Descent into the Depths of the Earth (greyhawk)

by Paul Kidd

  And Jus was blind.

  His eyesight simply disappeared, leaving him in total darkness. Jus reeled back, slinging the tentacle staff far away and sweeping the sword Benelux up on guard.

  “Cinders! Can you see?”

  Can see! The hell hound had fought in tandem with theJusticar for many long, hard years. High left!

  Jus whipped his sword high left in a parry, and the weapon rang. Jus stepped back, sensed movement at his side, and smashed his sword down. The blade bit into something that screamed, and then Cinders barked a warning from above.

  High-low! Jus sped his sword up in a parry, caught anattack, then blocked a stab lower down. High-low-high! Left foot! Rear high! Low left!

  Jus fought purely by instinct. He felt motions beside him and whirled the sword up to meet each strike as Cinders yapped out commands. The stoneskin spell wore away under the assault of a dozen swords. He almost stumbled over a corpse then lashed out wildly to catch a sword that stabbed for his heart. He crashed his blade past the incoming weapon, ramming home with huge force. A dark elf screamed as Jus twisted the weapon and ripped it free.

  He parried madly as a fresh rush of blows crashed home. A mace hammered against his sword hilt and almost struck the sword out of Jus’hands.

  Lower! Lower! Benelux screeched in fright, as she onlyjust managed to catch an elven blade. Dog, call the shots properly!

  Is properly!

  You’re not doing it right! No, left!

  “SHUT UP!” Jus roared at his two companions. Fighting purelyby instinct and skill, Jus barely managed to put his weapon in the way of an attack. “Cinders, you help!”

  All around him, he heard shrieking and dying. The drow still held a line protecting Lolth as the titanic spider drank. The battle would be lost in seconds. The moment the demon queen decided to lift her head out of the bowl, the captives and their rescuers would have no hope. Why she had drunk so long in the middle of a battle was anybody’s guess.

  Jus spun, crashed his sword down on something-felt a presencebehind him and to the left-and smashed his elbow into a drow face. As a swordclanged off his dragon scales, the Justicar shouted, “Cinders! Where’s the highpriestess?”

  Left front-three yards. Cinders heaved then blastedflames forward in a thunderous tidal wave of heat. Path open! Go!

  Jus leaped forward, his sword smashing down and meeting nothing. Jus sensed something slashing at his face, ducked to his knees, and swung. His sword rang against a metal buckler, the huge force of his blow making his enemy crash to the ground.

  The screams and howls of dying humans, half-orcs, elves, and halflings sounded in a mad chorus. Drow war cries screeched and echoed in the hellish light. Through it all, a strangely beautiful female voice managed to shout at the Justicar.

  “You cannot see, human! You are doomed!”

  Jus closed in upon the voice, deliberately keeping himself turned slightly away as though unable to find his enemy. He moved his sword point uncertainly.

  “I know enough. You have been judged.”

  “You are the Justicar-the hand of justice!” Sneering, thedrow high priestess shifted, moving to one side.

  Jus flicked his head and turned, again slightly out of line.

  “You cannot see!” she screamed in triumph as she attacked.

  Jus threw himself flat, spinning with his sword scything across the ground. The blade sheared through ankles, and the ranger heard a scream of agony. He rolled, rose, and slammed his sword through the stunned priestess, killing her instantly.

  “Justice is blind.”

  23

  Shooting out of the temple, Escalla saw the other faerieplunge straight through the bone gateway. In flicker of light, her quarry was gone. Furious but unwilling to leave her friends, Escalla stared aghast at the carnage before her.

  The temple steps were awash with blood. A hundred drow were dead, and easily twice as many humans. The damselflies had torn apart the black widows and the spider centaurs. A knot of drow priests and warriors were gathering around Lolth. The drow took heart as hunting horns sounded from the entrance to the distant caves. Escalla hoped Henry and Polk had the sense to get out of there.

  Seeking the ranger, Escalla saw Jus staggering near the altar, his stoneskin spell long spent and blood running down both arms. The huge man suddenly staggered as a hand crossbow bolt struck him from behind, piercing Cinders’ fur but failing to penetrate the dragon scale coat below. Jus whirledblindly, his sword up and circling as drow closed in.

