Ed dug around in his belt pouch, digging out his mess kit along with his remaining supplies. He found some dried apricots that felt more like stohan food, a pack of tobacd a small package of dusty-smelling crackers from the-gods-knew-when. They were nearly a decade old, preserved ierile holding space sihe day he and his two best officers had beeired” out of the army thanks thmond’s smarmy retives. He’d never bothered to clear his things out of the bag – it had plenty of space, and you never knew when that sort of thing would e in handy.

  Except now he did know. He was stud starving in a literal hell, and the water here tasted like a demon’s ass.

  There was no telling how long he’d been here – the hells apparently didn’t enjoy a day and night cycle like any self-respeg pne of existence should. After hunting down that godsdamned imp, he’d spent what felt like at least a day looking around the general area. There was some kind of city in the distance, but the gigantitacles waving out from behind the walls were enough to vince him that a visit there was going to be a st resort. Eventually, he had been forced to accept that there wasn’t anything like a ve gate home nearby. So, he had carved himself a shelter into the cliff face overlooking the hellfire river below. This was going to be his worst billet ever, by far.

  trating, he pulled out his battered tin cup and jured water into it. Casting the simple spell was a borious process for him, taking damned near five seds, but he had plenty of practice. As an archmage, he was highly specialized, so casting a simple trip like this was more about cutting the spellform down to size than shaping it in the first pce. Otherwise it would probably just cause a wet explosion, or something. He’d ried it.

  He dunked a fossilized cracker ier a soak for a moment so he wouldn’t break his teeth on it.

  He’d run into demons a couple of times already, though they were all weak little critters. That imp was the only thing that could cast anything resembling a spell so far, so he wasn’t overly ed for his safety in that regard. At least, not more than he would be bae.

  No, the hunger would get him first.

  There was no way he could eat anything from here. There weren’t any pnts, for one – just demons, rocks, and the ghosts. They were souls, Ed assumed, but they were damned creepy. They still looked sort of like people – humanoid shapes. But they didn’t behave right. They didn’t talk or try to unicate with each other, but there was still something there. They flinched away when they saw him, and when he saw a demon take ohe nearby ones had fled as if terrified.

  He’d killed the demon, of course, and a few mier, the ghosts just drifted back together, like sheep waiting to be culled.

  Ed shuddered at the memory. It wasn’t right.

  He o decide what to do. His food was going to run out within a day. As far as he knew, people didn’t just cheerfully travel bad forth from the hells. It was supposed to be a one-way trip. Oher hand, it wasn’t the sort of thing you were supposed to do when you were still alive, either. Radast, he was sure, would know how to get out of this pce. Would they send somebody for him?

  Only if they wotle.

  Ed scowled. He didn’t like their odds. The city would make it, he was sure, but his people? Iria would have seen what was happening ahe guilds to push the Duergar back dowunnel. sidering that they’d pushed into the Uy instead of retreating back to where they’d e from, the guilds would have had to drive clear through the enemy army to reach the Underkeepers.

  No, he had to assume that they’d lost – and that meant nobody living would know he was here. Maybe if Iria saw, assuming that she was sg him at the time. But she’d had her own battle to deal with. No, that wasn’t a safe assumption. He pulled the soggy cracker from the water and put it in his mouth meically. It tasted like dirt.

  Swallowing it down, he began soaking another one. If he was stuck here with limited supplies and no way out, then he o sider how best to use the time he had. These Duergar assholes had decided that Halfbridge was a nice, soft target to squeeze for all the godsforsaken souls they could feed to their demonic overlord. Or maybe the demon was calling the shots all along. It didn’t matter.

  sidering what had dragged him here, he was willing to bet that that disgusting, writhing city he’d seen had something to do with Nuros, or more likely his boss, king… whatever they had. It was there, and he was here, too. And his clock was tig, no matter what he did.

  Well, that didn’t sound like such a hard decision after all.

  juring another cup of water, Ed dow and tucked a dried apricot into his cheek as he rose. He dusted off his robes and started walking, pag his pipe on the way. Who knew? Maybe he could tear this Varamemnon character a new asshole before it ate him.