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  Soon, the slope steepened, and the expedition was forced to climb. Ascending proved little trouble for the basilisks, the Midknights, or the pirate-trained Chun Ping and Rik. The rest required assistance, especially the mages and Lita. Baron Robellar struggled, too, though he tried not to let it show.

  As morning stretched into early afternoon, the heat and humidity intensified. Sweat poured down Rik’s face, and his muscles ached as though they might cramp at any moment. Keeping Lita in line was proving more and more troublesome. The generous view he got of her round ass as they climbed didn’t lessen his annoyance.

  By the time they reached an outcrop large enough for all twelve of them to rest on, even the basilisks seemed exhausted. The group sat together, panting and drinking water. For long minutes, no one spoke.

  Finally, Memnon asked, “How much treasure do you think we’ll find?”

  Rik resisted the urge to roll his eyes. One or the other of the Midknights had started this conversation at least a half-dozen times during the voyage. Did they expect the answer to change?

  “There’s no way of knowing,” Persha replied.

  “The wealth should be considerable,” Reifworm added. “There are no reports of those who slew Sanguinarre returning with any treasure.”

  “Some wizards are not interested in gold,” Chun Ping said, looking disdainfully at Reifworm.

  “Only fools and priests don’t want money,” Robellar said. “The riches of the Blood-Red Queen were nearly incalculable.” He chuckled. “There should be plenty to go around.”

  “Even after you take your generous share for financing this little expedition,” Memnon added.

  “I don’t think we’ve much cause to grumble,” Wharkun added jovially. “All our shares are somewhat larger now.” He glanced meaningfully at the basilisks, but if the lizard-men felt offended by the derenki’s offhand reference to their dead friend, they didn’t show it.

  Persha stood, shielded her eyes against the afternoon glare, and gazed upslope.

  “What is it?” Lita asked nervously. “What do you see?”

  “Ruins, I think,” the mage replied. “Not very far off. It’s hard to make out through the greenery.”

  “I will check,” Al-Shakir said. “All of you wait here and rest. Even if this is an entrance to the palace of the Blood-Red Queen, we still have a long way to go.”

  “I’m well rested now,” Wharkun said, “and tired of waiting around, sweating.” He made to follow.

  “Sit down and do as Al-Shakir says,” Robellar told him. “I’m paying him to make decisions, not you.”

  Reluctantly, the big derenki plopped himself down on a nearby rock.

  Rik tried not to let his disdain for Wharkun’s attitude show. Most of Rik’s companions seemed entirely too eager to stick their necks out—and it was usually the warrior with his neck farthest out who got his head chopped off. Only Chun Ping seemed to be taking a sensible, mercenary attitude toward this business; all the rest seemed swept up in treasure fever.

  A short time later, Al-Shakir returned. “The way ahead is easier,” he said, “and the ruins are not far. I cannot tell if they lead to the main part of the castle, though.”

  “Anything to get out of this accursed jungle, even for a minute!” Lita said. She wiped her hands on the dirty silk of her flimsy outfit.

  “Be careful what you wish for,” Chun Ping warned.

  “I’m with the girl,” Memnon said. “I’ve had enough of this hellish green sweatbox. Sanguinarre and her people are dead and gone, so what are we waiting for? Let’s go.”

  “Armstrung,” Robellar commanded, “take the basilisks and help Al-Shakir blaze the trail.”

  “What about her?” Rik asked, indicating Lita.

  “Wharkun can help Lita,” the baron replied. “When he’s up front, he slows us down anyway.”

  Rik nodded. Wharkun, rather than being stung by the baron’s remark, flashed Rik a secret grin. An old pirate adage about “a pyromaniac tending the powder” leapt to Rik’s mind, but he said nothing. He wasn’t being paid to make decisions.

  The slope ahead flattened out gradually, and Rik, Al-Shakir, and the basilisks made good time cutting their way to the edge of the ruins.

  It was difficult to tell whether the tumbledown stone keep had once been an outpost for the queen’s guards, or if it was a lower entrance to the palace itself. The ruin’s crumbling walls ran upslope, into the jungle, before vanishing into the side of the mountain. Thorny vines crowded the tower’s gaping entrance. Beyond the tangled vegetation lay darkness.