  Escalla began to throw a spell, but the gem in her mouth stopped her from uttering the incantation. Her hands were full and drow surged below. With a painful gulp, Escalla swallowed the slowglass gem, turned a little green, then sped to the rescue of her friend.

  “Jus!”

  Escalla flamed destruction from above, making a circle of fire about the Justicar. She landed amidst the flames, clinging to the battered ranger. “Jus, are you hit? What’s wrong?”

  “Blind! Spell.” Jus staggered as he nearly tripped over thehigh priestess-one of the most extravagantly bisected corpses Escalla had everseen. More crossbows fired from the drow toward the mob of former captives, and Escalla interposed a shield that made the darts leap and bound away. More horns and war cries sounded as a horde of drow warriors rampaged down the tunnel toward Polk and Henry.

  And Lolth finally moved.

  Wrapped in clouds of shimmering black power, the demon queen raised her head from the bowl and gave a long, slow roar. Escalla stared, Cinders gaped, and the mob all froze in fear. The demon goddess was greeted by a wild cheer from her surviving guards, who all shook their weapons in salute toward their queen.

  Lolth looked across the carnage, stared blearily at the dead and dying, and then collapsed on the ground with one almighty drunken wail.

  Drunk as the proverbial skunk on about a thousand bottles of the dreaded vintage sixty-three, Lolth groaned and flopped about, then screamed in agony as convulsions seized her. Drow beside her shrieked and died as she lashed out at them with her mind, blasting skulls apart and sending dark elves streaming into the temple to hide. Escalla saw the drow turn and run, and she canceled her firewall. She seized a human who knelt strangling a long-dead drow. The man looked up as Escalla dragged him by the hair.

  “Take the Justicar and go through the bone gate!” Escalla putJus’ arm over the pimple man and yelled, “Get out through the bone gate! Run!Run!”

  For a moment, Jus resisted, shouting, “No! Polk and Henry!”

  “I’ll get ’em!” Escalla replied. “You hold the exit!”

  Jus nodded grimly, and the mob turned like a living tide toward the gateway. Escalla heard screams and horn blasts from the distant tunnels and sped back to assist Polk and Henry’s last stand.

  At the tunnel mouth, Henry swerved his crossbow from left toright, the dwindling ammunition pouring into the magazine as fast as it could move. Crossbow bolts hammered into drow as they churned in confusion. Return fire rang and howled as it careened from rocks and rebounded from Henry’sstoneskin. The magic was fading, and now Henry’s helmet rang as a crossbow boltstruck the metal crown, making his ears ring.

  Still the magic crossbow snarled, sheeting darts into the enemy. Enemy fire whirred from the tunnel as drow held up the bodies of dead or paralyzed comrades to use as shields. The drow shuffled forward inch by inch, awkwardly closing the range. Two broke and sped to the left, hitting the last of Escalla’s traps and blowing themselves ceiling high. Others ran past the smokingremains, leaped over a pile of rocks, and began racing to Henry’s position. Thesoldier whipped his crossbow about to blast a dozen shots at them as they ran. One elf fell, but the other threw himself flat and began worming through cover.

  Switching targets had let other drow rush closer. A dozen cringed behind their horrific shields as Henry shifted fire, and the boy was forced to hammer the advancing elves once more.

  Inch by inch, Henry and Polk were losing. The drow were gathering and signing to on
e another, almost confident enough to rush the deadly crossbow. Polk searched the bottom of the ammunition box, whipped out the last dozen crossbow bolts, and slapped them in place.

  “Almost out!”

  Blurring insanely fast, the magic crossbow’s string suddenlysnapped in two. Smoking, the pieces hung limp as Polk and Henry stared.

  A sudden scream of victory came from the single drow on the flanks, and the dark elf charged Henry with two short swords clashing. Henry rolled, freeing his sword just as the Justicar had shown him, rolling and hacking upward into the drow’s knee. Hamstrung, the drow fell. Henry screamed infright and stabbed his sword down like an ice pick, the point skipping and sparking off the drow’s armor time and time again.

