by Mel Odom
Xuxa swooped in without mercy, raking her claws and tail across the draw's face.
Baylee surged ahead, drawing the parrying dagger and opening the spring-trigger. The two side blades sprang out at once. He engaged the drow who had fired the crossbow bolt, catching the man in the midst of reloading. He struck the hand crossbow aside with the parrying dagger, then buried his sword in the man's chest.
Another drow swung at him with a short sword.
Baylee blocked the cut with the parrying dagger, put a foot on the dead drow he'd run through, and yanked his sword free. Xuxa swooped across the drow, raking away his eyes.
The dark elf fell back, screaming in pain.
"Down, lad," Ciwa Cthulad called from behind Baylee.
The ranger ducked at once, watching as the justifier thrust his military pick deep into the draw's chest. The drow struggled to get free, but Cthulad leaned into the weapon, giving his weight to it. The length gave him comfortable room to work with even from behind Baylee.
"Now," Cthulad said, withdrawing his weapon. The dead warrior dropped.
Baylee stood, aware that Cthulad was going to await any openings that might present themselves. Baylee cut and thrust, beating the swords of the next opponent down. The flames of the dead man's burning clothes continued to burn bright enough to cause the draw warriors problems.
"We can't stay out here in the open long, lad," Cthulad said, thrusting again. "Well have to break the drow before the hook horrors get through Calebaan. Otherwise, a lot of those men behind us will die."
Baylee dodged another sword thrust, sliding quickly to the side. In a roll of motion, he thrust the parrying dagger on the ground, then reached for the extended arm of the drow, grabbed the man's elbow, and threw him over the edge of the chasm. The drow screamed the whole way down, then quieted abruptly. Long before then, Baylee had the parrying dagger in his hand again.
Cthulad lashed out with the pick again, driving another drow back. Baylee surged into the gap left by the retreating drow and the one he'd dragged over the side of the chasm. He used the long sword to hammer through the circle of steel the drow warriors tried to put up to block him. He swiped the parrying dagger across a man's arm, rendering it useless in a spray of crimson. The blood splashed across Baylee's face but stayed out of his eyes.
A drow behind the wounded man thrust out with a spear, driving it toward the ranger's face.
"Watch it, lad," Cthulad warned.
Moving with fluid grace, Baylee caught the spear thrust in the grip of the parrying dagger and turned it toward the left to the stone wall of the tunnel. The steel head grazed sparks from the rock, then came to an abrupt halt. Before the drow could draw his spear back, Baylee chopped it in half with the long sword. He brought the backstroke around as the man tumbled off-balance, opening up his midsection.
The drow went down trying to hold himself together. Baylee kept himself distant from the horror of the dying man. The watch party couldn't be allowed to be caught out on the ledge. He stepped over the drow warrior and felt the man grab for him. Bloody hands slid slickly over the ranger's leg, unable to get a grip.
Cthulad ended the draw's struggle with the pick.
Shadows wrapped around the tunnel in front of Baylee. He was uncertain of the placement of his opponents. He depended on his other senses, trained in the woodlands and honed by Golsway's attention, to make up the difference.
He felt Xuxa's leathery wing brush across his cheek, then he caught a glimpse of her as she hooked her claws into the draw's face just ahead of him. The man screamed in pain as the bat bit deeply, then reached for her.
Baylee thrust his sword, burying it almost to the hilt in the man's throat. The lantern swept across the scene, providing only brief glimpses of the drow warrior. Xuxa leaped into the air again.
Use the body as a shield, Xuxa advised.
Despite the fact that the dead man had bled profusely, Baylee stepped in close and sheathed the parrying dagger. He knotted a fist in the man's tunic, supporting the dead weight by bringing it close to him. He freed his long sword, then shoved himself forward. One of the drow behind the dead man tried to shove a sword blade through the corpse, but the blade halted only inches through the dead man's stomach, barely putting any pressure on Baylee's armor.
A moment later, Baylee listened to the whip of leathery wings, then heard a man scream in agony. "My eyes, my eyes!"
