"Well," she commented, hoisting up the grim standard, "I don't think it will hurt us."
"Who would do such a thing?" Lynthalsea asked in disgust, finally managing to stand up from her fall.
Avari glanced back at Shay and saw that he was letting his spell fade; a few blue sparks floated from his finger tips to extinguish themselves with tiny hisses on the water's surface. But the vague expression on his face struck her as incongruous, until she followed his gaze. Lynthalsea's robes were soaked through, and clung to her figure like a second skin.
"Shay!"
"What? Oh!"
Avari was mollified to see that he blushed at his atypical inattentiveness. He tugged off his rope and slogged to the front of the line, keeping his eyes focused straight ahead.
"These totems may have been placed to scare off lotus gatherers, or to stake out territory, but they look rather old. Maybe the threat has passed with time."
"Maybe the threat has passed. Oh, what a fine bit o' elfin logic that is!" DoHeney snapped as he slipped the damp string from his crossbow. He rummaged through his pack to find a dry one. "So we just go on ahead, as if nary a thing is wrong, very likely steppin' right into a trap!"
"I understand that you are uncomfortable in such a foreign environment, DoHeney, but we have no reason to believe that anyone knows we're here, and we have no intention of proceeding heedlessly. We will continue with the utmost care to conceal our presence."
"'The utmost care to conceal our presence,'" DoHeney said in a mocking whine. "Do ye have nary an idea what a racket we're makin', trudgin' through the muck like we are? Why, a half-deaf orc could hear us a day's march away!"
"It doesn't matter," Avari interjected before the irritated dwarf could continue. Since entering the swamp his mood had deteriorated drastically; dwarves had neither the build nor temperament for slogging through high water. "As Shay said, we don't have a choice."
"Yes," Lynthalsea cut in, casting a stern glance at the dwarf, "we must continue the course we have set. To stop now would dishonor everything that has been sacrificed."
"Who said anythin' about stoppin'?" DoHeney said, looking insulted. "I jist wanted ta get it through yer thick skulls that we're goin' ta have ta be a mite more careful if we plan ta come through this with our heads on our shoulders and not decoratin' a stick. Now get yerself hooked up again, priest, so we can get on wi' it. And you, lass, had better start pickin' a quieter path fer us clumsy types ta step on, or we'll be found out fer sure."
Chagrin chilled their flaring tempers as they acknowledged the criticism the dwarf had turned neatly back at them. Slogging quietly proved even more nerve-wracking than slogging carefully. Several more warning totems greeted them, some on poles as before, some hanging from trees. Not all of the skulls were human, and some were so unique that none of the companions recognized the species. But all felt as if they were being followed by the empty eye sockets of the silent sentinels, forever watching from atop their moss-gilded pillars.
"What a difference a day can make!" DoHeney fairly beamed, wiggling his relatively dry toes and relishing the feel of firm ground under his feet. "Not only high ground, but nary a one o' them grinnin' skull-ke-babs all day."
"Don't get too comfortable with your dry feet, DoHeney," Shay said, eying the weed-blanketed water they had been trying to bypass. "I am afraid we are going to have to cross this."
"Figgers," the dwarf snorted, hitching up his belt as he glared at the fluorescent-green layer of chokeweed. "I jest got me britches dry." He toed the soupy water as they once again secured themselves together with rope.
With a cringe, Avari took the lead. She sank to her knee with her first step, and by her third step she was hip deep in the chill water. DoHeney followed with a curse; hip deep on Avari was chest deep on him. Fortunately, the bottom was solid. The group slogged forward, feeling their way with every step. Then DoHeney yelped and disappeared beneath the water's surface.
"Great!" Avari grumbled as she pulled on the safety line to rescue her short friend once again. "Maybe we could make him some stilts or—Whoa!" The line to DoHeney jerked savagely, burning through her palms. Avari wrapped the rope around her wrist to stop its loss, braced her feet and pulled. The opaque water roiled.
On the other side of the splashing ruckus, Shay gripped Lynthalsea around the waist to prevent her from being pulled beneath the surface. With a wrench, he loosed the tether between the dwarf and the elf woman.
