Elminster Enraged

CHAPTER EIGHT

The drow advanced on El from all sides, their eyes baleful. They moved in slowly, readying their handbows.

Hrast. She crouched, the swords she’d snatched from their fallen fellows held ready, the blades turned sideways to serve as tiny shields. Yet she’d have to be falcon-fast, and have the very luck of all the gods, to deflect a fired dart before it struck her.

The silver fire could burn away poison, but oh, did it hurt. Her eyes and throat, she must protect above all else-

They all loosed at once, many darts singing in at her.

El flung herself aside, along the rock wall, slashing the air in front of her face with both blades in a wild crisscross flurry that sent three darts or more clanging aside.

A dart smote her forearm hard and stuck there, where her armor had been hacked away. Another ripped into her left breast, and a third hit hard high on the inside of her right thigh.

The drow charged, flinging their handbows down and running hard. Most of the darts had missed her, but a warm burning spreading swiftly through her told El the three that had struck her bore poison of some sort, probably spider venom. If it was handspider or stinglash, it would slow her and eat away at her, numbing and eventually paralyzing her. She had to end this swiftly.

El rushed to meet the closest drow, cut at his face, then ducked aside to slash at the next nearest. Then she spun and raced for the wall, trying to get back to the spot she’d chosen to make her stand. They came after her like wolves.

When she pretended to stumble, then fall, they pounced. Only to watch her roll, spin around on her shoulders, and kick up at them. She boosted one rushing drow over her and sent another staggering aside, then rolled after him and viciously sliced his ankles out from under him.

He toppled, shrieking, and El sprang up, slashed out his throat, and danced forward to meet the next wave of charging drow: four dark elves in motley armor, one lurching along on a leg that had been wounded long ago. Beyond his bobbing shoulder she briefly caught sight of gnaw-worms wriggling among the rocks, seeking the dead, and the drow wizard spending a spell on another arrival: a roaming wild spider he might think she’d summoned. Eerie fire burst into being around the arachnid, making it convulse-and then El was too busy fighting four drow at once to see more.

Two used small knives to stab at her, wielding their swords only to fend her off. Those knives glowed, which meant they knew she was protected against unenchanted steel. The other two drow bore no glowing weapons, so El paid attention only to their arms and movements, to keep them from knocking her down, ignoring the blades that passed through her like smoke. That let her slip behind one, so a knife meant to gut her slammed hilt-deep into his belly instead.

El elbowed that groaningly wounded drow into the warrior behind him, and sprinted away from them all to fence for a moment with yet another outcast, who gave ground, his face tight in alarm as he defended himself, seeking only to parry.

She spun away from him and ran, heading again for the spot she’d chosen for her stand, the smooth rock that was lower than its surroundings. This time she made it.

Spinning around again to face her foes and gulping in deep breaths, fighting to get her wind back, she watched them come for her again.

In a tight pack this time, angry and wary at how many of their fellows had fallen, the wizard crouching low behind them.

“That won’t save him,” El murmured aloud, slow anger beginning to stir in her. She had her breath back now; let them come …

Sound the warhorns, Symrustar murmured in her head, sounding amused. The real bloodletting begins.

There were fourteen coming for her now. The fifteenth was down among the rocks behind them, rocking and groaning as he clutched his deeply stabbed belly. The boldest gnaw-worms were already converging on him.

Time for a little goading. El gave the advancing drow a sneer, waved the three darts still hanging from her where she’d left them-to let her blood spill more slowly than if she’d plucked them out-like a grand hostess showing off treasures, then struck a hand-on-hip pose and beckoned her foes mockingly.

One drow promptly shouted a war cry. He and four others rushed El, the rest following more slowly.

Good. Now for the ruse. She met them with both blades, seeking to slay rather than defend herself, feigning agony when two drow swords slashed through her. One blade left behind the fresh fire of more spider venom, but neither did her any other harm-as she spitted one warrior hilt-deep on her sword ere letting go of it, and slashed open the face of another.

