beyond the eye tyrant, for the brilliance of its disintegration beam washed out Galaeron's dark sight. Still he did not think his patrol too badly outnumbered. There had only been twenty horses outside.
Galaeron backed away from the corner then issued his orders in finger talk. He did not relish trying to capture someone who made slaves of eye tyrants but had little choice in the matter. Word of such a strange encounter was bound to circulate through Evereska, and any leeway given the humans would reflect badly on the entire patrol. The matter would not trouble Galaeron overmuch. It was his reputation as a malcontent that had landed him a posting along the Desert Border in the first place, but there were some among his elves who still hoped to make names for themselves in the Tomb Guard.
Once his warriors had readied themselves, Galaeron used a spell to turn himself and four more tomb guards invisible. Trusting the rest of the patrol to follow, he led the way around the corner, the magic of his boots smothering all sound as he skulked along opposite the crouching humans.
Unfortunately, even magic spells and elven boots could not keep dust from billowing when someone walked through it. Two paces from the eye tyrant, one of the humans pointed at the gray cloud around Galaeron's feet and spoke in his harsh language. When the warrior started to rise, the heavy pulse of bow strings throbbed through the passage. Four white arrows streaked out of the empty air and struck their targets in the unarmored calves, the heads sinking only to the depth of a fingertip. The astonished humans leaped up, hanging their skullcaps on the low ceiling, then their eyelids rolled down and they collapsed facedown into the dust.
Rendered visible by their attacks, Takari and three more elves rushed forward, exchanging bows for swords and pausing to turn the heads of the sleeping warriors sideways so they would not smother in the thick dust. Behind them, another half dozen elf archers appeared in the low tunnel, three kneeling in front and three standing hunched behind them.
'Elves!' hissed the female human, still the only woman Galaeron saw in the band. A trio of threatening arrow tips appeared out of the darkness to each side of her broad shoulders, and she glared over the eye tyrant at Takari. 'My men better be alive.'
'They are only sleeping-as are the sentries you left outside,' Galaeron said. Trying not to let the woman's apparent lack of alarm worry him, he annulled his invisibility spell. He signaled Takari and the three elves with her to wait against the opposite wall, then waved at the sleeping men. These are now our prisoners-as are you. Lay down your weapons and explain-' 'No.' The interruption took Galaeron by surprise. 'What?'
'I said no.' The woman spun the eye tyrant so that its largest eye faced Galaeron. 'We will not lay down our weapons, and we have no need to explain anything to you.'
'You have broken a crypt,' he said. 'In these lands, that gives you much to explain. Surrender now, or you will be the first to fall.'
The woman merely looked past Galaeron's archers and called, 'Sterad?' 'Here.'
A trio of muffled thumps sounded from the rear of the tunnel. Galaeron glanced back and was relieved to see his archers still standing. He was not so relieved to see a pair of burly human warriors standing behind them, looming over the unconscious bodies of the rear guard he had assigned to watch the patrol's back.
'Your rear guard will have a few lumps when they wake,' said the woman. 'Their headaches will trouble them no more than the wounds in the legs of my men.'
As she spoke, the front rank of elf archers spun on their knees to aim at the newcomers. The rear rank ignored the peril at their backs and continued to train their arrows on the woman. If she noticed, she did not seem to care. She said something in her own language to the two men who had delivered Galaeron's rear guard, and they laid their black swords across their breasts. Though the move was not overtly threatening, Galaeron noticed that it placed their weapons at a good height for hacking his archers in the neck.
The woman looked back to Galaeron. 'You've no idea what you've blundered into here, elf, but know I mean no harm to you or your people. You may leave while that remains so.'
'Pay her no heed, my princep,' said Louenghris, one of the archers in the rear rank and the patrol's only Gold elf. 'Let them cut my throat My aim will still be true.'
Thank you, Louenghris, but it won't come to that,' said Galaeron, hiding his annoyance. At only a hundred and ten, Louenghris was the youngest of the patrol's elves and still foolish enough to put the humans on their guard by inviting such things. Allowing a nugget of coal to drop from his sleeve into his palm, Galaeron looked back to the woman. 'Perhaps you meant no harm, but in breaking the tomb's seal, you have caused it. Now you must come before the erlagh aneghwai gilthrumr.'