Suddenly a serpentine shape burst from the chartreuse carpet. Green and scaled, its mouth gaped wide, huge fangs extended for the strike; all that stayed its attack were the short, thick fingers of the dwarf clenched beneath the slimy jaws. Oddly, between the reptilian head and the snaky coils, the creature sported the torso, shoulders and arms of a man. Its tail thrashed and twisted as DoHeney's other hand broke the water's surface gripping a dagger. The blade stabbed hilt-deep again and again, staining the water crimson, yet the creature seemed unaffected by the wounds.
Avari wavered; how could she strike the beast without harming her friend? With all the splashing water and thrashing limbs it was impossible to tell one from the other. She stepped forward, determined to do something, when an arrow transfixed the ghastly thing's skull. As it collapsed, Lynthalsea reached for another arrow and scanned the water, and Avari reached below the surface to haul the gasping dwarf to his feet, then took a moment to sever the tangled line between them.
"Gaaa phoooo!" DoHeney's sneeze sprayed water three feet. "What in the name o' the Delver's hairy balls was that?" His hysterical gaze fell on the floating corpse. "That damned thing took a dozen dagger strokes afore it died! Must have hide as thick as a mastodon!"
"It was one of Lynthalsea's arrows that finally did the job, my friend," Shay said, fishing the dwarf's floating quiver from the green water. "I fear your knife did nothing but enrage it."
"Impossible! It has ta—"
"Hush!" Lynthalsea's hissed. Her slim finger pointed to concentric waves that died quickly on the water's weed-choked surface; signs of an underwater disturbance. "There are more."
"There!" DoHeney said, pointing in another direction.
"I believe we are surrounded," Shay said as he limbered up his hammer.
"Back to back! Now!" Avari's words brooked no argument; the others splashed hastily into a circle, weapons facing outward. The water moved again, this time in several places. Low wakes identified the beasts' paths, spiraling inward toward them. The companions tightened their circle, a muttered curse from DoHeney the only sound.
The water exploded in five places at once to surround the friends with flying water, weeds and scaly serpentine bodies with humanoid torsos. But the wild hissing of the attackers was met by an equally exuberant battle cry from the defenders.
Shay's hammer was the first weapon to strike, the force of his blow virtually tearing a snake-man in half. It died instantly, its broken body falling back to the water five man-lengths away. Shay turned quickly at the sound of Lynthalsea's gasp. Her arrow had passed clear through the body of an onrushing snake-man, but the damage did not even slow its attack. Its long fangs quested for her throat, held at bay only by her blocking bow, while its claws raked at her tender skin. Shay's hammer landed with deft precision to crush the reptilian skull into bloody ruin.
Meanwhile, Gaulengil slashed once, bisecting Avari's opponent in mid-torso. She turned to aid DoHeney, who was beset by two of the beasts. To her horror, however, she felt clawed hands clutching at her legs. She whirled back to find the creature she thought she had just killed thrashing in attack, intestines trailing behind it on the water's surface. The blow she pounded into its skull with Gaulengil's pommel should also have killed it, but the thing barely recoiled, its fangs flashing at her leg. Once more she struck; this time the weapon's sharp crosspiece pierced the thick skull and penetrated the brain.
Avari shook the hideous thing from her leg and turned again to help her friend; she feared he had been overwhelmed, considering how hard these b
easts were to kill. To her astonishment, however, the surface of the water was still. DoHeney stood ready, a dagger in each hand, but all was quiet.
"That's it, I think," the dwarf declared, sheathing both daggers then groping underwater in a search for something he had lost.
"But how..." Avari's question was answered when he pulled a heavy, limp form from beneath the surface, a dagger hilt protruding from its left eye.
"Very tough critters," DoHeney said as he extracted his blades from their fleshy sheaths. "My old gran-mammy always used ta say, only way ta kill a snake is ta pith it good and proper."
Avari, DoHeney and Lynthalsea retrieved floating satchels and watched for signs of another ambush. Shay, meanwhile, fussed over a corpse, muttering to himself.
