by Филип Этанс
If it was Jeggred, the draegloth was down on all fours and attacking him only with fangs and one set of claws. Ryld batted away a rake from the thing with the flat of his blade but failed to slice off the paw. It bit at him, but he stepped back, leaning away from the attack so that the creature's fangs snapped down on thin air.
Ryld blinked again, and his eyesight returned to nearly normal. He wasn't fighting Danifae or Jeggred but some kind of furred surface animal. Ryld had seen similar animals: cats. The one that was trying to kill him was huge, ten feet from nose to tail. Mottled gray fur rippled over rolling muscles. Its tall, pointed ears twitched and moved independently of each other to track Ryld as it circled him, and the weapons master turned to keep the animal in sight at all times. Steam puffed from its nostrils into the cold air.
Ryld felt a chill run through the undersides of his arms. He had a strange feeling of relief that he was only being hunted—again—by a native surface animal. Danifae hadn't taken her revenge after all, certainly not with Jeggred as her second. The weapons master briefly entertained the idea that Halisstra was right about her former servant, but the reality of his situation intruded once again.
The animal leaped at him, and Ryld was ready for it. He had Splitter up and to the side and had just tensed his arms in preparation for a downward slice across his chest to dig at the animal's head when the thing stopped. The animal halted in midair for a heartbeat then fell. It made a sound that was halfway between a growl and a whimper when it hit the ground, already scrambling to regain its feet.
The weapons master hopped back, bringing Splitter quickly in front of him to guard against—
"Jeggred," Ryld said.
The draegloth held the huge cat by its tail, his eyes glowing red in the darkness. Even as the animal turned on him, Jeggred's lips pulled back over his teeth in a feral, hate-filled smile.
Halisstra stepped off the stairs onto what she assumed was the highest floor of the slowly crumbling structure and there she saw Danifae. A gasp passed across her parted lips at the sight of her former servant. Danifae had always been beautiful—that was part of what made her such a desirable possession—but though it hardly seemed possible, the girl had grown even more attractive. The ample curves of her strong body made an alluring silhouette in the dark space, and her bright white hair framed her round, beautiful face in a way Halisstra had never seen on her normally pragmatic and simple battle-captive.
"What's wrong?" Danifae asked, her voice quiet. "Do I look different?"
Halisstra nodded and stepped away from the top of the stairs, careful to keep her back to the wall.
"Yes, you do. Freedom agrees with you, Danifae."
"Yes, Halisstra," Danifae replied. Halisstra did not fail to miss the fact that Danifae had called her by name. "Freedom does agree with me," she continued, "but there is much to discuss and precious little time."
Halisstra arced an eyebrow and let a hand slip to the hilt of the Crescent Blade.
"You are in danger here," Danifae warned, her eyes darting to Halisstra's weapon. "I was careless and was found out."
Halisstra's blood went cold, and she said, "Found out?"
"I was gone too long," said Danifae. "I was questioned by the high priestess and the mage, and they. . did things to me to make me tell them about you, about Ryld, and all of it. All of it that I know."
Halisstra tried to take a deep breath but found her chest tight with anxiety.
"Where are they?" Halisstra asked.
"Far away," replied Danifae, "and well prepared for their journey to the Abyss, but they sent Jeggred back with me."
Halisstra's blood ran even colder, and she said, "The draegloth? Why?"
"To kill you both."
Halisstra looked madly around the ruin and found the crack in the wall she'd earlier seen Danifae standing in. Though it meant turning her back on Danifae, Halisstra ran to the crack and began wildly scanning the dark swamp below for any sign of Ryld. There was a pain in her chest she'd never felt before. She couldn't see either the weapons master or the draegloth.
"He's out there, I assure you," said Danifae.
"So you drew me here?" Halisstra asked, not turning from her fruitless search of the swamp below. "You drew us both into a trap?"
"Yes, I did," said the former battle-captive, "but I can save you. I can save you, but I can't save you both."
"How can you stop a draegloth that has been sent to kill?" Halisstra asked. She scowled, still scanning the swamp. There were spaces where the trees were tall and thick enough to hide the surface all together.
