25th Day of Goodmonth, 565 CY

The Dungeons of the Slave Lords

The Aerie, The Pomarj

Elrohir fell short of his mark.

But before the terrifying thought of failure could penetrate the ranger's mind, his eyes saw that the line trailed down further than he thought, and he was still moving forward even as he began to plummet.

Elrohir's hand grabbed the line less than a foot from its bottom end.

An agonizing pain flared throughout his right arm and shoulder. As he had expected, the line was a sticky tendril of some kind, but the jerk as the line absorbed his downward momentum felt like it would tear the flesh from his palm or rip his arm out of his socket.

The tendril jerked spasmodically, and then slowly began to pull Elrohir up.

The ranger raised his head.

His wife was dimly visible in the glow of Elrohir's light. He guessed her to be about twenty-five feet above his current position, which was about ten feet below the lip of the gorge.

Talass had stopped screaming. He couldn't be sure at this distance, but it seemed like she had spotted him now.

Elrohir couldn't see to what the ends of these lines were attached to, but he knew the ceiling of this cavern curved upwards; the cave was closer to a semi-sphere than a cube.

He kept trying to focus on what to do, but the same adrenaline that had fueled his initial action made it difficult to formulate any kind of tactics; especially since he had absolutely no idea what he was up against.

But Elrohir was sure of one thing.

Whatever was facing Talass and himself up there, a bone club was not going to be adequate to deal with it.

And worse still, Talass was going to be hauled up to it first.

"What can we do?" Sir Menn cried out, as much in rage as in impotence.

Their shrieks of horror had turned in to momentary sighs of relief when they saw their team leader grab the line about ten feet below the cliff, but now their absolute inability to aid him in any way came back to them.

Nesco stared in horror as Elrohir was pulled up level with them again. The ranger was hanging onto the strand by his right hand only, and although he understandably seemed to be in great pain from the strain this was causing him, seemed to be twisting his body to avoid it coming into contact with the line.

Lady Cynewine was confused as to why for a moment, and then she realized that Elrohir was trying to keep the rest of his body free; particularly his left hand, which still held the club and the glowing flint.

Think, Nesco! she demanded of herself. Elrohir's always coming up with miracles, and now he needs one from us; and so does Talass!

Searching around desperately for something- anything- that might provide her with inspiration, Nesco saw that Tojo was just finishing up pulling the roper-filament rope that Talass had dropped.

The ranger stared at the loop around the rope's end; and an idea finally hit.

"Elrohir!" she yelled. "We'll toss the rope to you!"

She didn't wait for a response but turned back to Tojo to give him the command.

But Tojo wasn't there anymore.

The samurai had just jogged back to the tunnel entrance.

Exactly where Talass and Elrohir had stood before they made their ill-fated jumps.

"Tojo!" Nesco shouted. "Toss the rope to-"

The samurai cut her off with a shake of his head. Tojo's face bore no hint of its former inscrutability. His violet eyes shone even in their dim light, and an expression of animal ferocity was on the young man's face.

"Errohir-sama go to rescue Tarass!" he shouted back. "We must cross chasm now!"

"And how exactly are we supposed to do that without the jump spell?" Sir Menn bellowed at him.

In response, the samurai tensed his body, bending his knees and let any trace of decorum leave him.

His eyes travelled from the knight to Nesco Cynewine.

"We go wired!" Tojo shrieked. "RIKE THIS!"

And he charged.

Nesco screamed.

She knew her scream was just one of ten, but Yanigasawa's battle cry drowned them all out. It made them step out of the samurai's path even without being aware of it.

And for the third time, one of their own hurled themselves out into the void.

Tojo's timing was only guesswork, but it was all the samurai had.

Just as he reached the apex of his leap, Tojo whirled the rope over his head and let it fly.

The rope flew forward even as the samurai began to fall into the pit.

And the loop settled serenely over the stalagmite on the far side.

The samurai grunted as the rope abruptly tightened.

It didn't bounce as much as he had expected; and that wasn't a good thing. It seemed that the ligaments comprising the roper's muscular tendril tissues didn't have as much elasticity as he had hoped. Or perhaps they began to deteriorate after death.

Either way, the samurai thought as he moved quickly, hand-over-hand along the sagging rope, it was going to slow them down still further.

Tojo twisted his head around to look at the group.

"One at a time!" the samurai shouted. "Rope can onry hode one at a time!"

Good work, Tojo!

Elrohir sighed with relief, if only in his head. Tojo's act had been a typically foolhardy one for the samurai, but Elrohir was hardly in a position to lecture him, or anyone else, about the disadvantages of acting rashly.

At least the others could get across now. Elrohir turned his gaze, and his attention, back upwards.

