Simon tried to get up from where he’d fallen as quietly as he could and whispered, “Aufvarum Oo,” to cut the ropes on his hands free, but in the dark, every sound seemed to carry, and stealth was, ironically, impossible. As loud as whispering had seemed, though, moving was worse. As he tentatively stood, the debris he was on top of skidded and cttered down a slope of other disgusting refuse, aumbled as he almost lost his footing.

  For a moment, whatever was in here with him froze at the sound of his tumble, and then it began stomping toward him with increasing speed. Thinking fast, Simon picked up the rod threw it to the opposite side of the cavern or wherever it was that he was at, now.

  That made the monster freeze again for a moment, but when it started moving, Simon retty sure that its dire hadn’t ged. It was ing right for him.

  Simon tio ease himself down the midden heap, and he reached out for anything he might be able to use. This time, when he found a bone, he whispered, “Aufvarum Barom,” as he threw the thing overhand as hard as he could overhand away from him.

  The bone burst into the pale yellow fshlight beam that he’d envisioned, and it tumbled end over end through the dark thanks to the word of lesser light he’d used. That only sted for two or three seds before the creature it illuminated shed out, shattering it and sending glowing fragments in every dire.

  Those two seds were enough, though. Up until now, the biggest thing that Simon had dealt was a troll. Teically, the Wyvern was bigger, but he’d beey far away from it wheruck it down, so that didn’t really t.

  If the troll had been ten or twelve feet tall, then this ogre was easily fiftee. It was impossible to say in the eerie location that was this cavern. What he could say, though, was that the thing was a tough old bastard. Its body was covered in scars, and one of its eyes was milky and useless. None of those features distracted him from the thickly knotted muscles that covered the too-wide creature or the treetrunk club that it had just used to such deadly effect as it turned a single ulna boo fifty ulna fragments that twinkled like stars as they rained down across the ground.

  It was beautiful in a strange, savage way, but that didn’t stop Simon from pig up speed. In the brief fsh of light, he saw the glint of metal from a rusted bde and grabbed that, too, even as he darted into a darker part of the cave. It was a good thing he’d done so, too, because he’d only gotten a doze when he heard the ogre’s club swing down hard on the pile of bone and filth he’d been standing on only moments ago.

  He felt pieces of bone and stone spray across his back, which ainful since he cked his leather armor, but he did not cry out. Instead, he ran for another sed, and as soon as the sound of debris stopped, he stopped, too.

  The dim lights of his initial spell were already starting to fade, and the brightest details were charcoal gray against the bck of the cave. From where Simon was standing now, trying very hard to trol his breath, he thought he could see light leaking from the entrao the monster’s ir, but he didn’t run toward it. He didn’t evehe. He just stood there, trying to ighe stink and the feeling of blood dripping down his back as he waited to see what the creature did .

  It apparently had a simir thought because it also waited quietly. Well, almost quietly. It still shuffled and snorted, but it did not rampage or do anything else that might hide the sounds of its quarry. Instead, it stood there breathing in out of those giant lungs that sounded like wheezing bellows, and Simon reminded himself that he was well ihe range of its on still, and anything he did to draw attention to himself might well be it for this run.

  That would be intolerable, he thought to himself. This is the thirtieth floor, and that ugly piece of shit is the only thing that’s standiween me and finding out the truth about what happened!

  It was frustrating, but not so frustrating that he didn’t stand there and take shallow breaths as he thought things through and wondered when the bastard would lose i. He’d already used a major word and a number of lesser words during the witt, but he thought he could do just about anything he wanted within reason.

  The only obstacle was the darkness. Well, not the only obstacle, he corrected himself, but certainly the maihe fact that it was huge and strohan a bull were certainly problems as well, but the fact that he couldn’t see it to precisely target it was the biggest problem of all.

  If he wao use force, he was going to o keep it pretty focused to pee so much bulk, but if he wao make sure he hit it, the strike would have to be wide. There was no good overp between those twies.

