But the tunnel showed no further movement.
“We should leave,” said Entreri, hopping all about, sword and dagger at the ready. He swept Charon’s Claw around, dropping a wave of ash to the floor, thinking the contrast would show him any movement. “Now!”
“We are almost there,” Jarlaxle argued.
“Cast your spell!” Entreri told Catti-brie.
She looked at him curiously for a moment, then came to understand. The human assassin had spent many days trapped in a magical cocoon, a memory that was clearly rattling him now.
“I have it ready,” she assured him.
“I felt it. You didn’t feel it. That thing. It wasn’t just ice. It wasn’t just on me. It was seeping into me, and it was telling me to let it.”
“It was speaking to you?” Catti-brie asked.
Entreri shook his head. “Yes. No. I don’t know.” He blew out his breath, trying to steady himself. “All I know is that I don’t want to feel that again. Ever.”
“Doum’wielle is close,” Jarlaxle insisted. “You felt it with Khazid’hea.”
“You heard the warnings of Galathae and the others,” Entreri argued. “It’s not her. It’s . . .” He looked back down the corridor, at the puddles on the floor and the rivulets on the walls, already freezing once more. “It’s them.”
“Give me the sword,” Catti-brie told Zak, and he handed her Khazid’hea.
She fell right into it, dominating it, forcing it to consider the elf it had once controlled.
“She’s not far at all,” Catti-brie told the others. “I feel it.”
“We have to look,” Zaknafein said.
“Here they come again,” Entreri warned.
“Do it,” Jarlaxle told Zak, nodding at his whip. “And bring allies forth, Catti-brie. We have no choice.”
“We could leave,” Catti-brie reminded him, but Zak had already cracked his whip across, and this time it did tear a rift into the Plane of Fire, drawing a deep and dripping line in the air.
“Keep your spell of recall ready,” Jarlaxle told her.
She didn’t need that prompt. She did reach through the magic in her ring to the tear Zak had created and pull forth elementals—small ones, but many—then commanded them off down the tunnel, where they ran up against the approaching horde of cante in a steamy battle.
On they went. At Catti-brie’s call, Zak opened another tear and more elementals came forth, leading the way. The companions followed Galathae’s direction, staying right at the forks, and if they had any trouble locating the uninhabited, the small living fire elementals surely did not, seeking them out like aimed arrows, colliding with hissing embraces.
Whenever the flames went out, a crack of Zak’s whip brought more in, and Catti-brie sent them running ahead.
Thus far, at least, Qadeej had not awakened.
Galathae knew they should be long gone from this place, but her arguments against Azzudonna and the others who wanted to linger had been half-hearted at best, for the paladin, too, wanted to see what these new friends from the southland might do. Galathae had led the group that had come here those months before. She had lost a score of aevendrow, Doum’wielle, and a trio of orcs.
That defeat had weighed on her, of course.
She knew her responsibilities here, and her orders were clear that they not risk any more Callidaeans. They were supposed to be on their skis and moving back for the previous rift, where the rest of the escort team waited.
But the sounds of lightning bolts had stopped them, and Azzudonna had led the way back, cautiously, to the site of the first battle.
They could tell from the shards lying about the floor of the oval room, and from the smoothness of the corridor ahead—a glassy tableau that showed the melt of a fireball—that the southerners had fought a terrific battle here, and the mere fact that none of them were here, encased, showed they had won that fight.
“Perhaps they’re right and Doum’wielle is alive,” Azzudonna said when Galathae told them that they must depart. “Perhaps our lost friends are similarly so.”
“They are overtaken,” Galathae said. “We know that.”
“Do we know that?” Emilian questioned. “The confusion of the battle was unlike anything we have yet seen.”
“But the result was something we’ve seen all too often,” Galathae reminded him.
“We’ll stay safely back,” Azzudonna promised.
When Galathae hesitated, the warrior started off down the corridor.
Galathae started to call out to her, to scold her and order her back.
But that last battle she had led in here, those losses . . .