However, the inescapable fact stayed with him that, even in the miraculous event that he could save Talass and himself from whatever horrors lay waiting above, there was absolutely no way that the two of them would be able to regroup with them on the far side of the chasm.

Elrohir threw that thought away with all others that did not concern Talass.

If we die, we die together.

The others watched with bated breath as Tojo clambered onto the far cliff, and then beckoned for the others to cross before turning to retrieve the nearby glow-fungus.

Ten people looked at the rope, and then at each other.

"All right," Aslan said. "Here's the order-"

"Do whatever order you like, Aslan," Zantac suddenly announced. "But I'm going first."

His body trembling worse than he ever imagined it could, the Willip wizard was already kneeling down, preparing to lower himself over the edge.

"Zantac!" the paladin barked. "What do you-"

"I've still got one spell," muttered the mage as he got into position, ignoring anything else Aslan or anyone else might be saying. Only one thing mattered to Zantac.

That awful vision of his dagger stabbing upwards through Talass' chainmail armor.

I swore I'd make it up to you, he reminded himself as his sweaty hands closed around the roper filament, which suddenly felt much too slippery to hang onto.

But as the rope sagged under the magic-user's weight, and he tried to make himself go forward, hand-over-hand just as Tojo had, three facts pushed themselves into Zantac's mind despite his best efforts to ignore them.

The first was that his arms were already burning, and he didn't know if he had the strength to make it all the way across.

The second was that, if he ever got out of this, he'd be sure to have a feather fall spell memorized and ready to cast every day for the rest of his natural life.

And the third thing Zantac realized as he involuntarily stared downwards into the inky blackness below, was that he had just discovered how deathly afraid he was of heights.

Panic was starting to seep through Elrohir's combat rush.

I've got to get up there faster!

The ranger snapped his head around; looking, searching, calculating.

He was about ten feet above the cavern floor now. He stared at the cave wall above the passageway they had entered from.

It was very rough and uneven; typical of the unhewn stone of natural caverns. It sloped slowly towards his position as it rose. It-

Elrohir's eyes narrowed.

An idea.

I can't hang on! I'm going to fall!

Zantac's eyes were tightly closed. His heart was getting ready to burst in his chest. His hands kept threatening to slip. His arms were screaming with pain.

He opened his eyes. He was only a quarter way across, if that. The others were urging him onward; some with pleas, others with threats.

Zantac was suddenly so tired that nothing seemed to matter anymore.

It would be so easy to just let go.

Talass didn't know about his vow. He could take it with him to the bottom of this awful darkness, where his life would be removed from his crushed body. A moment of pain, and it would all be over. He'd never be able to make it across, anyway. He was just endangering everyone else; they couldn't cross while he was hanging here.

A fat, pitiful, fool hanging on.

What did he really have to live for, anyway?

Elrohir began to sway.

The ranger brought his knees up to his chest and then thrust them out and downwards. He thrust his torso back and forth to the rhythm he was creating with his own body.

Slowly, he began to swing back and forth.

And every swing took him just a little closer to the cavern wall.

A roaring sound was building all around Zantac now, but he didn't notice it.

The mage was staring through closed eyelids again.

Staring at a vision of pink eyes.

Zantac began moving; faster now. Every time he let go of the rope with one hand, he wiped that palm on his body before clamping it back on the filament.

Those pink eyes were waiting for him.

He opened his eyes again, careful not to look down. He was almost three-quarters of the way across now. He could see Tojo kneeling down by the stalagmite, extending his hand, ready to help Zantac up.

"Anything else?" the wizard screamed to the heavens above as blades of pain shot through his protesting arms and shoulders. "Could you possibly make this any worse for us?"

The final tremor arrived.

Stronger than any before, the nine adventurers on the near side of the chasm were knocked off their feet.

And on the far side, Yanigasawa Tojo, already leaning forward over the pit, toppled into it.

But the samurai's foot wrapped around the back of the small stalagmite at the last second. Tojo was left hanging awkwardly, all of his body except his lower left leg suspended over the abyss.

The rumbling and crashing of stone sounded all around them now.

And Tojo could only hope that one of the nearer sounds he heard wasn't what he feared it might be.

The sound of the stalagmite he was attached to beginning to crack.

Zantac was bounced up and down now like a small boat in a gale.

The wizard could feel the filament he was clinging to beginning to stretch more and more.

The squeaking of bats above suddenly rose to a crescendo as the flying rodents were suddenly dislodged from their perches.

But even above all that was a deafening crack.

And when Zantac looked up, he saw a shape silently emerge from the gloom far over his head.

A giant stalactite twice his size, torn free from the roof, was plummeting directly towards him.