Oath of Vigilance: A Dungeons & Dragons Novel (Dungeons & Dragons: Abyssal Plague Trilogy)
Page 8
“Does that mean we’re going to explore these ruins some more?” Uldane asked.
“I suppose it does,” Quarhaun said.
“Well, that’s a bright side to it. I wonder how far down the tunnels go? It can’t be too far, or they’d be full of water, wouldn’t they?”
“It depends. Sometimes stone tunnels jut up all the way from the Underdark, solid and dry even when they touch the surface in swampy areas like this.”
“Really?”
“It’s rare, but it does happen.”
“I’d like to see that.”
Shara let Uldane pester Quarhaun with questions as she tried to sort through the feelings the drow’s words had stirred up in her. It’s natural that he’d respect a skilled warrior like me, she told herself. And the fact that I’m a woman makes me … a curiosity. That’s all.
And the way he touched my chin … the memory of it brought echoes of the shivers it had sent through her. Who knows what that means to a drow like him? Maybe it’s a warrior’s sign of respect.
She felt a grin creep into the corners of her mouth. I wonder what else drow warriors do as a sign of respect …
She shook her head to dispel the thought. “Are we ready to move on?” she asked.
Uldane stepped closer to her and looked up at her seriously. “Are you sure about this, Shara?”
“Of course I am. Vestapalk might be here. How could I live with myself if revenge was within my grasp and I let it slip away?”
“Do you think he’s here?”
“We’ve seen more demons here than anywhere else in the Vale. Remember what Quarhaun said earlier? It’s like a lava flow.”
Uldane nodded. “We’ll find the source where the lava is thickest.”
Quarhaun turned from the lizardfolk shaman and put a hand on Shara’s shoulder. “Kssansk says his people will continue to help us until we’ve rooted the demons out of here.”
“And they won’t eat us?” Shara asked, smiling.
“No promises, but I think we’re safe at least until the demons are gone.”
“No promises?” Uldane said, his eyes wide.
“If Kssansk had wanted to eat you, he had the perfect opportunity while you were passed out on the floor.”
The shaman cocked his head, presumably recognizing the sound of his name, and Quarhaun said a few words to him.
Kssansk responded with a short exclamation and two chomps of his enormous jaws.
“Two bites, he says,” Quarhaun translated.
Shara laughed as Uldane’s eyes widened further.
“Where did you learn their language?” she asked the drow.
“They speak a dialect of Draconic, same as troglodytes.”
“And dragons, I take it.”
“Yes. But my house had troglodyte slaves, not dragons. Some of my people think it’s beneath them to speak in the languages of their slaves, but it’s hard to argue that it’s very useful to be able to understand it.”
Something in his grin suggested that the most useful thing about understanding the language of slaves was the ability to quell any uprising before it took root and spread. Such a vivid reminder of the very different world he came from made her uncomfortable. She turned away from him to shoulder her pack.
“Which way?” she asked.
“We follow the ones that fled,” Quarhaun said. “They’ll lead us to the heart of their lair.”
“Maybe,” Uldane said, “by the most roundabout path imaginable. More likely, they’ll just lead us outside.”
Quarhaun arched an eyebrow. “You know so much about the behavior of these demons?”
“It’s common sense, and the way most animals would behave. They don’t want us to find their lair.”
“They do if that’s where they’re strongest. That’s what I’d do—pull all the survivors back to a defensible location.”
“They’re a pack, not an army,” Uldane insisted. “I don’t think that’s the way they think.”
“Shara, help me here,” Quarhaun said.
“I think Uldane is right,” Shara said. “I think they’d try to lure us away. They know they can outrun us and make their way back to their lair by a back route.”
Quarhaun scowled, and for a moment Shara thought he might lose his temper. The air thrummed with his gathering power, and dark energy coalesced around his hands before he took a deep breath and made a visible effort to calm himself.
“Fine,” he said at last. “We go the way they didn’t go. Lead on, sir halfling.” He gave an exaggerated bow.