  Desperate, the dark elf kicked Henry, and the boy fell. Turning, the drow raised both swords over Henry’s chest.

  Henry roared furiously, bellowing like the Justicar and unleashing a vast strength brought on by terror and desperation. Rolling, he smashed his sword through the drow’s chest, carving right through into its evilheart. The drow fell on him, both swords striking stone to either side of Henry’s head.

  The boy shoved the corpse away even as the elves at the tunnel mouth charged in one screaming, frenzied mass. A solid rain of crossbow bolts hissed forward. Polk whirled the portable hole outward like a cape, and the incoming darts flew harmlessly into the hole. Polk then grabbed the boy and ran.

  “Strategic withdrawal, son!” Polk bellowed out like a wildbull as he ran. “Justicar! We have a problem!”

  More drow sped fast along the flanks to cut the retreating humans off. Henry pushed Polk back to run for safety just as a random dart pierced his calf from behind. Henry arched and froze.

  Polk turned, saw the boy stiff and paralyzed, then grabbed Henry by the arm as the boy collapsed.

  “Son!”

  The teamster shoved Henry into the portable hole and threw the magic crossbow after him. A drow sprang like a mad locust straight at Polk’sback. The teamster turned and drew his last loaded hand crossbow, shooting the drow through the face.

  The dark elf warrior fell lifeless to the stone floor, but a female drow leaped over the corpse and struck with her short sword. The blade speared straight through Polk’s chest. The teamster gasped and teetered even assomething flashed past his shoulder to explode like a bomb, crashing the drow off her feet.

  “Bitch!”

  Frenziedly beating her enemy to death, Escalla jammed her lich staff into the creature’s open mouth and triggered the weapon’s power. Thedrow detonated, and Escalla tumbled on the blast, showered by yet more gore.

  Polk teetered, gasping and choking on his own blood, then fell. Escalla opened the portable hole under him even as a dozen crossbow shots hissed past her. With Polk inside, the faerie towed the hole awkwardly behind her as she fled, dragging it like a blanket.

  Half a mile away, a solid column of refugees poured throughthe bone gate, occasionally trampling one of their own number. Lolth staggered and lurched into the columns of her own temple, clutching her face and screaming like a soul in torment. Drow fell, telepathically suffering their goddess’hangover. Escalla found Jus hovering beside the gate and blinking blankly as though it would clear his blindness. Escalla grabbed the man by the elbow and led him to the archway.

  Jus stared about as he heard the sound of onrushing hordes of drow. “Are Polk and Henry safe?”

  “I’ve got them! It’s not good.” Escalla shoved the portablehole into Jus’ hands. “But they must have killed at least a hundred drow!”

  “Good men.”

  “Polk’s hit bad!” Escalla screamed. “Real bad, Jus!”

  “How many are left?”

  “Huh?” Escalla gave Jus a confused look.

  “How many captives? I can’t leave until they’re all out!”

  Escalla did a quick estimate. “A few moments! When I say go,then get through quick!”

  Lolth blundered closer, trying to focus on the departing sacrifices. More and more drow were flooding from the tunnel, charging toward the temple gates. Moving fast, Escalla dipped down and rapped her knuckles upon Benelux’s hilt.

  “Hey, Spiky! Where did you say you were forged?”

  The positive energy plane! The sword gave a selfimportant cough. The pure energy that formed the building blocks of all matter, the-

  “Is it hot?” Escalla cut her off.

  Hot? Benelux swelled with grandeur. Imagine the insideof a vast, undying, ever-churning sun. Imagine pure light and heat eternally exploding upward like a fountain of power! Imagine-!

  “All right, that’s hot. That’s perfect!” Escalla chased thelast few dozen prisoners through the bone gate. “People, we are leaving!”

  Escalla looked around desperately. The last battered refugee in sight stumbled through. If there were more, they were on their own. She couldn’t wait any longer.

  Escalla shoved Jus forward, and he disappeared. Seeing her prey escaping, Lolth reared and screamed. The demon’s head swam to thenightmarish effects of vintage sixty-three. Lurching sideways, all eight legs churning and slipping, the colossal spider blundered through her own altar, sending the bowl of blood clanging to the ground. The temple guards had fled, but the drow from the main caverns were closing fast. Escalla gave a last look over the underdark, tucked severed hand and lich staff underneath her arm, then quickly sped away.