They all went down together in a heap, one drow dying and another blinded by his spurting blood and oblivious to everything except the agony of holding his face together with both hands. El cut his throat in the same slash that drove her blade into the neck of the drow beside him, who was busily scrabbling to pick up the blade he’d dropped in his fall.

That left two drow alive and unharmed. One was already stabbing her repeatedly, his unenchanted blade doing no harm but his weight and the knuckles of his stabbing hand driving the wind out of her repeatedly and bruisingly. The other was crouching behind the enthusiastic stabber and reaching around to grab at her scepters, trying to snatch them and hurl them away before daring to get closer. El sliced some of his fingers off, then drove her sword up through herself-she felt nothing but a momentary shivering chill-to meet the pumping sword hand of the drow trying to stab her.

He shrieked and fell aside, clutching at his sliced-open hand-and El rolled and reached in an awkward crawling lunge across sharp rocks that slid her sword into the throat of the scepter-grabber. As he convulsed, she rolled back again to deal with the stabber.

The rest of the dark elves advanced slowly, still about seven or so strides away. Good. El threw back her head as she hewed down the stabbing drow and screamed in false agony, her voice loud, raw, and shrill.

Then she slumped, down in her hollow with drow bodies all around, lying as if dead-save for the stealthy hand beneath her that slid a scepter from her belt and awakened it. She lay still, waiting, her mouth slack and open. Smarting from half a dozen wounds and the numbing fire of the venom, El watched through slitted eyes as the drow gathered cautiously above her.

Would they come closer to gloat? Or stab down at her face and breast and throat, to make sure?

They did both-and as the first dark sword tips thrust down, El let loose the whirlblade storm.

It was a vicious magic, not all that different from the blade barriers war priests of old were wont to wield, and as its shards of steel started to flash and whirl above her, and drow blood started to spray, El called up swift silver fire to spin a momentary shield over herself. As it closed over her, she flung the awakened scepter up into the storm of conjured steel, an instant before cowering under her silver fire.

A moment later, the world just above exploded with a roar.

The blast was impressive, shaking her like dice in a gambling cup despite the shielding fire. She heard and smelled drow bodies spattering wetly over rocks all around … and when her shield faded and she rolled cautiously over to look up, drow gore dripped down into her face from the tunnel ceiling high above.

She rolled into a crouch, to peer around cautiously. Not a foe remained. Wizard and all, the outcast drow band was no more.

Dead, every last one of them. And all because they hated and feared magic. Or those who misused it against them, like their own priestesses. No one should hate or fear magic.

Ah, El, that would require the Realms to be free of all who use magic to be tyrants over others.

El sighed aloud. Symrustar was right. And how often had he been one of those tyrants, those misusers?

Memories she was not proud of rose in a swift, dark procession …

Wisely, Symrustar kept silent. Rather grimly, El tugged the darts out of herself, then healed her wounds and purged the venom in an agonizing burst of silver fire.

When her helpless gasping and staggering faded, she stumbled on down the tunnel. She was little better than naked now, her leather armor in tattered ruin, and still alone.

Now, now! You do have me, Symrustar reminded her. Nicely done, by the way.

El nodded wearily. She’d made far too much noise and loosed too much magic to tarry; all that tumult would soon bring more formidable Underdark prowlers-or a strong drow patrol, ready for spell-hurling trouble. By then, it would be only prudent to be far away. Up in the sun-drenched Realms Above, for instance.

Limping a little, and rubbing at aches here and bruises there, El trudged along.

This beautiful new dark elf body of yours, Symrustar chided her, you’re not taking very good care of it.

Elminster’s reply was calm, lengthy, and very colorful. It might have made some Moonsea sailors blush, if any of them had been down in the Underdark Shallows to hear it.

Alorglauvenemaus slept more soundly and more often, these days, than in its younger years. It was well and truly ancient now, and knew from its studies and from wyrms it had met-and in some such moots, slain-that these deepening slumbers were the norm for older dragons.

