'Almost where?' she demanded. He'd led her into what almost seemed an abandoned section of the Underways. No one else was prowling or loitering about, nor had anybody provided a source of permanent illumination. The stink of sewage was stronger there, and puddles of scummy water filled the low spots on the floor.
'Almost to the hideout of the man you're looking for,' her companion said. 'The thief who was friends with the drunken mage.'
'You'd better be right.'
'I am. You'd just better pay me what you promised.' He tramped on, and she followed, until, without any warning whatsoever, he dashed the torch in one of the filthy pools, extinguishing it instantly.
Miri had discovered the denizens of the Underways retired to their beds around dawn, at the same time decent people were getting up. She'd reluctantly done the same, catching some fitful slumber at the Paeraddyn, then resuming her search in the afternoon. Eventually it led her to the Talondance, a subterranean tavern catering primarily to goblin-kin, lizard men, and creatures even more feral and less welcome in law-abiding towns. A menu scrawled on a chalkboard offered chops, stews, and kabobs prepared with the flesh of humans, gnomes, and elves, and she was far from certain it was a joke.
Yet even so, a few representatives of her own species had chosen to patronize the place. One of them had claimed he could guide her to the rogue she sought, only to lure her down a quiet tunnel and abruptly take away her light. Most likely he himself possessed a means of seeing in the dark.
Reacting instantly, Miri nocked and loosed an arrow. Even though she was shooting blind, the shaft thunked into something solid. A second later, water splashed.
The senior scouts of Miri's guild studied a limited system of magic in addition to their martial skills and woodcraft. She herself had only commenced that phase of her training a year before and proved to possess no extraordinary aptitude for it. Still, she'd mastered a few spells, and when she'd realized she needed to venture underground, it had been obvious which she ought to prepare for the casting.
She recited a rhyming couplet and swept her hand through a mystic pass. Motes of white light leaped from her fingers like sparks rising from a fire. Glowing without heat, they winked out after a moment or two, as new ones sprang forth to take their places. In the aggregate, they shone about as brightly as a candle.
The light sufficed to reveal her treacherous guide lying dead in the puddle beside the torch. As intended, she'd shot him before he could move off the spot where she'd seen him last. She started to relax, then glimpsed a shifting in the darkness, beyond the point where her light began to fail.
Her heart pounding, Miri thrust her sparking hand out as if it was a torch itself. The glow revealed only the earthen walls of the tunnel. Had she only imagined that something was slinking about?
No. The Forest Queen knew, the odious city and the frustrations of her search were wearing on Miri's nerves. Yet even so, she was no timid tenderfoot to start at shadows. Her guide had lured her toward one or more confederates waiting to waylay her-scoundrels who were lurking still, despite the fact that, for whatever reason, she was having trouble seeing them.
She had no intention of standing still while she tried. With the torch soaked and useless, Miri wanted to reach a place where something else shed light before her spell of illumination ran out of power. Nocking another arrow, she retreated down the tunnel. She pivoted this way and that to keep anyone from sneaking up behind her.
Then she gasped as something alien touched her mind. It was like a bitter chill freezing the inside of her head, or rather, it wasn't, but that was as close as she could come. She'd never felt the repugnant sensation before, and she knew no words to describe it.
She was still trying to shake it off when something hissed in the darkness ahead. A huge black viper, longer than she was tall, slithered into view. It was crawling directly toward her.
She shuddered. Whimpered. Recoiled a step. Her arrow nearly slipped from her fingertips and off the bowstring.
She knew it shouldn't be that way. She'd never been afraid of snakes before. The force that had pierced her mind had poisoned her with an unnatural terror, and she had to resist it.
By sheer force of will, she made herself stop retreating. She controlled her breathing, drew the bowstring back, and let her arrow fly.
The missile drove into the viper's body just behind its head, pinning it to the floor. The serpent lashed madly about, and her fear faded.
When it did, she realized that some other threat could easily have crept up on her while she was so frantically intent on the viper. Reaching for another arrow, she turned, and a cudgel streaked at her head.
Two of her foes had stealthily closed the distance. Unlike the accomplice who'd brought Miri there, neither could have passed for human. The one with the club had a manlike shape but scaly reptilian hide. Its fellow, who wielded a rawhide whip, reared on an ophidian tail instead of legs. Both were the same gray-brown as the dirt walls and floor. Somehow, this chameleonlike ability to change color extended even to their clothing and weapons, and it explained their success at hiding in plain sight.
They were yuan-ti, a race comprising a sinister blend of snake and human. Until that moment, Miri had had the good luck never to encounter the species before, but by all accounts, she could scarcely have blundered into graver peril.
She blocked the cudgel with her buckler. The impact clanged, and it stung her forearm. The whip sliced at her legs, and she tried to parry with her bow. Perhaps she succeeded to a degree, but the flexible braided leather whirled around the length of wood and stung her even so.
The bow was the wrong weapon for close quarters. She dropped it and scrambled backward, meanwhile snatching for the hilt of her broadsword. Hissing, exposing their fangs, her assailants lunged after her. She glimpsed other yuan-ti, no two exactly alike but each a fusion of man and serpent, racing up behind them. The inside of her mind went icy cold, reinfecting her with terror, and she purged it by bellowing a battle cry.
She dodged the whip and parried the club. She backed into the tunnel wall, dislodging a shower of loose grit, and knew she could retreat no farther. Fortunately, at the same instant, her sword cleared the scabbard.
At the sight of the straight, double-edged blade, her foes hesitated. In a moment, they'd spread out to flank her and work together more effectively, except that Miri saw no reason to give them the chance. She sprang at the reptile-man with the club. It swung the weapon, but she discerned the blow was going to miss and simply continued her own attack. The broadsword sheared into the yuan-ti's chest. The creature started to collapse. She yanked the blade free, pivoted-
— and was too slow. The whip lashed her sword arm, the impact painful even through her reinforced leather sleeve, and spun around it. The legless yuan-ti yanked the coils tight and jerked her forward. The creature raised its offhand, which sweated a clear slime, to grab her.
Had Miri been panicked, or simply a less experienced fighter, she might have dug in her heels and resisted. But she knew she didn't have time to play tug-of-war. If she immobilized herself that way, one of her other foes would overwhelm her. So she didn't resist the pull. To the contrary, she scrambled forward as fast as she could, and when the whip slackened, she regained the ability to wield the broadsword.
Unfortunately, by that time, she was in such close proximity to the yuan-ti that the harsh smell of its acidic secretion stung her eyes and nostrils, so near that it was difficult to bring her blade into play. The serpent-man grabbed her shield arm, and her armor started to smolder and hiss. She twisted the limb from its grasp, bashed it in the face with the buckler, then hammered the top of its head with the broadsword's heavy nickel pommel. Bone cracked, and the yuan-ti went down. She frantically freed herself from the coils of the whip and turned to meet her next foes.
At which point, she almost laughed at the futility of all her struggling, because for the first time, she had a sense of just how many of them she was facing. A dozen at least. Conceivably even more.
The yuan-ti surged at her. Poised on guard, she chanted the opening words of her guild's death prayer, beseeching Mielikki to welcome her soul into the House of Nature.
A voice cried out in a sibilant language, presumably the yuan-ti's own. The snake-men halted, though their attitude remained as threatening as before. Some reasserted their ability to blend into the background, which plainly worked best when they weren't moving. It was uncanny how much difficulty Miri had making them out, even knowing they were crouched right in front of her.
'You see how outnumbered you are,' said the same voice, but in the common tongue. 'You can't win, but we don't want to kill you. If we did, we'd come at you with blades and arrows instead of clubs, nets, and whips.'