  “A fine, grand midden,” Antiope noted as she and the rest of the group caught up.

  “I will enter first, my lord,” Al-Shakir said, “to make sure it is safe.”

  “The living have nothing to fear from the dead,” Robellar replied, but his glance told Al-Shakir to proceed.

  Persha handed the bodyguard a glowstone, and Al Shakir set it in the golden band around his forehead. Then he hacked through the vines and stepped inside the crumbling tower.

  A few moments later, he called back, “I see no danger. There is a passage sloping upward. Perhaps it leads to the palace.”

  “Good,” Robellar said. “Armstrung, you and the basilisks next. The rest of us will follow.”

  Persha offered Rik a glowstone, but he shook his head; he didn’t have a headband to set it in, and he wanted both hands free in case he needed to fight. Grif and Brak pushed through the portal ahead of him, brushing aside the tangled vines. The thorns protruding from the twisted branches did not bother the lizard-men’s scaly hides. Rick followed, hacking aside many of the remaining green tendrils.

  The interior of the keep was humid and cool. A few tiny shafts of light leaked in from holes high above in the stone walls. The holes and the light from Al-Shakir’s glowstone revealed a broad, dark space filled with vines and crumbling interior walls. The place appeared as though it had been deserted for centuries, rather than just a few years.

  “Gods of wrath!” Memnon cried from the doorway.

  Rik wheeled, his cutlass at the ready.

  Memnon stood at the threshold, clutching at his right biceps. A small trickle of blood fell from the Midknight’s arm onto the vine-covered floor. “The damned plant stabbed me!”

  The baron eyed the long thorns growing from the twisting vines that filled the chamber. He looked annoyed and rumbled, “Be more careful.”

  “Our lord is right,” Al-Shakir said. “The danger is only beginning. All of you would do well to be more wary.” He turned and led the group upward, into the darkened tower’s interior. The others followed, though Rik paused for a moment beside a tall pile of rubble.

  For a moment, he would have sworn he felt the ground tremble. The tremor was as light as a footfall, but Rik didn’t think that it was caused by anyone in their group. Spotting nothing unusual, he turned and caught up with the rest.

  Walking just ahead of him, Memnon muttered, “‘Be more wary.’ Pfah!”

  “He’s not our lord,” Antiope griped as the baron vanished in the darkness ahead of them.

  “Keep moving,” Rik urged.

  A crumbling stone stairway exited the far side of the chamber. The stair ascended in a straight line, angling—as near as they could tell—toward the mountain top. Mossy vines, looking like decrepit green hair, dangled from the roof of the corridor.

  The moss didn’t impede their progress, but several times its wispy touch made Wharkun and the Midknights jump. Lita cowered away from the plants, as afraid of the moss as she was of everything else. Robellar paid little attention to his concubine, but Wharkun doted on her, making sure she didn’t trip or fall.

  The derenki took every opportunity to touch Lita’s bare skin, or to “accidentally” brush against her breasts or buttocks while “helping” her. In Rik’s estimation, Wharkun was playing a dangerous game. Still, as the derenki himself had pointed out, the fewer that survived this expedition, the larger the shares for the rest.

&n
bsp; Light soon streamed from the passage’s exit. Beyond the opening lay more of the verdant mountain slope. Clearly the stairway did not run all the way to the castle. Rik fought down a pang of disappointment.

  The group exited onto an irregular shelf of vine-covered rock, dotted with boulders, about halfway up the mountain. Several hundred feet above, the bare rock of the mountainside protruded from the jungle. Beyond that, more jungle, though Rik thought he could make out a hint of architectural lines and angles amid the foliage.

  “Not more climbing!” Lita complained. She gasped as the hot afternoon air hit them all like a slap in the face.

  “Did you expect this was going to be a picnic, girl?” Chun Ping snapped.

  Robellar glared at the pirate captain, but Chun Ping didn’t back down. She returned his stare until Al-Shakir stepped between them. Chun backed away to the edge of the shelf, crossed her arms over her chest, and leaned up against one of the boulders.

  “A rockslide, do you think?” Persha asked, eying the bare cliff face.

