They jumped in alarm as a faint sound came from somewhere further down the corridor, the distant yapping sound of a small dog made lost and lonely by the total, echoing silence that surrounded it. A moment later it was answered by another, and it was accompanied by a faint chittering, turned into a soft susurration by echoes and the distorting effect of the damp stone walls. It sounded as though a vast swarm of cockroaches was massing somewhere in the darkness and swarming across the walls and floor. It was a sound that made the humans break out into a cold sweat. "What's that?" asked Matthew, his hand going instinctively to the hilt of his sword.

     "Buglins," said Rogil. "We've been standing here chattering too loudly for too long. They've heard us, and are probably preparing to attack."

     "Nonsense," said Shale. "buglins are cowards. They may be a threat to farmers and solitary travelers, but they won't dare attack a large force of veteran fighters. They're probably terrified of us, and are getting ready to run for it. We've got to cut them off before they get away with the Proof of Mantellor. Rogil, take seven men back to the intersection and guard it. Take Mikos and the three mercenaries with you."

     "I stay with the lady," said Connery, going to stand next to Lirenna and putting his hand on the hilt of his sword.

     "All right," sighed Shale. "We'll press on in this direction and crush them between us." As the expedition divided into two equal sized groups, the chattering of buglins got louder and they heard the occasional bark of a larger creature as well. Soon, they could see dozens of pairs of eyes floating in the darkness, looking at them from about twenty yards away. Lirenna, Jerry and the trogs could see the creatures clearly, showing up as blobs of red warmth in their heat vision, but to the humans they were still invisible and not being able to see their enemy was scaring them. They drew their weapons and the wizards brought the words of their spells to the forefront of their minds. As Rogil took his group back the way they'd come, the buglin's chittering got more excited and they came creeping slowly forward. "Here they come," said Shale. "There's only thirty of them. As soon as we kill a few, the rest will run away."

     The buglins hesitated, as if gathering their courage, and Thomas found himself hoping that Shale was right, that they might quail at the sight of the force that had come against them and quietly creep away. The trogs moved to the front and crouched down behind their shields, making them a wall to shelter behind, just in time as a shower of darts came flying from out of the darkness. Thomas gave a yelp of alarm as he and the others threw themselves to the ground, but then the volley ceased and Connery hurled himself forward, past the trogs, to attack the buglins before they could put more arrows to their tiny bows.

     He swung his huge sword with a casual indifference that betrayed his utter contempt for what he considered mere vermin, cutting two of them down with one swipe. The trogs ran forward to join the attack and several more fell, but more buglins climbed over the bodies of their former comrades to take their place, their eyes wide with an utter terror that came close to madness. A moment later they saw why. Behind the buglins were three large shologs, threatening the buglins with death and mutilation if they dared to retreat.

     Some of the buglins hung back, climbed up on something to give them extra height, and shot more arrows over the heads of their friends at the invaders, using bows only a foot or so across. The darts were only four inches long, but when one of them hit a trog in the arm, he screamed and fell writhing to the ground.

     "Poisoned darts!" shouted Shale. "Get those archers!" Two trogs unslung their bows, and Connery fell back to do the same, reaching across his back for an arrow. The buglins saw them and began shooting their arrows in their direction. A couple of them caught in Connery's clothing and one bounced off a trog's helm, but none of them found their way to unguarded flesh. Connery's first arrow got a buglin archer right in the chest, throwing him backwards out of sight, and one of the trogs got another. The third trog, however, was hit by a lucky dart that found the eyeslit of his helmet. He screamed, flailing about in his agony, and his arrow went wild to clatter from the stone wall.

     The three shologs, excited by the battle, drew their swords, as broad and blunt as meat cleavers, and joined in, elbowing their way through the buglins, uncaring of the minor injuries they inflicted on their smaller allies. They were huge creatures, well over six feet tall despite their low stooping posture, awesomely intimidating as they bore down on the mercenaries. Their snouts and ears were pink and piglike, giving their faces an entirely bestial appearance, and their low slung jaws were full of long yellow teeth bared in bellows of rage and excitement. Their greenish grey skin was covered with coarse hair, and they were dressed in skins and crude armour made from circles of rusty metal sewn onto a leather jacket. They were even uglier than stories and rumours had led Thomas to expect, and they carried a terrible stench of sweat and rotting meat. They were skilled with the use of their swords, though, swinging them with terrible effectiveness, and one after another of the trogs fell before them. The buglins were excited and encouraged and pressed in again with renewed vigour, taking an even greater toll of the expedition.

     Connery shot the last archer and dropped his bow, drawing his sword again and returning to the fight. He, Shaun and Matthew found themselves fighting a sholog each, while the trogs fought the buglins. Connery pushed his sholog back with a series of heavy blows, a risky strategy as it left him vulnerable to a counterattack, but in this instance it paid off. The huge creature tripped over the body of a dead buglin and the mercenary ran him through before he could recover, but then he was wounded in the thigh by the tiny sword of a buglin who'd crept in between the legs of the huge shologs. Skewering the buglin, he fell back and pressed his hands to the wound to stop the bleeding.

