A long time ago, malachite formations had striped the walls and ceiling near the entrance as well, but hobgoblins and goblins had taken the green needles of rock for jewelry and decoration. They still existed over the lake, beyond easy reach. Some were as long as Jig’s sword, though malachite made a poor weapon.

“They look like green porcupines.”

Jig nodded rather than admit he didn’t know what a porcupine might be.

The lake itself was black, with white foam cresting the waves that crashed against the shore. In the distance, toward the center of the lake, the water rushed with even greater violence. To Jig, it was no more than a blur of waves and whitecaps, but the others stared worriedly at whatever it was they saw.

“That’s a bloody whirlpool,” Darnak shouted.

“The way to the lower tunnels is through that?” Barius yelled at Jig.

Jig nodded, trying to project confidence and calm. In truth, he hadn’t a clue how to get to the lower tunnels. They were the ones who had mentioned going through the lake. A sense of self-preservation kept goblins from even trying to venture into the water.

“I sense power here,” Ryslind said. Though he alone didn’t shout, somehow his voice pierced the roar of the water. “No natural lake could sustain a whirlpool for long. If the lake bed itself were cracked, the water would soon drain into the tunnels beneath.”

“Wager the way through is at the bottom of that twister?” Darnak asked.

Jig wanted to laugh. All this way, past goblins, hobgoblins, and carrion-worms, to face a dead end. But would the adventurers face reality and turn back the way they had come? He doubted it. More likely they would continue on, stubbornness pushing them all to their deaths. The only question was whether they would drown first, or if the whirlpool would batter them to a bloody pulp.

Something slipped out of the water and began to crawl toward them. Oh yes, that was the third possibility. They could all die from lizard-fish poison before they even made it to the lake.

“Lizard-fish,” Jig yelled, hopping and pointing and scanning the shore for others.

“Ugly things, aren’t they?” Darnak drew his club and calmly waited while the lizard-fish crawled closer.

Jig had never seen a living lizard-fish before. This one was as long as his arm, with clawed front feet and webbed rear feet that dragged behind in the sand. The round head had slits for a nose and a wide mouth filled with needle-sharp teeth that could rip flesh from the body so cleanly you wouldn’t even notice. The eyes bulged like white bubbles that had been stuck to the skull as an afterthought. Most dangerous, Jig knew, was the line of two-inch spines that started at the back of the skull and ran all the way to the tip of the lizard-fish’s long tail.

“The spines are poison!”