She stood between a bunk bed and the door. She slowly lowered herself down and scooted under the filthy, rotting mattress and dusty wood frame as the doorknob began to turn.
The door creaked loudly as the hunter outside pushed it open and Helene slid farther back under the bed.
Torchlight from the hallway spilled into the room.
From her position, she saw two pairs of green feet with toes tipped with jagged brown nails. Drops of saliva fell to the floor, making muddy splotches in the dust.
She eased her arm up from her side, bringing the willow-shafted wand around should she need to use it.
A bugbear walked a few steps into the room and she smelled an almost overwhelming stench of unwashed body.
She bit down her reflex to gag and for a moment was reminded of the Stench Stones Dorian had pelted her with earlier. She never thought she’d be in a position to miss him. Her father’s counselor, an ancient elf named Shadizar, would have likely informed her that this was called irony.
At the moment, Helene missed even him as well.
She felt something drop onto her from the bottom of the mattress. She tensed as tiny legs scuttled up her back.
The thing’s legs were too close together to be a spider. Perhaps it was just a roach. The subterranean cockroaches were prevalent, disgusting, and huge in the underground.
The second possibility was a scorpion.
If a deathstalker scorpion were to crawl up her back and become entangled in the thick mass of her long hair, she was in very real danger. More than she already was, that is.
The poison of the deathstalker was fierce, deadly in children and the elderly, and likely to make her so sick she’d be unable to save herself if she were attacked.
In her lost haversack she possessed spell components to blunt the venom’s effects, but that was of no use to her now. And none of it would help her if she were discovered by the bugbears in the room.
The insect scurried up her body and in response she bit down hard on her trembling lower lip to stifle any sound.
A hoarse, bass voice called out from the hallway.
“You missed the weak-blood, Slake,” it complained. “Grimek hungry.”
The insect perched between Helene’s shoulder blades froze as the humanoid in the room answered, voice loud and slurred.
“I can smell elf,” Slake growled. “The elf’s not for eating. Mistress made that as plain as the ugly on your face.”
Helene closed her eyes.
A sting from a scorpion that close to her spine and central nervous system could be fatal. If the bugbears discovered her under the bed and forced her to move and act in self-defense, she was finished. There was no way that one of the aggressive, deep-earth scorpion species would not strike.
“Grimek hungry,” Grimek repeated.
“Grimek can shut his bloody great trash hole,” Slake answered.
A segmented leg explored her skin. Let it be a roach, she thought. Or a beetle. Let it be a dwarf-cursed dung beetle.
From where she lay, Helene now saw the ragged bottoms of a bugbear’s cutoff leather pants hanging down past his knees.
The creature—the one called Slake—relaxed, apparently satisfied the room was empty and lowered his weapon down in one hand so that Helene could see the tip and cross guard of a short thrusting spear.
It was stained a rusty black with what could only be old blood.
Slake sniffled loudly through his bearlike snout. “I can’t see the little elf-meat, but I can smell elf fear.”
From the doorway, the second bugbear whistled a little tune in reply. The one in the room picked up the melody after a fashion and began singing in a hoarse, off-key rasp.
“Sing a song a finger long, a pocket full of lye, four and twenty bodies baked into a pie …”
The insect began moving on her back again, scuttling up the nape of her neck to where her hair was held in place by a cloth scarf given to her by her mother in happier times.
A tiny puddle of sweat pooled in the natural hollow there. She felt the hard,
The door creaked loudly as the hunter outside pushed it open and Helene slid farther back under the bed.
Torchlight from the hallway spilled into the room.
From her position, she saw two pairs of green feet with toes tipped with jagged brown nails. Drops of saliva fell to the floor, making muddy splotches in the dust.
She eased her arm up from her side, bringing the willow-shafted wand around should she need to use it.
A bugbear walked a few steps into the room and she smelled an almost overwhelming stench of unwashed body.
She bit down her reflex to gag and for a moment was reminded of the Stench Stones Dorian had pelted her with earlier. She never thought she’d be in a position to miss him. Her father’s counselor, an ancient elf named Shadizar, would have likely informed her that this was called irony.
At the moment, Helene missed even him as well.
She felt something drop onto her from the bottom of the mattress. She tensed as tiny legs scuttled up her back.
The thing’s legs were too close together to be a spider. Perhaps it was just a roach. The subterranean cockroaches were prevalent, disgusting, and huge in the underground.
The second possibility was a scorpion.
If a deathstalker scorpion were to crawl up her back and become entangled in the thick mass of her long hair, she was in very real danger. More than she already was, that is.
The poison of the deathstalker was fierce, deadly in children and the elderly, and likely to make her so sick she’d be unable to save herself if she were attacked.
In her lost haversack she possessed spell components to blunt the venom’s effects, but that was of no use to her now. And none of it would help her if she were discovered by the bugbears in the room.
The insect scurried up her body and in response she bit down hard on her trembling lower lip to stifle any sound.
A hoarse, bass voice called out from the hallway.
“You missed the weak-blood, Slake,” it complained. “Grimek hungry.”
The insect perched between Helene’s shoulder blades froze as the humanoid in the room answered, voice loud and slurred.
“I can smell elf,” Slake growled. “The elf’s not for eating. Mistress made that as plain as the ugly on your face.”
Helene closed her eyes.
A sting from a scorpion that close to her spine and central nervous system could be fatal. If the bugbears discovered her under the bed and forced her to move and act in self-defense, she was finished. There was no way that one of the aggressive, deep-earth scorpion species would not strike.
“Grimek hungry,” Grimek repeated.
“Grimek can shut his bloody great trash hole,” Slake answered.
A segmented leg explored her skin. Let it be a roach, she thought. Or a beetle. Let it be a dwarf-cursed dung beetle.
From where she lay, Helene now saw the ragged bottoms of a bugbear’s cutoff leather pants hanging down past his knees.
The creature—the one called Slake—relaxed, apparently satisfied the room was empty and lowered his weapon down in one hand so that Helene could see the tip and cross guard of a short thrusting spear.
It was stained a rusty black with what could only be old blood.
Slake sniffled loudly through his bearlike snout. “I can’t see the little elf-meat, but I can smell elf fear.”
From the doorway, the second bugbear whistled a little tune in reply. The one in the room picked up the melody after a fashion and began singing in a hoarse, off-key rasp.
“Sing a song a finger long, a pocket full of lye, four and twenty bodies baked into a pie …”
The insect began moving on her back again, scuttling up the nape of her neck to where her hair was held in place by a cloth scarf given to her by her mother in happier times.
A tiny puddle of sweat pooled in the natural hollow there. She felt the hard,
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