Red Magic - Jean Rabe [138]
The stench of the cloud of darkenbeasts assailed the druid as he glided over the bodies of skeletons and zombies and joined with the malign creatures hovering overhead. The darkenbeasts were so numerous that the druid couldn't count them. Hundreds of animals perverted by the Red Wizard, he thought. Galvin fought back a wave of nausea and kept his mind occupied by thinking of Brenna and Wynter.
Several minutes passed… then a half-hour. The druid hoped Wynter was leading the sorceress out of the mine. An hour drifted by, the druid estimated. Then finally part of the cloud separated, and a few dozen of the beasts peeled off and headed down a tunnel. Galvin followed them.
Through a darkened maze of twisting tunnels, the darkenbeasts and the druid flew. In places, they virtually hovered as they navigated sharp turns. The tunnels angled sharply downward, and at one point, it appeared the tunnel ahead had collapsed. The darkenbeasts veered off into a natural chamber to the north, from which the sounds of picks hitting rocks drifted. The druid hovered behind his sorcerous brethren to scrutinize the battered support beams. It appeared they had been hacked through with some kind of weapon. Perhaps that part of the mine was no longer valuable, the druid surmised.
Flying into the natural chamber to catch up with the darkenbeasts, the druid's beak flew open in surprise. The walls of this cavern looked as if they had been painted with gold. The veins were so thick and so close together that little of the rock showed between them. A crew of slave miners was hard at work mining the area.
Beating his wings faster, Galvin caught up with the grotesque flock. The darkenbeasts wound through a series of small chambers, all circled by thick veins of ore. The last chamber they entered was huge-larger even than the one in which the skeletons and zombies had died. Magical orbs of light spaced about the room caused the thick veins to shine and made them look like gold ribbons circling and dancing about the cavern.
All the men working here had long, tangled hair, pale white skin, and bony frames, evidence they had been slaving here for years. They struck at the veins with their picks almost in unison, as if their movements were orchestrated. All but one man, that is. At the far edge of the cavern, standing on a rise of rocks several feet above the chamber floor, was a red-robed man with a mass of black hair and a well-nourished frame. A white skull on a black field gleamed in the magical light. Maligor.
The druid's heart raced.
Galvin hid amidst the group of darkenbeasts, which had begun to circle the chamber. Concentrating, he focused on a knob of rock against the wall behind the Red Wizard. It quivered as the druid mentally shaped it, willing it to come forward. For an instant, the rock trembled, then it shot forward like a fist, striking Maligor solidly in the back.
The Red Wizard fell face forward from his stone pedestal to the floor of the cavern below. The slaves dropped their picks and looked blankly about the chamber. With Maligor unconscious, or perhaps dead, the wizard's control on the slaves was over. Still flying with the darkenbeasts, Galvin watched as the slave miners glanced at the chamber walls, then at Maligor, who appeared to be still breathing. A handful of the slaves grabbed their picks, and for a moment, the druid thought they would begin working on the mines again. But instead the men began to advance toward Maligor,