Free In the House of the Worm by George R. R. Martin

difficult to keep up. Yet he continued on after the groun had vanished, hoping to pick up the trail again.
    Then the creature reappeared, running toward him. It saw him, stopped, glanced back over a shoulder. Then, seemingly determined, it resumed its headlong, four-legged gallop, one of its remaining limbs brandishing its knife.
    Annelyn flourished his club, but the groun did not slow. Then inspiration struck. He reached into his pocket, and produced his last match.
    The groun shrieked, and four long legs began to scrabble madly on the burrow floor as it skidded to a halt. But it was not the only one surprised. Annelyn himself, dazzled by the coruscating brilliance that seemed to stab into his brain, choked and staggered and dropped the match. Both of them stood blinking.
    But something else moved. A cold gray shadow was drifting down onto the groun, filling the tunnel like a wall of mist. The front of it rippled in and out, in and out, in and out.
    Annelyn shook his head, and the eaterworm loomed clear.
    Without thought, he jumped forward, swinging his club over the head of the groun. The blow glanced harmlessly off the worm’s leathery skin. Then Annelyn drew back, kicked the groun to get it moving, and thrust his glass-edged pole into the contracting mouth of the attacker.
    He was running then, the groun next to him, darting around narrow turns until he was certain that they’d lost the worm. They retraced their old footsteps, and the narrow stair appeared in their path.
    The groun stopped, and swung to face him. Annelyn stood with empty hands.
    The groun raised its knife, then cocked its head to one side. Annelyn matched the motion. That seemed to satisfy the creature. It sheathed the blade, squatted in the dust thick on the burrow floor, and began to sketch a map.
    The groun’s finger left glowing trails that lingered for a time, then faded rapidly. But the symbols it used meant nothing to Annelyn. “No,” he said, shaking his head. “I cannot follow.”
    The groun looked up. Then it rose, gestured, and started up the stair, glancing back to see if Annelyn was behind it. He was.
    They climbed that stair and another, walked through a series of wide burrows, pulled themselves up rust-eaten ladders through narrow wells. Then came more tunnels, the groun looking back periodically, Annelyn following docilely. He was nervous, but he kept telling himself that the groun could have killed him before; surely if that had been what it intended, it would have done so by now.
    Other grouns moved through the burrows. Annelyn saw one, a skeletal red shape with a long sword and one missing limb, and then two together with knives crouching near a junction. They gave him ominous eyeless looks. Later, they passed whole crowds of grouns, some of them in long garments that dragged on the floor and shone softly in many colors. All gave him a wide berth. He saw worm-holes, too, most dark and cold, others ringed by faint halos that sent chills up his spine.
    After more climbing and turning than Annelyn cared to remember, they came out into a large chamber. A dozen grouns sat over smoking bowls at long metal tables, shoveling food into their mouths. They regarded him impassively.
    Annelyn caught the scent of food—a fungus mush, torch-tenders’ food—and was suddenly, ravenously hungry. But no one offered him a bowl. His guide spoke to another groun seated near the center of the table, a grossly fat individual with an enormous, misshapen head. Finally the huge groun—he must have weighed more than Groff, Annelyn thought—shoved aside his bowl of steaming food, rose, and came over to Annelyn. His head moved up and down, up and down, as he inspected the intruder. Four soft hands began to pat him all over, and Annelyn gritted his teeth and tried not to flinch. It wasn’t as bad as he had expected. He found himself regarding the new groun almost like a person, instead of a thing.
    The fat groun cocked his bead to one side. Annelyn