He grabbed her arm, forcing her to stay. "It reflects poor breeding, Kestrel, to walk away in the middle of a conversation. On what do you base those criticisms?"
Why did his insults still hold the power to rankle? Their frequency should have rendered her immune by now. "You've appointed yourself the leader of this mission, yet you allow your prejudice to cloud your decisions, ignoring or underusing my skills to the detriment of the party." Despite her ire, her voice held steady. "For someone who professes humility in the service of his god, you have demonstrated precious little of it among your fellow mortals. And for someone who seeks to better understand the ways of the divine, you know very little about the human condition. I doubt very much that the third son of Baron Whoever-the-hell has ever wanted for anything or can comprehend what desperation can drive a person to do."
There—she'd said it all, and her heart hammered in her chest with the rush of having finally confronted him. To her delight he looked as if he'd been slapped. She shook her arm loose, turned her back on him, and went to join the others.
With minimal travel time, the party descended to the dungeon's lowest level and found the old dwarven treasury. The stone door stood ajar, its engraved glyph—a circle within an arch—desecrated. Through the graffiti, however, Kestrel noted that the original symbol matched that on the key she'd taken from the dead cult sorcerer.
A muffled voice, unmistakably Nottle's, came from within, promising riches in exchange for release. "Gems ... I got a nice collection o'gems. Or if it's weapons ye want—"
"Oh, stuff a sock in it," responded another voice, this one gruff and just inside the door. A few low chuckles indicated that several men stood guard.
Durwyn nocked an arrow. After the surprisingly easy defeat of the mage upstairs, they'd decided to launch more conventional missiles during their initial volley and hold Jarial and Ghleanna's magic in reserve until they saw how many opponents they faced. Emmeric, armed with Corran's sword, fingered the hilt impatiently, eager to strike back at the cult for slaying his companions.
The paladin gripped his warhammer. He had not spoken to Kestrel since their confrontation. When she'd suggested that she sneak into the room after combat began—in an attempt to disguise their number and attack one of the guards from behind—a shrug had been the only indication that he'd heard her.
At Corran's nod, Durwyn stepped into the doorway and fired, a second shot quickly chasing the first. "One down—five more!" He jumped out of the way to let Corran and Emmeric charge past, then grabbed his axe and followed them into battle. Next, Ghleanna and Jarial entered.
Kestrel withdrew her twin daggers from her boots and waited in the corridor as sounds of combat erupted. She counted to sixty, then slipped inside.
It was a huge room, at least one hundred feet on each side, filled with chests, crates, and emptied sacks. Had Kestrel the time, her thief's mind would have loved to calculate the riches the chamber had held during Myth Drannor's peak. Now a more serious task occupied her attention.
The three warriors had engaged five guards in combat A sixth guard lay on the floor, one of Durwyn's arrows through his heart. At first Kestrel thought their opponents were cult sorcerers, for they all had claws for right hands and wore red leather boots, loincloths, and bracers. These adversaries, however, had no hoods to hide their heads and shoulders, and she gasped at the sight of their deformed features. Their skin, though still flesh-colored, resembled a scaly reptilian hide from the tops of their heads to their upper chests, and their eyes burned red with battlelust. Where the scarred mages had tattoos to broadcast their cult affiliation, the fighters had three razor-sharp blades piercing each thigh. The guards wielded wicked-looking double-bladed halberds with spikes at their heads and hooks at their bases.
Durwyn battled two of the cultists. His second arrow protruded through the shoulder of one. He landed a blow on the arm of his injured foe, then managed to parry the other's strike. Corran also fought two opponents. His warhammer easily deflected the attacks that came his way, but he appeared unable to gain the offensive. Emmeric, though fighting with an unfamiliar weapon, seemed to be holding his own.
Ghleanna gazed balefully at one of Corran's adversaries, her fingers tracing ancient runes in the air. A moment later the sorceress uttered a single command word. The cult fighter shrieked, but Kestrel could discern no physical damage. His blows, however, lost their precision. When Corran's other foe caused the paladin to shift his position, the spellbound cult fighter swung wildly, apparently trying to hit anything within reach of his weapon.