"It's just as I thought!" he exclaimed, whirling in triumph his arms outstretched. "Look here!" Lynthalsea gagged and averted her eyes. The others looked, then wished they had not, the repulsive mass of greenish goo oozing between his fingers wrenching at their tight stomachs.
"Don't you see?" Shay insisted as he proffered the handful again. "It's lotus root! This is why they're so difficult to kill. Their stomachs are full of it! They feel no pain whatsoever."
The companions could not turn from the implications as easily as they could from the mess that dripped from Shay's hands. The deadly drug had followed them from Twin Towns. Deathly quiet reigned, save for the eerie calls and squawks that typified the Black Swamp.
"And what better place to defend the gem," Avari said, "than behind an army of drug-crazed fiends."
CHAPTER 37
Avari fidgeted like a battle-trained warhorse with the smell of blood in its nostrils, sensing the coming fight, wanting it, welcoming the rage.
The humid air was tinged with fear, awe and anxiety, the drone of insects interrupted only by the steady pound of her restless heart. The composure she had found in wrestling a path through the swamp had fled; now she itched for revenge, a chance to thwart the plans of the foul Nekdukarr who had killed Jundag. The urge was tempered by the fact that one or more of them might not survive this reckless plan. Indeed, this was Avari's worst nightmare. She tried to suppress the tremors that had invaded her knees, and begrudged their need to wait for dusk.
Their goal towered above the trees before them, an immense terraced pyramid, taller than the mast of the tallest ship, and five times that in width. The companions had passed by the ruins of other buildings, suggesting that a town once had stood here, but the jungle had reclaimed all but this temple.
"There ain't no doubt it's in there," DoHeney said once again as he pocketed the glowing ruby. "I took three different angles on the thing, and this here—Sst!"
His silence was precipitated by the appearance of a squad of eight half-snake, half-man creatures slithering past their concealing clump of vegetation. Avari fought down the urge to leap from hiding and see how many she could hack into mincemeat.
"Soon enough," she murmured, eying the scaly things like a cat eying mice, her hand flexing on Gaulengil's silvery hilt. "You'll drink soon enough..."
"That was close!" the dwarf said once the danger was past. "Lucky we seen this here pyramid from a ways off. We'd o' been caught fer sure, the way these things slither around without makin' a sound."
"Yes, it is hard to listen for foot falls when your enemy has no feet," Shay agreed.
In contrast to Zellohar Keep, where Darkmist had conscripted all manner of beast, only the snake-men ruled here. But unlike the ones that had attacked them earlier, these looked civilized. Several carried weapons of steel and bore baldrics of tooled leather. They patrolled around the temple like city guards.
"I think these might not be addicted to the lotus root, like their aboriginal cousins," Shay suggested. DoHeney and Lynthalsea's heads bobbed in hopeful agreement, but Avari just stared out onto the open ground, deaf to her friend's council.
"It doesn't make any difference," was her only reply, aside from the glint of vengeance in her eyes.
Avari was chomping at the bit as twilight finally faded and the sounds of the night erupted. Shay gestured and led the way deeper into the green shroud of the swamp, well away from the clearing.
"Their numbers decreased toward nightfall," Lynthalsea reported.
"Good," said Shay, handing a coiled line to Avari. "Link up as before. If we become separated, we meet back here."
Avari looped the thin line around her waist and passed it on as Shay fished several items from his pockets. "Remember, once the spell takes effect, we communicate with the rope. One tug means follow, two means stop and three means danger."
"Jist be on with it, will ye," DoHeney said with a nervous sneer. "We been over this dozens o' times."
Shay nodded, breathed deeply, closed his eyes, and began his incantation. Magical words whispered through the air like wraiths as he rolled a bit of wool between his hands, then cupped them, the now-shimmering material dissolving into strands of glistening silvery light. He drew bits of light from his palm, touching first his friends, then himself, on the eyelids. With each touch, the recipient faded from view, until only darkness filled the tiny clearing.
"Go ahead, Avari," Shay's voice said from the void. "But remember, violent actions will negate the spell. Do not run or slam into anything, and especially do not use your weapon."
