Free Baldur's Gate by Philip Athans

avoid falling in after him. Abdel somehow managed to land on one of them. The scrawny little beast didn’t provide much cushion, and when they hit the floor maybe twenty feet down Abdel felt every ounce of the force of the impact, and so did the kobold, judging by the loud, splintering crack.
    Abdel didn’t get up right away and didn’t think to open his eyes. The sounds of the kobolds’ dying from the fall were unmistakable. From above the three survivors yelped and barked and cooed in their own primeval language. Abdel was angry and disappointed in himself, but that didn’t help him breathe. In the first few seconds after hitting the hard stone floor he could only exhale. Drawing air into his lungs seemed like some kind of lost art. “Abdel!”
    Jaheira’s voice sounded closer now, and Abdel pulled in one huge breath at the sound of it. He didn’t breathe well right away, but at least he felt like he’d be normal again someday.
    This was also when he realized he’d lost his torch in the fall, and it had gone out. Gasping for air, he crawled around the floor at the bottom of the sinkhole in complete darkness until he found the torch. It took him so long to get it lit again, Jaheira finally gave up calling for him, and he still didn’t have breath enough to answer her.
    When the torch finally caught Abdel saw that he was in an even larger chamber than the one above, and he was not alone.
    The smell of the man hit him at the same moment Abdel saw him, and the sellsword nearly gagged. The man was rushing at him with a club fashioned from a heavy tree branch. The attacker’s face was not entirely human and had the tell tale snoutlike nose and the nubs of tusks of a half-orc.
    The club came down, and the half-orc shouted in incoherent rage. Abdel brought his sword up and easily batted the attack away while shifting his weight and bringing his feet under him to stand. The half-orc recovered so slowly Abdel had time to find his bearings. Confident that the half-orc was too slow to parry a simple slash to the throat, Abdel swung his sword in a fast arc. The blade met resistance and stopped. The half-orc was strong enough to stop the slice, the club was strong enough to remain intact, and the half-orc proved faster than Abdel imagined he’d be.
    Abdel took one cautious step back, and the half-orc took five steps back. The look in his porcine eyes was one of mute terror.
    The sight of it made Abdel pause and ask, “Who are you?”
    “I’m who Tazok sent you to kill!” the half-orc blurted. “You found Mulahey all right!”
    The sound of the man’s voice made Abdel really want to kill him. It was shrill and dense at the same time and full of panic. The half-orc glanced up at the hole in the ceiling and let loose a series of yelps and growls that sounded just like the kobolds’ barking speech. The sounds held the unmistakable weight of an order.
    There was another sound that came from the half-orc then, a sound that almost made Abdel laugh, but the smell that followed it was not at all funny.
    Mulahey glanced around, and Abdel realized the half-orc was waiting for his kobold reinforcements. The sellsword decided not to oblige him by waiting too. He came at the half-orc fast and hard and Mulahey put up a defense. The half-orc was strong, but Abdel was smart. He had the fat man backed up into a rough stone wall soon enough and then just started wearing him down. Mulahey was speaking, but Abdel didn’t hear him. He was killing the half-orc and whatever the smelly, evil thug had to say just didn’t figure into it. Abdel did notice the sound and the smell of Mulahey wetting his roughspun trousers. The wave of nauseous disgust that swelled through Abdel was enough to fuel his sword arm, and the half-orc died bleeding from two dozen wounds.

Chapter Eight
    “Open it!” Jaheira almost shrieked. Her voice was quavering with panic and so many other conflicting emotions that Abdel was almost overwhelmed by the