Ryld must have gone in there, Halisstra thought, perhaps lured in by Jeggred.
"I can't stop a draegloth," Danifae admitted. "If Jeggred means to kill you both, he will, or Ryld will kill him, or I will kill him. Either way, there will be deaths tonight."
Halisstra sighed, not sure what to do and afraid that Ryld was already dead.
"I don't have to stop Jeggred," Danifae continued, "or kill him. Just go, and leave the rest to Ryld and me. If the weapons master can best the draegloth, fine. If not, I can convince Jeggred that I killed you."
"Why would he trust you?" asked Halisstra. "He'll want to see my body … or part of it at least. And what of Ryld?"
"Let me get you out of here," the former battle-captive said. "Get enough distance between yourself and the draegloth while he's still engaged with the weapons master and we can come to some arrangement. We'll have time to sort something out."
Halisstra shook her head and stepped away from the crack in the wall.
"I won't leave Ryld."
Halisstra smiled at the finality of her statement and the feeling that went with it.
"I can get you out of here fast," Danifae said, "and I can move Ryld almost as easily, but it has to be one at a time. Come with me now, and I'll go back for the weapons master."
Halisstra studied her former servant's face and saw nothing. Danifae didn't seem to be lying, but at the same time she didn't seem to be telling the truth. It was as if all expression had been sanded from her face. She was blank, impenetrable. That scared Halisstra.
"You've trusted me this far, Mistress."
Halisstra registered the return of the traditional title.
Danifae held out a hand to her former mistress, and said, "Trust me, Halisstra."
Confused, the First Daughter of House Melarn shook her head.
The former servant said, "The longer we do this, the longer your weapons master fights the draegloth. . alone."
There was a brief moment of silence. Halisstra sighed, stepped toward Danifae, and took her hand. Eilistraee had been pushing her along for some time. Halisstra knew that, and she felt pushed again. She tried to remind herself of what she'd told Ryld, that Eilistraee was guiding her but no goddess was guiding Danifae.
As the interior of the ruined temple faded in a wave of vertigo and purple light to be replaced by a strange place somewhere that smelled and felt like the Underdark, Halisstra tried so hard to trust in Eilistraee that her head started to hurt. She thought about Ryld and her eyes filled with tears.
The animal turned on Jeggred, and it was all claws and fangs.
The swamp creature ripped a deep furrow in Jeggred's abdomen with its foreclaws. Blood welled up in the wound. Jeggred didn't flinch or cry out. Only a subtle narrowing of the half-demon's blazing red eyes indicated he'd felt the cut at all. The draegloth stepped in, slashing with two of his four sets of claws, but the cat leaped to the side, avoiding the attack, and at the same time stepped in again, forcing Jeggred to defend himself.
The cat was making a good showing of it, and Ryld knew it was the best chance he would have to run. By the time Jeggred managed to dispatch the beast—if he was able to at all—Ryld could be long gone. Even if he could leave Halisstra, wherever he went Jeggred would follow. If the draegloth had been sent to kill him, that's what he would do.
The cat bit at Jeggred, and the draegloth moved his arm in and allowed the creat
ure to fasten its powerful jaws on his upper right wrist. The fangs dented the draegloth's skin but didn't puncture it. Smiling, steam pouring from his nostrils into the cold air, Jeggred drew the claws of both of his left hands along the cat's flanks. The animal opened its mouth to howl in pain, and the half-demon's arm came free.
Jeggred let the animal cut him. Four parallel lines of deep red blood traced behind the cat's raking claws. The animal was trying to hurt the draegloth in any way it could, but it was wounded and desperate and was making rash decisions. On the other hand, Jeggred only appeared feral. He was in control of himself. Ryld could see it in every twitch of the draegloth's eyes that anticipated the cat's attacks three or four moves ahead. Though the animal clawed him, Jeggred got in closer and wrapped one of his bigger, stronger arms around the animal's belly. The draegloth's claws made a popping sound when they punctured the cat's flesh, then a ripping sound as they opened its underside in three deep, ragged incisions.
