War Of The Spider Queen - Condemnation Part 23

Meanwhile, Ryld measured the icy barrier in front of him.

"All right, then," he muttered.

He backed up, set his feet as best he could against the shaft's wall, and drew Splitter back for the mightiest blow he could muster. With a cry of rage, he struck the wall a tremendous blow, Splitter's blade shearing through the magical ice even as waves of excruciating cold washed over him. He ignored the pain and swung again, and againand the sheet of ice cracked into a dozen pieces and fell away to the floor below. Without waiting for the others, Ryld hurled himself up into the beholder's lair.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

Within a day of Seyll's murder, Halisstra began to wonder if she might have been better off going with the Eilistraee priestess and feigning conversion. It might have been a strategy unlikely to reunite her with her comrades, but it would have meant that she would have enjoyed shelter, food, and the opportunity to perhaps regain her equipment, instead of an interminable march through the freezing woods. As dawn approached, she could find no better shelter than a small, damp hollow surrounded by drow-high boulders and bare trees. Shivering, she shrugged off her stolen backpack and searched it thoroughly, hoping against hope that she had somehow overlooked some key implement or a sc.r.a.p of food.

Seyll and her followers had not antic.i.p.ated a wilderness sojourn of more than a few hours. They carried no more gear than Halisstra would have, had she decided to venture out to a well-known cavern a mile or two from Ched Nasad. They certainly hadn't equipped themselves for the convenience of their captive's escape.

With the crossbow she'd taken from Xarra and the bae'qeshel songs at her command, she had a fair chance of dropping any game she came across, but in her hours and hours of wandering she'd not seen anything larger than a bird. Even if she did succeed in killing something for her dinner, she had no means to cook it, and Halisstra was beginning to suspect that the forest itself conspired against her.

She was reasonably sure that she'd managed to keep heading west after her escape from the heretic. If Seyll hadn't been lying when she said they were near the spot where Halisstra had been captured, the Melarn priestess was no more than one or two nights' march from the small river Pharaun had described in his vision. Since the river ran south to north somewhere in front of her, it seemed a difficult target to miss as long as she kept moving west.

Halisstra tried to keep the sunset and moonset ahead of her, and a little to her left, since they'd be somewhat south of her at this time of yearor so she'd gathered from watching Valas navigate the woods over the past few days. Of course, she had no way of knowing whether to turn upstream or downstream when she did reach Pharaun's river, since she couldn't be sure that she'd struck the stream at the spot the wizard antic.i.p.ated. For that matter, she was unlikely to know for certain whether she'd found the right stream at all. She'd already crossed a dozen small brooks in a day and a half, and while she didn't think any of them could properly be called a river, she simply didn't have enough experience of the surface world to be sure.

"Of course, that all presumes that I haven't been wandering in circles for hours," Halisstra muttered.

It could be that the most sensible thing to do would be to abandon the notion of searching for the Jaelre, and pick the straightest course out of the forest she could find. Sooner or later, she might find civilization again, and beg, borrow, or steal food and other suppliesor charm a guide who could lead her to the Jaelre.

She closed her eyes, trying to build a mental picture of Cormanthor and the lands around it. She was in the eastern part of the forest, she knewso was her best course east, toward the rising sun? There was little on that side of the forest except for the human settlement of Harrowdale. if she recalled her geography. Or was she better off turning south? Several more dales lay in that direction, so her odds of reaching civilization seemed better that way, even if that meant she would have a longer trek to reach the eaves of the forest. North she ruled out at once, since she was fairly certain that Elventree lay in that direction. Any way she went, she would be turning her back on the Jaelre and her sacred mission, at least for a time.

"This would be easier if the G.o.ddess would consent to answer my prayers," she grumbled.

When she realized what she'd said, she couldn't help but glance around and put a hand to her mouth. Lolth did not look kindly on complainers.

She pa.s.sed a cold, wet, and miserable day hunched down among the rocks of her small hiding place, drifting in and out of Reverie. More than once she wished she'd had the presence of mind to order Feliane to guide her to the Jaelre, or at least give up her cloak and pack before dashing off in a panic. Lord Dessaer's rangers were most likely on her trail, of course, and they would not show her much mercy if she fell into their hands again. Even so, Halisstra was beginning to feel that a quick execution by the surface elves might be preferable to a long and lonely death by starvation in the endless forest.

At nightfall she rose, gathered her belongings, and scrambled out of her hiding place. She stood on the forest floor, looking toward the direction she reckoned west, then south, and west again. South might offer a better chance of finding a human or surface elf settlement, but she couldn't bring herself to abandon the hope of rejoining her comrades. Better to try one more march west, and if she still hadn't found Pharaun's river by dawn, she'd think about giving up the effort.