“Just a bit further,” she agreed. “But stay close and prepare to flee.”
I’m not losing any more of those I lead, the paladin told herself.
The tunnel opened ahead into a wider area, and before the companions even reached that point, they knew that the chamber Galathae had described to them lay beyond. Catti-brie called to the few small fire sprites, moving them back behind the foursome to cover the tunnel, then motioned for Entreri and Zak to advance. They went in slowly, cautiously, and paused at the entrance to survey a most spectacular room.
It was as large as Cascatte, a huge chamber, roughly square, with a ceiling of ice far, far above, as distant as the ice wall directly across from the tunnel. To their right, the side wall was not far away, the chamber, predictably, as they were on the right-hand side of the glacier, opening to the left. It was not dark in here, the shimmering lights of the Merry Dancers coming in through a large circular hole in the middle of the wall far to the left—no, not a hole, Catti-brie thought, but possibly a thin sheet of translucent ice. Whether that was the case or not, there was an opening somewhere in here, for the wind moaned and sighed, the breath of a giant, the breath, perhaps, of Qadeej, a hollow and empty sound that gave the vast chamber a sensation of emptiness. A frozen waterfall loomed near the center of the opposite wall, almost as if put there to serve as a fast slide down from a long-running ledge some fifty feet from the ground. Perhaps there were tunnels at the back of that ledge, ready to bring a host of charging enemies in upon them.
The floor itself was broken, with varying sheets of frozen steps, or more appropriately, uneven and disjointed shelves. If the ice of a frozen lake had been cracked apart by undulating waves below, then flash frozen once more as the swells moved along, it would resemble this floor.
Dozens of stalagmites dotted much of the floor, particularly here near the tunnel entrance. Some loomed twice the height of a tall man.
The overtaken? Zaknafein’s fingers asked, silently saying what they were all thinking. This had been the spot of the battle where Doum’wielle had fallen—or perhaps “fallen” was the wrong word, for if there were bodies encased in those stalagmites, they were likely standing upright.
But this was the site, from everything Galathae and Azzudonna had told them.
“The sword, Zak,” Jarlaxle whispered, and he nodded toward Catti-brie when Zak looked back at him.
Zak handed her Khazid’hea and she immediately put it up before her, holding it loosely, letting it find Doum’wielle among the forms.
“There,” Catti-brie said breathlessly only a moment later, now gripping the sword more tightly and stabbing it toward a stalagmite some thirty feet or so away, just a bit to the left in a cluster of several of the up-pointing icicles. “It is her!”
She gave Zak the sword back and they all strained their eyes in the dim light, trying to see if there were indeed discernable figures in those pillars.
Catti-brie took out her bow and called for an arrow from her magical quiver. She whispered to the arrow a command word to eliminate the lightning properties, then held her hand before the tip and looked to Jarlaxle.
“Light one,” the drow rogue agreed.
Catti-brie stepped deeper into the tunnel and turned away, then placed a minor enchantment on the tip, a light spell. She set it to her bowstring as she turned about
, leveled, pulled back just a bit, and let fly, the arrow speeding toward the nearest stalagmite and jabbing into the ice.
The companions gasped as one, for illuminated by the magical light, they could see the clear form of someone, likely an aevendrow, trapped within, arms raised up high before her as if trying futilely to defend herself.
“Are they going to animate and rise against us?” Entreri asked. “If not, do we try to break them all out, or just Doum’wielle?”
“Give the sword to Catti-brie,” Jarlaxle told Zak. “Take us straight to Doum’wielle. If we can free her and she is indeed alive, we can then decide further.”
“Stay close,” Catti-brie told them as she took the sword. “I’ll not hesitate to teleport us out of here, but I warn, the range of my spell is limited.”
She took the point, following Khazid’hea’s telepathic directions, with Entreri and Zak a step behind, flanking two steps left and right, and Jarlaxle in the middle behind them. The rogue cast a second spell of detect magic from his wand, as the first one had long since expired.
