An ant! was Wiz’s first thought. But it wasn’t. It was insectile and proportioned something like an ant, with divided body and long, spindly legs. But ants don’t walk erect. Nor are they six feet tall. True, some ants do have oversized heads with enormous pincers that open and close reflexively, but Wiz had never heard of an ant with polished steel blades riveted to its pincers.
The thing came on, stopping every couple of steps, to swing its head this way and that as if testing the air. Wiz and Malkin began to creep backwards, one slow step at a time. The ones behind them backed up as well, to the end of the smoothed part of the tunnel and then into the unworked portion.
It was then that Glandurg’s undwarf-like clumsiness betrayed him. He put his root down on a loose rock, which went scooting out from under him, taking his foot and leg with it. Glandurg went down with a crash and a curse and the ant-thing lowered its head, opened its pincers and charged.
“Drop!” Wiz yelled to Malkin and hurled a lightning bolt at the attacker. The bolt struck home and the creature shriveled and blackened under the impact. The fungus-impregnated wood pulp around it began to smolder, releasing clouds of noxious black smoke. Malkin rolled past Wiz and bounced to her feet, rapier and dagger ready. Beyond her the light from the tunnel was blocked off as a mass of ant-things swarmed toward the intruders.
“Let’s get out of here,” Wiz shouted.
No one needed a second invitation. They turned and ran with Wiz bringing up the rear and throwing lightning bolts to slow down pursuit.
Another ant-thing appeared out of a side tunnel. It barely had time to open its jaws before Danny dropped it with a fireball. Two others poked their armored heads out of side crevices as the party fled past. Wiz struck one with a spell and Malkin cut the forelegs out from under the other with a deft stroke of her rapier. The thing stumbled, rebalanced itself on its remaining legs and came on after them.
Wiz cast his anti-friction spell on the tunnel. The creatures slipped and slid, but they were more nimble than a dragon and they kept coming, skating down the tunnel toward their fleeing prey.
Wiz stopped dead in the middle of the tunnel and took a deep breath.
“Are you mad?” Malkin yelled. “Come on!” But Wiz ignored her, raised his staff and began to chant.
There was a rumble and a shiver and the loose rocks began to move. At first they shook where they were, as if the earth was quaking. Then they began to move. Gradually at first and then faster and faster the rocks flew down the tunnel like a reverse explosion. Two boulders tried to get through a space not quite big enough and caught. Three other smaller pieces piled up against them and then a host of rocks from pebbles to boulders jammed against them blocking the tunnel solid.
“Cute,” Malkin said, admiring Wiz’s handiwork.
“It’s a variation on Jerrys rubble-moving spell, which we used the last time we were in the City of Night,” Wiz explained. “Now let’s get out of here before they get the tunnel unblocked.” He looked around. ‘There aren’t enough loose rocks here to do that trick again.”
“Now what?” the thief asked as they hurried along.
“Now we find a place where the roof and walls are solid rock and cave in this whole section of the runnel. We can’t do it here because the ceiling is too unstable. We’d probably get caught in the landslide.”
“Hey,” Danny yelled from up ahead. ‘There’s a door here.”
As Wiz came puffing up he saw that there was indeed another door of iron-bound oak set in the solid rock wall
“Can you get us through that?” Wiz asked Malkin. “It looks like the rock is solid enough on the other side to let me use my cave-in spell.”
Malkin bent and examined the door, running her fingertips over it.
“Hmm,” she said. “Ah, yes. Yes indeed.”
“Can you open it?”
“Of course.”
“How long will it take?”