"West, then," she said to herself.

She walked for a couple of hours, trying to keep the moon left of her, even though she felt it rather than saw it. The night was cold, and high thin clouds scudded by overhead, driven by a fierce blast of wind that didn't reach down to the shelter of the trees. The woods were cold and still, probably pitch black by a surface dweller's standards, but Halisstra found that the diffuse moonlight flooded the forest like a sea of gleaming silver shadow. She paused to study the sky, trying to gauge whether she was allowing the moon's pa.s.sage to affect her course too much, when she heard the faint sound of rushing water.

Carefully she stole forward, trotting softly through the night, and she emerged at the bank of a wide, shallow brook that splashed over a pebbly bed. It was wider than any she'd seen yet, easily thirty to forty feet, and it ran from her left to her right.

"Is this it?" she breathed.

It seemed large enough, and it was about where she'd expected to find ita march and a half from the place where she'd been captured. Halisstra crouched and studied the swift water, thinking. If she made the wrong decision, she might follow the stream into some desolate and unpopulated portion of the woods and die a lonely death of hunger and cold. Then again, her prospects weren't very bright no matter what she did. Halisstra snorted to herself, and followed the stream to her left. What did she have to lose?

She managed another mile or so before the night's walk and the cold air made her hunger too great to be borne any longer, and she resolved to stop and make a midnight meal of whatever supplies she had left. Halisstra shook her pack off her shoulder and started to look around when an odd whirring sound fluttered through the air. Without even thinking about it, Halisstra threw herself flat on the groundshe knew the sound too well.

Two small quarrels flew past her, one sinking into a nearby tree trunk, the other glancing from her armored sleeve. Halisstra rolled behind the tree and quickly sang a spell of invisibility, hoping to throw off her a.s.sailants' aim, when she happened to glance again at the bolt. It was small and black, with red fletching; the bolt of a drow hand crossbow.

Several stealthy attackers moved closer through the wood, their presence indicated only by the occasional rustle of leaves on the ground or a low signaling whistle. Halisstra carefully stood, still hiding behind the tree.

In a low voice she called, "Hold your fire. I killed the Eilistraeen priestess who carried these arms. I serve the Spider Queen."

Her voice carried the hint of a bae'qeshel song that gave her words an undeniable sincerity.

Several drow stalked closer, their feet rustling softly in the underbrush. Halisstra caught sight of them, furtive males in green and black who prowled through the moonlit forest like panthers. They peered into the darkness, searching for her, but her spell concealed her well enough.

She set her hand to the hilt of Seyll's sword and shifted slightly to ready her shield in case they found a way to defeat her invisibility.

One of the drow in front of her paused a moment and replied, "We've been looking for you."

"Looking for me?" Halisstra said. "I seek an audience with Tzirik. Can you take me to him?"

The Jaelre warriors halted. Their fingers flashed quickly, signing to each other. After a moment, the warrior who had spoken straightened and lowered his crossbow.

"Your company of spider-kissers came to Minauthkeep three days ago," he said. "You were separated from them?"

Hoping that Quenthel and the others had done nothing to make enemies of the Jaelre, Halisstra decided to answer honestly.

"Yes," she said.

"Very well, then," the stranger replied. "High Priest Tzirik ordered us to find you, so we'll take you back. Why, and what becomes of you there, is up to him."

Halisstra allowed her invisibility to fade, and nodded. The Jaelre drow fell in around her and set off at a quick pace toward the south, following the stream. She might have had no idea where she was, but the Jaelre seemed to know the woods well enough. In less than an hour, they came to a ruined keep, its white walls gleaming in the moonlight. The stream pa.s.sed a stone's throw from the fortress.

I had the right stream, Halisstra noted with some surprise.

She'd kept her course for two nights and veered only a couple of miles too far to her right, it seemed. She thought about what would have happened if she'd crossed the stream and continued. The thought made her shiver.

The Jaelre scouts led Halisstra into the ruined keep, past watchful guards who crouched in hidden places and kept an eye on the forest all around. She discovered that the place was in much better repair than it seemed from outside. Her guards escorted her to a modest hall whose only furnishings were a large fire and an array of hunting trophies, mostly surface creatures Halisstra did not recognize. She waited for a long time, growing hungrier and thirstier, but eventually a short, solidly built male of middle years appeared, his face covered in a ceremonial black veil.

"Lucky me," he said in a rich voice. "Twice in three days servants of the Spider Queen have called upon my home and asked for me by name. I begin to wonder if Lolth wishes me to reconsider my devotion to the Masked Lord."

"You are Tzirik?" Halisstra asked.

"I am he," the priest said, folding his arms and studying her. "And you must be Halisstra."

