fury of the sound.
In truth, the mercenaries
A flash of violet light presaged the appearance of the Bregan D’aerthe laggards. A handful of dark elf silhouettes with drawn swords and wands engaged the defenders before the genasi realized the equation had changed.
With Pashra already behind the enemy barricade, she and the mercenaries made quick work of the last stubborn stragglers over the course of ten heartbeats filled with screams and blood.
At last, the mine was completely under her control. All its tunnels, its hollow pits, and its mineral resources were hers to do with as she wished.
For starters, she’d fortify the vast cavern so that, unlike the genasi before her, she wouldn’t lose control of the mother lode. She studied the ceiling and nodded. If anyone came from Akanul to reclaim their arambarium, she’d bring the entire island down on his or her head.
“Can you feel it?” came Pashra’s voice, uncharacteristically hushed with awe.
Chenraya turned round to see the oni pointing at the blank cavern wall. But she knew the blankness was just a facade. Standing so close, it was impossible to ignore the way her hair stood on end and her skin prickled. Something truly ancient lay trapped behind the stone. Something powerful beyond accounting.
The arambarium mother lode. Or, as Pashra claimed, a relic carved from a dead primordial of sundered Abeir that had fallen to Faerun like a dead star.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The wonderful thing about a circular floor plan, thought Demascus, was that if you went around long enough, sooner or later you circle around back to where you started. As long as your pursuers didn’t immediately realize the same thing. They might have split their number, sending one group down the scent trail and another down the counterclockwise path. That would be bad. Demascus shrugged. The situation couldn’t be helped. They could only go forward.
The chamber ahead was a clutter of wizardly paraphernalia, ominous in its dusty immobility. “Be careful,” he whispered. “Don’t knock anything over. But go quick.” He adjusted his twin swords sheathed through his belt on either hip. Hopefully their ends wouldn’t swing into anything as he passed. Vampiric victory screams shivered the air. The Norjah pursuers had found their odor. Now we race.
“Go!” he said, still whispering.
Riltana lunged for the far door, beneath the grim wall of urns. Chant pushed Jaul ahead of him. Demascus wasted a moment to quietly close the door they’d entered through, casting about in his mind for some method of obscuring their passage or obliterating their scent. He came up with nothing. His memory was doing its best blank- slate impression. Useful skills from previous incarnations only flowed when he worked himself up into an echo of the Sword of the Gods. He frowned. He’d rather avoid doing that unless absolutely necessary-he didn’t trust himself. That version of himself. When he was the Sword, his joy was at its zenith. Existence was too fluidly wonderful, where everything and anything seemed possible. Even doing something wildly at odds with common sense and his own goals. Right now, he had to focus on getting everyone to safety. Then, maybe, he’d unleash the Sword on the vampires …
He skirted a black cauldron that smelled of feet and rotten earthworms. He steadied a clay jar Jaul accidentally set wobbling as he passed. The moment Demascus touched it he realized it was a funerary urn. The name inscribed on it read, “Kurwen, Master of Dark Spells.”
He snatched his hand back. The last thing they needed was to sensitize yet another necrotic threat to their presence. He took it as given that the ashes of dead “Dark Spell” wizards should remain undisturbed.
The next chamber was another decomposing sitting room, vampire free and empty of any other obvious threat. Riltana was already across it and easing open the far door. Demascus winced when Jaul stumbled over a chair, which produced a scratchy squeal as it slid three feet across the dusty floor.
They all stopped, faces taut.
“Just go!” said Demascus.
Riltana ducked into the exit closest to the curved wall. Demascus followed, and they entered cramped quarters overflowing with junk. They carefully picked their way through a morass of tapestries, rugs, and heaped rags that smothered a collection of broken swords-It didn’t matter what the contents were. Nothing jumped them. The next two shadow-swathed chambers proved equally nerve-wracking on entry, but ultimately unthreatening.
Finally, they burst into the room where they’d first entered the castle. The scribbled door marker was swallowed once again by an open portal that looked out into a corridor composed of spider silk. The woman with scarlet nails stood smack in the middle of the opening, blocking their exit and using the point of her black iron sword as a hinge-stop in the door to prevent it from closing. She cracked a fanged smile at him. By all that was holy and sovereign, he thought, I really
“What an interesting set of paths you’ve discovered. An entrance to the fabled Demonweb! House Norjah will thank you for showing them the way. Ordinarily, they might even pay you a finder’s fee.”
“Listen,” said Demascus. “We’ll give the painting back. It was a mistake.”
“You mean paintings, plural,” said the vampire.
“No, we took … I mean, Riltana took just one.”
“Two of the Whispering Children from the collection went missing the night we chased this one,” the vampire pointed at the windsoul.
He shot the thief a look of surprise. She’d stolen two?
“I only took
The woman’s predatory smile widened. “Liar. You know what happens to liars, my dear?”
“They get pudding?” said Riltana.
The vampire screamed, “Return to me, hunters! They’re here!” The vampire pulled her sword from the hinge. The door slammed in their faces.
A bolt from Chant’s crossbow thudded into the frame a bare instant before the door closed on it, preventing it from shutting completely and trapping them in the dark tower with the vampires. Demascus’s shoulder hit the door a moment later. He smashed through the opening, back out into the Demonweb. The swinging door knocked the red-nailed woman backward, giving Demascus time to draw his weapons. Vampire screams funneled through the opening behind him. The hordes had heard their mistress and were hurtling back from wherever they were in the darkling dimension.
“Chant, Jaul, Riltana, get out of here!” he yelled. He deflected a slanting neck slash from the vampire’s black iron blade with an outward sweep of his white sword. He followed up with a backhand slash of his red-runed sword to her neck. The vampire easily clanged her blade into his while simultaneously shifting to his left. Her blade came down again, this time toward his extended arm. He flinched more than retracted his arm, and her attack only managed to cut a thin line through his armor instead of lopping off a limb. She was moving too fast! Faster than a human or genasi or any mortal creature could. Maybe even as fast as him, when he was able to summon the ghost of his office. He reached for that feeling of sublime jubilation-
Her front kick was like a shot from a ballista fired from the vampire’s hip. When it connected with his stomach, he staggered and dropped one sword. The vampire howled with hungry anticipation, but then Riltana and Chant were between her and the deva. Riltana’s short sword flashed. Chant fired what appeared to be a continuous volley of quarrels. And the woman snarled as she dissolved in a frenzy of a hundred black wings. She re-formed several yards into the temple, glaring with burning eyes. Jaul scurried out of the portal, a cacophony of predatory
