and the drow wizard spending a spell on another arrival: a roaming wild spider he might think she’d summoned. Eerie fire burst into being around the arachnid, making it convulse-and then El was too busy fighting four drow at once to see more.
Two used small knives to stab at her, wielding their swords only to fend her off. Those knives glowed, which meant they knew she was protected against unenchanted steel. The other two drow bore no glowing weapons, so El paid attention only to their arms and movements, to keep them from knocking her down, ignoring the blades that passed through her like smoke. That let her slip behind one, so a knife meant to gut her slammed hilt-deep into his belly instead.
El elbowed that groaningly wounded drow into the warrior behind him, and sprinted away from them all to fence for a moment with yet another outcast, who gave ground, his face tight in alarm as he defended himself, seeking only to parry.
She spun away from him and ran, heading again for the spot she’d chosen for her stand, the smooth rock that was lower than its surroundings. This time she made it.
Spinning around again to face her foes and gulping in deep breaths, fighting to get her wind back, she watched them come for her again.
In a tight pack this time, angry and wary at how many of their fellows had fallen, the wizard crouching low behind them.
“That won’t save him,” El murmured aloud, slow anger beginning to stir in her. She had her breath back now; let them come …
There were fourteen coming for her now. The fifteenth was down among the rocks behind them, rocking and groaning as he clutched his deeply stabbed belly. The boldest gnaw-worms were already converging on him.
Time for a little goading. El gave the advancing drow a sneer, waved the three darts still hanging from her where she’d left them-to let her blood spill more slowly than if she’d plucked them out-like a grand hostess showing off treasures, then struck a hand-on-hip pose and beckoned her foes mockingly.
One drow promptly shouted a war cry. He and four others rushed El, the rest following more slowly.
Good. Now for the ruse. She met them with both blades, seeking to slay rather than defend herself, feigning agony when two drow swords slashed through her. One blade left behind the fresh fire of more spider venom, but neither did her any other harm-as she spitted one warrior hilt-deep on her sword ere letting go of it, and slashed open the face of another.
They all went down together in a heap, one drow dying and another blinded by his spurting blood and oblivious to everything except the agony of holding his face together with both hands. El cut his throat in the same slash that drove her blade into the neck of the drow beside him, who was busily scrabbling to pick up the blade he’d dropped in his fall.
That left two drow alive and unharmed. One was already stabbing her repeatedly, his unenchanted blade doing no harm but his weight and the knuckles of his stabbing hand driving the wind out of her repeatedly and bruisingly. The other was crouching behind the enthusiastic stabber and reaching around to grab at her scepters, trying to snatch them and hurl them away before daring to get closer. El sliced some of his fingers off, then drove her sword up through herself-she felt nothing but a momentary shivering chill-to meet the pumping sword hand of the drow trying to stab her.
He shrieked and fell aside, clutching at his sliced-open hand-and El rolled and reached in an awkward crawling lunge across sharp rocks that slid her sword into the throat of the scepter-grabber. As he convulsed, she rolled back again to deal with the stabber.
The rest of the dark elves advanced slowly, still about seven or so strides away. Good. El threw back her head as she hewed down the stabbing drow and screamed in false agony, her voice loud, raw, and shrill.
Then she slumped, down in her hollow with drow bodies all around, lying as if dead-save for the stealthy hand beneath her that slid a scepter from her belt and awakened it. She lay still, waiting, her mouth slack and open. Smarting from half a dozen wounds and the numbing fire of the venom, El watched through slitted eyes as the drow gathered cautiously above her.
Would they come closer to gloat? Or stab down at her face and breast and throat, to make sure?
They did both-and as the first dark sword tips thrust down, El let loose the whirlblade storm.
It was a vicious magic, not all that different from the blade barriers war priests of old were wont to wield, and as its shards of steel started to flash and whirl above her, and drow blood started to spray, El called up swift silver fire to spin a momentary shield over herself. As it closed over her, she flung the awakened scepter up into the storm of conjured steel, an instant before cowering under her silver fire.
A moment later, the world just above exploded with a roar.
The blast was impressive, shaking her like dice in a gambling cup despite the shielding fire. She heard and smelled drow bodies spattering wetly over rocks all around … and when her shield faded and she rolled cautiously over to look up, drow gore dripped down into her face from the tunnel ceiling high above.
She rolled into a crouch, to peer around cautiously. Not a foe remained. Wizard and all, the outcast drow band was no more.
Dead, every last one of them. And all because they hated and feared magic. Or those who misused it against them, like their own priestesses.
El sighed aloud. Symrustar was right. And how often had he been one of those tyrants, those misusers?
Memories she was not proud of rose in a swift, dark procession …
Wisely, Symrustar kept silent. Rather grimly, El tugged the darts out of herself, then healed her wounds and purged the venom in an agonizing burst of silver fire.
When her helpless gasping and staggering faded, she stumbled on down the tunnel. She was little better than naked now, her leather armor in tattered ruin, and still alone.
El nodded wearily. She’d made far too much noise and loosed too much magic to tarry; all that tumult would soon bring more formidable Underdark prowlers-or a strong drow patrol, ready for spell-hurling trouble. By then, it would be only prudent to be far away. Up in the sun-drenched Realms Above, for instance.
Limping a little, and rubbing at aches here and bruises there, El trudged along.
Elminster’s reply was calm, lengthy, and very colorful. It might have made some Moonsea sailors blush, if any of them had been down in the Underdark Shallows to hear it.
Alorglauvenemaus slept more soundly and more often, these days, than in its younger years. It was well and truly ancient now, and knew from its studies and from wyrms it had met-and in some such moots, slain-that these deepening slumbers were the norm for older dragons.
Not that it experienced many interruptions. No visitors reached this cavern beneath a volcano-like hollow hill, in the heart of a fetid swamp filling a narrow cleft between the stony shoulders of adjacent mountains in the Thunder Peaks. No intruder had ever reached its lair, though orcs had splashed into the swamp once, very briefly. Not good eating, but there’d been a lot of them …
It curled its long tongue, trying to remember that taste.
Yes, it so happened that Alorglauvenemaus was awake now-so it was awake a moment later, when an explosive unleashing of magic shuddered through the solid rock beneath its hoard. A blast had befallen several levels beneath its lair.
The ancient black dragon lifted its head in alarm. That had been more than a spell. There was a certain smell …
Alorglauvenemaus thrust its dark horned head down the great cleft at one end of its cavern, the opening to the descending chain of caverns that served it as a toilet, a spittoon, and betimes a vomitorium-for armor causes gut ructions, no matter how steaming-strong one’s digestive acids-and sniffed, loud and long.
