Not that he expected them to. The gods had a long, long list of things to see to, and some of them had been waiting for centuries.
Elminster nodded; she was panting too hard to answer Symrustar aloud. This new body was as agile and deft as it was lovely, and she’d managed to find a small stretch of level, smooth rock underfoot, hard against of the tunnel walls, but sorely outnumbered was … sorely outnumbered.
It had grown to more than thirty against one when the fray had begun, and at least one of those outcast drow males was a wizard who’d been casting spellstop after spellstop at El, while taking care to keep well out of reach behind the rest as they’d closed in, stabbing and hacking.
The ironguard was all that had kept her alive in those first frantic moments. The profanely shouted desire of some of El’s attackers to “Leave enough of her to enjoy!” had helped her kill a few as they’d hesitated to be really brutal to her torso, though most of her armor had been so viciously and repeatedly hacked that it flapped and dangled, protecting her against nothing.
Just once, they’d gained sense enough to all rush her together, trying not to slay but rather to catch hold of her arms and legs and bear her down onto the rocks, to hold her helpless by sheer weight of numbers and cruel strength. So someone could stab her or slice open her throat, and make an end of her. At last they’d taken her down. Spread-eagled and struggling vainly, El had seared those holding her closest with the tiniest outrush of silver fire, a deadly momentary spitting she hoped no one would recognize for what it was.
In an instant, those who’d tasted it most deeply were far too dead to bear witness to anything. Giving off wisps of smoke and the hearty smell of cooked flesh, they sagged and fell away, leaving the less injured to hiss curses and scramble clear as fast as they knew how. Leaving their lone quarry to struggle to her feet and face them, breathless and bleeding freely from the bites of enspelled blades the ironguard could only lessen. El stood alone, the cooked dead slumped around her in a blackened and smoking ring, watching the surviving drow draw back to mutter together.
Their mage was hissing something at them, probably about how he could work a spell to see that most of their bolts got through whatever defenses a lone spider priestess could manage, if they held back and all fired their handbows at her at once. El didn’t wait for them to ready such a volley, but ran at the nearest drow, swinging her hooked sword in a vicious slash. The dark elf parried it easily, deflecting her blade aside with a triumphant sneer- whereupon she brought it swinging around to bite into the handbow hooked to his belt, ruining it, before she sprang back and ran on.
The next drow had seen what she’d done, and turned to shield his bow from her with his body. She took advantage of that to rush past and around him in a tight circle, until in his turning to keep facing her he overbalanced. She promptly made the same slashing attack, but this time the parry sent her blade up through his throat.
By then, all the drow were converging on El. She fled back to her open fighting ground with the blades of the fastest outcasts slicing at her backside. More of her leathers fell away as she sprang across a drift of tangled and blackened drow bodies, spun around, and ducked low in a lunge that spitted one pursuing dark elf who was too close and moving too fast to stop himself in time.
He went down noisily and messily, taking El’s sword with him, and she sprang back again to give herself space and time enough to snatch up some swords from the fallen before the sixteen surviving outcasts reached her.
She had a scepter that could blast down one drow at a time, if it behaved like all the other scepters of the same design she’d seen in the past, but she needed time enough to use it on one obliging target after another. The bite of just one sword would make it explode-and her ironguard would help this shapely body not at all against
Gnaw-worms as long as a drow arm wriggled down the tunnel walls, drawn by the smell of spilled blood and cooked death. The wizard’s spellstops hung in the air around El like unpleasant smells, clinging to her. They would hamper rather than truly stop spells, but just one of them would slow magics too much to keep her alive in a sword fight-and the dung pile had cast six of them, hrast him.
The drow were wary of her now, and moving slowly to ring her, keeping their blades ready and their eyes on her.
“I don’t
Inside his head, Symrustar nodded wordless agreement and approval, as together they recalled magic unleashed, beautiful glows rushing out into the night …
The drow were coming.
El backed to the wall before the sixteen could encircle her, yielding most of the flat stone floor so as to have solid rock at her back. All they had to do was come at her four at once, one to each side and two in front of her, and not let her draw one of them into another’s way … and she couldn’t hope to parry them all.
Of the spells she’d just burned into her mind, she was using the ironguard, and could see an immediate use for the guardian blades, the timetheft, and the-oh, but
She mustn’t forewarn them. Cast the whirlblade storm in careful silence and then hold it in abeyance, waiting until they were all emboldened enough to draw near. Aye, go down fighting, and let them think they’d slain her. There, ’twas done …
And here they came.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The drow advanced on El from all sides, their eyes baleful. They moved in slowly, readying their handbows.
Hrast. She crouched, the swords she’d snatched from their fallen fellows held ready, the blades turned sideways to serve as tiny shields. Yet she’d have to be falcon-fast, and have the very luck of all the gods, to deflect a fired dart before it struck her.
The silver fire could burn away poison, but oh, did it hurt. Her eyes and throat, she must protect above all else-
They all loosed at once, many darts singing in at her.
El flung herself aside, along the rock wall, slashing the air in front of her face with both blades in a wild crisscross flurry that sent three darts or more clanging aside.
A dart smote her forearm hard and stuck there, where her armor had been hacked away. Another ripped into her left breast, and a third hit hard high on the inside of her right thigh.
The drow charged, flinging their handbows down and running hard. Most of the darts had missed her, but a warm burning spreading swiftly through her told El the three that had struck her bore poison of some sort, probably spider venom. If it was handspider or stinglash, it would slow her and eat away at her, numbing and eventually paralyzing her. She had to end this swiftly.
El rushed to meet the closest drow, cut at his face, then ducked aside to slash at the next nearest. Then she spun and raced for the wall, trying to get back to the spot she’d chosen to make her stand. They came after her like wolves.
When she pretended to stumble, then fall, they pounced. Only to watch her roll, spin around on her shoulders, and kick up at them. She boosted one rushing drow over her and sent another staggering aside, then rolled after him and viciously sliced his ankles out from under him.
He toppled, shrieking, and El sprang up, slashed out his throat, and danced forward to meet the next wave of charging drow: four dark elves in motley armor, one lurching along on a leg that had been wounded long ago. Beyond his bobbing shoulder she briefly caught sight of gnaw-worms wriggling among the rocks, seeking the dead,
