounter ghosts frequently?”
“There’s not many out here, just one or two every couple of days. Mostly farmers, or soldiers from after the fall of Stygia.”
“Why are there ghostly farmers in a swamp?”
“It didn’t used to be a swamp. This whole area was farmland to feed the city of Albis before the fall, but then there were the wars, Albis was sacked, and the basin was abandoned, along with the rest of the continent. With no one around to maintain the dam down at Spillway, the sluice became clogged or jammed up somehow, and the water rose until this whole area was drowned.” Erasmus told him.
“Albis? Was Stanhope built on a ruin?”
“No, Albis is on the bottom of the reservoir, people sail over it coming and going from Timberport, at the mouth of the canal.”
“There’s a whole city down there?”
“The ruins of one, at least,” Erasmus said.
Dellromoz shook his head. “Every day, I learn something new out here.”
“There are few better things to spend our days on than learning,” the adventurer replied, “though we should probably be going soon. Traveling cross-country has helped us avoid our pursuers, but the sooner we can get out of the Upper Albi Basin the better. We can’t hide indefinitely out here, and they’ll keep looking for us until they’re convinced we slipped by them somehow.”
“How are we going to slip by them?” Dell asked, “I came in through the pass at Isa Bergaz, but that would be easy for them to watch. The only other route I know is the Lockroad out of Spillway.”
“That’s what I was talking to Reda about, there’s another way out, it’s just a bit dangerous. Almost no one knows about it though, I certainly didn’t, so we won’t have to worry about it being watched.”
“Why is it dangerous?
“Well...,” Erasmus put a hand on the back of his neck as he tried to think of a way to put it delicately, but there just wasn’t one. “There are rock sliders in that area.”
Dellromoz’s face fell. “Rock sliders?” he asked, making a gesture for something enormous.
“They probably won’t even bother with us, we’re not part of a caravan, or riding horses, and we don’t have any pack animals. There’s plenty of stories about them ignoring small groups of travelers.”
“The ones they don’t leave alone wouldn’t get a chance to tell any stories!” Dell pointed out.
“I can’t fault your logic, but rock sliders won’t tell anyone they saw us. I’d rather try to dodge a couple of ugly beasts than outmaneuver dozens of people who can communicate with one another and work together.” Erasmus understood Dell’s reluctance, undead or not, he wasn’t sure he’d survive being swallowed and digested by one of the massive creatures. Still, it seemed like the best option in a bad situation. Fulcher Goswin certainly wasn’t known for his tender mercies, and it was unlikely Count Trevallion had forgotten about him. It was doubtful he had a paladin in his employ, but the adventurer was certain they could hold him until one arrived. The Cult of Phaeton believed rather firmly that people who came back from the dead should be encouraged to return to it with all possible haste. Even if Phaeton’s mortal representatives were unavailable to send him back to the Twilight Shore via holy fire, a pyre of ordinary fire lit by ordinary men would do the job just as well.
Dell paced back and forth, hands shaking, muttering to himself. Erasmus couldn’t hear what he was saying, but he could imagine the general theme. He didn’t blame the gnome for it though, Ostrogoth was safe enough on the roads, but out away from regular patrols things could get dangerous, and being three feet tall with no real combat skills probably didn’t help.
Perhaps there was something he could do about it. “Dellromoz, would you be interested in a couple of lessons on the sword?”
Dell stopped pacing and looked at him. “Erasmus, I’m a doctor. I don’t hurt people, and I don’t want to hurt them. I don’t have any use for a sword.”
“I admire your principles, my boy, but I’m not asking you to harm anyone. I’m more than happy to be the one who handles that, if it becomes necessary. Still, a knowledge of how to use a sword properly can help you protect yourself from one, even if you only have a stick, or just your bare hands.” The gnome considered that.
“I don’t need an answer right now, we need to be on our way. You can let me know what you decide later,” Erasmus told him.
Dell ate, and then they packed up their few possessions and started walking. They’d left the swamplands behind two days ago, and had crossed the forest road the night before, under cover of darkness. They spent the day picking their way through the forest below the mountains, made camp for the night, and did the same the next day.
Dell agreed to sword lessons, and Erasmus began by teaching him how to stand, how to hold the weapon, and how to move with it. Good swordsmanship began with good footwork, as Erasmus’s own instructor had insisted not so long ago. The gnome had taken to the lessons, demonstrating better dexterity and coordination than Erasmus had when he started. The adventurer wasn’t surprised, gnomes seemed to have better balance and awareness of their surroundings than humans did, in addition to their sharper hearing.