He's blind, Kestrel realized. With one of Corran's opponents thus disabled, she darted around the room's perimeter to aid Durwyn. As she moved, she kept one eye on the unfolding combat.
Emmeric, gaining familiarity with the weight and balance of Corran's sword, backed his opponent against an open trunk. The cult fighter's calves bumped into the chest, knocking him off balance. As he struggled to regain his equilibrium, Emmeric seized the moment and scored a hit. The thrust opened a deep gash in the cultist's shoulder. Undeterred by the blood oozing down his arm, the fighter lunged forward to return the blow. Emmeric anticipated the strike but not the handful of diamond dust the fighter grabbed from the open trunk with his free hand and threw in his face. The distraction lasted only a moment, but that was long enough for the cultist to open a wound in Emmeric's sword arm.
A glance at Durwyn indicated that the large warrior still managed to fend off both of his opponents, so Kestrel elected to aid the injured Emmeric. She maneuvered behind the cult fighter, planning to stab him in the back. Just before moving in for her strike, she glanced toward Jarial and Ghleanna in the doorway to make sure they saw her and didn't inadvertently direct any magical attacks her way.
Her heart stopped.
Behind the door stood a hooded figure with the green tattoos of the cult sorcerers. The wizard's sinister gaze focused on Emmeric, his hands gesturing rapidly as his mouth formed unheard words.
"Cult sorcerer!" she shouted.
Her warning came too late. A crackle of electricity rent the air as a lightning bolt blasted from the wizard's fingertips to strike Emmeric. The bolt struck the fighter with so much force that he flew through the air and into the wall a good eighty feet away, the smell of burning flesh following in his wake. His scorched body dropped to the floor.
Kestrel took the dagger she'd meant to plunge between the fighter's shoulder blades and instead hurled it at the cult sorcerer. It buried itself in his stomach. The evil sorcerer looked up, surprised—but not stopped. As blood welled around the weapon and ran down his legs to pool on the floor, the cultist muttered the words of a new incantation. His gaze never left Kestrel.
Movement to her left, however, wrested her attention to a closer opponent. Emmeric's foe, alerted to her presence by the dagger that had sailed past his ear, now turned his attacks on her. She parried his blows with her other dagger, staggering under the force of his strikes. When a shout from one of the other cultists distracted him momentarily, she seized the opportunity to grab her club.
Even with Quinn's familiar baton, the cultist's hits came too quickly for her to manage any offensive blows. He laughed mockingly when she tried to strike back twice—and both times nearly lost her right arm to the cult fighter's superior weaponmastery. Meanwhile, she braced herself for the sorcerer's spell. When would it come? She dared not avert her gaze from the hideous visage of the cult fighter, even for a second.
Suddenly, a flash of orange light silhouetted her adversary. Beyond the fighter, a sheet of flames fanned the cult sorcerer. One of Jarial's spells. The evil spellcaster cried out in agony just as three bursts of magical energy materialized and sped toward her.
Searing pain tore through her right thigh. The wound burned, its sting worse than any inflicted by a mundane weapon. Kestrel sucked in her breath, waiting for two more.
Jarial's magic, however, had distracted the cult sorcerer at the moment he too
k aim. The other two conjured missiles hit her opponent, who yelped as both projectiles caught him in the back. She seized the momentary advantage and slashed his throat.
As the cultist sank to the ground, she quickly took stock of the situation around her. Durwyn had just felled one of his opponents. The other gasped for breath and swung his halberd with undisciplined desperation. The blinded fighter lay in a puddle of his own blood. Corran's remaining foe was backed against a wall. The three mages appeared locked in a sorcerer's contest, racing to see who could cast the next spell.
Kestrel hurled her second dagger at the cult sorcerer. The next spell would not be his.
The dagger caught the evil wizard in the calf. Kestrel muttered an oath under her breath. She was injured and tired. Her aim had been poor. The strike provided enough distraction, however, that the cult sorcerer lost his concentration, and Ghleanna completed her spell first. Bursts of magical energy hissed toward the injured spellcaster, at last finishing him off. Durwyn and Corran defeated their foes at about the same time, the paladin landing a blow on the head of his opponent and the warrior removing the head of his.
