Maybe Quarhaun was right, she thought. Maybe I am an officer.
One of the lizardfolk nodded its head at her in a gesture she interpreted as respect. She returned the gesture, then met each one’s eyes in turn, excitement building in her chest.
No, she thought, they follow me because I’m willing to lead them into battle. I’ve earned their respect.
Eager for a fight, she turned back to the archway and took the last few steps that opened the entire chamber to her view. A large, sleek figure moved in the mist to her right, incredibly fast, snaking toward her to attack.
It wasn’t the dragon. In its basic outline, it was identical to the demons they’d been fighting-vaguely pantherlike, with low forequarters but longer hind legs, a flattened head and torso that suggested the head of a cobra. This one was covered in red crystal protrusions that glittered in the light of Uldane’s sunrod, jutting from its back, its hips, and the joints of its legs and forming horns and spikes around its eyes and mouth. And it was enormous, towering over her as it pounced, even its low-slung head far enough off the ground to let her pass underneath without ducking her head.
It slammed into her before she had time to do more than turn to face it, knocking her off her feet and sending her splashing into a puddle. Shara’s ears rang as her helmet clanged against the stone floor again, and her shoulder burned where the demon’s claws had raked her. Then the demon darted away, vanishing into the billowing mist.
The lizardfolk warriors gave a gurgling shout and charged into the chamber, fanning out as they passed through the archway, clattering their clubs and maces against their shields as if they were flushing game out from the reeds of the swamp. Uldane appeared in the archway next; he tossed the sunrod into the room and then slunk into the mist and shadows.
“This is no time for a nap, Shara,” Quarhaun called as he stepped into the arch.
Shara stood up, scowling. “Listen, demon,” she announced to the room. “I’ve spent enough time flat on my back in the last hour. No more.”
Uldane’s laugh betrayed his position, already almost a quarter of the way around the edge of the chamber. But the demon didn’t reveal itself.
“Everyone get ready to hit it as soon as it shows itself,” Shara said. “Hit it hard.”
Keeping her center of gravity low, she stalked toward the middle of the room. The mist swirled around her feet and rose in clouds around her as she moved, and her feet splashed in shallow pools of water.
“It shouldn’t be so easy to hide in here,” she said. She stopped walking and listened. The lizardfolk were quieter than she was, but their feet made noise in the water as well, and the mist revealed the signs of their passage. But no such signs betrayed the movement of the demon, which meant it was either standing still or-
She looked up, and saw the demon slinking along the ceiling almost directly overhead.
“Up! Up!” she shouted. “It’s on the ceiling!”
With a yowl that chilled her blood, the demon dropped down onto her, twisting as it fell so its ruby-tipped claws led the way down. Shara lifted her shield and crouched down, and as the demon hit she blocked its claws and drove her sword deep into its shoulder. Its yowl turned into a hideous, screeching scream as it crashed to the floor on its side, scrambling to get its feet beneath it again.
The two nearest lizardfolk were on it before it could stand, bludgeoning its head and its hips with blows from their maces. She heard the crunch of bone and saw some of the crystal growths on its hind parts shatter, then the lizardfolk who had struck the crystal shouted and drew back in pain. The shattered crystal had pierced the warrior’s scaled hide, and he looked down at the wounds with wide, terror-filled eyes.
The demon found its feet and crouched to pounce. Shara’s blade cut the creature’s flank, then the demon leaped over the terrified lizardfolk and vanished in a rising cloud of mist.
“Quarhaun!” Shara called. “Bring Kssansk to look at this!”
The injured lizardfolk had dropped both mace and shield and started clawing at his own wounds as if trying to dig out the shards of crystal that had buried themselves in his flesh. Shara thought of the way Vestapalk’s infusion had taken hold in Albanon and Quarhaun, starting to change them both into demons like these.
Again she was reminded of the dragon’s commandment to his minions. “Spread the abyssal plague!” he had cried. She shuddered as the lizardfolk threw his head back and screamed.
Kssansk came and laid a hand on the frantic warrior, whose convulsive movements stopped at once, the scream squelched in his throat. Shara scanned the chamber for any sign of the demon’s return, checking the ceiling as well as the billowing mist. This time, eddies in the mist signaled the demon’s movement to her left, approaching the warriors on the far end of the lizardfolk line.
“This way!” she shouted, breaking into a run.
The demon was fast. It emerged from the mist and crashed into one of the lizardfolk, much as it had when Shara first entered the room. The lizardfolk, though, kept its feet and managed to get a solid blow on the creature’s shoulder as it darted past.
The demon never stopped moving. After colliding with the warrior and his club, the creature leaped onto the wall and ran another ten yards before dropping back down into the mist. Shara stopped, frustrated.
“It’s too fast,” she said. “We could spend the next hour running back and forth across the room, and it’ll just keep attacking one of us at a time.”
“We need to group up,” Quarhaun said. He shouted something in Draconic, and the lizardfolk responded immediately, pulling back to where Shara stood.
Kssansk led the injured warrior, the last to join the ragged circle. The wounds were still visible and the warrior’s eyes had a glassy look, but he held his weapon and shield ready.
“How is he?” Shara asked.
“He’s ready to fight,” Quarhaun said.
“Will you ask Kssansk how he is?”
Quarhaun shrugged and relayed the question to the lizardfolk shaman, who answered with a long string of gurgles and hisses.
“He’ll make it,” Quarhaun translated.
“What else did he say?”
“I’m not an interpreter,” the drow snarled. “I said he’ll make it, he’s ready to fight. What more do you need to know?”
“Shara!” Uldane’s voice, full of terror, came from off to the right, not far from where Shara had last spotted the demon.
“Damn it, Uldane!” Shara shouted. “Join the circle!”
The halfling gave a short cry of pain, then Shara saw the demon leap up out of the mist again. It clung to the wall this time, craning its serpentine head around to watch the floor.
Shara saw the mist billow, then Uldane emerged from it, his face streaked with blood. He ran toward the circle as fast as his feet could carry him, then the demon hurled itself down from the wall to land right on the halfling.
A bolt of purplish lightning shot over Shara’s shoulder to strike the demon, knocking it away from Uldane. Shara ran, calling for the lizardfolk to follow. Quarhaun echoed her instructions in Draconic and the warriors surrounded her, forming a tight clump around her as she moved to stand over Uldane. She reached a hand down to help the halfling to his feet. He managed to get up, but he was badly hurt.
The demon had vanished into the mist once more, though great clouds billowed around where Quarhaun’s eldritch lightning had sent it sprawling. A reddish light filtered through the mist, as if the creature’s crystal protrusions had started glowing. Then a voice whispered from the mist, and Shara’s heart froze.
“This one is sorry not to be present. There would be pleasure in robbing the red-haired warrior of more of those she cares about.”
“Vestapalk!” Shara cried. “Show your face and get ready to meet your doom!”
“This one is no longer called Vestapalk,” the dragon’s voice said. “And though there is pain in saying it, this one is not present to tear the halfling apart and bite the drow’s head from his body.”
“It’s speaking through the demon,” Quarhaun whispered in her ear. “Some kind of telepathic link.”
“This one is the Voidharrow and the plague. Wherever the Voidharrow is, there are the eyes and the ears and the voice of this one also.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Shara said, striding forward. “But I’m about to poke out your eyes
