Queen of the Demonweb Pits

'Hey! Trust me! I'm a faerie!'

She looked so hot it was a shame to be invisible all the time. Still… it had a delicious sneaky feeling to it! Invisible Escalla flitted gaily across the room, leaving footprints in the coal dust. Struggling to hoist herself up the control platform stairs, she stood in the middle of a scalding hot floor and grinned at her prey.

The salamanders towered four feet over her, with tails four times as long as she was tall-but none of it would help them. They were faerie fodder now! Escalla struck her sexiest, most aggressive pose and gave a raucous little cry.

'Eat frost, you disgusting serpentine weirdo!'

She triggered the wand. There was an asthmatic wheeze, followed by a flatulent sound. A tiny trickle of frost and ice gurgled out into the air and instantly disappeared. All three salamanders jerked their heads about, staring at Escalla with uncanny accuracy as she suddenly ran with sweat.

'Oh frot.'

A salamander lashed at her with its coils. Escalla tried to fly over the blow-forgot that she was grounded, and was caught by a blow of the red-hot scales. The tail-strike hurtled her between a mass of rods and levers, throwing switches and spinning dials as the faerie squawked and tried to battle free. From the coal heaps, crossbow bolts fired as Jus and Enid charged. A salamander took one look at the intruders, whirled and hauled on a lever, making a piercing whistle blast thunder through the air. An instant later, a crossbow bolt ricocheted from the creature's skull, shattering a dial and making steam hiss into the air.

Escalla wormed madly through the levers, dodging from side to side as an enraged salamander stabbed at her with a spear. She sheltered behind a control bank. Mad with rage, the salamander jammed its weapon clean through the control panel, severing tubes and pulleys. Squeaking in fright, Escalla jerked back from the weapon, leveled her finger and blasted a lightning bolt right through her enemy. The salamander roared, shook itself, then caught Escalla in the grip of its red-hot coils. The faerie flashed up a heat shield spell, then struggled furiously in the salamander's grip, unable to get free. The monster squeezed. Escalla cursed, worked her lich staff free, and hit the salamander on the tail. The staff detonated flesh and scales, blasting its way through the monster to leave the salamander thrashing mutilated on the floor. Escalla threw the coils off her, then dived aside as two more salamanders came at her in a rage.

'Jus! Jus, little help here!'

Charging the salamanders, the Justicar saw a flicker of motion as Enid galloped past a furnace door. A spear flashed for her flank. The Justicar bellowed a warning, and Enid dropped, the spear flying over her back instead of piercing her heart. A second spear came for the fallen sphinx, but Jus was already in its path. He hacked the weapon from the air then charged straight toward a salamander that stood inside the heart of a furnace. The creature snarled in triumph, falling back to make its enemy fight it inside the white heat of the coals. Instead, Jus slammed against the furnace and kicked the door shut, dropping the locking bar in place. A mane shambled over with a shovel full of coal, dumbly reaching for the door. Jus killed it with his sword, hacking it in two, then whirled to smack the head from another mane behind him. Inside the furnace, the salamander pounded on the door in rage, its fury wasted on half an inch of solid steel.

Jus whirled. At the control platform, Henry was locked blade to blade with a salamander. The creature lunged and Henry parried, then jammed his blade home in a thrust with all the power he could command. He twisted the sword in the wound, just as he had been taught by the Justicar. The salamander screamed and caught him tight in its coils. Henry abandoned his sword, ripped a crossbow quarrel from his belt, and stabbed the salamander in the throat. The creature fell back. Henry tore his sword out of the creature's chest and felled it with a huge blow that clove it through the skull.

Escalla and Henry fell on the last salamander. The creature, backed into a corner, held them off with its spear. The Justicar ran forward, leaped over Escalla and smashed Benelux down on the monster. The salamander parried, but Benelux blasted down through its spear and into the salamanders shoulder. Jus wrenched and twisted the blade, the salamander's bones cracking as he viciously opened up the wound.