The tunnel dipped down suddenly, throwing Baylee off-balance. He released the corpse as the tunnel opened up into another chamber. Shadows moved before him, but he had trouble discerning targets. Light from his lantern glinted across a sword blade swinging at his head. He blocked it, then instinctively followed the line of the slash and found the flesh and blood body in the shadows at the end of it. Before his opponent could draw back, the ranger thrust again. The man was dead before he hit the ground.
Light filled the chamber without warning. Baylee was careful to keep it at his back, letting it play over the handful of drow warriors in front of him. "You have a chance at living," he told them. 'Take it and run. We're coming through."
The drow seemed uncertain, looking among their ranks for someone who could provide an answer. Then two of them went down with throwing darts embedded in their foreheads. The remaining ones broke and ran.
From the exhibition he'd heard about at the forgathering, Baylee knew who'd thrown the darts. He turned toward Cordyan. "They didn't have to die."
"I disagree," she said coolly as she stepped forward with her lantern. She put her foot on the faces of the dead men and tugged her darts free. "These are drow. If I could have, I'd have killed them all. Now we have to worry about the survivors getting confident enough to try sneaking up on us in the dark and killing whomever they can." She wiped the darts and put them away in her clothing again.
Calebaan brought Baylee his bow. "She is right," the wizard said. "You can't trust even a drow's cowardice. There may be something he lies about that he is even more afraid of." Listen to the truth, Baylee, Xuxa said.
The ranger settled the strung bow over his shoulder, tying it to the gnomish work leather. He took up his lantern in his empty hand, keeping the long sword naked in his fist. He kept his thoughts to himself about the matter, but he felt there was usually some other alternative to outright killing if an opponent wasn't directly menacing.
"What about the drow woman?" Baylee played his lantern over the dead scattered in the tunnel.
"We haven't seen her," Cordyan answered.
"She's part of this."
"Well, she's not here now."
"Her path may yet lie ahead of us," Cthulad said.
The ground shook again, more forcibly this time, knocking them all from their feet. The duration of the tremors lasted longer this time as well. Rocks and debris rained down from overhead, banging painfully into Baylee.
"The hook horrors have broken through the wall!" someone shouted from behind.
"Lead or get out of my way," Cordyan yelled. Lantern light played across her blood-stained face.
"A moment," Baylee responded. He played the lantern over the dead drow again. "They're not carrying packs, nor any extra rations."
"They're from somewhere near," Cthulad agreed. "The question is, though, are these all of them?"
Baylee shook his head. "The female wasn't with them. There's something else afoot in these twisted tunnels." He went forward, charging into the darkness. Behind him, he could hear the chittering and clacking of the hook horrors.
Krystarn felt a stab of fear as she rounded the final corner and came face to face with the hobgoblin horde. Despite the fear she had put into Chomack, she knew there was the possibility that the hobgoblin chieftain could have figured to put her powers to the test. In a way, it was humorous, her gifting Chomack with the same skill at duplicity as she was currently employing against Shallowsoul.
The hobgoblins showed her only fear and deference. They were a ragged, motley bunch, covered with dust from the swirling deb
ris that ran through the caverns. Chomack strode out of the waiting shadows.
"Sorceress," the hobgoblin chieftain acknowledged.
Krystarn nodded at him. "Are your warriors ready, Chieftain Chomack?"
"Aye."
The drow elf took the lead, guiding the large party through the labyrinthine mazes of tunnels that led up to the partially collapsed structure where she kept her rooms. In minutes, they were at the wall where Shallowsoul had always opened the dimensional door.
No lights burned in the hallway. If it hadn't been for Krystarn's own infravision and that of the hobgoblins, she knew she wouldn't have been able to see a thing. Broken rock from the ceiling overhead covered the floor. She made her way through it carefully.