Things started spilling out of the madly writhing animal. Long ropes of intestines, things that must have been its kidneys, and other organs rode a torrent of steaming blood onto the spongy moss. Jeggred held the animal close to him and squeezed until more came out and kept squeezing until the cat was dead.
Ryld stood a few paces away, watching, ready. He thought back on his training and the single overriding principal of defending against claws. Things with claws—any number of demons, trolls, and the like—stabbed then pulled down. Claw attacks always came high and ripped down. All he had to do was be ready for that. There was the fact that anything that attacked with claws would never parry. If Ryld set his blade against Jeggred's attack, the draegloth would avoid contact with the keen edge or risk dismemberment. Ryld could use that to his advantage simply by defending against the draegloth's arms as if they were swords. Jeggred would be put on the defensive by being unable to defend, and he wouldn't parry Ryld's attacks, but he would dodge.
The draegloth looked up from his still-quivering kill and bared his knifelike fangs at Ryld. The weapons master stood his ground. He wasn't as strong as Jeggred, and he might not be as fast, but he was smarter and better trained.
That might be enough.
"Why are you here?" Ryld asked the draegloth. "Surely you didn't come all this way just to save me from that cat."
The half-demon, covered in the animal's still-hot blood, was steaming.
"I was told things about you, weapons master," Jeggred growled. "Disturbing things."
Ryld held Splitter in both hands in front of him and said, "I can only imagine."
"The priestess I can understand," said the draegloth. He took a wide, slow step sideways, moving away from the dead animal. "They're feeling particularly betrayed by Lolth. They seek power and communion, so it seems only fitting that if one goddess turns her back on them, they might seek the embrace of another, but you?"
"I can't seek the embrace of a goddess?" asked Ryld, stalling as he examined the half-demon for wounds and weaknesses.
"Why would you," asked the draegloth, "when you can have the embrace of a flesh and blood female?"
"You have me all figured out," the weapons master said, surprised that the draegloth seemed to have done just that.
"My mistress has," Jeggred said with a shrug. He stepped to the side again, beginning to circle Ryld. "She even now stands over the corpse of your traitor priestess. I get the pleasure of ending your life."
"It'll be a particularly painful and violent death, no doubt," Ryld said, irony absent from his voice.
The draegloth smiled, coughed out a laugh, and charged.
The big claws came in first, high, aimed for his chest. Ryld whirled Splitter in front of him then abruptly stopped the blade's spin and sliced up to parry the draegloth's right arm. As he expected, Jeggred drew his arm back sharply in an effort to avoid the enchanted greatsword. Ryld quickly changed direction, tucking the blade in, stepping back, and stabbing at the dodging half-demon. The tip of Ryld's sword penetrated the draegloth's furred hide under his shoulder blade to a depth of an inch or two. The half-demon, bleeding, hopped back, sliding off the blade.
Ryld stepped back too, rolling the greatsword in both hands in a slow figure eight in front of him.
Soon, one of them would be dead.
Chapter Seventeen
"Where is he?" Quenthel asked, her red eyes wild with barely contained fury.
"He's gone to kill them," Danifae answered.
Pharaun watched the exchange from a distance. He had sat cross-legged in the exact center of the deck, right in front of the mainmast, precisely where Aliisza had told him to sit. He could feel the ship of chaos vibrating beneath him, reacting to the power he was exerting over it.
"On whose command?" the high priestess asked.
"On yours, Mistress," Danifae answered, "through me."
"Through you?" Quenthel repeated. "Through you?"
Pharaun pressed one of his hands against the deck and felt the pulse in a cluster of veins that was growing there.
The high priestess slapped Danifae across the face, but the battle-captive stood her ground.
"Halisstra Melarn and Ryld Argith are traitors," Danifae said. "They are traitors to this expedition, traitors to Lolth, and traitors to drow civilization. You know that, I know that, and Jeggred knows that. That's why he's there."
"On your command," the Mistress of the Academy pressed, "not mine."
"He's doing what has to be done," Danifae replied, her voice finally showing some emotion: anger and impatience. "You weren't able to give him the order, so I did it for you."
Pharaun laughed at the exchange and at the thrill of the ship reacting to his thoughts and touch. He found Danifae's hijacking of the draegloth fascinating.
