avalanche. Trapped, Escalla squealed and wrenched aside. An instant later the beholder lunged into the cave after her, its central eye open and all magic instantly dispelled.
Even without its magic eyes, the beholder was well adapted for chewing faeries. With its jaws gaping, it charged straight at Escalla. The girl planted her back onto the wall, coiled her legs beneath her and launched herself away an instant before the beholder smashed against the wall. Finding long tufts of ragged hair hanging beneath the beholder’s belly, Escalla latchedonto the hair and hung dangling like a puppet. Above her, the beholder roared and bashed itself against the walls, angrily trying to shake the little faerie free. It tried to blast her with its eyestalks, but was unable to see beneath its own fat shell. Escalla wailed and held on for dear life as the beholder began to buck wildly in an attempt to shake her loose.
A crossbow bolt flashed past a hair’s breadth beneathEscalla’s bottom. Hanging on to the beholder, the girl managed to look back andsee Private Henry and his trusty crossbow.
“Sorry!”
Flung madly left and right, Escalla screeched and held on tight. The beholder went on a wild ride to dislodge the hanging faerie. Careering madly down the tunnels, it bashed against the walls, knocking the breath from Escalla and making her see stars. Racing through caves, it smashed its belly against the ground. Escalla flapped her wings in panic, towed along just inches behind the bottom of the monstrous sphere.
The beholder dragged her painfully across rubble, through a stream, and then ploughed her through a fresh dung pile. As Escalla emerged, choked and spluttering, the beholder roared and burst through a pile of old dry bones.
Jerked and flung madly about beneath the monster, Escalla managed to wipe dung from her face and give a snarl of rage.
“You goggle eyed git! You’ll pay for that!”
The beholder had traveled full circuit through the caves. It blundered into the cavern filled with dismembered ghouls and then tried to bounce like a ball and squish Escalla into the filthy guts of its last prey. Escalla flung herself left and right, swinging on the beholder’s dangling hairs,felt herself land in something best left unidentified, then flailed out with one hand and caught hold of a prize.
A crossbow bolt!
Frustrated at its inability to dislodge the troublesome faerie, the beholder saw a long line of stalagmites down a side tunnel and roared with glee as it raced toward the stone spikes. Escalla took one sharp glance at the onrushing doom, hefted the drugged arrow, lined it up on a bleeding claw gouge in the beholder’s carapace and rammed the weapon home.
“Take this!”
Above her, the beholder gave a scream of rage then quite suddenly took on an odd expression. With eyes wide in shock, it went plunging down to the ground. Escalla flew tumbling free an instant before the creature hit the ground. The beholder bounced onward like a titanic ball straight down the passageway.
Ten stalagmites stood in its way. Nine fell immediately with the blast of impact. The tenth cracked at its base and wobbled uncertainly in a spin. As Escalla climbed to her feet, the final stalagmite toppled and fell, landing with a crash upon the motionless beholder.
“Yes!”
Escalla leaped into the air and gave a highly immodest scream of victory. With one fist raised, she suddenly paused, sniffed, and made a little face of dismay.
“Ewww!” Blood, bat dung, mildew, and beholder fluids hadwreaked havoc with her grooming. “We have to get that hell hound back and get mea bath!”
Running dazedly in pursuit, Private Henry blundered toward Escalla. Weighed down by chainmail and carrying his crossbow, the boy screeched to a halt and folded over with a stitch, too crippled by exhaustion to make any meaningful comment. He waved a hand at the beholder, wheezing something as he tried to catch his breath. Bruised, battered, but triumphant, Escalla slapped her hands, gave the boy a thumbs up and turned to view her prize.
“Knocked ’im out!”
The beholder had been paralyzed by drugs provided courtesy of the drow. The monster lay with its eyestalks stiff and staring into blank space. Escalla gave it a kick in what should have been its side, closed its upper eye stalks for it, then pranced and posed up and down in front of the creature’s onemain eye. She slapped her backside in its torn silks for the monster’sdelectation.
“Ha! Here it is, faerie butt, primo, perfect, untouchedprime!” Escalla put her bottom almost between the monster’s jaws. “Oh all right,you can eat me! Ooops! Paralyzed! What a shame!” The girl turned a pirouette andended up leaning casually on the huge carnivorous sphere. “I’m so hot! I mayhave to start donating my old clothes to temple shrines!”
Peering over the top of the monster, Private Henry seemed a tad confused.
“My lady?”
“Quiet, kid! I’m having a moment, here!”
Collapsing to sit on the stump of a shattered stalagmite, Henry could only sit in a daze and stare at the monster.
“So this was part of the plan?”
“Part one of a beautiful plan!” Escalla lounged atop theangry beholder. “Flawless execution, kid! It’s a joy to behold!”
“Are we ready to go yet?”
“Almost!” Escalla happily patted the paralyzed beholder. “Iguess we’ve got at least three hours before ol’ friendly here begins to wake up,so let’s get this show on the road!” She patted the beholder’s armored hide.“Grand Rescue Plan phase one: First, catch your beholder!”
Phase two was perhaps a tad less structured than phase one.Still, it held a certain amount of promise. Escalla unshipped one of her magic lights and left Private Henry watching nervously from afar as she drifted carefully back into the cavern of dead ghouls.
The ghouls had been very concerned with tossing objects down into the pit at the center of the cave. Escalla shined her light down into the pit and saw a rough stone chimney shaft that dwindled hundreds of feet down into the darkness below. The girl took a brief look about the cave making sure that the ghouls were definitely dead, then jumped down the shaft.
The shaft was only two feet wide-too small for any normalhumanoid to scale. With her frost wand on guard, Escalla whirred carefully down one hundred feet, then two, then three. Big orange fungi jutting from the walls showed wounds where something falling from above had ploughed through the fleshy plants. Finally the faerie saw her light shining on an open space below. She stopped herself at the threshold, peering into a surprisingly attractive little cave.
Huge toadstools fully ten feet tall stood beneath the shaft. Beneath them, bones had been spread nicely about the place, thoroughly picked clean. Bumbling around among the bones was a strange creature the size of a large dog-a creature with long feelers and a tail tipped with apaddlelike-blade.
Escalla felt quite pleased.
“Oooo! Rust monster!”
The monster in question was standing upon its hind legs and trying to reach something caught atop one of the toadstools. Escalla looked carefully below, saw a sheathed sword wrapped in rags lying half impaled into a toadstool cap, and then fluttered into the cave.
The rust monster was friendly enough. Swooping down, Escalla gave the rust monster a pat on its head. It craned upward and petted her with its feelers, seeking a taste of metal. Disappointed, the rust monster abandoned her and went back to clumsily trying to reach the toadstool top.
Escalla beat him to it. She flew up and landed beside the sword, walking around and around it with a proprietal glee. It was long and heavy-a sword of the kind the Justicar seemed to like. The sheath had beenpainted bright colors, and the sword had been wrapped in the torn and bloodied banner of a nobleman. Escalla tossed the rags aside, took a good look at her prize, and rubbed her hands together in satisfaction.
Long rust monster feelers came probing over the edge of the toadstool, and Escalla irritably kicked them