Halting at the dead end, she brought out the crystal ball. She chanted, summoning up her spell energy, and praying to Lloth as she focused the forces she used through the crystal ball. The crystal ball was already in tune with the magic the lich was using. She knew how to cast a dimension door, but casting one into the library was much harder. For one, she didn't know exactly where it was in the physical world even though she'd been through it a number of times. And for another, she felt the actual distance it was from the dead-end wall was much further than she could transfer herself using her own spell.
The hobgoblins fell into line behind her at Chomack's order. Their bared weapons clinked against their armor.
Perspiration covered Krystarn's face as she locked into the exchange of energies. A headache throbbed at her temples. She pushed herself past the pain, thinking of the library only, of all the power that would be within her grasp in the next few minutes.
Through her slitted eyelashes, she saw the wall start to glow. At first it was a patch no bigger than the end of her finger, but quickly spread until she couldn't cover it with both hands. And it kept growing as the dimensional door swung open wider.
26
The trail came to an end in a crypt.
Be careful, Xuxa warned as she fluttered to a wall and perched upside down from the rough, craggy surface.
Baylee played his lantern over the crypt, lighting tumbled stone caskets thrown across the interior of the smashed building. The roof was long gone, but the cavern above had sunk to within a few feet, giving it the appearance that a roof still existed. Pieces of half a dozen skeletons lay strewn across the floor, but none of them tried to reassemble themselves or grab for weapons, as Baylee more than half expected.
"Which way?" Ciwa Cthulad asked from behind him.
"The map shows that the trail runs west," Baylee responded. "But this crypt wasn't shown."
"It sank from above," Cordyan said.
"Yes," Baylee replied. The lantern light broke against the cracked back wall. Going through it would still have constituted something of an engineering miracle.
"The drow must not have come this way," Cthulad said.
Baylee aimed the lantern at the plain of smooth dust and dirt in front of the crypt. "If they did, any footprints they might have left have been erased or covered over."
"Perhaps there's a way around," Calebaan said.
Baylee pulled back out of the crypt and went around to the left of the building. A narrow space between the building and the one next to it loomed in a slice of darkness. He shoved the lantern forward, playing it over the jumble of rock waiting ahead of him. The incline went down, deeper into the series of underground caverns. Beneath the rubble, he spotted the set of stone-carved steps that had been depicted on the map. They sat in the narrow mouth of a tunnel that continued west.
"Here," he said.
"Get a man on that crypt door," Cordyan ordered one of her guardsmen. "If anything moves behind us, I want to know about it."
The hook horrors had given up the chase a few minutes before, after one of them had been doused in oil and set afire. And one of the tunnels the party had traveled through had been too narrow for the large creatures to get through. However, the hook horrors had managed to locate one of the drow warriors trying to follow the Waterdhavian unit.
Baylee let his long sword guide the way, holding the lantern up. He started down the stone steps, then the next series of quakes shook the ground. Blocks of stone tumbled from overhead.
"Shields up!" Cordyan screamed. She extended her shield over Baylee and herself as the debris poured down.
Baylee stayed under the proffered shelter as the stone battered against the shield. He held his left arm up and Xuxa fluttered down to hang from it. The quake this time lasted longer than the other times.
"They're getting worse," Cthulad said. Rock pounded against his upraised shield with deafening thuds.
Gradually, the deluge stopped. Baylee pushed himself out from under Cordyan's shield and went forward. Other buildings lay in a tumbled-down mess before him. He held the lantern high and went quickly. Being between the buildings when the next quake hit was going to be dangerous. Any of them looked capable of crumbling down and doing serious harm to anyone under them. Baylee found the end of the steps and paused on the last one. "What are you stopping for?" Cordyan asked. The ranger took a brush from the gnomish work armor. He worked at the bottom stone step. "There's supposed to be a trip switch here somewhere."
"A trip switch for what?" Cordyan knelt and helped him look along the step.
"A doorway of some kind." Baylee cleaned the front of the step with the brush, below the top surface.
"The trail goes on beyond," the civilar pointed out.
"But it doesn't go where we want to go." Baylee moved his lantern, directing the light over the stone step. He barely made out the crevice that ran along the front of the step, halfway down. "Please hold this."