Coughing and screaming, the salamander fell, and Jus decapitated it with a single blow. He stooped and grabbed Escalla by the wings, jerking her back from harm just as a valve exploded in a lethal jet of steam.

'Escalla! Here!' Jus tossed healing potions to Escalla. 'Pass them to whoever needs them, then break something. Anything that will stop the palace from moving!'

The whistle was still screaming. Jus marched past it and smashed it with his fist, buckling solid brass as if it were paper. The noise gurgled to a stop. He pointed Polk to a line of pipes and levers.

'Polk, destroy!'

'I'm on it, son! Anticipating ya! Thinking one step ahead already!' The badger charged past, almost losing his hat. 'Son, I think that whistle was some kind of alarm!'

'No! You think?' Escalla raced past, throwing levers and twisting safety valves shut all over the control panels. 'Polk, sabotage something! Hurry!'

A huge pipe ran overhead between the furnaces. As boilers overloaded, one by one their valves popped and steam thundered into the pipe. Escalla saw the writing on the huge brass tube and yelled out to the Justicar.

'Jus! That's the safety vent! If we can close it, we might blow open some of this machinery!'

Instead of hunting for a control lever, the Justicar took a simpler route. At a dead run, Jus thundered through the engine room. Benelux shone a blinding white. Shambling manes tried to block Jus's path as he ran, and he killed two of them without slowing stride. He gave a huge roar and smashed the flat of Benelux into the titanic pipe, and the whole room rang to the blacksmith crash of blade on steel. The pipe buckled, bent almost shut, and immediately the engine noise rose to a manic scream.

Steam exploded from the pipe, but the Justicar was already gone, diving and rolling away. A boiler wheezed, then suddenly swelled, rivets cracking like sling bullets as they popped and ricochet into the hall. Far behind Jus, Escalla took one look at the boiler and dived behind a pile of coal.

'She's gonna blow! Get your arses down!'

The boiler exploded like a volcano, blasting steam and fragments of metal into the room. The blistering hot shrapnel severed surrounding pipes and splintered the engines. The mechanisms seized, screaming and breaking-more steam pipes burst, and others collapsed and fell from the ceiling in a crash. Jus, still gripping his magical white blade, hunched beneath Cinders as steam jetted through the room.

The entire hall was choked in an impenetrable cloud of fog. From beneath a chaotic mass of shattered pipes, the Justicar rose up, then ducked beneath a scalding blast. The engine room was a madhouse of destruction-engines screaming, metal shattering.

A figure suddenly formed in the steam-a shape slim, jet black, and magnificent. A tall, disdainful, and beautiful dark elf stepped through the clouds-a figure with eyes filled with dancing silver flames. When she spoke, it was with a dozen voices torn from the throats of her prey.

'Just as I thought. Two little rats-Escalla and the Justicar.'

Behind Lolth slithered Morag-pale and annoyed. Lolth undipped her cloak of spider web and threw it back to her secretary.

'An infestation in the engine room. I so hate having to deal with little creatures.' Lolth clicked her fingers to her secretary and smiled. 'Morag, kill the faerie. Make sure he sees her die.'

Jus leaped through fires, his hell hound wrapped around him and his sword a brilliant, blinding white. The sword should have smashed the goddess in two, but it met another force and blasted sparks through the steam. A blood red blade locked with Benelux, and Recca, emerging from a cloud of steam, screeched in rage and attacked in a mad, hate-filled blur. The Justicar fought hard and fast, parrying blows from the vampire blade as Recca drove him back and away.

Lolth watched them fight then gave a peal of droll, derisive laughter. She walked away into the steam without a worry in the world, heading for the Justicar's friends.

'Enjoy yourself, little elf corpse! Sweet revenge! Sweet, sweet revenge!'

Blade to blade with Recca, the Justicar retreated back into the steam. Recca shifted, anticipating an attempt by Jus to aid his friends. Seeing the move, Jus swatted at his old master's sword, then circled slowly through the steam.