     "There's too many of them!" cried Jerry from his safe place at the back. Thomas had drawn his dagger and was watching the battle with wide, fear filled eyes while Lirenna cowered close behind him. Neither of them had a spell that would be of much use in such a crowded melee, they would risk hitting their own people, but the tiny nome knew different spells. With the noise of battle all around them an auditory illusion probably wouldn't be noticed, so he went for a visual one instead. He produced a small bit of fleece from his pocket, turned his back on the fighting and faced down the corridor down which Rogil's group had gone. Holding his hand out in front of him, he spoke the words of the spell and concentrated intently on the effect he wanted to produce.

     Around the corner of the corridor, a faint glow of light appeared in the darkness, the kind of glow that would be produced by the light of trog glowbottles reflected off the damp, slimy walls. It grew brighter and joggled up and down, as though the people holding the bottles were running back to help. The buglins were fooled completely. Squealing in surprise and fear, they turned and ran from the fight, leaving the two shologs alone with the invaders. Shologs were renowned as fearless fighters. They didn't care about impossible odds, in fact the worse the odds against them the more they liked it. Not even Jerry expected them to turn and run, but they were distracted by the disappearance of their smaller allies and the mercenaries took ruthless advantage of their momentary loss of concentration. Two swords swung, and two bestial heads fell to the dusty stone floor.

     "What happened?" asked Shale in confusion. He turned just in time to see the lights vanish as Jerry allowed the spell to lapse. "Was that your doing, little wizard?" he asked. Jerry nodded, his head throbbing. Nesbin was right, he thought. I do need a lot more practice with that spell. "Well done!" said Shale in delight, giving him a slap on the back that sent him sprawling. "Keep it up."

     Now that the battle was over, though, they heard the sound of fighting coming from behind them. "Rogil!" cried Shale. "He's in trouble! let's go!" They turned and headed back to help, Shaun helping the limping Connery to keep up. As they ran, they corridor ahead of them was momentarily lit by a flash of orange light. A rush of hot air washed over them and they heard the sound of an explosion. "What was that?" asked Matthew.

     "A fireball spell," cried Thomas in alarm. "That idiot wizard is casting fireballs indoors!"

     As they reached the intersection, they saw that he was right. A dozen charred buglin bodies lay in a heap on the floor, along with a couple of burning dead trogs. "That stupid idiot!" swore Thomas. "He can't even aim straight!"

     "This way," said Shale, leading them to the left. They passed several more buglin bodies, a sholog and a trog before finding the rest in the guardroom, still fighting. There were at least three dozen buglins there, four shologs and several goblins, creatures about the same size as the trogs but with flat faces, wide flat noses, pointed ears and small mouths full of sharp teeth. They wielded axes in hands that hung almost down to their knees, and their skins were a light olive green. Seeing them, Jerry gave a scream of rage and ran amok among them, killing one goblin with a savage thrust of his knife in its stomach and immediately making for the next, ignoring a couple of buglins that blocked his way.

     The others joined in, trapping the enemy, who soon lost all interest in the fight and tried to get away, all except the shologs. They bellowed furiously at their allies in their barking, gurgling language, then stood fast to face their enemies alone. Even they could see that battling such odds was hopeless, but it wasn't running away if they had to hack and slash their way through their enemies to do it. They escaped, but for the smaller humanoids it was a massacre, with the evil creatures being slaughtered like sheep in an abattoir. Diana hid her face, sickened by it, and prayed for an end to it all, for peace to return.

     Finally it was all over, the floor awash with the mingled blood of four humanoid species. "Where's Mikos?" roared Shale, searching among the survivors. "Where in the name of Hell is that double damned lanky bastard?"

     "Over here," said a trog, pointing out of the room and back out in the corridor. Shale and the three wizards followed him over and saw the fat wizard lying in an alcove, badly burned by his own fireball spell, part of which had rebounded back at him from the stone wall. He stirred weakly as he became aware of the furious trog glaring down at him and tried to pull himself into a sitting position against the wall. "Did..." he began, but then had to pause as a spasm of pain shot through him. "Did we win?" he asked when he could speak.

     "Win?" roared Shale, trembling with fury. "Win? Your spell killed Zharam and Magglow, two of my best men! I ought to peel what's left of your skin from your miserable carcass!"

     "No choice," gasped the wizard. "They would have... Would have overwhelmed us. Had to push them back, buy time for you to... to get back... to us." His eyes closed as the pain grew too great to bear.

     "He's right," said the other trog as Diana pushed her way past to kneel by his side, placing her hands on his body and praying to Caroli to heal him. "They were all over us, we'd all be dead by now if it wasn't for him.

