Free Brother of the Dragon by Paul B. Thompson and Tonya C. Cook

fellow captives. Opening her eyes, she saw a slender, flint-tipped spear protruding from Kukul’s throat. Dark red blood covered his chest. The obsidian knife fell from his fingers, his knees folded, and down he went, falling backward across Beramun’s ankles.
    She kicked free of the dead man. Zannian appeared. He picked up Kukul’s knife. In his right hand he held a strange device: a carved stick as long as his forearm, fitted with a leather strap on one end and a small leather cup on the other. A short spear like the one that had killed Kukul fit loosely in the leather cup. She saw immediately how it worked – by whipping it overhand, the stick hurled the small spear with great force.
    “Did he hurt you?” the chief asked.
    Beramun didn’t answer. Her gaze locked on Kukul’s lifeless eyes.
    Zannian said sharply, “Stand up.”
    She snapped back to awareness and did as he ordered. He unwound the blanket from her arm. The center of the bedroll was slashed in several places.
    “You’re bleeding.”
    Beramun stared at her arm as though it belonged to someone else. There was indeed a long cut from her wrist to her elbow. Blood dripped slowly from the tip of her little finger, soaking quickly into the black earth.
    “So I am,” she said.
    The night, the camp, and Zannian’s face swirled before her eyes as the last of her strength deserted her.
    *
    Beramun awoke upside down, her head and arms dangling. A greenish yellow light offered just enough illumination for her to see. It took her a moment to realize she was being carried over someone’s shoulder. The legs and feet beneath her might have belonged to any of the raiders. She noticed a carved wooden rod hanging from her carrier’s waist and recognized the odd weapon. Zannian had killed Kukul with it.
    The raider chief was carrying her down a dark tunnel. Stones had been set in the soft soil to make a firm, dry path. The light was coming from clumps of villainous-looking toadstools growing in cracks in the paving. The gills radiated the sickly glow, and the stems and caps were a dull, dark red, like raw meat.
    The path slanted downward. Turning her head, she saw the tunnel stretched behind them. No entrance was visible – just an unmeasurable darkness. Dampness clung to her skin, but she resisted the urge to shiver. Her injured arm was wrapped in a hide bandage, but she wore the same short, ragged shift she’d gone to sleep in two days before.
    Zannian stopped, and Beramun closed her eyes, maintaining her limp, unconscious pose. The raider chief bent his knees until her feet touched the ground, then he caught her under the arms and lowered her to the ground with care. Hearing his footsteps move away, she dared crack an eyelid to see what was happening.
    They were in a large, circular room, ten paces across. The floor dropped away in stages, resulting in a series of stone steps leading down to an open hole. Even more toadstools grew here, resulting in a relatively brighter view. Zannian stood on the lowest step, facing the hole and stretching his arms wide.
    “Great Master,” he intoned loudly, “I am here as you commanded.”
    Beramun heard scratching noises near her face. Opening her eye a bit wider, she spotted three huge cockroaches, each as big as the palm of her hand. Their bellies and spiny feet made soft scraping sounds as they clambered over the loose debris on the floor. Disgusted, Beramun clenched her eyes shut. She had to set her teeth firmly to keep from crying out when the giant insects crawled over her chest to investigate the dried blood on her injured arm.
    Bad as the cockroaches were, a new, louder noise chilled the blood in her veins. She opened one eye and looked toward the pit, from which the noise came. It was a hard tapping, like wood or bone against stone, followed by the distinct hiss of skin rubbing on skin. That and a rising acidic stench announced the coming of Sthenn.
    “Master! I await your orders!” Zannian cried.
    A large