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"Keep h bade the dwarves, for with her keen elven hearing, she had heard the approach of enemies from behind

Cadderly felt the air beside his face move as the elf put an arrow into the air He did not take serious note of Shay-leigh’swith the straps of his backpack, searching for his light tube, or for the wand, to battle the conjured darkness

Apparently sensing that he had stoppedpriest’s arently, so that she would not disturb his efforts

There caainst stone, followed by a di, "Ooooooo "

"Do up the wand, and the darkness fled Cadderly stood ready with his wand, Shayleigh with her bow, and Danica and Vander were into si the walls

But Ivan and Pikel were gone

"Trapdoors!" Danica cried, spotting tiny lines in the floor ahead "Ivan!"

There came no response, and Danica found no apparent way to open the neatly fit portals, no cranks or handles anywhere in sight

"Go on!" Shayleigh yelled suddenly, pulling Cadderly past her and drawing back her bowstring Enemy soldiers were at the door behind them, barely fifty feet away

Danica leaped the trapped region; Vander reverted to his full size and stepped across, hoisting Cadderly behind hi priest whispered to his friends, and he thrust the wand back toward the door and uttered, "Mas Ufa!" A burst of brilliant lights shot forth, green and orange and popping in all colors of the spectru flashes

It was over in an instant, leaving the soldiers rubbing their eyes and stu about the end of the corridor

"Go on!" Shayleigh said again, firing off twoThe other three started for the door at the corridor’s other end, calling for Shayleigh to catch up

When the elf maiden turned back around to follow her friends, they realized that she, too, had been caught in Cad-derly’s ical 0ash Her once-clear violet eyes showed as dots of bloodshot red, and she inched down the corridor, trying to discern when to jump

"We’ll coun her leap She landed with her heels on the edge of the trapdoor, which clicked open, and she balanced on the edge of the fall for what see, spread out wide on the floor, grabbing desperately

He caught only air as Shayleigh fell backward into the pit, the devilish door swinging tight behind her

Danica was beside the firbolg, pulling at his sleeve, and Cadderly was beside her, his wand extended once ain, his voice subdued, and the brilliant burst hit the recovering soldiers once ht to close their eyes this tih sloould not be halted

Vander led the rush to the far door and alot there, but a ten-foot section of the corridor shifted suddenly, its entire periinal position The surprised firbolg fell to the side, into the suddenly angled wall/floor, and disappeared froht as that corner of the trapped area rotated on a central pivot

Danica leaped past the angled section of corridor and snapped a kick into the door, breaking apart the locking mechanism The door creaked open, back toward Danica, just an inch, and theanother trap to go oft

Cadderly, overwhel back to the floor where three of his friends had djsap-peared, and to the wall that had taken the firbolg

Danica grabbed his hand and pulled hie this time, its walls bare of tapestries, that ended in another door just a dozen feet away As soon as they crossed the threshold, a solid slab of stone dropped behind the off any possible retreat, and a portcullis fell in front of the door before the the way They knew instantly, of course, that they were trapped, but did not appreciate the depth of their predicament until a e’s side-walls had begun to close together

The Holy Word

Danica threw her back against the wall, pushing with all her strength while trying to plant her feet firmly on the smooth floor She only slid forward, and the corridor narrowed relentlessly

Cadderly’s frantic gaze darted all about, fro sidewalls He tried to su iht aid theht feet apart Seven feet

Cadderly fought back his panic, closed his eyes, and told himself to concentrate and to trust in the harhly, but tried to ignore the disturbance She pulled again, harder, forcing Cadderly to look at her

"Hold your hands stiffly in front of you," she instructed, turning Cadderly’s palms upward He watched curiously as Danica turned horizontally across his pal her ar wall

"You cannot," Cadderly started to protest, but even as he spoke, the walls closed within Danica’s reach, closed and then were stopped by themonk’s stiffened form as surely as if a beam of metal had been placed between them

Cadderly moved his hands away from Danica’s belly - her stiffened position supported her fully - and forced hi Danica and consider the larger predica, then he and Danica ht soon expect some unwelcome company Cadderly drew out his hand-crossbow and loaded an explosive dart

He heard so from beyond the portcullis and the far door, and rrr uttural sound, and Cadderly, with his exceptional training in the various languages of Faerun, understood that an ogre outside the door had just insisted that the walls must be finished with their business by then

Cadderly ran back, slipped under and around Danica, and placed his crossbow arm across her back for support He also put his spindle-disks atop Danica, within easy reach, and clutched his enchanted walking stick in his free hand

There caan to rise, and Cadderly heard a key slip into the door’s lock He steadied his crossbow and his nerves, realizing that he had to fend off the enee herself and rush out behind hi in, and with it ca as it looked for the squished remains of the intruders

Cadderly’s dart hit it right between the gap in its two front teeth The young priest charged boldly, scooping up his spindle-disks

The ogre’s cheeks bulged weirdly, its eyes nearly popped free of their sockets, and then its lips flapped, spewing a streaie?" its stunned companion asked as the splattered re bent low, trying to figure out what had happened, then looked back toward the trap-roo adamantite spindle-disks on the side of its nose

Cadderly flicked his wrist hard, sending the disks spinning back to hire’s hand started up, but didn’t get high enough for a block, and the beast caught the re’s arh, and Cadderly could not properly retract the disks for a third throays ready to i stick in both hands and bashed it hard against the dazed ogre’s thick forear exposed ribs, and the ogre, as Cadderly had expected, reflexively brought its arain, sre on its already splattered nose He followed through, reversed his grip, and came back around the other way, the ra solidly on the base of the ogre’s skull

Thesuddenly, its weakened arms down at its side

Back and forth sla stick, three ti a knee under the kneeling re’s head snapped back viciously, and finally, the huge thing toppled to the floor beside its dead companion <

"Load it!" Danica instructed Cadderly, handing him back his crossbow Behind theainst the opened door Neither one of them cared to look back

The chute was slick and steep, and Shayleigh, for all her frantic efforts, could hardly slow her descent Finally, she go her back tight against the sloping floor and pushed up into the air with her longbow, searching for so, like the floor, was perfectly sh the elf ainst a wall of poison-tipped spikes beside Ivan and Pikel Or behind Ivan and Pikel, slaainst her already stuck friends to drive the fast to her bow, Shayleigh angled herself to put her feet against one wall and her shoulder diagonally across the narrow chute against the other She lifted her head and peered down into the darkness across the length of her body, hoping for so eyes, she could , residual body heat froainst the curving walls

And then there was just a blank wall, the end of the chute, and Shayleigh understood, in the split second before she collided, that since the dwarves were nowhere in sight, ittrapdoor

She hit and pushed through, but grabbed both sides of the door idespread arrunt, followed by a s Shayleigh’s forearuessing that this ht be their only way out of the devious pit