He pulled Jig close against his body, and Jig felt the spring of powerful muscles as his captor leaped into the air. Clawed feet scraped against the wall and launched them another twenty feet down the tunnel, where he bounced onto the opposite wall. Three more bounds took them to where Riana stood, torn as to which way to run.

Even had she fled as soon as she heard Jig’s warning, it would have gained her only a few seconds. As easily as Smudge had caught the fly, the creature pounced and snagged Riana’s tunic in his claws. He tucked Riana under his other arm and continued at a slower pace toward Straum’s lair. As Jig fought to keep from throwing up and waited for the tunnels to stop spinning, he heard Riana mutter, “I hate this place.”

The creature dropped Jig and Riana in the sand. He was so confident, he hadn’t even bothered to take Jig’s sword or Riana’s knife. Not that it mattered. Riana had managed to squirm enough to slash at the creature’s arm. Against those scales, she might as well have attacked the stone walls.

“Ah, your friends have returned.” Straum’s bronze body rested half-submerged in the lake. His front legs sank into the sand, and his long neck stretched just high enough to let him look down at his newest captives. “I was telling your friends about my collection of chamber pots. So many adventurers bring their own. That way they don’t leave as much of a trail to follow. I have one hundred and thirteen. Fourteen, now that I’ve claimed Barius’s pot as well. Ingenious, the way the lid twists into place so perfectly. I’d guess that elven craftsmanship went into this beauty.”

Straum picked up the gold-trimmed chamber pot, which looked like a porcelain bead in his claws. “I’ll have one of my children clean it out. The flowers can always use an extra bit of fertilizer.” He tilted the pot. “Not terribly decorative, though. No artistic style. See that blue pot on the third shelf? That belonged to a barbarian lord named Terinor.”

The indicated pot was covered in cloisonné images of huge muscular men and women, their hands raised high as if they were trying to raise the sky. The wide-rimmed top appeared to be cushioned in leather and trimmed with red jewels. It suddenly occurred to Jig that, were the owner to sit on the leather, the men and women would appear to hold him up.

The chamber pot was easily one of the tackiest things he had ever seen, and he felt a wash of pity for those poor bearers of barbarian buttocks.