     "Knew the danger," Mikos managed to gasp out. "It was... Was a calculated..." Then he shuddered, though, and gave a sudden convulsion. Diana cried out in anguish as she held onto him, as if she was holding onto his very life, as if only her physical strength was holding him in the living world. She cried out to Caroli, begging Her to save him, but the Goddess had other plans for the man's soul and a moment later he was no longer in any pain. Diana remained by his side, staring uncomprehendingly down at the badly burned corpse, until Shaun and Matthew gently led her away. The cleric allowed herself to be led for a few paces, but then she shook them off, drying her tears, and went to help the trog clerics heal the other injured.

     "So I suppose that makes him a hero," said Jerry unbelievingly, staring at the dead wizard. "An externum. Who'd have thought it?"

     "An alumnus would have found a way to kill the bugs without killing two innocent men in the process," said Thomas, though. "Let's face it, casting a fireball indoors is a criminally stupid act under any circumstances. I can't believe there wasn't a better way."

     "Hopefully we'll never have to find out," said Lirenna, frowning disapprovingly. "He's dead now, why don't we let him rest in peace?" Shale grunted and went back to his own people, giving no indication of what he thought, leaving the three wizards alone with their fallen comrade. Thomas looked around to make sure no-one was looking in their direction, then carefully pulled the ring from Mikos’s finger. "What are you doing?" asked Lirenna, shocked.

     "Some of these things may be magical," said Thomas. "We can't leave them for the buglins. Some magical items can be used by non-wizards, they might figure out how they work and use them against innocent people."

     "He's right, Lenny," agreed the tiny nome, trying to free the staff from the dead wizard's rigid fingers. "Magic like that can't be left just lying around. It would be like leaving a sharp knife in a child's play pen."

     Lirenna glanced at each of them in turn, torn between the truth of their words and her abhorrence at the idea of robbing a dead man, but then she nodded and gently unbuckled the straps of his backpack, easing it from his back. She opened it, her very soul crying out at the invasion of the man's privacy, but as she rummaged around among his possessions she found something that absolutely could not be allowed to fall into the wrong hands, his spellbook. She gently lifted it out, fingering the golden tracery adorning the tough leather binding.

     She began to open it, but Thomas slammed it shut before she could get a glimpse of any of the pages. "Careful!" he warned. "Remember what we were taught. Wizards put all kind of spells on their spellbooks to prevent them being used by other wizards. If you open it, there's no telling what horrors you might unleash."

     “Also,” added Jerry, “even if you could read the spells and learn them, would you really trust spells created by an externum? Who knows what nasty side effects they might have.” The demi shae stared at him indignantly, then turned the book over to look at the Seal of the Magister engraved on the back, something that all spellbooks had, externum and alumni alike. It meant that the book had a connection to the Magister, that the God of Magic would periodically update those spells inside that were properly functional. That had to mean something, didn't it? Then she nodded, though, and slipped the book, unopened, into her own backpack.

     "Probably they're not magical at all," muttered Thomas to himself as he studied the plain gold ring, "but we can't afford to take the chance." Finally satisfying themselves that they had everything important, they casually backed away from the body and pretended to be examining the dead goblins. They were also sometimes known to carry magical items, but they were confident that if they'd been in possession of a magical weapon, they would have used it.

     Finally, the three clerics were exhausted, unable to heal any more. There was a limit to how much power the Gods could channel through mortal vessels in one day, depending on the power of their faith and their age and experience. Although the two trog clerics were much older than Diana, and much more experienced in treating battle wounds, her Goddess specialised in healing, whereas the God of Numbers did not, and so she was able to heal as many as the two trogs put together. In the end, however, even she was exhausted and her brothers led her gently away to recover while the others tended to the less seriously wounded, bandaging their injuries and splinting broken bones. Shale told Jherek to lead them back to the camp and return with three of the others they had left there. They arrived an hour later, and finally the group was able to move again. The final toll was eight trogs and Mikos dead, leaving nine trogs plus Lirenna, Jerry, and the seven humans.

     "Right, we'll try again," said Shale. "Same plan as before. We'll split into two groups, one in each corridor, and trap them between us."

     "Are you sure?" asked Thomas in surprise. "There's obviously a lot more buglins and other creatures here than you thought."

     "We beat them once," said Shale, annoyed at having his orders questioned. "They won't be quite so willing to tackle us again. One look at us and they'll run."

     I'm not so sure, thought Thomas, though. It'll be a great boost to their morale when they see that the big wizard, who killed a dozen of them in one go, is dead. Also, they're expecting us now. We've lost the element of surprise. He didn't say any of this, though. He's a lot older and more experienced than I am, he thought. Trogs have been fighting shologs and goblins underground for thousands of years. He must know what he's doing.