Not that it experienced many interruptions. No visitors reached this cavern beneath a volcano-like hollow hill, in the heart of a fetid swamp filling a narrow cleft between the stony shoulders of adjacent mountains in the Thunder Peaks. No intruder had ever reached its lair, though orcs had splashed into the swamp once, very briefly. Not good eating, but there’d been a lot of them …

It curled its long tongue, trying to remember that taste.

Yes, it so happened that Alorglauvenemaus was awake now-so it was awake a moment later, when an explosive unleashing of magic shuddered through the solid rock beneath its hoard. A blast had befallen several levels beneath its lair.

The ancient black dragon lifted its head in alarm. That had been more than a spell. There was a certain smell …

Alorglauvenemaus thrust its dark horned head down the great cleft at one end of its cavern, the opening to the descending chain of caverns that served it as a toilet, a spittoon, and betimes a vomitorium-for armor causes gut ructions, no matter how steaming-strong one’s digestive acids-and sniffed, loud and long.

Aye. It was. The scent was faint, yet unmistakable, and Alorglauvenemaus had smelled it before. Silver fire, the raw stuff of the Weave, had been unleashed down there.

Which was puzzling, even alarming, given that the Weave had fallen, and its bright goddess with it, some sleeps ago.

The ancient black dragon frowned, shook its head slowly, and let out a deep, cavern-shaking growl that announced to the reverberating cavern walls that it was not pleased to encounter that particular scent. That smell meant trouble.

Yet Alorglauvenemaus knew how to deal with trouble. It drew back its head and spat, letting out a great hissing breath of sickly green acid, a burst that struck foam from the rocks it touched as it bounced and boiled down the long chute of caverns.

As it went, that green, swiftly graying flow hissed and spat and spewed forth many momentary little whirl devils of glowing spume, stuff of the rocks it was eating into; rocks that were already pitted and worn smooth by previous acid spewings.

Three caverns down, the last fading tongue of the acid flowed around a heap of rocks, washing away some of the shoulder of stone they stood on. Almost wearily the heap slumped over the edge, starting to roll and tumble. And awakening a gathering roar as it went on down. In the end, much lower down, it had faded into a small rockslide, but it spilled out of a side cleft in the tunnel almost to Elminster’s feet.

El stopped to let the last stones of the rattling little avalanche roll to their various stops right in front of her boots, rock back and forth, then settle. The faint breeze came down into the Underdark by the same route the rocks had taken.

And it was bearing a sharp, fresh reek. She’d smelled this particular acrid stink before.

Black dragon acid. Spewed by a large elder wyrm.

Elminster sighed. A fell and mighty dragon in her way. Of course.

She went into the cleft and started to pick her way very cautiously upward. The acid was still fresh; she’d have to be careful indeed if she wanted her boots to last for most of the way up, or longer.

The climb looked long and unpleasant, featuring not just acid, but dragon dung. Sighing out a silent curse-why hadn’t Manshoon just obeyed Mystra for once? Or why hadn’t the Lady of All Mysteries dealt with him, or freed her trustworthy El to deal with him? — Elminster found her first sheltering corner of rock, picked her way to it, then looked for the next one.

More offerings from either end of the black dragon could come raging down at her at any time. Which meant prudence must be paramount. Ah, scale the rocks just there, so as to pick her way over yonder, and so on …

Unnoticed by the Sage of Shadowdale’s newfound dark elf body, there was the faintest of stealthy movements by the edge of the cleft.

Even an alert and staring Elminster could have seen no more than a shadow, just for an instant, as someone-or something-melted silently against the jagged cavern wall, well above the smooth, worn path of long ago acid flows.

The lone drow priestess ascending cautiously out of the Underdark had a very patient pursuer.

Lord Constable Farland looked across the table and found a certain grim measure of comfort in the faces staring back at him. He trusted these two men.