Uldane frowned at him and started down the hall, in the direction he and Shara had been going before they ducked into the room. Shara took up a position just behind him and to the left, which allowed him a chance to notice any traps or other dangers before she blundered into them, while keeping her close enough to step in and protect him if anything leaped out to attack. It was their established procedure, and at that point Shara was happy to ignore Quarhaun and the lizardfolk.
Let them protect each other, she thought.
Uldane wasn’t trained as a tracker, but he noticed details that most other people would miss—a bloody print on the floor here, there a scratch in the wall gouged by one of the crystalline growths that sprouted from the demons’ backs. In each case, he chose the path the demons had not taken, and soon they were heading down a damp, moss-covered stairway.
“Looks like we’re reaching the water level,” Shara said.
“That’s really interesting,” Uldane said. “But this isn’t an Underdark tunnel like Quarhaun described.”
“I think this whole structure used to be above ground,” Quarhaun said. “The swamp has slowly swallowed it up.”
No hint of his earlier anger tainted the drow’s voice, and Shara felt her own fading. So he doesn’t like being contradicted, she thought. Or he just doesn’t like being wrong—who does?
As she walked, Shara’s foot slipped out from under her on the stair, and she hit the stone hard, with a clatter of armor. As she tried desperately to get hold of something solid, she slid down a dozen more stairs, each one raising a new racket as her sword and pack jangled against her armor and the stone beneath her. Her helmet slammed against the stairs several times as well, sending shocks through her skull. By the time she caught herself, her ears were ringing from the noise.
She looked up and saw Quarhaun bending over her, offering a hand to help her to her feet. She tried to grab his hand, but her hand didn’t find it where her eyes told her it was. She held up a finger and tried to make her head stop swimming.
“Don’t move!” Uldane whispered suddenly, a step or two above her.
Shara peered into the darkness below her, but her eyes still weren’t cooperating. “What is it?” she whispered.
“There’s something moving down there,” Uldane said. “Something big.”
CHAPTER NINE
Travic barely dodged the stone knight’s sword. As the animated statue pulled its weapon back, Travic slipped behind Roghar and shot a ray of divine light from his hand to erupt in the statue’s face.
“That’s one of the things that takes longer as I get older,” he said.
Roghar laughed as Tempest hurled a blast of eldritch fire over his shoulder. “Good thing you’re not that old yet,” he said. He raised his shield as the stone knight’s sword sliced down at him, blocking the blow. He staggered under the force of it, and his shield arm tingled furiously. “Oh, that would have hurt.”
His own sword clattered against the knight’s stone armor, to little effect. The statue’s perfectly sculpted eyes bored into him, unmoving and unblinking. It reminded him of the stone guardian he and Tempest had encountered in the Labyrinth beneath Thunderspire Mountain—except that Tempest hadn’t been herself at the time. During that fight, Erak had stabbed Tempest in the gut, letting the demonic possessor spill out with her blood. And their companion Falon, a cleric of noble ancestry, had discovered that he could command the stone guardian.
In answer, the stone knight thrust its sword forward, right at his heart. Dodging to the left and parrying the blade to the right, he managed to avoid the stab, but it was too close.
“So, I take it you weren’t created to obey the orders of Bahamut’s paladins,” he said. “How about clerics of Erathis? Tiefling warlocks? Either of you two want to try giving a command?”
“Kill!” shouted a growling voice somewhere behind him. “Smash the intruders!”
“Not what I had in mind,” Roghar muttered. He landed a solid blow on the statue, hard enough to knock a few large chips of stone loose and drive it a few steps back. He used the opportunity to glance over his shoulder.
A group of bedraggled looking humans huddled in the hall, taking shelter behind what must have been their champion—a huge, mangy gnoll whose foul hide was marred by several burned, hairless patches. The gnoll held a heavy spear with a brutally serrated head, somewhere between a whaler’s harpoon and a butcher’s cleaver. The humans, though they were dressed like beggars, clutched an array of makeshift weapons and seemed determined to fight—at least for as long as they had the protection of the gnoll.