On the third day, they came to a small stream running through a narrow, high-walled canyon. Following its course upstream, they came to a small obelisk that was completely hidden from the outside by a narrow point that the waters flowed through. The stone wasn’t finely worked in the style of the Ostrogoths, or even the ancient Stygians, but it was clearly not a natural formation. Behind it, a passage through the rock was cleverly concealed by the the natural stone. It was large enough for two ogres to march up its gently sloping floor, side by side. A drainage channel along the side had been worn smooth by the flow of water over the millennia, there was little doubt the tunnel had been there for thousands of years.
As they got farther and farther from the entrance, Erasmus picked Dell up and set him on his shoulders; the mistwalker’s perception wasn’t impeded by the growing darkness, but the gnome couldn’t see a thing. Dell did his part by listening carefully, but apart from the stream and a few bats near the mouth of the passage, there was no sound but what they made.
“Are there any ghosts in here?” Dell asked.
“I haven’t seen any, why?”
“I just wonder who made this passage, the style isn’t like anything I’ve seen before,” Dell replied.
“Reda’s theory is mountainkin, but she never actually saw any,” Erasmus told him, “There’s no inscriptions or ornamentation, so it isn’t Stygian.”
They continued to climb up the ancient tunnel until it suddenly turned a corner and exited onto the side of the mountain. The remnants of the path continued upward, switchbacking ever higher before climbing toward a narrow pass that would have been inaccessible without the passage carved through the rock. In numerous places, rock slides or winter avalanches had swept through, wiping portions of the road off the mountainside with them.
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“You can set me down here,” Dell said, “I can pick my way through the spots where the road is missing or damaged.”
“I don’t mind carrying you,” Erasmus replied, but Dell shook his head.
“I really need to stretch my legs,” the gnome said, “I’ve been sitting for a couple of hours now.”
“Fair enough, but keep your eyes open. We don’t know what’s up here."
Dell nodded in acknowledgment, and the two began to hike, and occasionally scramble, their way up the track.
It was a beautiful late-spring day, the sun shone down on them without being oppressive, and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. As they climbed, they were able to make out the swamplands, the forest of evergreens and larches beyond, and soon the reservoir downstream.
“Look!” Dell exclaimed, “There’s a ship crossing the lake!”
Erasmus turned toward where his friend pointed. “I’m sorry, I can’t see that far," he told him, “Will you describe it for me?”
“Of course! It’s long and narrow, with its sides dark brown or black, it’s a little difficult to tell. It has a single mast, and one of those triangular sails that hangs from a long pole. It looks like they could row it, but there’s a breeze up, and the sail is full. The lake is sapphire blue, and the sun is sparkling on the waves.
“It’s sailing toward the upstream end of the lake, oh, there’s another one close to the the shore!” Dell squinted. “It’s wider and heading the opposite direction. It has two masts, and lots of little sails.”
“Ha, I don’t think my eyes were ever that sharp!” Erasmus proclaimed. “That’s probably a lumber scow. They move freight between Spillway and Timberport, but passengers usually take galleys, like the first ship you described.”
“Wouldn’t it be easier to just have one type of ship and carry both?”
“The scows aren’t stable in the wind unless they’re heavily loaded. When I came up with the caravan, we weren’t heavy enough, and the captain rented some stone blocks to keep the boat from tipping over. We had to do it though, galleys don’t carry as much unless they’re really big and have a crew to row the thing around when the wind is low.”
They rested for a moment, mostly for Dell’s benefit. The view was charming, but the gnome had trouble focusing on it.
“Are you nearsighted?” he asked Erasmus.
“Not as such,” his friend replied, “I don’t really see the way you do, or how I used to. I suppose it’s almost like Ifeel the location of things around me. There’s color, but it’s muted compared to what I remember of the world. I don’t have a blind spot behind me, but I also can’t perceive as far as regular vision. If I focus, I can extend it out ahead, maybe over a mile if there isn’t much in the way, but the price for doing so is narrowing the angle of what I can sense.”
“Like using a spyglass?”
“Just so!”
“You said that colors are muted,” Dell inquired, “Is that why you wear such brightly-colored clothes?”
