No answering tap echoed back. Dwo peered ahead into the dark.

Then a monstrous bellow of rage echoed through the tunnel.

Eithne jumped.

Dwo’s pale blue eyes went round. He handed the lantern to Talwyn, then ran ahead.

We’ll be left alone in the tunnel, with neither beginning nor end in sight.

Eithne swallowed hard—Damn it, stop acting like a child—then leaped forward after Dwo, sword and dagger ready.

Talwyn and Tommalt came behind her. The lantern swung, the shadows wavered.

Confused roars bounced off the walls.

The tunnel floor dropped into a broad chamber, lit by flickering torches on the ground.

Against one wall stood Kilim, cornered, axe and shield in hand, crossbow slung across his back.

Three hideous creatures crouched under the ceiling of the chamber, each twice as tall as any man, on legs as stout as any tree. Their arms—muscled and long—ended with great fists and hard, ebony talons. Their sallow flesh was mottled with warty bumps of dull brown. They roared through tusked, black teeth, and the rank smell of their skins and furs filled the small space.

Dwo raced in with hammer and hand-axe.

I owe these little men nothing. For all I know, they’re kidnappers. But Talwyn and Tommalt…

Eithne went to work with both blades and hamstrung the first beast with quick slashes. Gouts of blood erupted from the wounds. The ogre roared in pain and surprise.

A meaty fist slapped her like a gnat and slammed her against the wall.

Dwo battered and chopped with ax and hammer. The hamstrung beast roared and swiped at him. Dwo ducked, rolled, struck again. Kilim screamed a war-cry, battered the beast with his shield and chopped with his axe.

The two on their feet turned on Eithne. Torchlight cast cruel shadows across their flat, broad noses and slimy black tusks. They lifted their mattock-like fists and cracked their knuckles with gruesome pops.

Eithne pushed off the wall and brandished her blades. “Alright then,” she growled. “Come on!”

They rushed her.

She ducked and rolled, came to a knee, slashed with the sword, tore open a thigh.

Another howl echoed through the cavern.

The hamstrung beast swatted at her. She turned, parried, cut and stabbed at the arm.

A fist hammered the ground. She twisted and sliced. The arm slapped her from her feet.

She coiled over her shoulder and came up again, stabbed with the dagger between the knuckles of an oncoming fist. The beast yowled and shook the wounded hand.

Kilim and Dwo stayed low and worked the knees and ankles with axes and hammer, but the warty hides of the beasts were thick and tough.

Eithne danced and harried them.

The hamstrung beast swiped at anyone in reach. The other ogres gyred, circled, and spun after them.

Eithne and the little men were quicker than the ogres, but their cuts were not nearly deep and deadly enough, and the beasts had better reach.

We can’t keep on like this. The ogres would simply wear them down.

Some of the tunnels were low and narrow enough to make Eithne stoop and squeeze. If we can break contact, put a narrow way between us—

“Run!” She sliced and parried. “Fall back!”

Kilim gave her a blank look, ducked a fist.

But Dwo nodded. He slapped Kilim backhanded—“Dalhig dornorúgak!”—and the two of them withdrew, shoulder to shoulder.

Eithne slashed, stabbed, feinted—then turned and dove over the heads of the little men. She rolled back to her feet, sprang up the sloped floor, and pushed stunned Tommalt and Talwyn with the lantern back into the tunnels. “Go! Come on!”

The little men hacked, hammered, and fell back as fast as their short legs allowed.

From the top of the slope, Eithne sliced over the little men’s heads as they went by her. The beasts recoiled. “Go! Go!” She went after Kilim and Dwo into the low-ceilinged tunnel.

Howls followed her. The lantern ahead swung wildly. Light and shadow dizzied her, flickered over the sandy floor, the scaly walls, the eyes on the ceiling.

Eyes on the—?

Talwyn screamed.

Everyone skidded to a halt.

Eithne collided with them.

A lizard, surely twenty feet long, had dug its black claws, powerful and gnarled, into the rock. Limbs heavily-built held fully half its body length coiled around the walls of the tunnel. Its large skull, broad and snub with a crest between the eyes, depended—downside up—from the ceiling. Jaws of serrated, blade-like teeth snapped at Kilim’s head.

Dwo hammered it to no avail, but his ax gouged a shallow chunk from its scaly hide. The lizard recoiled and hissed. Kilim cursed and fell on his arse. Tommalt stabbed at it and pushed Talwyn behind him.

“Dornorúgak!” shouted Dwo. He swung hammer and ax at the beast.

It hissed, and its fangs scored his arm.