Avari marveled at herself, or rather, her lack of self, but her wonderment could not supplant her craving for action. She answered Shay with a grunt, then tried to hush the distinct whisper of steel as she freed Gaulengil from its sheath. She tugged the line once to coax her companions into motion, and led them through the undergrowth toward the pyramid.
Bored. Completely and utterly bored.
Dekhmaal slouched on his alabaster throne, digging absently at the beautifully carved armrest with a dagger, heedless of the damage. Leaning his head back, the Dukarr gazed up at the immense viper looming behind the throne. Cunningly inlaid with silver, the life-like sculpture of the snake-people's deity rose high toward the vaulted ceiling. Its reign had lasted centuries longer than Dekhmaal had lived, but now he ruled here. Luck had led him to this place; his cunning had made it his own.
This is far too easy, he thought. So much easier than finding the gem in the first place.
Dekhmaal often reminisced about the discovery of the temple during his search for the lost emerald. The present worshippers were but the remnants of a once-great civilization that had flourished in the Black Swamp. He had dazzled them with simple magic to gain access to the temple's vaults and all their riches and secrets. The knowledge he acquired there enabled him to claim the privileges of the throne.
Dekhmaal smiled, twirling a slim wand between his fingers; with the right tools, one could work miracles. Lucky that these simple creatures knew so little about magic. They were like children, really, all too eager to believe that Dekhmaal, once like them, had been transformed into a human by the might of their god's power. The wand and a few simple spells convinced them that he had delivered unto them their god incarnate. He had spent years here with the gem, awaiting Darkmist's call for release. Now he waited here again at his master's pleasure.
A pleasant tinkle of coins reached the Dukarr's ears. The treasure mounded about the throne shifted and slid beneath the scaly coils of a gigantic viper rousing from its slumber. Dekhmaal straightened, his heart beating faster. The reptile's great triangular head, as wide as the Dukarr was tall, rose beside the throne, the black-slitted pupils fixed intently upon him. An angry hiss split the air, then died, as Dekhmaal pointed the wand and spoke the word of command. The instrument tingled in his palm and the serpent's eyes glazed over with the renewed enchantment. The beast settled into the mound of treasure, coins and gems rustling like leaves beneath its bulk.
Yes, Dekhmaal thought again as he slipped the wand into a pocket, his fleeting fears eased, far too easy...
That was almost too easy! Though I'll never be able to give that hairbrush to DoEllen now, DoHeney thought, regretting the ne
ed to throw the brush into some bushes to distract six of the slimy creatures enticed by the aroma of four mammalian visitors who had not bathed in days. But the ruse had drawn the snake-men's attention long enough for the companions to slink into the dark recesses of the temple's interior.
"So far so good," Lynthalsea whispered as they crouched in an alcove, which seemed silly considering their invisibility.
"Ah! Never say that, lass." DoHeney's voice was only half joking. "You'll bring down the wrath o' the gods, or worse..."
"Enough!" Avari hissed. "This is no place to talk. Take out the gem and let's get on with it."
"Very well, here it is. I was jist thinkin' I might... Aw, blast it!"
"What is wrong?" Shay snapped. "Have you dropped it?"
"Gods no, I haven't dropped it, ye dern fool of an elf! Can't ye see... Well I guess ye can't at that, but ye should o' known the blasted thing would be invisible!"
"Invisible? But how could I... I mean, how—" Shay's stammering ended with a loud smack as DoHeney's open hand, guided by his voice, contacted the half-elf's cheek. The dwarf flickered into existence.
"There now," he said, glancing down at himself to ensure his visibility. "I should be able to see the blasted thing now."
"You didn't have to hit me," Shay said, still only a voice from thin air. "I could have dispelled the invisibility."
"Should o' told me sooner," the dwarf said, holding out the gem. "Besides, ye all needn't be visible; it'd give us away fer sure. I can stick ta the shadows pretty good, so ferget—"
True to his word, DoHeney suddenly melted into the shadows. The others hugged the wall as several snake-men slithered past, never glancing into the alcove.
"Damn me, but I wish them things had feet! Here now, let's have a look-see." DoHeney carefully shaded the crimson glare of the ruby as he took a sighting. "Looks ta be that-a-way. And this damn thing's brighter than before."
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