7

Damon had his suspicions as to who had died. He saw bits of chewed leather in the bloody expulsion, but he kept his thoughts to himself. We’ll know soon enough, he thought, and he was right. Armando burst through a cavern moments later.

After crash-landing, he gingerly walked up to the orc general. “I just about got killed by a trap in there.”

Damon nodded and said he knew about the traps, then informed Armando that someone hadn’t been so lucky.

A few minutes later, Thao blew out of a cavern, still clutching the dead snake-eye she had killed. She rolled in midair and used the monster’s carcass to soften her landing.

Damon glanced at Angie, who had just finished healing her midriff injury and was back on her feet. “Zahra,” he said, and felt a deep sadness strike his heart like an anvil. Among the healers, he had liked her the most, impressed with her willingness to take charge.

“Geez,” Hammer uttered as he tried to wipe the reptilian and human blood from his skin. “She musta went through more traps… or a bigger one.” He looked over at Zack. The veteran Marine just grunted.

Damon telepathed Harper to tell her the bad news, and after a few minutes they talked about a plan to get out of the cave.

8

“You want to do what?” Damon asked audibly, even though he had heard what she’d said perfectly well.

I’m gonna blow fire through the holes, the veteran mage answered. We have to find a corridor without detours. One that is essentially a straight line. Fire Scorch only has a range of twenty-five meters, but you should see some light on your end if I cast it into the tunnels.

She paused, waiting for his feedback, but he remained silent. She continued, If the tunnel doesn’t go straight the entire way, you won’t see any light. Process of elimination, my dear Damon. He grunted, and she became frustrated with his lack of input. Look! Do you have any better ideas?

He didn’t, and conceded, Okay. Let’s give it a try.

The trapped teammates turned off their light spells, making the cave completely dark.

On the other side, Harper examined the fifteen caverns on her end. Those passageways branched out to multiple routes before reaching their various outputs almost three hundred meters away. She started with the tunnel furthest to her left, blasting Fire Scorch into the cavern. See anything? she asked.

Nothing, Damon answered.

Hovering on her boulder, the veteran mage moved onto the next corridor, but met with the same results. When she got to the sixth cavern, the group on the other end roared.

That’s it, Damon telepathed. Now what?

Harper sighed. Find a way to break that conveyor.

After turning their light spells back on, the trapped teammates spent the next half-hour throwing everything they had at the conveyor. Their spells and heavy armor didn’t so much as put a dent into the metal slats that whipped around the axle. Hammer even climbed up to the opening, which was dead center in the high wall, and bashed it with his marble-headed hammer of the gods. Still no results, and the Alabama orc climbed back down to the floor.

Meanwhile, Zack was staring intently at a stalactite hanging from the sloping wall of the cave, opposite the caverns. He turned to Hammer. “Let’s switch weapons. My steel bone axe for your hammer.”

The Alabama orc complied, and Zack walked up to the long outcropping. He swung the hammer at the stalactite’s base. It broke off and, more importantly, remained in one piece.

He turned to the group. “We can’t break the conveyor, but we might be able to jam it,” he said, then chopped off another smaller stalactite.

“Great idea, Zack,” Damon said, truly impressed.

His fellow Marine grinned. “I have my moments.”

Angie chuckled.

The two orc leaders carried the stalactites to the base of the wall. Zack grabbed the largest and climbed up to the hole. The conveyor was six inches high, with just two inches of dead space underneath it. Zack reared back and slammed the sharp end of the stalactite into the small space.

Initially, the tapered rock did nothing to the conveyor. Chunks of rock flew into Zack’s face as the metal slats ground into the surface of the stalactite. The veteran orc equipped the hammer he had traded for and pounded its head onto the base of the stalactite. The blow jammed the long stone deeper under the rotating metal slats. The conveyor started to hitch, stopping and starting erratically.

“Throw me another,” Zack shouted down to Damon, and another stalactite shot up to him. He cradled it briefly, then slammed it in. The conveyor stopped and, from somewhere deep inside the rock formation, he heard an engine seize. The faint scent of burnt oil tickled his nostrils.