The gnoll charged Tempest.
And Tempest was still staring at the stone knight, probably overwhelmed by the same memories that it had stirred up in Roghar.
“Tempest, behind you!” he shouted. “Travic—”
The stone knight’s sword slammed across his chest and pounded him against the wall, knocking the breath from his lungs. Roghar’s armor kept the blade from cutting him in two, but the metal crumpled beneath the force of the blow and bit into his flesh.
A soft white light washed over him as Travic murmured a prayer. Air flowed back into his lungs and the pain in his chest lost its edge, and he looked up just in time to see the gnoll’s spear turned aside an instant before it cut into Tempest’s spine. Tempest whirled around and uttered a terrifying wail that battered the gnoll and the humans behind it back the way they’d come, giving her room to move.
“Now for you,” Roghar said to the stone knight. “Bahamut, bless my blade!” Power coursed through him, ran down his arm, and poured into his sword as he struck the statue with all his strength. His blow connected with a crack of thunder that knocked the statue off its feet and sent it crashing to the ground.
“Marcan?” Travic called behind him. “What are you doing here?”
“Mind control it is, then,” Roghar muttered to himself. He rushed forward as the animated statue tried to get to its feet, smiting it again with as much power as he could draw from his faith and his fear.
“You should leave this place, Travic,” an unfamiliar voice said. “We have left that life behind us.”
“Is Gaele here as well?” Travic asked.
“Heed me, priest. You should not be here.”
A growl that could only be the gnoll punctuated Marcan’s words, and Travic cried out in pain.
Roghar risked another glance over his shoulder. Travic was staggering back from the gnoll, and blood sprayed from the tip of the gnoll’s spear as it pulled free of the priest’s shoulder. That’s not good, he thought. The humans, emboldened by the gnoll’s successful attack, crowded forward to get in on the action. He didn’t have time to worry about Travic. The stone knight was on its feet again, though it seemed a bit unsteady.
“Had enough?” Roghar asked the statue, making a few tentative jabs with his sword.
In answer, the knight slammed its sword into Roghar’s shield again. A jolt of pain shot up his arm, then his arm went numb. He could barely hold his shield any more, let alone move it into position to block the knight’s next blow. He tried to step back out of the knight’s reach, but he bumped into Tempest and the tip of the stone sword bit through the armor plates at his shoulder.
“I need more space!” Tempest shouted, her voice high with fear and frustration.
Roghar nodded. Using his sword hand to help raise his shield in front of him, he ducked his head and rushed forward, inside the knight’s reach. His shield slammed into the stone knight’s chest, sending a fresh wave of pain through his arm but pushing the statue back a few steps, giving Tempest the room she needed.
As the animated statue fought to catch its balance, Roghar stretched his jaws wide and exhaled a blast of fire that covered the stone knight. The flames had little effect on the stone itself, but it concentrated and lingered on the places where Roghar’s sword had already made gouges and chips in its surface. Fighting a magical construct like the statue involved more than wearing down its physical substance—it was a creature of magic and will bound to a material form. The divine power that flowed through his sword, the raw elemental energy of his draconic breath, and his own powerful will would cause as much damage to the statue as the steel of his blade, maybe more.
Indeed, the fire seemed to sap the statue’s strength. It staggered back another couple of steps and sagged to one knee. Roghar pressed the attack, drawing his arm back for a mighty blow.
With his shield arm still numb, he left himself completely open to a counterattack, and the statue, even weakened and off-balance, was quick enough to take advantage of it. Springing up from its crouch, it rammed its shoulder into Roghar’s chest, knocking the breath out of him again and sending him flying back to land at Tempest’s feet.
The hall spun around him as he lay on his back. He heard the statue’s footsteps as it advanced—he felt them reverberate through the floor—but he couldn’t lift his head to see it coming.
