Then he noticed something-a smear of blood on the floor of the tunnel, just beyond the corpse. Curious, Arvin shifted position so he could see the sailor’s back and spotted the fletched end of a crossbow bolt protruding from a spot just below the right shoulder. Had the old man tried to escape and the cultists shot him in the back?

Oddly enough, the thought fueled Arvin’s hopes. If the old sailor had remained alive for this long-and had felt well enough to attempt escape-perhaps Naulg was still alive, too.

Arvin had just started to crawl past the body when he heard a groan issue from the man’s lips. He froze, halfway over the sailor, as the man’s eyes flickered open.

“It hurts,” the sailor whispered.

Arvin’s eyes flickered to the crossbow bolt. “You’ve been shot,” he told the old man. “I don’t think-” He didn’t have the heart to say the rest-that he doubted the fellow would live much longer.

The old man stared at the wall, not seeing Arvin. “My stomach. It hurts,” he whispered again in a voice as faint as death. “Gods curse them… for doing this to me. I just want… the pain… to end.”

“It will, old man. It will.” Arvin wanted to pat the shoulder of the sailor, to console him, but was afraid to.

The old man was whispering again-fainter, this time, than before. “Silvanus forgive me for…”

Arvin could have leaned closer and heard the rest, but he was fearful of getting too close to the man’s plague-tainted breath. Instead he drew back, holding his own breath.

A moment later, he realized the old man had also stopped breathing.

From somewhere up ahead, Arvin heard the metallic hiss of a sword being drawn from its sheath. Worried that Naulg might be the next to die, he crawled past the corpse and on up the corridor as quickly as he could.

24 Kythorn, Darkmorning

AsArvin hurried down the corridor on his hands and knees, the stench increased. It wasn’t just the odor of the sewers that was clogging his nostrils, but something far worse-the reek of putrefying flesh, vomit, and sweat. Bile rose in his throat. He fought it down. He hurried on, blinking away a drop of sweat that had trickled into one eye. It wasn’t just the exertion of crawling rapidly through a low-ceilinged corridor that had caused him to break out in a sweat. The air was definitely getting warmer, more humid. Up ahead, he could see the glow of lantern light. It turned the brick walls of the corridor from gray to dusky red.

There had been silence for some time after the sound of the sword being drawn, but now he could hear retching noises. Then a woman’s voice, tense and low. “Something’s coming, Urus. Hurry! Get up!”

Just a few paces ahead, the corridor gave access to a large chamber. Arvin saw a man, down on his hands and knees, vomiting. A woman was bent over him, tugging on the back of his shirt with one hand. Both wore high boots slicked with sewage to the knee. Judging by the crossbow that lay on the ground next to the man’s knee, they were the ones who had shot the sailor.

He hadn’t been their only victim.

A bull’s-eye lantern lay on the ground beside the kneeling man, its light painting a bright circle on a cultist in faded gray robes who was slumped in a heap against one wall, his chest bloody. Judging by the slit in his robe, he’d been killed by a sword slash. A large basket lay on the floor beside the cultist. Freshly butchered chunks of meat had spilled out of it. One of them was recognizable as a human foot.

The man on his hands and knees was middle-aged and broad shouldered with dark, curly hair and a full beard. The woman was younger-in her early twenties-and slender, with a narrow face framed with waist-length hair that hung straight as a plumb line. She wore a man’s trousers tucked into her boots and held a bloody sword. She tugged frantically on the man’s shirt with her other hand, trying to drag him back to the corridor in which Arvin had halted, but without success. Her eyes were locked on the chamber’s only other entrance: an archway that led into a darkened corridor tall enough for a human to walk upright. From it came a slurping sound, as if something large and wet were being dragged across the floor.

Arvin peered through the archway. His darkvision revealed what looked like a grayish mound, moving slowly toward the chamber. It hunched and sagged as it moved, sections of it bulging out like bubbles trying to burst through thick oil then sinking flat in a fold of flesh as the rest of the mass surged over them. As the thing drew closer to the lantern light, colors were revealed. Gray resolved into greenish yellow, the color of diseased flesh. Red pustules dotted the body of the thing, as did molelike tufts sprouting wiry black hair. The creature had no eyes, no mouth. Here and there, a bone jabbed momentarily out of the flesh like a thrusting sword, causing a dribble of pus-tinged blood, then was drawn back into the mass with a wet sucking sound as the mound surged forward.

“Torm shield us,” the woman croaked as the thing bulged out of the archway. “What is that?”

The man glanced up as the fleshy mound squeezed its bulk through the archway and tumbled into the room with a sound like a bag of wet entrails hitting the floor. The mound hesitated, pulsing first in the direction of the two living humans, then toward the cultist’s corpse. The kneeling man tried to climb to his feet but was only able to rise partway before clutching at his stomach and doubling over again. His back heaved as he gave in to nausea, retching over and over again. One hand gestured weakly, urging the woman to leave him.

The young woman, gagging in the overpowering stench that filled the chamber, at last let go of his shirt. But instead of turning and running, as Arvin expected, she stepped between her companion and the mound, readying her sword.

“You fool,” Arvin whispered to himself. “Get out of there!” He’d already started backing down the corridor through which he’d crawled, though he could not tear his eyes away from the horrific creature that was only a pace or two away from the woman. The stench of the thing was terrific; Arvin’s eyes watered as he fought to keep himself from vomiting. Control, he told himself fiercely. You can control-

No he couldn’t. His stomach was twisted by a wave of nausea that felt like a dagger stabbing into his gut. He vomited onto the floor, splattering his hands and knees.

The woman was shouting something. Suddenly, Arvin felt the humid air around him grow slightly cooler. As he fought down the next wave of nausea and managed to look up, he saw her leap forward, thrusting with her sword. The blade plunged into part of the mound that had been bulging toward her. An ice-white burst of magical energy erupted from the sword, instantly freezing the flesh around it. The creature’s skin cracked like a frozen puddle that had been stomped on. Then the woman yanked her sword free, sending a scattering of frozen blood tinkling onto the floor.

The mound hesitated, sucking its wounded flesh back into itself. Then it exploded into motion. It surged forward, driving the woman back. Her companion had just enough time to glance up at the thing that was towering over him like a pulsating wall-and the mound collapsed on top of him, suffocating his scream.

“Urus!” the woman screamed in a strangled voice. “No!” She leaped forward, thrusting her sword into the side of the mound a second time. A blast of magical cold radiated through the creature’s flesh, causing a section of it to expand and crack apart as it froze. But despite this new wound-and a third, and a fourth-the fleshy mound refused to retreat. It remained firmly on top of the spot where her companion had been crouched, its bulk filling the far half of the chamber. From beneath it came a muffled tearing noise, punctuated by the sharp crackle of breaking bone.