"I am Halisstra Melarn, First Daughter of House Melarn, Second House of Ched Nasad. I understand that my companions are here."

"Indeed they are," Tzirik said. He offered a cold smile. "One thing at a time, though. I see you wear the arms of a priestess of Eilistraee. How did you come by them?"

"As I told your warriors, my company was attacked by surface elves some distance away from here five days ago. My companions escaped the attack, but I was captured and taken to a place called Elventree. There, a female who called herself Seyll Auzkovyn called on me in my cell, and sought to indoctrinate me in the ways of Eilistraee."

"A rather simpleminded notion," Tzirik observed. "Continue, please."

"I allowed her to believe I might be swayed," Halisstra said. "She offered to take me to a rite they were to hold two nights ago out in the forest. I found an opportunity to escape as we traveled to their ceremony."

She glanced down at the mail and weapons she wore. The naivete of the female still surprised Halisstra. Seyll had not seemed like a stupid drow, not by any stretch of the imagination, and yet she had fatally misjudged Halisstra.

"In any event," she finished, "I took the liberty of borrowing some things Seyll had no more use for, since the good people of Elventree confiscated my own weapons and armor."

"And now you would like to be reunited with your comrades?"

"Provided they're not dead or imprisoned, yes," she replied.

"Nothing like that," said the priest. "They asked me to provide an unusual service for them, so I thought of something they could do for me by way of compensation for my time and trouble. If they succeed, they should return in a day or two. The question is, will you be here to greet them?"

Halisstra narrowed her eyes and remained silent. The high priest paced over by the fire and took a poker from a stand by the hearth. He prodded at the crackling logs.

"The comrades who abandoned you to captivity among the surface folk told me a very unusual story," said the priest. "Doubtless you're thinking to yourself, 'How can I know how much they told Tzirik?' You can't, of course, so the wisest thing to do would be to tell me everything."

"My companions may not appreciate that when they return," Halisstra said.

"Your companions will never know you were here if you fail to satisfy my curiosity, Mistress Melarn," Tzirik said. He set down the poker, and lowered himself into a seat by the fire. "Now, why don't you start at the beginning?"

Ryld crouched in the thick embrace of a deadly, acidic fog, trying hard not to draw breath despite the fact that he panted for air. His skin burned as if liquid fire had been poured over his body, and ugly welts were already rising wherever his ebon skin was exposed to the air. To stay where he was invited nothing less than a slow, agonizing death, but the vapors clung to his limbs like soft white hands, impeding his every movement. The cursed beholder lurked somewhere in the chamber, but where?

A brilliant bolt of lightning illuminated the white murk, lashing out with a dozen crackling arcs as it plowed through the mist. The weapons master threw himself aside and fell slowly to the floor, cushioned by the clinging mists, as a mighty thunderclap shook the stones of the chamber and rattled his teeth in his head.

"Pharaun!" he shouted. "Where is the d.a.m.ned?"

He instantly regretted speaking, as needles of hot pain filled his nose and throat.

"Against the east wall!" the wizard replied from some distance away.

The Master of Sorcere fell at once into another spell, rushing his words as he tried to cast as quickly as possible. Meanwhile the beholder mage droned its horrid spell-song, muttering the black words of half a dozen incantations at once. Lightning flashed again, followed by the whining shrieks of conjured missiles arrowing for their targets, and the cries, shouts, and curses of his companions.

Ryld finally reached the floor, where he found himself fetched up against one curving stone wallthe only landmark he could make out in the horrible mist. Without pausing for thought, he scrabbled forward at the best speed he could, hoping to emerge from the acidic fog before it burned the flesh from his face.

G.o.ddess, what a mess! he thought, slashing and cleaving at the thick tendrils of fog with Splitter.

The beholder had been waiting for them to resort to magic to ascend the shaft, and it had scoured the company with every spell at its command.

"The devils are coming up after us!" Jezz shouted from somewhere beyond the burning fog. "Finish this thing quickly so that we can get what we came for and leave!"

Finish it quickly, Ryld thought with a grimace. That's a novel idea.

He surged forward and suddenly found himself free of the deadly, clinging fog. No one else stood nearby, though he could hear his companions battling in the mists behind him.

"d.a.m.nation!" he muttered.

Clear of the unnatural fog, it was apparent that the whole floor of the tower had once been a royally appointed suite of rooms. A thick red haze of dust on the floor might have once been a plush carpet, and the walls were finished in patterns of orange and gold tile to form the image of a surface forest with its normally green leaves for some reason rendered in reds, oranges, and yellows. Ryld coughed, his eyes streaming from contact with the noxious fumes. Evidently he'd blundered through an archway into a different chamber, but another doorway led out of the room on the far side.