“It’s part of it. Bright colors are certainly more pleasing to my senses than drabber shades, but they also mark me as a character of note when I’m in a city or village. If someone is looking to hire The Popinjay, I’m easy to find. Also, I didn’t have a proper gambeson when I started, so I fashioned a makeshift one out of old patchwork quilts, and it became a bit of a calling card. People started calling me ‘The Popinjay’ because of my brightly-colored plumage. It was intended to be derogatory at first, but I embraced it. Mayhap, they were mocking me, but they knew who I was. Folk seldom talked about Basil the innkeeper.”
“What do you think they’d say, if they’d known you before, and could see you now?”
Erasmus rubbed his chin as he considered it. “Well, it’s fortunate the old fool’s good at running away and playing dead.”
Dell laughed, and they resumed their climb.
“I don’t suppose I ever asked, but what made you want to become a surgeon?” Erasmus said as they turned a corner on the trail. There were fewer small stones as they zigzagged up the mountain, but the slope became steeper, and in places was nothing but a bare face of solid rock.
The gnome sighed. “I’m a war orphan. It’s not an uncommon story for people my age, I guess. Maybe I was naive, but when I was a child I thought that I could have saved my parents somehow, if I’d had the skills. When I got older, I realized that was foolishness; I’d just have died with them, which isn’t what they would have wanted at all.
“Still, the orphanages were overcrowded and underfunded in the years right after the war, and proper medical care wasn’t something we got very often. Some of the friends I made then really could have been saved, if they’d seen a real doctor.”
“So the same goal, though your reasons matured with you,” Erasmus said.
“That sounds about right,” Dellromoz replied.
“Were your parents soldiers?”
“No,” Dell said with a trace of bitterness, “My father was a millwright, and my mother a weaver. We just lived too close to the border.”
“I’m sorry, Dellromoz,” his friend told him, “We don’t have to talk about it.”
“It’s alright, it was a long time ago, and it’s the same story most of us had at the orphanage. I was closer to home when the attack came than any of them were, most survived because they were away on an errand somewhere. If anything, I was lucky; gnome children are small, I was able to run and hide in a fox burrow when the soldiers came. ” Dell’s voice was steady, but his eyes told the story of an old wound that he’d long since learned to live with. “I was picked up by one of the kingdom’s reconnaissance patrols, and spent the rest of the war working as a page for different officers. They offered to take me to a refugee camp several times, but I was afraid to go somewhere I wouldn’t be surrounded by soldiers, I didn’t feel safe anywhere. Talking to people who lived in the camps later, I made the right choice; they didn’t eat as often and a lot of people only got by because they joined some gang and robbed the rest of the camp of what little they had.”
Erasmus shook his head.
“When I was a young man, I thought that I might like to be a great war hero. I always admired the people they built statues of, or who bards told stories and sang songs about. Who could be braver, or nobler, or greater than those hardy souls leading soldiers into battle for king and country? What better place to find that part of myself that could be a hero?
“I came back to a kingdom that had more experience with war than it ever did when I was a boy, but it was hardly a land overrun with heroes. It was much easier to find broken families, burned out villages, and veterans who couldn’t sleep at night. The reality of violence is often far removed from the tales about it. I sometimes feel like a bit of a fraud calling myself an adventurer when so much of what I do is just hiring out my blade.”
“You’ve saved me from being turned over to Fulcher Goswin twice now, by my count,” Dell told him, “and you’ve stood up to Count Trevallion, which is more than a lot of people can say. You didn’t save Ostrogoth from the horrors of the invasion, but I don’t think there’s any one person who could have. You’ve done a lot for me, though, and I’m grateful.”
They kept walking as Erasmus considered what Dell had said. After a moment, the gnome continued, “Besides, since when does The Popinjay doubt that he might be on the side of truth, justice, and bravery? I’m beginning to suspect you might be some sort of impersonator!"
The adventurer chuckled as they reached the top of the pass, and the next valley opened up below them, spreading out toward the horizon. They were higher than most of the mountains visible from their vantage point, the Upper Albi Basin sat at a greater elevation than the areas around it.
Erasmus turned his gaze toward a jagged ridge far in the distance, rising from a fog that clung to the land around it. The discolored foliage of the trees on its lower elevations it suggested some sort of disease or pollution in the area.
“Is that...” Dell began, unsure if it was a foolish question.
