Forest Kingdom Trilogy 3 - Down Among the Dead Men

cellar.
    Flint and the Dancer let the trapdoor slam shut behind him, and Constance helped him sit down before his weary legs gave way. He grinned happily about him, and then he saw the look in their eyes, and his smile disappeared as he realized he had bad news to tell them as well as good.
    “I’m the only one,” he said quietly. “Hammer and Sergeant MacNeil won’t be coming back.”
    “They’re both dead?” said Constance.
    “Hammer is. And I’m pretty sure the Sergeant is too. He gave up his life to destroy the Beast.”
    “What happened?” said the Dancer.
    “Sergeant MacNeil used Wolfsbane against the Beast.” Jack dropped his eyes for a moment, and then raised them to look squarely at the Dancer. “I would have used the sword, but he wouldn’t let me. He said it was his duty. He was a brave man. Bravest I ever met.”
    “Yes,” said Flint. “He was.”
    They stood in silence for a while, each lost in their own thoughts. Constance felt suddenly exhausted. She’d been saving what little strength she had left to welcome MacNeil back, and now it seemed she had no use for it. He was dead. She never had found the right moment to tell him how she felt about him, and now she never would.
    “What happened to Hammer?” said the Dancer.
    “He ran into something worse than him.” Jack looked about him, taking in the dead trolls and the Rangers’ wounds for the first time. “You seem to have kept busy while we were gone.”
    “We managed to keep from being bored,” said Flint.
    “We found the gold,” said Jack. “Its all there. I’ll draw you a map later on.”
    “What about the missing people?” said Constance.
    “I’ll tell you later,” said Jack. “It’s a long story, and not a pretty one.” His eyes fell upon Wilde’s unmoving body. Jack looked at it for a while, not sure how he felt. “Did he die well?”
    “Yes,” said Flint. “He gave his life to save mine.”
    Jack nodded slowly. “I never liked him, but he was good with a bow. At least he died in a good cause. He used to be a hero once, you know.”
    “Yes,” said Flint, “I know.” She looked hard at Jack. “Are you sure Duncan is dead?”
    “He has to be,” said Jack. “He knew he was going to die when he took on the Beast, and so did I.”
    “But did you actually see the body?”
    “No. No, I didn’t.”
    “Then there’s a chance he’s still alive,” said the Dancer. He turned to Constance. “Can’t you See where he is; what’s happened to him?”
    “I’m sorry,” said the witch. “I’ve nothing left. It’ll be weeks before I can See anything again.”
    “He’s dead,” said Jack. “I’m sorry, but he has to be.”
    Flint started to say something and then stopped, and for a long time nobody said anything.
    “All right,” said Flint finally. “Let’s get out of here. We can clean up and sleep in the dining hall for tonight. Tomorrow we’ll go down into the tunnels and see if we can recover Duncan’s body.”
    “Right,” said the Dancer. “We can’t leave him here, alone.”
    Duncan MacNeil woke up slowly. His whole body ached, and all the length of his back was a single great stabbing pain. He groaned aloud, and tried to raise his head, but for the moment even that was beyond him. He opened his eyes, but everything stayed dark. He lay quietly where he was, gathering what was left of his strength, and tried to figure out where the hell he was. There was a hard unyielding surface beneath his aching back, but one arm and both his feet seemed to be hanging over the edges of it. An appalling smell filled the air all around him; a dank oppressive stench of rotting foulness that made him want to retch. He tried to lift his head again, and this time succeeded. He still couldn’t see anything.
Of course not
, he thought sluggishly,
It’s dark down here. Down here
…
    Memories returned in a rush, and his heart missed a beat as he remembered falling toward the giant glowing eye. He thrashed about in the dark, trying to find something to grab onto, and then froze as he realized he was lying on something precariously narrow, with an unknown drop to either side. He felt about a little more cautiously, and his hands encountered something soft and unpleasantly yielding. He snatched his hands away and lay very still while his heart and breathing returned to normal. The first thing to do was to shed some light on the subject. He reached carefully into his pocket and brought out the inch of