In the ensuing silence, they all took a moment to catch their breaths. Kestrel glanced around the chamber warily, half-expecting another cult sorcerer to leap out from the shadows. She couldn't even look at Emmeric's incinerated, broken body lying in a heap across the room. Gods, but she hated wizards.
Her leg burned where the cult sorcerer's missile had hit it. She bent over to examine the injury, anticipating a bloody open wound. Fortunately, her armor had slowed down the missile and thus prevented it from entering too deep. The magical energy appeared to have cauterized the area. Her thigh hurt like hell, but it would heal.
A single voice broke the stillness. "Uh ... anyone still out there?" Nottle's muffled words came from a nearby cluster of strongboxes and crates.
"Yes, Nottle," Corran replied.
"Thanks be to Yondalla! I'm gittin' cramped in here. Lemme out!"
Kestrel left to the others the task of releasing the foolish halfling, instead making her way around ransacked coffers and trunks to Emmeric. Nottle had cost them a valuable comrade-in-arms and her a potential ally against Corran's tyranny. Only Emmeric had agreed that they could not afford this detour, a point he'd lost his life proving. Would the others listen to reason now, or would she eventually end up as dead as the fighter?
She tried to walk normally but found herself hobbling. Each step made the wound throb. Damn that sorcerer to the Abyss! Damn Nottle! Damn Corran, too—she blamed the paladin for the fact that they were down here at all.
Until she reached Emmeric's remains, she harbored a tiny, unrealistic hope that the warrior somehow clung to life. That hope evaporated as soon as she got a close look at him. His body was burned so badly that it scarcely looked human, little flesh yet clung to his charred frame. She swallowed the bile that rose in her throat
Movement behind her indicated that someone had followed her. Two someones, judging from the familiar sound of their footsteps. Corran and Ghleanna.
"Poor Emmeric," the half-elf whispered as she got a look the fighter. "I'd thought maybe..."
"Yeah, me too." Kestrel said.
The two women fell silent as Corran knelt over their fallen companion. The paladin gently untangled Emmeric's skeletal limbs and repositioned his body so that it appeared to rest more comfortably. Then he rummaged through a few open chests until he found a velvet cloth to drape over the fighter. Corran never spoke as he tended to Emmeric's remains. Did he feel guilty for dragging them down here, to the warrior's demise? Kestrel hoped so.
From the conversation drifting toward her, it sounded as if Jarial and Durwyn were having difficulty releasing Nottle from the strongbox in which the cultists had secured him. She sighed and limped toward them, her fingers already reaching for her lockpicking tools. Could any of these people survive without her?
"I'll smash it open with my axe," Durwyn said as she approached.
Nottle squawked. "An' smash my head, too?"
"That won't be necessary." Kestrel pulled the appropriate pick from her pouch. She tried to squat in front of the chest, but her injured leg screamed in protest She wound up simply plunking her bottom down onto the floor. Before touching the lock, she looked up at Jarial. "I assume you've checked this for magical traps?"
"I didn't find any." The mage eyed her askance. "Are you injured?"
"I'm fine." Kestrel examined the lock for signs of mundane surprises. It appeared to be a simple padlock. The only unusual feature was a glyph engraved into the body of the lock. "Damn," she muttered. She'd seen a padlock like this once before—Quinn had nearly lost a finger to the blade that had sprung out of it. Different icon, but she'd bet it worked on the same principle.
Jarial leaned over her shoulder. "What?" Durwyn also bent down to get a closer look.
"I'm guessing this symbol's here for a reason. Use anything but the proper key to open it and something very bad happens." She glanced to Durwyn. "You did check the dead cultists for keys, didn't you?"
A sheepish expression crossed his face. "Uh ..."
She rubbed her temples. "Why don't you do that before we go any further?" Durwyn immediately started rifling the corpses. Not much of a thinker, the warrior was great at following orders.
Nottle rapped on the lid of the strongbox. "What's takin' so long?"
"We're trying to make sure no one else gets killed saving your foolish hide," she said. The halfling sure had an irritating little voice. "You getting enough air through those airholes?"
"Yeah."
"Shut up or that will change."