  “Undoubtedly,” Reifworm replied. “Notice the rocks on the shelf we’re standing on are not covered with vines. The slide happened recently, which may work to our advantage.” His gray eyes beamed with greedy anticipation.

  “How so?” Robellar asked.

  “We know the queen had extensive dungeons below the palace,” Reifworm said. “A rockslide as large as the one that did this,” he indicated the boulders piled up around them, “may have exposed previously hidden recesses of those dungeons.”

  “Did Sanguinarre hide her wealth in the dungeons?” Wharkun asked.

  “The only way to know is to look,” Reifworm replied.

  “We should climb now,” Al-Shakir said. “We want to reach the summit—and the palace—before nightfall.”

  “Yes,” Robellar agreed. “Everyone, make for that cliff. Al-Shakir, you and the basilisks lead the way. Chun Ping, you can bring up the rear.”

  The pirate captain glared at the baron.

  Antiope giggled and whispered to Memnon, “Shit duty for the captain again. You think she’d be used to it!” The two Midknights grinned at Chun Ping; she ignored them.

  Rik cast the pirate a sympathetic glance and then climbed upslope ahead of her.

  The rockslide had crushed parts of the jungle between the shelf and the exposed slope. This made the going easier, though the ground remained soft and treacherous. Snaking vines constantly threatened to trip up the treasure hunters, and thorns pricked at their exposed skin.

  Wharkun carried Lita on his back part of the way, protecting the concubine from the worst scrapes and bruises. She whimpered and muttered under her breath the whole time.

  Rik found himself wishing the big man would slip and squash her. From the anger still burning in Chun Ping’s eyes, he guessed the pirate felt the same.

  A garden of boulders of all shapes and sizes awaited them on the shelf at the end of the climb. Beyond gaped a huge cave-like entrance in the side of the mountain. Enormous vines, some as thick as a man’s waist, thrust out of the cave and cascaded down the side of the mountain. To Rick, the vines looked like the grasping fingers of a titanic emerald giant.

  “A short break, I think,” Robellar announced, sweating. “Then we’ll go in.”

  Wharkun set Lita down on a flat rock and took a drink from his waterskin. The girl rubbed her toes, griping all the while. Al-Shakir, Grif, and Brak loped forward, peering into the cavern’s dark interior, scouting the dangers ahead. Rik took a drink and checked his weapons, as did the baron. Persha and Reifworm mopped their faces with the sleeves of their robes and engaged in an animated conversation about the strata in the stone of the cliff face. Chun Ping shook her head and leaned against one of the toppled boulders.

  As she did, a loud CRACK! shook the mountainside. The rock behind the pirate captain gave way, and she fell backward, cursing.

  Rik reached for her, but, as he did, the crumbled rock beneath his feet gave way, too. In an instant, a huge swath of rubble began sliding down the mountainside.

  Lita screamed.

  III. The Red Queen’s Dungeons

  Chun Ping reached for Rik, but he leapt back, trying to save his own life, and grabbed hold of a stout vine at the edge of the slide. The pirate’s eyes pleaded with him, but there was nothing Rik could do as she tumbled down the mountainside.

  Robellar was shouting something—orders probably—but Rik couldn’t make the words out. His blood pounded in his ears and sweat poured down his skin. He gripped the vine with all his might as the rocks beneath him crumbled and crashed down the slope.

  The vine gave under his weight. It slipped only a foot, enough to dangle Rik’s toes above a torrent of stone. Grunting with pain, the former pirate gritted his teeth and pulled himself up, praying to the gods that the vine would not break as he climbed. He reached a wider branch of the plant and clung there, panting. Only then did he dare glance over his shoulder to look for Chun Ping.

  The pirate had been caught in a stony wave. Chun Ping screamed, terrified, as the rockslide carried her toward the beach far below. The stones smashed through the brush, scouring a wide swath down to the muddy jungle floor.

  Chun Ping tried to claw her way free, but she remained trapped in the middle of the slide. She reached for branches to pull herself free, but they lay just out of reach. A series of sickening snaps and soggy impacts echoed upslope, detailing the abuse the pirate’s trim body was suffering.

  Then the slide surged up, cresting, and tossed Chun Ping high into the air. She landed with a bone-rending crunch atop a broken tree. The trunk skewered her. Blood spurted from her mouth and she hung there, like a butterfly pinned to a display, her face a mask of horror.