Slipping smoothly into a spell incantation, he crushed the coal nugget and brought his hand forward. A fan of pink radiance shot from the eye tyrant's huge central eye, speckling Galaeron's vision with pale light. Even through the red spots in his eyes, he could see that the tunnel remained as bright as before.
The woman tapped her dagger above the monster's huge central eye. 'Haven't fought many beholders, have you? Magic's not much good around Shatevar.'
'I am aware of an eye tyrant's power.' Galaeron lowered his gaze to address the creature directly. 'But I had not heard they were such faithful slaves. We have no quarrel with you, Shatevar.'
Shatevar twisted his toothy maw into a sheepish grin. 'Sadly, your warriors are not the ones holding darkswords to my back. Should that change, rest assured I will serve you as loyally as I have Vala.'
'Vala?' Galaeron repeated, guessing the reason the eye tyrant had spoken her name. Charm spells were much easier to use when a caster knew his quarry's name, and they did not require anything so clunky as hurling coal dust at someone. 'What kind of name is Vala? Meshim deri-'
'Enough!' Vala pricked her dagger into the eye tyrant's head, drawing a single bubble of brownish blood.
Shatevar's central eye widened, and again the pink flash filled the corridor. Galaeron's spell died on his lips.
Try that again, elf, and there will be blood.' Still keeping the eye tyrant's largest eye pointed at Galaeron, Vala cut another eyestalk loose from its bonds and aimed it at a fist-sized hole the creature had inadvertently drilled into the wall. 'You've eleven eyes. Back to work.' 'As you command, mistress.'
The eye tyrant began to sweep its blue beam across the wall again, revealing a strange square of glimmering radiance deep inside the hole it had created. Content with a standoff for now, Galaeron dropped his hand and used a pair of curt finger gestures to issue two instructions, the most important being to wait. With a little patience, he might learn what the humans were doing and-more importantly-not get anyone killed.
The eye tyrant continued to melt the rock away, shaping something that looked ominously like a doorway. As the opening grew, so did the shimmering square of radiance, though it seemed little more than a sheet of silvery light Shatevar's blue beam passed through undisturbed, continuing to disintegrate stone on the other side, while the rocks that occasionally fell from the ceiling tumbled back through into the chamber. Given their location, Galaeron wondered if he might be looking at the fabled Sharn Wall, a barrier of ancient magic rumored to lie buried along the perimeter of Anauroch. If so, he could not imagine what the humans wanted on the other side. The few veteran tomb guards who gossiped about such things claimed the hell beyond was rivaled only by the slave pits of Carceri.
Vala kept a wary watch while Shatevar worked, and the patrol was still awaiting Galaeron's signal when the blue beam began to leave black nothingness in its wake. 'We've broken through,' reported a human.
Vala's eyes shifted, and Galaeron knew this to be the best chance he would have. He curled the tip of his index finger, signaling the attack, and a trio of white arrows flashed past. He was already diving as the shafts struck home, two above Shatevar's central eye and the third in Vala's cheek. Though the arrows sank only fingertip deep, that did not prevent the victims from crying out.
To Galaeron's surprise, no human arrows clattered off the wall behind him, and no elf voices cried out in pain. As he rolled, he glimpsed Louenghris falling beneath the blow of a human sword's lustrous pommel and saw two more archers lying in the dust unconscious but unbloodied, then Takari and her companions swept past him, flinging sand and uttering spells of sleeping.
Galaeron came up face-to-eye with Shatevar. Though the lid of its central eye was drooping, the eye tyrant had not yet fallen to the sleep arrows and was swinging around two unfettered eyestalks to attack. The blue beam swept past above Galaeron and tore a six inch hole across Aragath's chest. The scout did not scream; he simply dropped his chin and stared at the red mess spilling down his stomach, then he fell into the dust.
Galaeron was already raising his hand to spray magic at the eye tyrant when a black sword fell on it from behind. The shadowy blade slid through the leathery head almost effortlessly, splitting the skull down the back and
