Page 102 of Paladin's Faith

Astonishingly, it seemed to work a little. The earth walls flexed again, but didn’t close any tighter. Wren reached down past him and struck at a tooth with the handle of her axe. She hit it twice and it broke free from the earth holding it. Not gums. Don’t think of it like gums.

Wren started on another tooth and Shane stopped her. “Grab him,” he said. “Get ready to pull. I’ll see if I can get it to open a little farther.”

“Right.” She scrambled aside, hooked her hands under Davith’s armpits, and set her feet. “Ready.”

“Are you—gah—sure this is a good—”

Shane slammed his full weight against the scabbard and prayed that the hardened leather would hold. “Now!”

Wren pulled. Davith shrieked. Shane’s feet slid as he tried to find something to brace against.

There was a loud crack! and Davith came free. Wren fell over backwards, still clutching him. Shane felt the scabbard twist as the hole snapped shut around it.

“Please tell me that wasn’t your leg,” said Marguerite, in the panting silence that followed.

“I don’t know,” said Davith. “It might have been.”

“Get off me,” growled Wren.

“I can’t. I think my leg came off.”

“It wasn’t your leg,” Shane said. The scabbard had split in half, the stone teeth buried in it. It stuck up from the ground at an absurd angle. Anyone stumbling over it would think that someone had tried to bury a sword in the ground and given up halfway through. He glanced over at Davith, who was missing his right boot. Dark red marks were already forming a ring halfway up the shin.

Davith rolled off Wren and grabbed for his leg. “My foot! My beautiful foot! It’s attached!”

“Barely, by the look of things,” Shane said. “Let me take a look.”

“May I suggest that we first move off this patch of ground that appears to have random mouths in it?” asked Marguerite.

“Yes. Please, yes. I’ll hop.”

Davith leaned heavily on Shane as they made their way up the hillside. “Do you think this is far enough?” Wren asked, when they reached the summit.

“How would we even know?”

Shane checked the ground for suspicious holes or suspicious movements, but found nothing. Would the dirt need to move, though? Would the mouth tunnel like a mole, or would more dirt just open up? Hell, for all we know, the whole hillside is alive and covered in mouths.

This was an unpleasant thought. However, after half a minute of standing, nothing tried to swallow them. Good enough. The paladin helped Davith sit and felt his leg for breaks. “Does this hurt?”

“Yes, of course it hurts! The dirt bit me! Dirt shouldn’t bite people!”

Shane reached, with some difficulty, for the paladin’s voice. “Does it hurt like a break? Here? How about here?”

It was not broken, nor, thankfully, sprained. A bad sprain could have been worse than a break, as Shane knew all too well. “You’re going to have a fantastic set of bruises,” he warned.

“I don’t suppose there’s any way I can get my boot back?”

“Errr…” Wren held up the top half of what had previously been a rather expensive boot. “I went back. I think it’s digesting the rest.”

“Now we know why that bandit wanted our boots so badly,” said Marguerite.

“I hate this place,” said Davith, to no one in particular.

“Can you walk?” asked Shane. “The village isn’t far.”

“I can hop,” said Davith grimly. “If it gets me away from that damned hole, I’ll even crawl.”

Ten minutes later, Shane pushed open the door to the inn. Davith limped through and didn’t stop. He made a bee line for the bar, grabbed the edge to hold himself up, and hissed, “Do you know that there are holes that bite people here?”