Sometimes he wished he could trust anyone else in all the Realms, but thus far, he’d found only these two. His senior constables. Tall, scarred, taciturn Anglur Traelshun, almost a head taller than grim, stocky, cynical Bradraer Delloak. Thank the gods the two were firm friends, because they were both capable men, and would have made deadly enemies for each other, had they been so inclined.

It was hrasted isolated at Irlingstar, perched on a knife-edged stone ridge running west out of Irlingmount, one of the Orondstars. Just “Oronds,” most called them; a cluster of uncharacteristically knife-edged peaks in the Thunder Peaks range, just a little northwest of halfway between the Realm of Wailing Fog and Thunderholme. Only one road reached the castle, and save for striding deep into the Stonelands-not the act of a sane man-it wasn’t possible to stay in Cormyr and yet get so far from the rest of the Forest Kingdom.

Which was why the Crown’s most secure prison was there, and not inside the walls of Sharran-infested Wheloon. The nobles in the cells at Irlingstar could birth no end of trouble if they were closer to other Cormyreans-folk in need of coins and susceptible to whispered threats, promises, and sly dealings.

“You’re no more mages than I am,” Farland said wearily, “but have you found any sign that the wards have been breached?”

They both shook their heads, wasting no words. They never did.

More than century ago, the infamous Royal Magician Vangerdahast had cast the first wards at Castle Irlingstar. With stark and strong magical barriers renewed annually ever since, this normally invisible dome of magic hampered most spells within Irlingstar, preventing translocation and scrying into and out of the fortress. Although the Spellplague had clawed at Irlingstar’s wards, they had survived, and remained crucial in preventing wizards hired by noble families from breaching the castle’s security at will.

“Right,” Farland said grimly. “You know what you have to do.” He got up, ending the meeting. The two senior constables made for the door.

Traelshun would rouse the few guards who’d been off-shift and asleep when Avathnar had been murdered, and Delloak was off to the gatehouse to order the wagon drivers to depart immediately, taking their wagons to Immerford to fetch fresh food. He was to ride ahead of them, to be Farland’s messenger to the nearest king’s lord-Lord Lothan Durncaskyn at Immerkeep-to report the murder and request war wizard reinforcements, for the inevitably difficult investigation. Mind-reaming, now that it so often left both interrogator and suspect drool-witted, was a thing of the past. Solving crimes was once more a process of threatening, peering, and cajoling-and given Irlingstar’s current roster of resentful, sneering, sophisticated, and very capable noblemen-the castle’s handful of weary duty war wizards were going to need all the help they could get. The sooner they got started …

Farland descended the back stair that would take him to the mages’ room. Well, they’d have to wait some days, as it was. Immerford, still growing visibly with every passing summer, was one of the newest settlements in Cormyr, centered on the ford where the East Way crossed the Immerflow. But the countryside betwixt here and where Lord Durncaskyn sat in his bright new castle of Immerkeep was hard country indeed, deep swamp wherever it wasn’t knife-sharp rock ridges cloaked by thick, dark, wolf-roamed forests. There wasn’t a fenced clearing between Immerford and Irlingstar, farm or ranch, because Cormyreans weren’t fools enough to try farming or steading there.

Durncaskyn wasn’t going to be pleased at Delloak’s report, but then Durncaskyn never was. Dragon in the sky, Irlingstar’s five duty wizards of war were probably going to be irked, too, but he could do nothing about that.

To say nothing of Irlingstar’s own all-too-superior mages, who’d be scared and therefore even harder to deal with than usual …

Farland reached the bottom of the stair, stepped through the archway, turned right-and stopped.

A long, wet tongue of fresh blood ran out into the passage right in front of him.

It was coming from under the door of the ready room into which the bedchambers of the war wizards all opened.

“Saer mages?” he called sharply.

The ominous silence continued unbroken.

Swallowing a curse, the lord constable of Irlingstar drew his sword and flung open the door, taking care to keep his feet out of the blood.

Even before it swung wide, he knew what he was going to find.