Then there came-whether real or imagined-an anguished wail that froze her heart in her chest. A woman's cry. She made out the color of the flesh the lizards were eating.
'No,' she said. 'No…'
Gargan was shaking her shoulder, Slip tugging at her blouse. Twilight looked at them, sharp as a knife.
'We kill them,' Twilight said. 'Surprise and speed. Now.'
'You can't be-'
'Now!' And Twilight ran toward the lizards.
'What? What are you doing?' Slip asked Gargan behind her back. 'Put me d-' Then her voice fell to chanting.
Twilight didn't notice. She just ran toward the lizards, Betrayal leading.
S'zgul perceived the darkness before it fell upon them, and that only startled her more.
The black swooped in as though hurled, rather than suddenly bathing them. She watched as the darkness swallowed her fellows, shrouding torches and stealing even her fiendish sight. Her allies recoiled instinctively from the wave of black, but it did not harm them.
The darkness did not, but what came within the darkness did.
A warrior screeched as a projectile struck his back and a blade jabbed into his stomach, ripping a hole for entrails to leak out. He would have clawed at his attacker, but the blade slashed across his throat, ending his roar in a gurgle.
S'zgul bellowed in consternation, demanding calm and reason, but to no avail. The others roared and scrambled, either groping for the edge of the darkness or slashing at random with claw and rusty blade. Two fell to their own companions, and thrice as many still hacked at one another and squealed.
The survivors tried to escape, but the darkness seemed endless. Finally, one broke free of the dark, only to find death at the end of two swords-one black and one gray. As he belched and flopped to the ground, his killers plunged into the globe of darkness.
With an oath to her father, the great Demogorgon, S'zgul snarled out a few syllables. With the power of the demon prince, the darkness vanished-
– just in time for her to duck the acid-smeared sword streaking for her neck.
Her bodyguard's scaly head flew into the air, and another warrior jerked and spat as a rapier slit his heart in two. The giant and elf spun into the midst of the creatures. The gigantic black sword slashed in a great arc, beheading one lizard and disarming another-the hard way. If the cavern had been disorderly before, it exploded in lethal madness when the darkness vanished.
The priestess watched her servants fall, one after another, fast as flowing water. The speed with which the three moved amazed her, especially the white elf: the female lunged and sprang like a tiger, wounding and dispatching with unflinching brutality. What was more, the shadows swirled around her and danced about her crackling, burning blade as though to lap at the blood she spilled. A pair of warriors jabbed at her from either side with obsidian spears, but she twisted around one thrust, letting it stab into the foe at her back, and rolled between the other's legs. She stabbed up and her blade went in along a weak spot beneath the spine and burst out beside the warrior's throat.
S'zgul, who had fought countless hulking males and fierce females for leadership in the tribe, and mated with as many demons as she had slaughtered, was intimidated.
So she turned from the furious shadowdancer toward the weakest foe she could see-a half-sized creature, tiny and delicate. S'zgul could break the half-female in two with her talons. She hardly needed the three-headed, barbed flail spinning in her hand.
The halfling didn't see her coming-so intent was she on slitting a warrior's throat. S'zgul hissed like a desert cobra, lashed the tiny creature about the legs, and yanked her down.
'Gark katulu!' she growled at the halfling.
The little creature rolled over, gazing up at S'zgul in confusion, fear, and…
S'zgul hesitated, startled. 'Daltyrex-naka!'
Then the halfling smiled-a hideous expression to the lizard priestess-and showed her empty hands. A knife slid out of her sleeve and she opened S'zgul's throat in a flash of pain.
The priestess reeled until a dusty gray rapier split open her back, carved her heart, and brought only painful blackness and the hiss of her father, master, and lover.
Twilight took a moment to wipe the blood off Betrayal with the aid of the fiendish lizard's half cape. It marked the creature as a spellcaster, likely, or a shaman. Probably the one who had dispelled Slip's conjured darkness, though it didn't really matter. All the lizards were dead, and they had killed them before an alarm could be raised. Good enough.
It was good to fight, as well. Having to evade band after band of these lizards had caused trepidation and nervousness, and nothing wiped away such feelings like a good, bloody slaughter. Twilight's muscles felt loose and her blood was pumping-hunger was a thing of the past.
Had she been thinking rationally, she might have been disturbed that dealing death made her feel alive.
'You're fast,' she said to the halfling, still panting in glorious abandon.
'All in the wrist-where the blood is.' Slip held out her hand. Her little dagger had disappeared.
'That snake said something to you,' Twilight said as she helped the tiny woman up. 'I didn't hear. What was it?'
The halfling blinked, gazing up at her with those blissful brown eyes, and shrugged. 'I don't speak fiend.'
Gargan's eye twitched.
Twilight was no longer listening. She looked to the center of the chamber, where the lizards had been feeding. There, lying on the floor, was their meal. She recognized the pale golden flesh, the ravaged hair. Even the face, with its bugging eyes, one still present, the other a bloody hole.
'Gods,' Slip said. 'Is that…'
'Not possible,' Twilight said. 'Not-'
Then the emerald eye opened and it lunged for her, gasping and moaning. Two bloody stumps where hands should have been scrabbled at her chest.
'Taslin?' Slip gasped.
Twilight hit the forehead with Betrayal's hilt. The body fell back to the ground, writhing, and she hit again. And again. And again, beating that head into paste. Dark blood splattered the floor, and she could feel her teeth go through her tongue, but she didn't care. She pounded until those limbs stopped battering her.
When the animate priestess was finally stilled once more, Twilight could stand. She'd watched Taslin die, and she'd killed her again. She tried not to think about the implications of her wrists, severed as though by a knife and not by any lizard's claw.
'We keep moving,' said Twilight.
The others were too busy staring to argue.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
From the chamber of the slaughtered lizards, they went north where the tunnel arched up. It was widely traveled, as evidenced by the smoother floor and walls where feet and hands had worn the stone. The tempo of Twilight's heart and the frequency of events were increasing, and she felt driven, hurried. She had to stop herself from running.
'Stay alert,' she said. 'An ambush could be around any curve. Swift and silent.'
Gargan and Slip nodded-they both understood exactly what she meant.
