The Sea Devil's Eye - Mel Odom [105]
"I'm sorry," Glawinn said. Despite the plate mail the paladin wore, he moved almost as soundlessly as a shadow. "Azla and I have found another cave entrance that leads down to where Vurgrom and his men are."
"What are they doing?"
"It looks like they're waiting, lady."
"For what?"
"I couldn't say. I came back for you so that you could join us. Whatever Vurgrom is here to do, this is the place he's going to do it."
Sabyna waited until the three pirates standing guard were talking again and not looking in her direction be-fore she eased down the hillside, taking care not to disturb the brush. When they were safely out of sight, Glawinn offered his hand and helped her up.
The paladin took the lead, following the small ditch that zigzagged behind the rocky knoll where the cave was. Agenais lay to the south, not quite five miles away, about the same distance it was to the cover where Azure Dagger lay waiting, hidden from Maelstrom's crew. From the way Azla had it figured, they stood near the heart of the island.
She trotted after Glawinn, avoiding the loose rock spills that had tumbled down into the ditch. The center of the island tended to be rockier than the outer edge. Loose limestone shale rose in pockets or showed in the parched, cracked land of the interior.
The limestone was a natural filter and removed the salt from the ocean in the numerous pockets and caves that formed in the island's heart. Rainfall added to the local water supply, trapped in natural and artificed cisterns. The limestone foundation also provided for the honeycomb effect of caves under the island. These caves were once the lair of brigands, who had been rooted out centuries before.
Her muscles ached from fatigue, short hours of sleep while they shared guard duty at night, and sleeping on the hard ground. Azla had decided that only the three of them would attempt to get close to Vurgrom's pirates. A dozen pirates from Azure Dagger waited at a hidden campsite half a mile away, providing them a position to fall back to if they were discovered.
Glawinn stopped ahead and pulled at a clump of brush that covered a narrow slash in the earth forming the knoll. It wasn't quite opposite the cave Vurgrom had entered, but Sabyna didn't think it missed by much.
The paladin turned sideways and fit himself inside. The slash extended up through the knoll, almost to the top, and allowed a narrow crack of the waning sunlight into the passage.
The ground was treacherous with loose rock and pebbles. Nearly forty feet into the passage, they lost the sunlight, and the air around them turned cool. Condensation chill to the touch glistened on the rocky walls and ceiling.
The passageway continued to go down and bear slightly to the left. Long minutes later, Glawinn waved her to slow down even more. They moved cautiously, deeper into the knoll.
Sabyna's hand trailed across the cracked surface of the passageway, feeling the jutting shale. The rock edges were sharp enough to cut if a person accidentally ran into them in the dark. Luckily, there was enough natural light coming from ahead to illuminate the passageway.
Azla, dressed in black chain mail and dark clothing, crouched on a narrow ledge ahead. She glanced at them briefly, a hand holding her scimitar across her knees, then returned her attention to the scene playing out before her. She wore a short bow and a quiver of arrows across her back. A spear rested on the stone floor at her side.
Glawinn touched a forefinger to his lip in caution as he hunkered down beside the pirate queen. He placed his shield against the wall at his side.
Sabyna crept closer, dropping to her knees between them to peer down into the cave below.
"Aye, and she was a feisty one," Vurgrom was saying. He sat on an ale cask in the center of a ring of seventeen pirates clustered around a campfire that poured oily black smoke against the cave ceiling thirty feet above. The cave looked at least three times that wide. He drank deeply and noisily from a tin mug, then wiped the ale foam from