“Stainagaz,” Erasmus answered.
“I didn’t think you could see that far,” Dellromoz told him.
“I can’t, but I can feel where it is. It’s easier to ignore with the mountains obscuring it, but I could point in its direction from anywhere in the Albi’s watershed.”
“So it really is haunted then,” Dell said.
“Haunted isn’t a strong enough word for what that place is. We’re nearly twenty leagues away, and I can still feel the pull of its energies. It’s little wonder the mindless undead congregate there, the necromantic magic in the air would nourish them like sunshine does to a daisy.”
“Have you ever gone there?”
“No, even as I am now, there’s nothing there I’d care to meet. The place had an ill reputation when I was alive, and that was before the 4th Army used some sort of dark magic to wipe out Imperator Lucerian and his legions in its shadow. Let’s get down from here, I’d prefer to put some hills between it and myself again.” Erasmus shuddered slightly, and the two began picking their way down the path as it crossed the mountainside.
Dellromoz kept an eye on the forest below as he hiked. The dense, green foliage covered the valley floor as far as he could see, but from what he’d learned on his travels, there was a road running through it, somewhere. He wished again that he hadn’t lost his map to the river pirates, along with his books and most of his surgical tools. He hoped the books found a better fate than Sharp Annie had suggested, they’d served him well over the years, he’d hate to think they ended up in a latrine somewhere.
His thoughts occupied by memories of his lost collection of reference materials, Dell missed the slight rumble up the slope, and was completely taken by surprise when Erasmus grabbed him, threw him over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, and took off running.
“What in all the,” he began, before movement drew his eye. Coming down toward them from above was a creature that resembled nothing so much as a giant fish. Its eyes were widely-spaced and forward facing, and they sat on either side of a cavernous maw, behind a lower jaw that was shaped (and seemed to function) like a huge shovel. It was sliding down the mountain toward them on its stomach, its passage eased by slime that dripped from its lower lip, lubricating itself the way butter keeps food from sticking to a frying pan. The occasional rock or log was spat out of gill-like openings behind its head after being picked up by its great mandible.
Erasmus was sprinting across the slope as fast as his feet could carry him, but the rock slider seemed to be using its fin-like appendages and its long, well-muscled tail to drift sideways toward them, in addition to its terrifying downhill velocity. Dell guessed that at their present speed, they’d make too much distance across the slope for the creature to catch them, but then he noticed a second one, nearly as big as the first, sliding down the rocky mountainside ahead of them. Even if they avoided the first monster, it would only put them in range of the second’s attack.
“There’s another one coming!”
“I knew we should have waited until after dark!” Erasmus shouted, adjusting his course a little further down the slope. “It’s too dangerous after the sun comes up, you never know what might see you!” He barreled down the mountainside, leaping over boulders and the occasional fallen log, the soles of his boots slapping a frantic beat against the stony ground. He made for a giant, tear-shaped rock protruding from the mountain with a lonely pine tree growing on top of it.
Arriving at the uphill side a scant few seconds ahead of the rock sliders, Erasmus scampered up on top of the outcropping, and scrambled his way to the far end of it, where it dropped off precipitously.
“I don’t think this tree is going to stop them,” Dell said nervously, “and I don’t see why they can’t slide up here after us...”
“You’re right of course, wishful thinking on my part,” the skeletal adventurer admitted, and jumped down, snagging a protruding edge to slow himself as he slid down along the side of the escarpment.
The rumbling sound of the massive creatures chasing them grew louder, until there were a pair of thundering crashes, and the outcropping shuddered behind them. Both of the rock sliders passed, one along the side of the great rock, and another hurtling off the top of it above them, its speed much too high to prevent itself from overshooting the pair of travelers. Sheltered in the lee of the rock, they’d avoided the beasts.
“Hah!” cried Dell, a grin splitting his face, “We dodgedtwo of them! Well, you did most of the dodging, honestly, but I saw it if anyone doubts! You can set me down now.”
“Ummmmm,” Erasmus mumbled, backing away from their shelter, “Maybe not just yet...”
“What is it?” Dell asked, turning his head to look. To his horror, the rock was looking back at him.
The ridge Erasmus had slid down from on top of the rock split apart as a rock slider that dwarfed the previous two opened its gargantuan jaw. The Popinjay leaped back just in time to avoid being crushed as the leviathan’s chin slammed into the ground, releasing a wave of slippery drool that washed over the two fugitives and made standing up on the mountainside nearly impossible.