Kilim scrambled to his feet, hacked at the skull with his ax.

Tommalt and Talwyn grabbed Eithne’s arms and dragged her back through the tunnel. Dwo and Kilim ran after them.

Like a corkscrew, the lizard scuttled along floor, walls, and ceiling as though they were all the same.

Dwo and Kilim hacked and hammered at the snout of the beast.

“Which way?” Panic edged Tommalt’s voice.

Eithne stabbed at the snout of the lizard.

The beast hissed and recoiled, then ran up the wall and snapped down from the ceiling.

The two little men cursed and fought their way backward. The beast hissed after them.

The two ogres had squeezed into the other end of the tunnel, one behind the other. They bellowed.

Eithne and Tommalt stabbed and slashed at the ogres. Dwo and Kilim hacked and hammered at the lizard. Talwyn screamed.

But there was a tunnel to the right. “Follow me!” Eithne sliced at the ogres, then dashed into the dark. Harsh breath and footfalls echoed after her.

The lizard and the ogres met amid shouts and screams.

Eithne followed the tunnel around a cascade of flowstone. Through a gap, fallen torchlight revealed the ogres locked in combat with the lizard.

She led them on at a dead run, then skidded to a stop in a large round chamber supported by a thick central column. Three dark openings promised hope of escape, but screams and bellows echoed through the cavern.

The others staggered up behind her. Dwo and Kilim leaned on their knees, blowing hard.

Eithne gripped the hilts of her weapons hard. “Damn it all! Which way?”

Dwo led them at a jog around a corner and past a pit in the floor. The way curled under a broad shield of stone suspended from the ceiling. Eithne and Tommalt crouched and shimmied under the obstruction even as Talwyn, Dwo, and Kilim bent nearly double. Beyond, the way split again. To the right, another tunnel twisted into darkness.

The other way opened into a broad cavern where pale, slimy scales coiled on the floor.

A stout, sloped head with a ridge down the middle rose from the twisted loops on a thick, sinuous neck. Eyes as dull as a blind man’s—deeply recessed, covered with skin and scales—faced the lantern light.

The loops uncoiled with a strange motion. The skin, loosely attached, moved as if independent, then dragged the body along inside.

The jaws opened. Powerful, interlocking teeth gleamed in the lantern light.

From the opposite side of the coils, the tail rose, truncated like the head.

Then the tail turned to the light as well.

Another pair of dull, deeply recessed eyes covered with skin and scales regarded them blindly.

Another set of jaws opened.

More powerful, interlocking teeth gleamed in the lantern light.

“Oh, damn me,” whispered Eithne.

Kilim raised his crossbow to his shoulder. The crossbow—thwack!—released its bolt. The burnished tip skittered off the strange pale skin.

The beast hissed. The whole body—some four or five yards long—came uncoiled and the dual heads snapped at them.

Dwo pushed them into the side passage. “Thugimrak! Thugimrak!”

The two heads grabbed each other in their jaws. The whole body threw itself forward and rose up like a wheel.

“Thugimrak!”

Talwyn lifted the lantern and ran. Tommalt and Eithne followed.

The tunnel twisted, doubled back like the curve of a snake, then turned and opened into a wide cavern.

Talwyn stumbled. Tommalt staggered.

The floor sloped away beneath her boots. Eithne tumbled.

She hit the stone on a shoulder, rolled once about, and crashed into a white column of pale slimy flowstone.

Dwo and Kilim came from the tunnel at the run. “Boludallode thrar! Thugimrak!”

The hoop of the two-headed serpent rolled after them. One head released the other, and snapping jaws whipped out at them.

Dwo shrieked and dove to the ground. The first head lashed over him, and the whole body soared through the cave. Then the second, gnashing head flew past.

Altogether, the beast crashed to a halt on the floor ahead of them. Both heads rose and hissed.

Eithne staggered to her feet.

One head snapped at her.

She stabbed, blood gouted.

The other head lashed at Kilim. Powerful, interlocked jaws tore a chunk of flesh from his leg.

Kilim howled and went down.

Dwo leaped to his comrade’s defense. His ax cut into the scaly hide.

Eithne stumbled up the slope. The second head hissed at her, then whipped around the column.

“Look out!”

It came at Dwo from behind.

He parried too late with the hammer.

The jaws snapped a chunk of his arm loose.

The opposite head seized his other arm. His bones broke with a sickening snap.

Then froth foamed from Dwo’s mouth. The little man convulsed and thrashed on his feet, then fell in a heap.

Horror filled Eithne like a deep breath of stale cavern air. “Dwo!”