Storm of the Dead - Lisa Smedman [62]
Several moments passed. The Protectors stood patiently, waiting for Cavatina's orders, but the mages and Nightshadows were getting restless.
Where were those svirfneblin?
A sending came from the priestess Cavatina had ordered into the tunnel. I'm two hundred and fifty paces in, Halav reported. All clear so far.
A moment later, Kвras climbed back to where Cavatina stood. "I've just found a svirfneblin in the water," he said in a low voice. "Dead."
"Show me."
She followed him down the rockfall, a handful of the others trailing behind her. As they approached, she spotted a ripple in the water, a few paces out on the Moondeep: a small animal, swimming. It looked like a rat. As if sensing her presence, the rat dived beneath the surface and vanished.
Kвras squatted beside the water. There, he signed, pointing to a water-filled crevice between the rocks.
Cavatina kneeled beside him. It was a deep gnome, all right, little bigger than a child, but with a stocky body that bulged with muscle. Cavatina reached into the water, gently pulled the body out, and set it on the rocks at her feet. The head was missing, and by the ragged look of the neck it had been yanked or chewed off. Whether that had happened before or after the deep gnome died was impossible to tell. There weren't any other visible wounds. The svirfneblin's clothing-plain leather trousers and a sleeveless shirt-was also undamaged. His feet were bare; perhaps he'd been swimming when he died.
"Eilistraee's mercy," she whispered.
The others crowded close, staring down at the corpse. Q'arlynd squatted next to it. He lifted a limp hand and studied it a moment, then let it fall.
Daffir passed a hand over the body, not quite touching it. His other hand tightened on his staff. "A bad omen."
Cavatina didn't need magic to tell her that.
"Is this our guide?" the female wizard asked.
Kвras stared grimly down at it. "Not anymore."
Another sending from Halav: I'm five hundred paces in. No sign of the svirfneblin, aside from a prospector's pick. Looks like it was dropped here. No telling when.
The svirfneblin's gray flesh had a waxy, bloated look. Despite its immersion in cold water, the body was starting to smell.
"If this is our guide, he arrived several days early." Cavatina stood and glanced at the reflection of Selыne and the scattering of Tears that trailed the moon's reflection as it slid slowly across the Moondeep. "We'll continue to wait. We'll give it until moonset."
"Waiting is a waste of time." Kвras said. "No guide's going to show. Not after what happened to this fellow."
"We don't know that," Cavatina said. "If we leave now, we'll have to guess which way to go once we've reached the limits of our map, which will mean an even greater waste of time." She nodded to the wizards. "That won't sit well with the masters of your colleges."
Several of the mages nodded.
The sun elf, however, shook his head. "I see no point in waiting," Khorl said. "When we reach the end of the mapped region, my magic will show us the way. Unlike the rest of you, I can still cast divinations, despite the Faerzress that surrounds us."
Cavatina shook her head firmly. "Kiaransalee's priestesses may be crazed, but they aren't fools. They'll have warded their cavern with protections similar to those of the Promenade. Your divinations may find the path-or they may not. In case they can't, we stick to the original plan. We wait."
She pointed at the corpse. "In the meantime, do any of you know what should be done? What the svirfneblin customs are when dealing with the dead? When our guide shows up, we don't want to offend him."
"I do," Q'arlynd said. "I had a… an ally, years ago, who was svirfneblin. He told me about the god the deep gnomes venerate-Callarduran Smoothhands, master of stone. When a deep gnome dies, it's appropriate for him to be 'returned to Smoothhands's embrace.'" Q'arlynd paused