Catti-brie veered to the right, putting some distance between them and the magically lit stalagmite. She watched closely, as did the others, trying to see if there would be any movement at all from the figure trapped within.
They saw nothing, just the blurry form of an aevendrow in what seemed to be the last moments of her life.
Farther into the vast chamber they crept. Past more mounds, moving straight for the targeted one now.
“Zak, ready your whip,” Jarlaxle warned. “We aren’t alone.”
With Doum’wielle’s pillar clearly identified by then, Catti-brie turned back toward Zak and handed him Khazid’hea. She pulled out Taulmaril and set an arrow.
Not a moment too soon, for behind her and to the right, Zak lifted his whip and snapped it low against the floor, which shimmered beneath the blow as the approaching cante split apart.
“Here!” Entreri called from the other side, and Catti-brie reached through her ring to the tear Zak had created, but managed to glance back to the left to see Entreri dancing about, waving Charon’s Claw down low, the red blade releasing walls of ash all about the floor.
“Clever,” she heard Jarlaxle say as she brought forth dripping balls of living flame and commanded them forth to seek the monsters of water and ice.
Up came the horde of uninhabited, taking humanoid form, a veritable army of the cold monsters pressing in from all sides.
Up came Taulmaril in response, lightning arrows crashing through the monsters and flying on.
Up came Jarlaxle’s giant conjured bird with a great squawk, running off wildly, wings flapping, pecking and stomping with its great talons.
Up came Zaknafein after rolling farther away from the group, buying himself the room he needed to fully work his whip. He did so in a fury then, snapping his wrist back and forth, cracking it against the ground before him over and over, shattering any monsters sneaking too near, icy shards and droplets flying.
And of course, more tears cut into the air to the Plane of Fire.
Catti-brie reached through them to bring in more elementals, as those she had already sent forth met with cante in a foggy crash of mutual destruction. She kept firing her bow, too, but they were being sorely pressed now, with monsters coming around every pillar, as if the entire floor of this vast cavern was rising up against them.
“We have to leave!” she cried.
“Too many,” Entreri agreed. Catti-brie glanced that way to see the man and the diatryma rushing about, smashing their nearly translucent enemies. Entreri seemed cornered, though, and was too far away for her word of recall. If she cast it, he would be abandoned here.
A lightning blast from Jarlaxle bought Entreri a bit of room, albeit temporarily.
“Now, Jarlaxle!” Entreri yelled, rolling out between a pair of reaching uninhabited. He left something on the ground as he came to his feet, and Catti-brie understood just a moment later when a large, emaciated black stallion appeared, fire flowing from its mane and hooves and spouting from its nostrils with every angry snort.
Entreri leaped upon its back and sent it furiously bucking and spinning, every kick exploding an animated ice man, every stomp puddling the ground and sending flames and smoke flying all about.
An angry neighing from behind told Catti-brie that Jarlaxle had followed Entreri’s lead.
But they had to get out of there, and now they were too far apart!
“Fight them! Fight them!” Jarlaxle yelled. Another lightning bolt shot forth, arcing past Zaknafein and skipping through a trio of cante. Cracked, they were easier to discern, and Zak put his whip to fast work, three quick strikes, three destroyed enemies.
Three out of legion.
Entreri and his mount went leaping and spinning, furiously kicking, up ahead of Catti-brie, though still to her left. Very near the stalagmite she had illuminated, the hellsteed bucked, spun, and double-kicked, exploding a cante—the nightmares seemed the perfect foils for such monsters!—and kicking right through it to smash into that mound of ice.
Entreri just kept moving past, not even watching, it seemed, as the stalagmite cracked and split, a slab falling off to the side.
“To Doum’wielle!” Jarlaxle commanded, but then came a second voice.
“Help me,” pleaded the poor aevendrow caught within that mound. Battered, her skin blistered, she reached desperately toward the fighting four, trying to come to them. But as she was still frozen in place from the waist down, she just fell limply over the edge of the cracked pillar, her arms waving in the air pitifully, as if she were trying to swim to them.
