Song of the Saurials - Kate Novak [101]
Alias didn't bother to translate the paladin's correction. "You said I sang about Moander's plans. What did I sing? I have no recollection of it whatsoever."
Grypht quoted the lyrics of the first verse of Alias's soul song. "'We are ready for the seed. Where is the seed? Find the seed. Bring the seed.'"
"What seed?" Alias asked.
"We don't know," Grypht said. "Obviously it is something Moander wants very badly, and he thinks Nameless will bring it to him. The second verse of your song went, 'Nameless is found. Nameless must join us. Nameless will find the seed. Nameless will bring the seed.'"
"And then you screamed," Dragonbait interjected.
"Yes!" Alias exclaimed, suddenly remembering what had made her scream out in fear. "Nameless is in terrible danger! We must find him before it's too late!
Moander is trying to turn him into one of its minions!"
*****
Olive shifted in her sleep from one uncomfortable position to another. Somewhere far overhead, birds started to chirp loudly. Olive came half awake, but from the back of her mind came a reminder that she didn't want to be awake, so she kept her eyes closed and ignored the birds. A beam of sunlight struck her face. Olive drew her hood up over her eyes. Then her stomach rumbled.
"Damn!" the halfling grumbled. She glared up angrily at the well shaft overhead, which taunted her with its inaccessibility. If only it had been nearer a wall, they could escape. She was experienced at climbing walls. Unfortunately, she couldn't hang from ceilings, and the well came out in the center of the ceiling.
She sat up and rubbed the sleep out of her eyes.
"Stupid well!" she muttered, rummaging through her knapsack. There wasn't any fruit left. She and Finder had finished it off last night. Buried in the bottom of the knapsack, she found three stale sweet rolls. She left two for the bard and took one for herself, nibbling at it slowly as she studied the excavation Finder had begun last night.
The bard had climbed to the top of the passageway wall, where he had dug into the dirt and pounded at the stone with Olive's broken shovel until he'd created a second shaft in the ceiling. It was all of four feet deep. He'd finally slipped down from the wall, frustrated and exhausted. In the morning light, Olive judged the old well shaft to be at least fifty feet deep. She estimated it would take about a week for one man and a half-ling to dig that far straight up.
Finder was trying to angle his shaft toward the well shaft, hoping to connect with it so they could climb out the rest of the way through the well. Since the well shaft was only twenty feet from Finder's shaft, digging to it should only take days… days without water or food.
Olive crept over to the corner where Finder lay sleeping. He slept like the dead, heavy and still. Asleep, the power of his voice and the animation of his face were not apparent, and he looked far older. Once he'd been lord of the ruined manor house somewhere above them, commanding the respect of his peers and the worship of his apprentices. Now he was curled up like a corpse, buried alive by his own magical horn.
Olive studied his face and hands carefully. There were no signs of vegetation growing out of his ears or his wrists. There was no hint of green in his skin.
Maybe Finder had been right and his clothing had protected him from whatever had burst out of the burr.
Something clattered in the passage behind Olive. The halfling swung around with her dagger drawn. Pebbles were rolling from the top of the fresh wall of dirt created when Olive had collapsed the ceiling. Something was shifting inside the pile.
Olive knelt beside the bard and shook his shoulder frantically. "Finder!" she whined.
Finder groaned and looked up groggily at the halfling. "Go 'way," he growled.
"Finder, something's trying to get in by digging through the cave-in!" Olive whispered urgently.
The bard sat up and reached for Olive's sword, which he'd been using as a dagger.
A large rock tumbled down the pile, and a muck-encrusted vine as thick as Olive's arm slithered out from where