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The Copper didn’t wait to see whether it would die or not.
“Enjor—which way?”
“Oook.”
He threw the helmet at the bats. “Lead the way, curse you!”
The bat flapped off and the others followed. The Copper kept up, and as the fright seeped out of their bodies they collected themselves in a cramped corner, where he could press up against the ceiling with the bats, catching his breath.
He listened for that bone-rattle sound of the thing’s feet, but heard only his own hearts pounding.
“You killed a cave scorpion,” some young nephew of Mamedi’s—Uthaned, he thought the creature’s name was—said.
“The dead men did the fighting for me,” the Copper replied.
“What be that to us? Bug juice is poor in vitality,” Mamedi said. “Besides, w’be leaving the body behind.”
“Ooo, m’be famished, how about—” one of Mamedi’s relations began.
“None of that, now,” Thernadad said. “Our host has done enough. Suck air and saliva for a bit.”
The Copper hardly heard them. He wished he hadn’t thrown away that helmet in a fit of temper. If nothing else, he could poke the more annoying bats with it.
“Good news, m’lord,” Enjor said.
“Almost any change could be good news.” Food, freshwater, an end to all these twists and turns. Even a change in light level. He was tired of groping through the dark, led on by bat yeeks from patch of dim moss to patch of dim moss.
“W’be at the river.”
The Copper had been walking for the last thousand paces or so with just one eye open, trying to sleep as he slid his three good legs forward and hopped over his bad.
“How far?”
“Y’be smelling it just over this next incline.”
The bats flew wearily ahead. He climbed up a rocky tunnel. Someone had cleared a path of loose boulders.
“All I smell is dwarf.”
“Must be a’fighting with the demen again,” Thernadad said.
They passed over a makeshift wall in the tunnel, the source of all the loose boulders, and descended. The Copper smelled wood: Splintered shields lay all about, some with arrows growing out of them. He extracted a few arrowheads and swallowed them. What had made this dark pocket of emptiness worth fighting over?
“M’perishing,” Thernadad gasped.
“We’ll rest.”
The Copper hoped he could find fish in the river. His appetite had progressed from tickle to gnaw to worry two marches ago. He curled up. Past the “wall” the tunnel turned into another series of chambers leading off in various directions, mostly down.
“Lights. Lights!”
It took the Copper a moment to realize that he’d been asleep. He shook his head, clearing cobwebs some industrious spider had woven on his ear. He scanned the downslope with his good eye, marked the beams of light waving around, probing corners.
Behind the beams of light he saw the outlines of glowing beards and thick curves of light-frosted helmets. Dwarves.
“A’searching the cavern,” Thernadad said. “Better run, sir.”
“I don’t think I’m up to it,” the Copper said. “Here, all of you gather ’round; let’s go down this incline. Oh, never mind the damp…I’ve got an idea.”