  Rik turned away and concentrated on maintaining his grip on the vine. The ground shuddered for a few more moments, and then the rockslide ceased. In its wake, it left a bare, muddy slope all the way down to the beach, more than a thousand feet below.

  “Gods of Wrath and Mercy!” Wharkun exclaimed. He picked himself out of the brush on the far side of the swath and dusted himself off.

  “Not much mercy for Chun Ping,” Memnon said, coughing and waving dust away from his face.

  Antiope got up slowly. “She should have been more careful.”

  Rik looked around and saw that all the others—even Lita—had survived. Brak and Grif appeared unscathed and unfazed by the ordeal. They and Al-Shakir, who was also unharmed, had been scouting ahead, and thus were farthest away from the collapse. All the rest were battered and scraped to various degrees. The worst injury seemed to be a fist-sized bruise above Persha’s left eye.

  “How will we get home without Chun Ping?” the mage asked, rubbing her forehead.

  “She’s not the only one who can sail a boat,” Rik called. He secured his grip on the vines and tried not to think about what would happen if he didn’t hold on. “A little help here!” Wharkun and Al-Shakir cautiously made their way over to him.

  “Don’t worry, Baron,” Reifworm said. “I imagine that it will be easier to sail away from this island than it was to reach it.”

  “I hope so,” Robellar replied.

  Wharkun extended a hand and helped Rik climb back up to the shelf in front of the cavern entrance.

  “Lucky break there,” the big derenki said.

  “Not for Chun Ping,” Rik replied, casting a glance toward the dead pirate. He doubted he’d ever forget the look on her face as he snatched away his extended hand. That decision had allowed him to survive but, despite Rik’s years of warrior experience, it had been a difficult choice. Of all the people in the company, Chun Ping had been his favorite.

  Al-Shakir stared down slope. “Now we are ten,” he said, frowning.

  Eleven, thought Rick. Not that it matters.

  “Well, I bloody well hope you’re not expecting another of us to jump off this cliff to make you a better magic number, Al-Shakir!” Wharkun rumbled.

  The bodyguard shook his head. “Nine is just as b
ad as ten. Eight would be better.”

  Wharkun glared at him.

  “Losing Chun Ping is tragic,” Robellar said calmly, “but we’ll compensate her people when we get back.”

  Antiope rubbed her bruised knees. “So, you’ll be paying our heirs, too, if we get killed?” she asked. “You’ll be paying the lizard-man’s kin?”

  Robellar shook his head. “That wasn’t our agreement. Full shares for survivors only.”

  “So why the special treatment for Chun Ping?” Memnon asked.

  “My agreement wasn’t with her,” Robellar replied. “It was with her superiors in the Sisterhood.”

  That shut the Midknights up. Few in the World-Sea dared to trifle with the Sisterhood.

  “I guess they’ll be wanting their boat back, then,” Wharkun put in.

  “When we’re finished with it, yes,” Robellar said. He peered from the mercenaries to the gaping hole in the mountainside. “Come on.” The baron’s brown eyes gleamed with anticipation as he drew his longsword and stepped into the darkness.

  Persha and Reifworm brought out their glowstones as the rest of the group followed. Al-Shakir hurried to catch up with his employer. Rik peered warily into the gloom.

  Beyond the crumbling entryway lay a huge underground chamber. Clearly, the room had once been part of a dungeon complex—small doorways led off of the main chamber into tiny, foul-smelling cells. Rusty cages, iron maidens, charred braziers, and instruments of torture lay scattered around the overgrown floor. The room was roughly circular, and, on its far side, a crumbling stone stairway wound up the wall. Nearer at hand, another stairway spiraled down into deeper darkness. Broken rocks and rubble littered the floor of the dungeon.

  Thorny creepers covered everything. Many of the vines were thicker than a warrior’s arm, and some were wider than a tree trunk. The vegetation spilled down from above, a cascade of greenery clinging to the walls and the floor. Verdant stems twined through the cages and over the cell doors, which had been wrenched off their hinges. It was as though the terrible vegetation had stormed the room and seized and crushed everything within. Amid the rubble and foliage lay more than a dozen moldering skeletons.