Erasmus’s top two buttons on his gambeson sprung open, and he shoved the gnome inside before he lost his grip on him and they were separated. He closed the buttons again, using the incorporeal part of himself to seize the garment underneath the slippery mess. An instant later, he landed on his back and began to slide down the mountain in front of the monster.
“Damned filthy beast!” The Popinjay cried, managing to pull himself up onto his feet again, though he was unable to prevent himself from continuing to slide downhill on the rock slider’s saliva. He drew the backsword from his belt, sticking both it and his chin in the air. Dell peeked out over the lapels of the adventurer’s armored coat as Erasmus waved his blade and roared a challenge at the enormous animal.
“Let’s see what you’ve got then, you overgrown mountain-fish! I’ve met bigger and uglier than you!” Even with his supernaturally-enhanced balance, Erasmus windmilled his arms and swayed back and forth, struggling to remain standing as he skated backwards down the mountain.
The rock slider spared them a quick glance as The Popinjay’s sword reflected the late afternoon sun, but it was far more interested in the larger prey that had slid past earlier and was now approaching the bottom of the slope. Still, the pair were unable to avoid it as the hulking brute began to move, gliding on the slime it released from its mouth and from between the bony scales that covered its stomach.
Dell felt his bones shake as the creature made a call that began in a lower register than his ears could even pick up, gradually rising to become a deep, rumbling bellow that echoed off the terrain around them and across the valley below. Erasmus bent at the knees and leaned forward to avoid falling again, his arm across his face to shield it from the blast of sound. When the leading edge of the rock slider’s lower jaw struck him, he tumbled head-over-heels into its mouth. Erasmus lashed out with his sword, but continued to slide deeper into the beast’s maw. Finally, he pulled the knife from his belt, and stabbed it into the slime-covered gums of the creature.
Dellromoz watched The Popinjay strike at the monster around them with the backsword, but it was like trying to fight a horse with a sharp blade of grass.
“What do I do?!”
“Your guess is as good as mine, I’m afraid,” Erasmus told him, “I don’t think pluck and swordsmanship are going to be enough this time.” He jerked to the side in time to dodge a boulder that the monster had swept up, before it shunted the unwanted debris out the “gills” behind its head using a series of ridges on the back of its tongue.
Watching the rock as it was spat out behind and to the side of the rock slider, Dell had an idea.
“Try to hold still,” he shouted, trying to be heard over the rumble of the massive beast sliding down the mountain. “I may be able to get use out, but there’s a chance I could hurt you as well!”
“Take the chance! Being swallowed by a rock slider won’t do me any good!”
Unable to argue with that logic, Dell did his best to focus his mind on that part of himself where the magic came from. With willpower born of desperation, he pried open the source just enough to draw power, but refused to allow it to burst open and transform him completely. There was a slightly orange glow to his eyes as he opened them, like they were lit from behind by a campfire. He turned his head toward the rock slider’s enormous tongue and screamed, channeling the heat through his throat and out his mouth with the sound of his voice.
Dellromoz felt his insides vibrate with the beast’s cry again as the smell of charred meat filled the air. The monster drew its tongue away from the two of them, sealing its throat closed as well as the opposite side of its mouth. A wave of slimy saliva washed toward them along the beast’s gums, and Erasmus pulled his knife out just before the wave struck the two. With surprising force, they were spat out of the huge animal’s gills, and arced through the air before they hit the mountainside, bouncing and rolling to a stop.
With a groan, Dellromoz climbed out of Erasmus’s gambeson, bruised and covered in rock slider drool, but otherwise unharmed. The mistwalker muttered something about a couple of broken ribs, and rummaged through his pockets for a spare bone to consume and repair them.
They both watched as the animal that had nearly swallowed them reached the bottom of the slope and crashed into one of the smaller brutes, its mouth wide-open. The smaller creature had been slowly slithering sideways, trying to get away, but it was no use. The larger one nearly bit it in half when they collided, and the sound of the tremendous impact echoed across the valley, causing both Dell and Erasmus to flinch when it reached them.
The old swordsman struggled to his feet and offered the gnome a hand up.
“Let’s get off this blasted hill before anything else sees us,” he said.
Nodding his head in agreement, Dellromoz took the proffered hand, and pulled himself to his feet. The two started walking.