While the teammates cheered, Zack called for another stalactite. He jammed another two under the conveyor before looking down at the members, who were crowding around the wall directly below him. “Angie. I think you should go first. Watch out for more traps, anything that looks suspicious. Everyone, run as fast as you can. We don’t know how long these rocks will hold. I’ll go last.” He jumped down and the team scrambled up to their escape route.

9

Angie saw the trap fifty meters ahead and stopped the group. Her teammates had guided their light spells well ahead of her, and she could see the blood-coated blades pointing down from the ceiling. “Does this area look familiar to any of you?” she asked the members. “Did you go through this trap?”

They all said no.

“It must have been Zahra,” Damon suggested from right behind her.

Angie paused another few moments. “Yeah, but that wouldn’t have shredded her body like that,” she said.

From the back of the group, over the cacophony of the machinery still running from the surrounding caverns, Zack shouted impatiently, “Decide what you’re doing. The conveyor can start back up again any second!”

“He’s right,” Damon said. “Look, I’ll throw you and the others through the trap. I think you’ll pass through quicker that way.”

She turned back to look at her lover. “You think?” she asked doubtfully.

The orc general shrugged. “Trust me, Ang.”

Angie sighed and allowed him to grab her by the shoulders and ankles. Damon sprinted for the trap. As he raced down the stalled conveyor, he passed a hole in the wall to his right. A loud, grinding noise emanated from the opening, but he didn’t have the luxury of being distracted. He got within five feet of the trap and threw Angie.

Her body whizzed past the blades like a missile. The blades sped downward, stopping just short of the conveyor and missing Angie. The blades stayed fixed in their position for five seconds before slowly rising back up to the cavern’s ceiling.

Meanwhile, Damon walked back to the hole in the wall. Rachel, who was next in line, strode up beside him. She directed her light into the small opening. A giant metal contraption dwarfed the small space just ten feet away. Large blades whirled past in sweeping arcs.

“God, how many are there?” the healer said thickly.

Damon shook his head. “It must be in the hundreds.”

Behind them, the team gathered at the opening and gasped at the killing machine. Although they could see only a small portion of it, the silver blades that spun around the massive, circular machine were coated with blood. A bloody and tattered piece of leather armor lay on the stone floor in front of it.

“How did Zahra end up in there?” Rachel asked.

“The monster must have pulled her in,” Damon said before he ordered the team to get back into formation. From there, he threw each member through the smaller trap that blocked their progress.

Afterward, Zack laid his hand on Damon’s shoulder. “I’ll throw you.”

The orc general looked at him. “Yeah, and what about you?”

Zack grinned. “I’ve got Greased Lightning.”

10

As one of the heavier orcs, Damon barely made it through the trap in time. The blades shot down, snagged his leather boot, and pulled it clean off. The orc general yelled and pressed his hand against the resulting gash in his heel. He waited for the blades to rise again, then quickly snagged his boot. After fitting it back on, he looked at the lone teammate still trapped on the other side. “I hope that speed spell of yours works for this.”

Zack smiled, but Damon could see the anxiety his longtime friend was trying to hide. “Oh, it’ll work,” the blonde orc replied, then retreated twenty paces.

He took a deep breath, cast the spell, and sprinted for the trap. He burst through the space well ahead of the blades, then switched the spell off. A confused expression spread across his face as he kept running.

As the still-racing orc plowed through his teammates, knocking them down, he shouted, “I can’t stop running!” While the rest of the team got back up and ran behind him at much more regular speeds, Zack burst out of the cavern, running past a surprised Harper.

“What are you doing?” she asked, but the question was drowned out by the accelerating Marine.

“Aaaaaahhhhh!” he shouted as he ran in a straight line and slammed into the hard stone on the opposite side of the caverns. Still, his feet wouldn’t stop pumping, running like a wind-up toy placed against a wall.

Zack kept running, unable to control himself, his face pressed against the wet stone. He finally stopped when his mana pool ran out. By then, the rest of the team had exited the caverns and circled him.

Damon slapped him on the shoulder. “Guess you should’ve stayed away from that glitched cloud, Blondie,” he chuckled.

“Shad up,” Zack grumbled. “I just saved your ass.”