Cordyan took the lantern and kept the light on the step.
Baylee released his long sword, keeping it beside him, and took a miniature pry bar from one of the pockets in the gnomish leathers. He slipped the end into the crevice and started adding pressure. The crevice was artificed so carefully, he didn't know if he would have seen it without all the damage the quakes had done. After a moment, a thin sheeting of stone that ran the length of the step came loose in his hand. More dust had filtered through, covering the surface beneath. He put the pry bar away and used the brush again to reveal eight symbols inscribed in the stone, covering squares of stone that Baylee believed to be attached to counterweights.
Beside the symbols was an inscription. Baylee translated, guiding the lantern in Cordyan's hand. " 'If you've a love of lore and a love of culture, you'll know of Schyck Raveneyes.'"
"Raveneyes?" Cordyan asked. "Who was Schyck Raveneyes?"
Calebaan crowded closer, bringing his light to bear as well. "Raveneyes was one of the lesser known elven heroes of myth and legend. Not much was written about him." He paused. "I don't know what those symbols represent."
Baylee forced himself to think. His mind raced and his heart hammered inside his chest. He touched the symbols, hoping the contact would give him a clue. They were representations of Raveneyes. He felt frantic as his mind repeatedly reached into his memory and couldn't quite grasp what he needed.
Be at ease, Baylee, Xuxa offered.
I can't. What I need is right there. Baylee traced the symbols again, trying to fathom these. They were of a ship, an arrow, a dragon, a cloud, a morkoth, a child, a river, and an altar.
"If it's the story of Raveneyes," Cordyan said, "then maybe you're supposed to press them in order."
"Of course you're supposed to press them in order," Baylee snapped. He felt guilt over his behavior and turned to face the civilar. "I'm sorry. It's just that I can barely remember this story."
"What story, lad?" Cthulad asked.
"The story of Schyck Raveneyes." Baylee looked at the symbols again. "He was given eight tasks to do by Solonor Thelandira. Evidently these are supposed to be pressed in order."
"Then the picture of the child must be the first," Cordyan said.
"No," Baylee replied. "That has to represent the firstborn child of Corona
l Fhastey, who got some of the early families of the wild elves to agree to trading camps and fairs. Fhastey's son was kidnapped by a gang of rogues seeking to break some of the trade agreements. Raveneyes found the coronal's son and brought him back safely. But that was among the later stories." Sluggishly his mind turned to the stories he remembered.
"If you remember that, you should be able to remember the rest of it," the civilar said.
"There are eight of them," Baylee said, "and the stories of Raveneyes were an interest a long time ago. He left nothing behind except these legends."
"Evidently Glitterwing liked him," Calebaan said.
Baylee blinked perspiration out of his eyes. "Raveneyes fought the Cloud of Kellagg first. He was fifteen years old. The cloud gathered in the cemetery of Notts Docks, a trading post on the River Ashaba even before Myth Drannor existed. It brought the dead up out of the ground, fulfilling an ancient curse."
"Raveneyes found the Gem of Despair and shattered it, ending the threat as I recall," Calebaan said.
Baylee nodded. "Fragments of that gem are supposed to still exist, giving limited control over those recently killed by violent means. Families, they say, can purchase the use of the gem and allow the dead to rise and avenge themselves."
"Press the symbol," Cordyan said.
Hesitantly, Baylee pressed the symbol. It sank in, then clicked and stayed inset. "Then came the threat of the goblin pirates along the river." He pressed the river stone, getting more tense when it locked into place rather than relaxing. He couldn't help wondering what would happen if he guessed wrong.
The arrow designating the hunt for the unicorn burial ground, there to find components necessary to make a potion to save Raveneyes's own daughter, came next. It was followed by the altar which represented the drow pocket of civilization Raveneyes had destroyed when those dark elves encroached too far into the forest. Thinking about the story, Baylee realized the drow could have come through these very caverns back then, and Glitterwing's own research into the legends could have helped him found Rainydale.