Forest Kingdom Trilogy 3 - Down Among the Dead Men

as the money was good. He honed his fighting skills in practice and in battle, and waited for his chance, the great chance to become what he had always been meant to be: a ruler of men. He had greatness in him. He could feel it. And with the right chance, he’d prove it.
    Assuming, of course, that he survived long enough. He still didn’t know what had gone wrong, but the guards had been on his heels since first light. Maybe he hadn’t disguised his trail carefully enough. More than once his pursuers had drawn close enough for him to see them in the distance, and on each occasion it had taken every ounce of his cunning and woodcraft for him to draw ahead again. Six guards, armed with swords and axes. He supposed he should be grateful there weren’t any bowmen among them.
    He stiffened suddenly as the first faint murmur of approaching footsteps reached him. He swore softly, and hefted his sword uncertainly. The guards were closer than he’d thought. He pushed himself away from the tree and stumbled on down the beaten trail. He tried to break into a run, and found he couldn’t. His legs were too tired, and he just didn’t have the breath for it. Like any professional fighting man, Hammer knew his body’s limits, and he knew how close he was to them. He glared quickly about him, and lurched off the trail and into the shadows between the trees. Leaving the trail was a calculated risk, but it was the only chance he had. His progress slowed to a crawl as he forced his way through dense patches of hedge and briar, but his chain mail protected him from the worst of the thorns. The sunlight gradually faded away as the overhead canopy grew thicker, cutting out the light. Hammer stumbled to a halt in the gloom, and listened for any sign that the guards had followed him off the trail, but all he could hear was his own harsh breathing and the pounding of his heart. He swallowed thickly, and wiped again at the sweat that ran down to sting his eyes. He had to keep moving, put more ground between him and the guards. Hammer forced himself through another patch of briar, and the earth suddenly shifted and fell away beneath his feet. He lurched to one side, flailing wildly about him for the balance, and then the ground gave way and he went screaming down into darkness.
    After a heartstopping pause, he slammed into a hard unyielding surface, and slid helplessly down an uneven earth slope that seemed to go on forever. Jutting stones bruised him painfully as he shot past them, but his scrabbling hands couldn’t find anything to hang on to in the darkness. Finally the slope spilled him out onto a flat cavern floor, and Hammer rolled and skidded to a halt. He lay still awhile, getting his breath back, and then checked cautiously for broken bones. For once, luck seemed to be with him. His armor had saved him from anything worse than a few dozen bruises. He sat up slowly, wincing, and looked around him.
    He was in a cavern, a hundred yards across and more, hewn countless centuries ago from the bare rock by who knew what human or inhuman hands. The walls of the vast cave were laced with hundreds of tiny glowing crystals. They shed a pale silver light across the scene, like strange, disembodied moonlight. Great twisted stalagmites rose up from the cavern floor, straining to reach the hanging stalactites far above. An underground stream ran through the cave, the still waters dark and uninviting. Hammer got to his feet, and was surprised and rather impressed to discover he was still hanging on to his sword. If nothing else, it proved his instincts were still sound. He stumbled over to the stream, and sank painfully down beside it. He was starting to really feel his bruises now that the shock was passing. He dipped his hand into the freezing water and splashed it across his face. The shock of the cold was refreshing, and helped to clear his head and settle his nerves. He did it again, just for the pleasure of it, and then shook his head briskly and rose to his feet. He looked around for a way out, and his heart sank.
    The earth slope was hopeless. It was far too steep, and anyway the soil was too crumbly to bear his weight when climbing. The stream presumably had its entrance and exit points, but they appeared to be hidden somewhere under water. Hammer scowled about him into the gloom, and as his eyes grew used to the pale, diffused light, he spotted a tall crack in one of the walls, a good ten feet high and almost a yard wide. He started