Page 34 of Paladin's Hope

At least there were no flies. That was worth something. And it was cool down here, so the smell was only horrible instead of intolerable.

I wonder how many people died here, and how far they got in the rooms. Let’s see, if Thomas pulled the corpses and dumped them in the river, we could have already had the headless one, probably the one with the leg chopped off, depending on the angle, and…hmm, yes, he mentioned a room full of spikes, that would explain the one that had been gored…he must not have been willing to pull this one out. Couldn’t figure out exactly how he died, and didn’t want to risk it.

The lights came up. His view of the corpse got better. He turned his head the other way. If he was going to die, he didn’t want his last view to be the stump of a rotting neck.

He had a sudden intense wish to confess his sins and be absolved. A priest would have been nice. Another paladin would have been even better. Unfortunately he had a gnole and a doctor, one of whom probably wouldn’t be impressed by his sins and the other of which featured far too prominently in them.

Would Piper be able to tell what he’d been thinking when he died? Should he think something as a message? What sort of thing? It’s not your fault? You’re very sexy and I regret not jumping your bones?

No, don’t be ridiculous. The best thing you could think is probably, “There’s another blade right about here.”

His nose itched. He wanted to scratch it, but had a dreadful feeling that doing so might mean losing a hand.

Click.

Two blades came from overhead, just as Piper had seen. They met with an almost infinitesimal snick overhead.

Perhaps thirty seconds later, just when someone who had crouched down would have been feeling relieved and maybe straightening up a little, a second set closed like jaws, about eighteen inches away from his face.

“Clever,” said Galen, because the alternative was to piss himself. “Very clever.”

The light through the holes in the blades mingled with the flickering of the oil lamp. It was like looking up through a supremely deadly cheese.

It’s a good thing you’re a paladin, because you would never have made it as a poet. A deadly cheese? Really?

Six minutes was an interminably long time to wait to scratch one’s nose. It felt like hours. He finally slid his hand up and scratched because possibly losing a hand was preferable to another minute with his nose on fire.

He had just sagged with relief when the blades slid back. Galen caught a glimpse of a third set above the rest. Ah. In case someone was quick enough to jump on top of the first set. Even more clever.

He waited another minute, just to be sure, then sat up. He could hear knocking on the door and scrambled to his feet to go alert his companions that he was still alive.

“You were right!” he yelled through the door. “There was another blade.”

“Are you hurt?” Piper yelled back.

“No!”

“Good!”

He wandered over to the open doorway on the far side of the room, though he wasn’t willing to go through it just yet. The door might not close behind him, but he didn’t quite understand the rules and he wasn’t going to risk it. He settled for leaning out and looking both ways.

There was only one door on the opposite wall. It was identical to all the others. Well, he hadn’t really expected anything else.

He busied himself searching the body as well as he could, given its advanced state of unpleasantness. Male, young enough not to have any gray hair. Piper could undoubtedly tell a great deal more. Leather shoes. The only thing in his pockets was a stub of pencil. No money, nothing identifying.

He relayed all this to the others when the door finally opened. “Pick a spot and lie down,” he said. “It’s easy enough, just unsettling.”

They picked spots. Galen watched Piper, as rigid as a corpse, and wondered if it was safe to reach out and take the other man’s hand. Safe from blades, maybe. Safe from more than that…?

He did it anyway. Piper gave him a startled but gratified look, then jumped as the first blades closed. “There’s another one coming,” said Galen. “Don’t sit up.”

“That won’t be a problem,” said Piper. “I appear to be completely paralyzed.” Galen squeezed his fingers reassuringly.

“Still more clearance than some gnole-burrows,” said Earstripe. The second blade snapped. Piper jumped again, his gloved fingers closing convulsively on Galen’s. “Slightly less than gnole-burrow now,” Earstripe observed.

“Now would be a terrible time to discover that I’m claustrophobic,” said Piper.

“Are you?”