Free Crypt of the Moaning Diamond by Rosemary Jones Page B

condition.
    “Your parents sound …” Sanval hesitated. He obviously could not find a polite way to inquire about her ancestry, but he tried. “They don’t seem to have been quite the same as you.”
    “Not hardly,” said Ivy with a snort. “They were heroes. When your Thultyrl finishes his great library, you can find their exploits in a dozen story scrolls. Saved the world from incredible evil a dozen times.” She always found her parents hard to explain, especially to romantic fools like Sanval who believed in honor, great deeds, and noble acts of sacrifice as much as keeping their boots shined and their armor polished. Nor would he understand that the legacy of their heroics could be a greater burden than a boon to their daughter.
    Mumchance pulled Wiggles out of his pocket and dropped the dog upon the floor, letting her run loose as he continued to examine the carvings at the bases of the pillars. She pawed at one pile of ash, turning up one of the scorched skulls that Kid had mentioned. Mumchance bent down to look closer at the dog’s treasure. Several teeth had been broken out of the jaw. He shooed the dog away from the bones. He never allowed any of his dogs to chew on anything that resembled people, whether it was human, dwarf, or even ore. It made for bad feelings in a mercenary camp and, he believed, was bad for the dogs’ teeth.
    “Something came down here and pried the gold teeth out of the jaws,” he speculated as he held the skull out of Wiggles’s whining reach. “This area has been pretty well looted. There’s no treasure left down here. Just ash and bones.”
    Kid made a little grunt in agreement as he brushed away the ash covering a headless and armless skeleton. Unlike the other bones scattered nearby, this skeleton glowed an odd phosphorescent green.
    “Blast,” said Ivy, catching sight of the shimmering green light surrounding the bones. “Kid, I told you to leave that stuff alone.”
    The odd skeleton moved, a very slow tentative movement, wiggling through the ash like a worm. Kid skipped neatly out of its way, not particularly frightened but not fool enough to let the skeleton touch him.
    “What is it?” asked an amazed Sanval. In Procampur, bones did not go crawling around on their own.
    “Skeleton warrior or what is left of one.” Gunderal sniffed. “Badly made too. It should have a head, hands, and weapons.” The thing staggered upright and wobbled on unsteady feet toward them. The Siegebreakers circled out of its way. It tottered after Kid, as if it were playing some grotesque child’s game of hide-and-tag.
    Wiggles spotted the moving skeleton and with a joyous bark started chasing after it. The little white dog wove in and around the skeleton’s ankles with little yips, obviously regarding the whole thing as one giant snack. She rose up on her hind legs, dancing like a beggar before the green glowing bones.
    “Oh blast,” said Ivy seeing Mumchance’s frown at Wiggles’s actions.
    Mumchance whistled one high sharp note. With drooping tail, the dog came back to his side. “It’s your fault, Ivy, that she chases after such things,” scolded the dwarf.
    Ivy had taught Wiggles to catch bones when she threw them to her. “Well, she started doing that little dance for bones all on her own,” Ivy said, defending her earlier actions to Mumchance.
    “She did not. You encouraged her to do that. And it’s just not dignified!”
    Ivy considered that any dog bearing the unfortunate moniker of “Wiggles” already lacked dignity, but she knew better than to say it out loud. Instead, to soothe the dwarPs feelings, she asked him if he thought the skeleton warrior could be of any use to them.
    “Lead us out of here, you mean? No, those things are brainless, and this one is more so than most,” observed Mumchance as he circled left to avoid the headless skeleton. “Somebody looted whatever armor and weapons these poor sods had. They just left the bones behind because they’re