Tempest screamed his name, panic filling her voice in a way he’d never heard before.
A murmured prayer helped bring the spinning world to a halt, and he felt strength surge through his body again. His shield arm tingled fiercely, but at least he could move it. He sat up just in time to knock the stone knight’s blade aside with his shield and struck a solid blow on the statue’s neck with his own sword. Had he been facing a human opponent, his blow would have decapitated his foe, and it was a solid enough hit to drive the statue back again.
Roghar stole a glance around as he got to his feet. Travic was struggling to hold his own against the gnoll and the ragged humans who occasionally lunged forward to take advantage of an opening. They were wearing him down and driving him back, crowding Tempest from that side too.
Tempest wasn’t holding up well, he could see. Her eyes were wide, and power crackled in the air around her. Streams of fire circled around her head and tongues of flame leaped from her shoulders, signs that her tight control over her infernal magic was slipping. More than the actual threats they faced, the thought of Tempest losing control filled him with fear.
Roghar gritted his teeth. He didn’t like having a whole separate battle raging behind him, out of sight, where he was powerless to help and protect his friends. He didn’t like forcing Travic to hold off the gnoll and the others by himself, but he also knew that the priest would have crumpled under the stone knight’s assault. And he didn’t like forcing Tempest to split her attention, unable to catch the stone knight in the same fiery eruptions and thunderous blasts that she used to batter the other group of foes. Fundamentally, he hated everything about this fight, and wished he’d been smart enough to recognize the threat of the statue before it came to life and attacked from the rear.
“Your eyes should have tipped me off,” he growled at the stone knight.
The statue’s unblinking eyes gave him an idea, and he began gathering divine power for another strike, one he hoped would finish the statue. He lifted his shield to bat the knight’s sword aside again, then Travic cried out and Tempest screamed his name.
He risked a glance behind him. Travic was down, and the gnoll stood over him with a leering grin twisting its blood-soaked muzzle. Taking advantage of Roghar’s distraction, the knight’s sword sliced past his upraised shield and bit deeply into his arm.
“Enough!” Roghar shouted. Ignoring the pain in his shield arm, he
swung his sword with all his might. As it whistled through the air, it began to glow, and it struck the knight’s head with a blinding flash of light. After the initial flare faded, the statue’s eyes continued to glow, and an instant later, the statue’s head erupted in a shower of stone fragments. Its body froze in the midst of staggering back, as if it had been sculpted in that position.
Roghar wheeled to face the gnoll and found Tempest raining all the fires of the Nine Hells upon it and its human allies. Her hands were a blur of motion, snatching fire from the air and hurling it at anything that moved. A cloak of smoke and fire surrounded her and flames danced in a ring around her feet—dangerously close to where Travic lay. The fury of her assault was keeping the gnoll back, for the moment, but it also made it impossible for Roghar to get past her and fight the gnoll or tend to Travic’s injuries. Tempest might not have needed his help, but Travic’s lifeblood was spilling out onto the floor as he watched.
“Tempest, back up!” he shouted over the roar of her eldritch flames.
She didn’t respond. The firestorm around her grew larger and hotter, forcing her opponents and Roghar back several steps. Smoke started to curl up from Travic’s robes.
Roghar let out a wordless shout and reached through the flames to grab Tempest’s shoulder, yanking her backward. Flames lashed out at his arm, and Tempest whirled on him, ready to throw a handful of hellfire at what she perceived as a threat behind her.
“Tempest!” Roghar shouted again, lifting his shield to ward off the blast.
The blast never came, and the fury of the firestorm diminished a bit. He glanced over the top of his shield to see Tempest, eyes wide with shock, fear, and the dawning realization of what she’d almost done. Still using his shield to ward himself from her flames, he pushed past her to Travic’s side.
The gnoll stood over Travic’s body, its heavy spear clutched in both hands, its grin daring Roghar to come closer.