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.When he got fully into the sloping chute, he turned sideways, bracing with his hands and feet on opposite walls.“Pikel?” Shayleigh asked breathlessly, for the whistling had stopped.“Oo oi!” came the hearty reply from below, and Shayleigh felt the weight on her foot as the second brother began his climb up the longbow.Pikel thoughtfully took the bow with him as he scaled Shayleigh, then slipped into the corridor and crossed over Ivan, planting his wet sandals firmly against the stretched-out Ivan’s side and reaching back over his brother to help Shayleigh.This was the trickiest part of the maneuver, for Pikel and Ivan had to somehow open the doorway wide enough and long enough for Shayleigh to get through, and at the same time give the elf something solid to hold on to.Pikel braced his club against the door, between Shayleigh’s outstretched and aching arms.“When me brother pushes, ye gotta let go with one hand and get it up to me,” Ivan instructed.“Ye ready?”“Open it,” Shayleigh begged, and slowly, Pikel 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!”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?”Cadderly put a hand on Danica’s arm to stop her from leaping out at the foul man.She might get to him, might well kill him, but they had no chance of defeating this mob.Unless…Cadderly heard the song playing in his thoughts, had a strange feeling that some powerful minion of his god was calling to him, instructing him, compelling him to hear the harmony of the music.The evil priest cackled and clapped his hands and the floor in front of him heaved suddenly, rose up and took a gigantic, humanoid shape.“Elementals,” Danica breathed, drawing Cadderly’s attention.Indeed, two creatures from the plane of earth had arisen to the evil priest’s beckoning, and Cadderly realized that this man must be formidable indeed to command such powerful allies.But Cadderly shook the dark thought away, fell back into the song, heard the music rising to a glorious crescendo.“He is spellcasting!” one of the other priests cried out, and the warning sent the whole of the enemy force into wild action.The foot soldiers charged, weapons waving, lips wetted with eager drool
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