In the House of the Worm Read Free Page B

openmouthed.
    “We’ve already come too far from the windows,” Vermyllar said, and started to go on.
    Annelyn laughed lightly. “Child,” he said to Riess. “ I came this far when I was half your age. This was where I killed my groun.” He pointed to the stairway. “He came out of there, scrabbling on four of his legs, not the least afraid of my fire, and I met him with only my torch.”
    Vermyllar and Riess were both looking at the dark portal of the stairway. “Oh,” said Riess.
    “Really?” said another voice, from behind. Vermyllar dropped his torch, and pulled out his dagger. All three of them whirled.
    On the edge of the light, a huge, red-bearded man dressed in black stood staring at them, a bronze ax on his shoulder. Without his armor, Annelyn hardly recognized him, but suddenly the memory came.
    “Groff,” he said.
    The bronze knight nodded. “I have followed you all down the Undertunnel. You are very noisy.”
    They said nothing. Vermyllar picked up his fallen torch.
    “So you mean to kill the Meatbringer?” Groff said.
    “Yes,” Annelyn said. “Do not interfere, Groff. I know the Meatbringer provides much grounmeat for the yaga-la-hai , but we shall do that too when we learn his secrets. The Manworm has no cause to take his side.” His mouth was set stubbornly.
    Groff chuckled, deep in his throat, and hefted his heavy ax. “Don’t fret, little worm-child. You shall have your carrion. I too was sent to kill the Meatbringer.”
    “What?” Riess said.
    “Did the Manworm order it?” Vermyllar asked eagerly.
    “The Manworm thinks of nothing but his coming unity with the White Worm,” Groff said. He smiled. “And of pain, perhaps. Perhaps he thinks of that. No, his advisers ordered it. The Meatbringer has too many mysteries about him. He is not truly of the yaga-la-hai , the advisers think, and he is not tranquil. He is ugly and disturbs things, and he lies. Moreover, since we first grew aware of the Meatbringer, two years ago, fewer and fewer groun hunters have returned from below, save him alone. Well, I have hunted grouns, once. I may not have been as deep as the Meatbringer, who says he has descended to where the bronze knights warred against the grouns a million years ago. I have not been that far, but I have run the groun-runs, and I am not frightened of dark burrows.” He looked at Annelyn. “Did you truly meet a groun here?”
    Annelyn felt the steady gaze of Groff’s eyes, beneath their thick red brows. “Yes,” he said, a little too quickly, afraid that somehow Groff knew the truth. The groun had been lying at the top of the stairs, mumbling its death rattle, when Annelyn had found it. The boy had watched, terrified, while the creature’s six gangling limbs trembled fitfully (and briefly) and the moist sunken pools of flesh that the grouns had instead of eyes roamed back and forth, without purpose. When the carcass had been quite still, Annelyn had charred it with his torch, then dragged it back to the burrows of the yaga-la-hai .
    Groff shook his head. “They seldom come past the grounwall,” the bronze knight said. “During the last years of my hunting, they seldom came at all. The Meatbringer must truly go deep.” He smiled. “But so shall we.”
    “We?” It was Vermyllar.
    Groff nodded. “I am not averse to help, and Annelyn’s idea is a good one. We will learn the Meatbringer’s secrets before we kill him.” He waved his ax in a broad gesture. “Down the stair.”
    The doorway loomed pitch-black and ominous, and Annelyn began to feel nervous. It was one thing to impress Riess and Vermyllar with his bold plan to descend to groun country, but no doubt in time they would have talked him out of it. Perhaps the three of them would have fallen upon the Meatbringer here —beyond the light, true, but only a short way, and Annelyn had been here before. But to actually go down  . . .
    It was Vermyllar who protested. “No,” he said. “I’m not going any deeper