rage had returned, and all she knew was that she needed to kill the dragon again.
“We’ll find him,” she said. “He’s the source of these demons. If they’re coming from him, we’ll find him where they are most abundant.”
“Like a lava flow,” Quarhaun said. “The source of the eruption is where the lava is thickest.”
“Exactly.”
The drow scowled and shifted his grip on his own sword. “I suppose I am willing to kill more minions if it will lead me to their master.”
“Is that really all you care about?” Uldane said, looking up at the drow with wide-eyed curiosity rather than judgment.
Quarhaun crouched beside Uldane and put a hand on the halfling’s shoulder. “Care?” He snorted. “Where I come from, to care about something is to watch it die, slowly and in great pain, for no other reason than because you cared about it.”
Uldane scowled, knocked the drow’s hand from his shoulder, and stepped back. “I’m not a child,” he said. “And I saw this dragon kill three of my dearest friends in the world. I hate him, too, but I’m not going to let my hatred and pain turn me into a monster.”
Quarhaun laughed and straightened up. “Give it time. Let it fester long enough, and before you know it you will be a grim, merciless killer like me.” He clapped Shara’s shoulder. “And like Shara.”
Shara looked at him in surprise. His pale, pupilless eyes showed genuine approval. “I’m not sure whether to be flattered or disgusted,” she said. But it had been a long time since any man looked at her that way, and when he lifted his hand from her shoulder she felt its absence.
Quarhaun’s eyes met hers. “You know I mean it as a com-”
“Quiet!” Uldane whispered. “There’s someth-”
A horrible shriek split the air and something slammed into Shara, knocking her to the ground. Claws scrabbled against her armor and a tooth-filled maw lunged at her throat before Quarhaun hacked at the creature and hurled it off her. Shara scrambled to her feet and saw a creature the size and rough shape of a panther snarling up at her, blood running from a gash across its face. Its body was long and sinuous, as much worm or snake as big cat, tapering only slightly at the wide, flat head. Familiar red crystals grew organically from its joints and crusted around its eyes and gaping mouth.
The demon shrieked again and leaped at Shara, but this time she was ready for it. Gripping her sword tightly in both hands, she slammed it into the beast’s flank, knocking it out of the air and opening a gaping wound in its side, splintered ribs jutting out from the gash. Its shriek turned into a howl of pain, and it landed hard on the ground. Shara shifted her grip and brought the blade around to take off the thing’s head, but it rolled to its feet and her sword bit into the soft earth instead.
The demon’s roll brought it within reach of Quarhaun’s eldritch blade, a jagged greatsword of some infernal metal as black as night. The blade thrummed with power as Quarhaun swung it at the creature’s neck, and Uldane darted in at the same moment, sinking his razor-sharp dagger into its flank. The demon roared and crouched low, its eyes darting around in search of an escape.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Shara growled, cutting a gash across the demon’s shoulder.
In answer, the demon sprang toward Uldane. Shara and Quarhaun both swung their blades as its attention turned away from them, and the two weapons clattered together instead of striking true. The demon sailed over Uldane’s head, but the fearless halfling thrust his dagger up to cut another gash in its belly as it went over. It landed with a grunt of pain but didn’t slow down, charging at full speed toward the ruined wall.
Shara cursed as she shook her sword free from Quarhaun’s blade. “After it!” she yelled, already starting her run.
She heard Uldane fall in behind her, but Quarhaun wasn’t moving. She shot a glance over her shoulder without breaking stride.
“It’s a trap,” the drow called after her. “There’s bound to be more.”
“So we kill them all,” Shara snarled back. She heard the drow sigh, then his footsteps joined hers, quickly closing her lead.
Quarhaun laughed as he passed her, less burdened by his light mail armor than she was in her heavy scale. Shara grinned in acceptance of his challenge and pushed herself harder, her breath coming faster as her legs carried her up the low rise behind the drow. The exertion was exhilarating, particularly after the thrill and terror of the brief battle. For all her effort, though, Shara fell behind as Quarhaun was the first to reach the wall.
The wounded demon pounced at Quarhaun and knocked him down, as it had Shara, but instead of sprawling to the ground, the drow and demon both disappeared from Shara’s sight. Shara reached the spot a moment later and saw a stone stairway descending below the rise. The daylight reached only a short way down the narrow stairs, and in the darkness beneath she heard the thud of metal on stone and Quarhaun’s grunt of pain as he hit another stair.
“Damn it, Shara,” she breathed. She fumbled in a pouch at her belt for a sunrod. “That was really stupid.”
A blast of blue eldritch fire lit the darkness at the bottom of the stairs, farther down than she had expected. In the brief flash, she saw Quarhaun back on his feet, fire wreathed around the demon’s body as it screeched in pain. She breathed a little easier as the sunrod sputtered to life. Uldane caught up with her and followed her down the steps without a word.
Uldane speechless-that was a bad sign. It probably meant that the halfling was as disappointed in her idiotic foot race with Quarhaun as she was with herself.
But she’d berate herself later. In the darkness below, a faint purplish glow lit Quarhaun’s inky-black blade as it swung in a wide arc. Shara thought she saw the blade bite into several demons, and she quickened her pace down the steps.
The sunrod’s light reached the bottom, revealing Quarhaun standing in a circle of six crouching beasts. One lay still on the ground at his feet, its shattered ribs identifying it as the one that had attacked them on the surface- the one that had led them into the trap as Quarhaun had predicted.
Shara dropped the sunrod, gripped her sword with both hands, and charged down the remaining stairs. Swinging the sword fiercely, she knocked the nearest demon aside and stepped into the ring of them beside Quarhaun. She slashed at a demon as it lunged toward the drow, cutting its face and driving it back. She put her back to Quarhaun’s and they both held their long, deadly blades at the ready.
“I win,” Quarhaun said over his shoulder.
“You take the prize, all right,” Shara shot back. “I should have just left you here.”
“But you didn’t. That was foolish.”
“We’ll see about that.” The demons were holding back, assessing them, looking for an opening in their defenses.
The demon nearest the stairs screeched as Uldane’s dagger slid between its ribs, and it wheeled on the halfling in surprised rage. Shara lashed out at it and it turned back to her, batting uselessly with an enormous claw, weakened by Uldane’s strike.
“They’re still coming,” Quarhaun said.
Shara glanced behind her and saw two more of the creatures fill in the circle around them, and she noticed dark shadows moving just beyond the sunrod’s light. “That’s a lot of demons,” she muttered.
“So we kill them all.”
“Right.” Shara scanned the circle and found the one Uldane had stabbed. Blood from its side ran down its front leg, leaving sticky footprints glistening in the light as it stalked around the circle. She lunged at it, bringing her sword down in a mighty swing toward its neck.
Her target hopped back away as the two demons beside it leaped at her. The one on her left clamped its jaws around her arm, pulling her sword off target, though her armor kept its teeth from biting into her flesh. On her right, sharp claws cut through the leather and mail that protected her knee, but the wound was shallow. She slammed the pommel of her sword into the face of the demon that held her arm, but it held her fast.
Uldane appeared out of the shadows again and drew his dagger across the beast’s throat. It yowled and released Shara’s arm. Its voice died in its throat as Shara brought her sword down to split its skull.
“We need to get into a passage or something,” Quarhaun said, “a narrower hall where they can’t surround us.”