  She shot through the great bone arch, popped out of a mirror, and bounced upon a trampled, crushed, and altogether broken bed. She flew out the room’s shattered windows to wave to a faerie who stood goggling at the vastcrowd of refugees milling on his lawns.

  Naked, blood smothered, and carrying a severed hand, Escalla gave the faerie a salute.

  “Hey, Dad! Did you miss me?”

  The blindness was clearing.

  Jus blinked, holding onto a broken balustrade as he stared at once beautiful gardens that were now trampled flat by two thousand panicked feet. Refugees had swarmed over the lawns, where a dozen faerie sorcerers held them in a magic fence. Lord Charn hovered, tearing his hair out, appalled at the destruction to his home.

  The splinter and crash of breaking woodwork sounded as one last refugee thundered through the magic portal-a gateway that exited from anornate mirror mounted on Escalla’s bedroom wall. Velvet curtains had been torndown as a solid battering ram of humans, elves, halflings, half-orcs, and even a dwarf or two had charged over a balcony and into the sylvan gardens beyond.

  The Justicar blinked, and the last of the blindness fell away. Seeing Escalla hanging bloody and disheveled at his side, he said, “We’rein the faerie lands!”

  “Yep!”

  “This is your old bedroom!”

  “The Nightshade key is kept in Dad’s vault just down thehall.” Escalla looked at Jus’ dubious face. “Hey, man! I’m the heir! Of coursethe key’s hidden in the palace. Dad and I were always looking after it.”

  Jus angrily wiped his eyes and asked, “Who knew the key washere?”

  “Dad, me… maybe Mom and Sis.” The girl shoved thesevered hand down the portable hole. “Now hurry! Get this mirror onto the lawnbefore Lolth comes through. There’s about a hundred million drow chargingstraight toward the gate!”

  Escalla’s father appeared, looking stunned. He opened hishands and demanded an explanation.

  Jus looked at the mirror-a vast heavy thing of silver, framedwith gold, and fixed to the wall. He gripped the frame and heaved, plaster cracking and exploding as he tore the mirror from the wall. With a roar, the huge man dragged the mirror free and held it above his head.

  “Where to?”

  “Grove of the planes!” Escalla cleared the way, bellowing atfaeries who had come swarming in droves toward the room. “Outta the way! Demongoddess comin’ through! Move-move-move!”

  Jus leaped from the balcony, slamming to the grass a dozen feet below. With the huge mirror held above him, he charged through the hordes, who screamed in terror as one gargantuan spider leg began to probe s
lowly out of the mirror’s face. Jus jumped a fence and thundered into the plane tree grove atthe heart of the gardens.

  Escalla whirred madly back and forth trying to look at every tree. She scrunched her fingers inside her hair and tried to think. More and more spider leg began to shove through the mirror. “Crap! Which tree? Whichtree?” One tree had pure white flowers. “This one!”

  The mirror went clanging down to lean against a tree. Escalla hovered frantically beside the arch made by the branches of the pure white fruit tree.

  “Jus, the sword! The tree is triggered only by something fromthe home plane!” Escalla recoiled from the mirror, screeching as Lolth poked herfront legs through. “Just the tip! Hurry! Hurry!”

  Drawing his sword, the Justicar took aim, then sliced the blade in a blinding arc. There merest hair’s breadth of the tip whisked beneaththe archway, and instantly a glowing plane of force sparkled beneath the arch. With titanic spider legs shoving through the mirror, Jus picked the mirror up, roared like a giant, and hurled it toward the magic trees.

  Lolth’s face emerged through the mirror, the demon screamingin anger as she finally caught sight of her prey. The scream turned to a wail of absolute despair and horror as the mirror shot through the archway and plunged straight into the plane of positive energy.

  The mirror disappeared. Benelux gibbered, having lost a sixteenth of an inch from her tip. Jus and Escalla stared at the glowing magic archway and panted, watching blankly to make sure all was well.