  Eventually, things turned in his favor, and the beast grew restless. It started groping through the pile of shattered bones, looking for a corpse to feast on. Simon took that opportunity to slink aick up a few more stohen, in rapid succession, he used the words of lesser light and started tossing them around the room he ogre.

  It was enraged, of course, and bellowed so powerfully that Simon could smell its awful halitosis from here, but at st, he could see the thing, and the five stones scattered between here and there gave him a good sense of depth, too, which was all he needed for the spell that game . “Gervuul Vosden!” he yelled. Greater Earth.

  The new word tore its way out of his throat much more harshly than any of the words he was more familiar with, aasted blood and brimstone, but he didn’t let that dissuade him. He’d ried a spell like this before, but he had no doubt it would work. More importantly, the odds of him missing in a serious way, like he might with force, were a lot more minor.

  The first time he’d tried this magic, it was to dig a small hole, but this time it was for something far more brutal. The floor around the ogre and the ceiling above it suddenly sprouted stagmites and stactites that started to devour it like the maw of an angry dragon.

  The creature bashed through several, but even as it did so, others tio grow, tripping it up, and as it rose to its feet, the stactites that hadn’t beeroyed above it tio grow, pinning it down.

  “Vosden!” he yelled again. He wao use the major power word, but he didn’t trust himself to hold up uhat level of abuse, and he didn’t think he’d hat much extra power to finish this thing off.

  Flesh, even flesh as strong as the e’s, offered no real resistao stone, and the sharp points of rock that tio extend by the will of magic extended forward withard to the creature’s bellows of agony as it eared and pinned simultaneously.

  Apparently, none of the things hit somewhere vital, though, because it roared in anger so loudly that the whole cavern shook. For a moment, Simon was deafened, but then he heard the worst sound of all: the sound of stone crag.

  He darted forward, i on striking this thing down while it was still tied down like Gulliver. He was too slow for that, though, and the thing was already rising to its feet by the time he reached it. The thing ierced over and ain by fire hydrant thick stone, and ihe flesh was eorhe ogre's skin had torn before the pilr had shattered.

  It was a breathtakingly brutal sight but not as brutal as the look e ihing’s one good eye. It was pletely bloodshot now, and if he could kill with a look the way the basilisk could, he’d already be ground to paste.

  It couldn’t, though, and when it raised its arm with its club, both of them found out simultaneously that it couldn’t kill him that way either. Its arm was still ected at the shoulder, but halfway down the forearm, there was only a bloody stump and a bit of dangling flesh that was its two-foot wide hand.

  Simon had the brief thought that he didn’t actually o kill this thing anymore. He just o keep away from it while it bled out, but it seemed to sehat and began charging forward on its hand and knee, f him bad further from the exit.

  Now, he was in trouble. Behind him and to his left were rough stone walls, and to his right was the uain footing of the midden heap he’d nded on. There were no good options here, but every moment he deyed, he lost ground and escape routes. He could see there was going to be no easy way out of here, so Simon reached bad threw his rusted sword in a powerful overhand throw.

  Miraculously, it struck the creature’s eye point first, embedding deep into the thing’s eye socket. Unfortunately, though, the eye it embedded into was the already blinded one.

  Simon stumbled back as the ogre roared and shed out at him. It wasn’t trying to get him, though. It was trying and failing to grasp the slehing with its arm-sized fingers. For a moment, Simon was too dazed at watg this ugly, bloody fumbling, but then, before it could wrench the thing free, he kicked out hard, smming his boat into the hilt, f it another few inches deeper.

  “AGHHHHH!” the ogre roared in pain, batting him aside like a rag doll and sending him careening painfully against the wall.

  He should have been grateful that the ogre was already so close to death that most of its strength was gone. If it hadn’t been, he would have broken more than a few bones from that impact. Instead, he merely y there dazed for a moment before he whispered, “Oo,” smming the sword deep into the creature’s pea-sized brain and going halfway to the hilt.

  The ogre tio move even after that, but they were the twitchy, spasmodients of a corpse and nothing that prevented him from ying here a moment longer and basking ierglow before he finally rose to his feet to prepare for what o happe.