"Where in all the screaming h.e.l.ls am I?"

Something screeched in rage ahead, and the room beyond the arch flared brightly with magical fire. Ryld hefted Splitter and dashed into the next room, right into the middle of a fierce skirmish.

Danifae and Jezz battled against a pair of lean, scaly devils almost ten feet tall, horrible fiends with huge wings who fought with razor-sharp scourges and barbed tails that dripped with green venom. Several lesser devils hissed and surged behind the two already in the room, pressing forward and looking for a chance to join the fight.

"The devils are upon us!" Jezz cried.

The Jaelre fought with a curved knife in one hand, and a deadly white spell-flame wreathing the other. One of the big devils sprang at Jezz and hammered its iron chains past the Jaelre's defenses, spinning the surface drow to the floor. The creature stooped over the dazed Jaelre and reached for his throat.

Ryld glided forward, feinted high to bring the devil's weapon up to guard its face, and crouched low to take off its leg at the knee. The huge fiend roared in pain and toppled, its wings fluttering awkwardly as black blood spurted from the horrible wound. Ryld moved in close and reversed his grip on Splitter to finish the monster on the ground, but it replied with a flurry of slashing claws and snapping teeth, while lashing its barbed tail at him so quickly that only the stoutness of his dwarven breastplate saved him from being spitted on the wounded devil's sting.

Ryld parried furiously, battling for his life, as yet more devilsa group composed of man-sized creatures who were armed with knifelike barbs jutting from their scaly bodiesswarmed closer, their fanged faces twisted in h.e.l.lish glee.

"Dark elves to feast on!" they gloated. "Drow hearts to eat!"

"We've got to get out of here!" Danifae cried. "We can't hold them!"

She whirled her morningstar with skill and strength, dueling the other big devil and a pair of the smaller ones who s.n.a.t.c.hed at her from her flanks.

"There's no place to go," Ryld snapped. "The beholder's behind us!"

He could feel deadly spells flying in the chamber behind him, the reverberations of thunderbolts and the soul-searing chill of slaying spells that made his flesh crawl.

This isn't working, he thought. We're split in two, fighting two dangerous enemies.

They needed to regroup and focus on one foe or the other, or abandon the field all together and try again later. Presuming, of course, that the denizens of Myth Drannor allowed them to retreat at all. More than likely, they'd all die here, surrounded and overwhelmed by endless hordes of bloodthirsty demons. Quenthel and Valas were likely dead already.

Enough, Ryld snarled to himself. We didn't come all this way to be defeated here!

He redoubled his attack, stepped inside the big devil's reach, and drove Splitters point through the creature's scaly neck. It flailed violently at him, but it was dying, and its convulsions gouged stone and clawed at the air instead of mauling Ryld. The weapons master leaped over the creature's body to engage the smaller barbed devils already moving toward him.

Jezz rejoined the fray, pulling out a scroll from his belt and hurriedly reading off an abjuration that blasted several of the lesser devils back to whatever infernal realm they had crawled out of.

Two more instantly replaced their banished comrades.

"We have to move!" the Jaelre cried. "The beholder is our enemy. The devils are just a distraction!"

Ryld grimaced again. If they tried to flee, they'd be pulled down from behind. Still, he started backing his way toward the door leading to the beholder, praying that the creature was not in a position to see them. He gave ground grudgingly, unwilling to blunder into another fight while one still raged.

To his surprise, one of the devils on the other side of the chamber dropped out of view, and another one shrieked as a serpent-headed scourge sank its fangs into the back of its neck. Struggling through the ranks of the devils, Valas and Quenthel limped into sight. The scout supported the badly injured priestess, warding her side with one of his kukris while she lashed and flailed with her deadly scourge.

Danifae and Ryld took advantage of the devils' momentary disadvantage to press home attacks against their immediate foes. Quenthel slumped to one wall, fumbling with Halisstra's healing wand at her side, while Valas drew his second knife and darted into the fray, slashing and stabbing the devils from behind.

"Hurry!" Quenthel gasped. "A pit fiend and a dozen more devils are just behind us."

Ryld cut down another of the barbed devils, while Danifae splattered the brains of a second across the chamber wall with a two-handed blow of her morningstar. In the s.p.a.ce of a few moments, the dark elves cleared the room of devils. Jezz produced another scroll and quickly read off a spell, sealing the doorway behind Quenthel and Valas with a crackling sheet of sparking yellow energy.

"That will only hold the creature for a moment," he cautioned.

The Baenre looked around the chamber. The fall in the shaft must have hurt her badly. Blood caked the side of her head, and her eyes didn't seem to want to focus. One arm hung limp at her side, but she held herself upright.