Page 43 of The Dungeon Book

Bait felt suddenly nervous. She stared at the mapped corridors of the Dungeon, as if by force of will she could transport herself back to the familiar, sheltering confines of the Arcade or the Chasm Hall.

In some distant part of her mind, she recalled needles and pain.

“Now?”

“Oh no, and not here.” Nala smiled. “When the expedition returns from the Underhalls, it’ll take me a few days to sort through the initial findings. Then it’s all going back to the capital, to the Antiquarian Institute. We’ll leave just after midsummer. Bait, would you be willing to come with us?”

The Antiquarian Institute was in the capital.

The palace was in the capital.

Her father the king was in the capital.

Tell them who you are. Tell them Sir Peledon sent you. Tell them to bring you home.

If the sight of the Dungeon map had been a cave-in, this was a pit trap yawning beneath her. She clung to the lip of the metaphorical chasm, dangling above an unknown future. What would it be like to leave the Dungeon behind? To go to the far-off capital, and meet other humans? Family, even, bound to her by ties of blood – which sounded more gory than any claw or tentacle in the Dungeon. What would they demand of her? She tried to imagine the court, and all that came to mind was a great host of Cloves bedecked in jewelled gowns, of Offas both lesser and great, all baying for her death. In that moment, she would sooner have faced the manticores again than go to the capital.

But.

Finger by finger, she let go.

King Arus needed her. For seven years he’d wept, believing her to be dead. She couldn’t leave him in soggy suffering. That was one finger.

She could be brave. That was another.

Nala would be there, and she liked Nala. A third.

If she didn’t like the courtiers, she could lay traps for them. All the history books spoke about grand staircases and towers and mighty castles. Even if she was a princess, she could still lay a tripwire. A fourth finger let go.

Still she dangled on the precipice of destiny.

Sir Peledon had sacrificed so much for her. He’d given up everything for his quest, and she had to finish it for him.

She let herself fall.

“I’m going home,” she said to Neb, “at midsummer.”

Six RATS entered the Dungeon Door.

Limping, bleeding, dragging their battered carcasses across the threshold, two RATS came back.

A strict accounting would put it at less than two. Even if you credited them with the sacks of loot and overstuffed backpack slung over one shoulder, you would also have to take into account the blood loss, the broken limbs, the missing fingers, the dented helms, the acid-scorched armour, the cracked shields, the notched swords, the shattered sanity. A lot of red ink in the debit column, right there.

Not even the sloppiest clerk could overlook the fact that, as soon as the two survivors staggered into the sunlight, one of the pair glanced at his companion, considered their prospects for an instant, compared the burden of his limping companion to the weight of the looted treasure – then shoved his fellow adventurer aside.

The lone survivor staggered off down the slope.

The other swayed.

“Perik,” he called after his companion. “Come back! Perik, damn you!”

Perik hunched his shoulders and kept going. The other adventurer cursed, then collapsed. By chance, he fell into my gorse bush, landing face to skull with me. The whites of his eyes were mottled yellow; his skin deathly pale beneath all the gore and dirt and cobwebs and incongruous garlands of golden gorse petals. He was quite blind.

Hagworm venom does that to you.

“That didn’t go well, I take it,” I said. “What got you?”

“Who’s there?” he gasped.