Up ahead, Entreri pulled up his mount and looked back, eyes wide with shock.
For here came the next wave, and these were not uninhabited. They were the same size, and surely cloaked in ice, but with drow inside. Like ice-covered zombies, shambling and sliding.
Catti-brie gasped when she looked past Entreri, past the overtaken, to the ice waterfall halfway across the room. She blinked, trying to be sure of what she was seeing, and launched a silver-streaking arrow in that direction to light it up.
Dozens, scores, of n’divi poured down from that ledge above, sliding down the waterfall and coming on.
To the left and behind, the diatryma shrieked, and Catti-brie had barely glanced at it, barely registering that the bird was frozen to the ground, more ice forming all about its thrashing body even as it tried futilely to wing-beat and peck and shake free, before hearing a cry from Zak the other way.
He, too, was stuck to the ground, monsters swarming. He went into a whip-snapping frenzy, over and under with fury.
But they couldn’t hold.
“Get to Doum’wielle!” Jarlaxle commanded, and he, too, went past Catti-brie on his hellsteed, kicking at anything that got too near.
Catti-brie looked past Zak, to the ledge along the wall opposite the tunnel, and there loomed a new threat, one that froze her in place in dread.
A slaad, perhaps, for it seemed a frog-like humanoid, but much larger than those they had encountered, giant-sized and dark-skinned, its eyes flaring with orange demonic flames, its mouth wide and full of pointy teeth, demonic flames behind it, too, making the monster’s head look much like a gigantic jack-o’-lantern. It held a huge curving blade, jagged on both sides and looking as if it could cut the four of them in half with a single swipe.
“Come near!” Catti-brie ordered her friends. “Now!”
The giant leaped out from the ledge, bat wings unfolding behind it as it glided toward them. Were they leathery or were they flesh? Or were they simply smoke? Was all of this demon monster’s form just smoke? Catti-brie could see its skeleton through the dark fog.
“Zaknafein!” she cried out, for it was swooping in from that side. She leveled Taulmaril, but then lowered it and lifted her unicorn pendant instead.
“Run!” she heard Jarlaxle yell then, and she knew he had seen it, too.
Catti-brie pressed the pendant, her holy s
ymbol, to her lips and called to Mielikki, channeling the power of her goddess. The area around her lit up in a brilliant radiance, a divine light, biting at her enemies, melting them, diminishing them. The flying, smoking giant came into the radiance and recoiled, clearly stung, and Catti-brie dared hope, fleeting though it was. For her radiant light expired and the gray slaad behemoth remained.
They had to get out. Catti-brie knew they had to get out.
She glanced at Jarlaxle and Entreri, but they were too far away. So was Zak, but she thought she could get to him, so she leaped that way, ready to utter her word, ready to send herself and the weapon master back to Callidae.
She heard something, but in her head and not aloud, and thought it a name. As she sorted through the sound, she realized the truth of it, that it was the boastful announcement of a great being’s arrival.
Ygorl!
Then a second word, a word she did not know, a word she could not unravel and could not decipher, and could not dismiss.
A word that stunned her and confused her and sent her staggering back several short steps.
In swooped the giant slaad, in came the blade, and then came a black flash and it was gone, leaving behind just a curl of dark smoke.
Zaknafein was yelling to her, but she could not hear. She could see the flashes of his whip, but could not reach out through her ring to call forth elementals.
She stumbled and turned and saw the great monster again, but now all the way across the room, standing before the bright translucent circle letting in the light of the Merry Dancers.
All the way there, across the room.
A teleport?
But nothing made sense as that strange indecipherable word kept repeating in her every thought, kept knocking her back and off balance.
She saw Jarlaxle upon his steed, kicking and spinning, destroying another pillar with fiery hooves, an orc falling free to the floor and trying weirdly and pitifully to rise, his limbs not quite answering the call of his thoughts.
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