"We have the time, Mistress," Pharaun offered in Danifae's defense—if only for the sport of it. "Why not let the draegloth clean up some messes? If Mistress Melarn is indeed a traitor, and after watching her in the face of Lolth's temple that's hardly a surprise, consider it a favor from a loyal young priestess in your service. Master Argith, on the other hand, is likely not a traitor to the City of Spiders. He lacks the necessary spark for rebellion, I'm afraid. If you wish to be concerned with anything it should be that the weapons aster might actually kill your nephew."
Quenthel looked over at Pharaun, who met her gaze for a moment then returned his attention to the ship. The high priestess glanced at Danifae, who stood tall and resolute, giving no ground. The Mistress of the Academy held her scourge in one hand, and the vipers curled around the fingers of her other. She looked down at the vipers then back at Danifae. Pharaun watched the whole thing while feeling the ship's pulse momentarily quicken.
Quenthel took a step away and turned her back on Danifae, who sighed. Pharaun thought the battle-captive might have been disappointed.
"That," Danifae said to Quenthel's back, "is why Jeggred serves me now."
They began to circle each other, testing their steps on the spongy, uneven moss. Jeggred looked down and considered the puncture wound. He lifted one eyebrow in a sort of grudging salute then let his tongue unroll from his mouth. The black, rough tongue slowly licked the wound. When he smiled next, Jeggred's own blood stained his razor-sharp fangs.
Just keep your distance, Ryld told himself. Keep your distance and go for the hands.
The draegloth charged again, and again his claws came in high at first. Ryld had the wide, heavy blade of Splitter parallel to the ground. All he had to do was bend his knees, step in, then stand, and he met the draegloth's descending rake.
The weapons master stepped into the attack and parried precisely as if the huge claw was a sword blade. Jeggred brought his smaller claws down fast and hard so that Ryld barely had to press the parry. The draegloth drove his own arm down onto the blade. Ryld felt a tug, then release. Blood sprayed. Jeggred's right, smaller hand tumbled through the air and bounced once when it hit the moss.
Ryld didn't allow himself the time to celebrate having cut off
one of the draegloth's hands. He stepped back away from the blood that was spraying from the half-demon's stump. Jeggred screamed—an unsettling, ear-rattling sound—and he started backing quickly away.
Well aware that the half-demon could change direction very quickly, Ryld stepped back too, though not quite as far.
"You will pay for that with your hands and feet, whelp," Jeggred hissed around clenched teeth. "I was following orders when I came here to kill you, but now—" he held up the stump from which blood was still pumping—"it's personal."
A refreshing cycle of darkness had passed during which Gromph alternated between brief periods of Reverie, infuriating sessions with the same handful of winged halflings, and the casting of powerful divinations.
The darkness was a welcome comfort to the archmage's light-ravaged eyes. He had spent nights under the open sky before—though not many—and he had seen stars. The stars in the Green Fields seemed a little brighter than those visible from Faerun. Gromph wasn't familiar enough with either to sense any difference between the number and positions of the stars there and Faerun's, but he knew they were different. The Green Fields was a separate reality all together.
The needle-like plant that covered the rolling hills was something he'd seen before as well. In the trade language of the World Above it was called "grass." The halflings of the Green Fields called it "ens".There were other things he'd seen before in the World Above: "flowers," "trees," and things like that. It made Gromph wonder if there was an Underdark of sorts somewhere beneath his feet—then he reminded himself that he wouldn't be there long enough to find out.
The halflings he'd first encountered had all but adopted him. A few of the little folk seemed genuinely happy to receive him. The one who called himself Dietr and who claimed to have been from Faerun was suspicious but wanted something—something he wouldn't or couldn't ask for. However they approached Gromph, all of them were easy and casual with each other. They had a sense of hospitality and were determined to help him. They brought him food that fell into one of two categories: heavy and swimming in fragrant cream sauces or a confusing variety of sweet, fresh fruit. Neither appealed much to Gromph, but he ate enough to give him the energy he needed to prepare spells and collect himself for his return to Menzoberranzan.