Nottle fell silent As Durwyn and Jarial searched the cultist's bodies, Kestrel studied the engraving on the padlock. She'd seen that circle and arch image before. It matched the glyph on the treasury door—and on the key she'd taken from the cult sorcerer upstairs.
"Never mind, boys. I think I've found it." She withdrew the key from her sleeve, and discovered that it slipped easily into the lock. The clasp sprung open. A moment later, the peddler was free.
"Finally! I thought I'd never git outta there." The halfling stretched his short limbs to their fullest extent.
"We told you this place was dangerous, Nottle," Corran said as he and Ghleanna rejoined the group.
"Yeah, I know. I couldn't resist. Scavenging's in my blood." He leaned toward Kestrel. "Surely you, m'dear, understand the lure of an old dwarven treasury? I suspect we're kindred spirits."
She didn't deny the allure but preferred to think she had more sense. She nodded toward the dead cultists. "I see this is a great place for making new friends."
He wrinkled his nose in distaste. "Nah, they weren't friendly at all. 'Specially when I wouldn't join their club."
Corran's brow rose. "They invited you to join their organization?"
"Well, not exactly—said I could make a 'great contribution,' but I kinda got the feelin' they were all in on some joke I didn't understan'. Not that I'd want t'belong to somethin' called the Cult of the Dragon. I don't like dragons. Though they have got nice treasure. Dragons, that is—I dunno about these folks."
Kestrel and the others exchanged glances, but no one seemed familiar with the cult's name.
"Did they tell you anything about their activities?" Corran asked.
"Nah. But I did overhear a thing or two. Once they shut me up in the box, they sometimes forgot about me and talked a little too freely. Since ye rescued me and all, I'll tell ye what they said without chargin' my usual price for information."
Kestrel smiled thinly. "How generous of you."
Nottle appeared not to notice her sarcasm. "These cult folks, they're the ones who killed yer friends the other day. They're also the ones who drove the alhoon and phaerimm outta this part o'the city."
"Their sorcerers are that powerful?"
"Their leader is—he's a dracolich!"
A shudder raced up Kestrel's spine. If an undead dragon
was behind all these events, their quest was even more doomed than she'd previously imagined.
Durwyn scratched his head. "I thought Emmeric said the cult leader was an archmage. Some woman—Kya something."
"Perhaps they're working cooperatively," Corran suggested. "Nottle, did you overhear anything else?"
"Somethin' 'bout using some kinda pool t'make the dracolich stronger than he already is."
Everyone but Nottle exchanged apprehensive glances. "Does the pool have a name?" Ghleanna asked.
Nottle shrugged. "Don't know. They jus' kept calling it 'the pool.' It was a little hard t'hear from where I was sittin', ye know."
Jarial cleared his throat "Can we talk about this en route? Now that Nottle is free, we shouldn't tarry."
Corran nodded. "Jarial's right This news only increases the urgency of our mission."
"Emmeric?" Durwyn asked.
"At rest." Corran replied. "Let us finish what he and his companions started."
Following a shortcut Nottle knew, they passed yet another ice-covered doorway on their way back to the Room of Words. "I sure wish we knew what those frozen rooms were about." Durwyn said.
"Perhaps they're related to the Rohnglyn," Nottle said.
"The what?"
The peddler shrugged. "'Accordin' to rumor, some kinda magic transportation use t'connect all four levels of the dwarven dungeons. Rohnglyn, the elves called it. Years back, when the alhoon was still layin' claim t'these halls, they all got in some big feud an'one o'the beasts put an ice charm on the Rohnglyn. Froze the thing right in place, or so I hear."
"This device," Corran asked, "it would enable us to move between levels more quickly?"
"Instantly. So they say, anyway."
Corran pulled out his warhammer. "Care to help me make a few ice cubes, Durwyn?"
The two warriors smashed their way through the ice, revealing a room identical to the one they'd seen before— with one notable exception. The rune on the floor lay covered with ice stalagmites infused with colored lights. Elaborate icicles, many thick as tree trunks, hung from the ceiling, some of them fused to the lower ice formations in great columns of ice. As in the other room, a frozen golden sphere floated at about waist level in the center of the circular pattern.
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