R. Salvatore - Archmage

Or perhaps she had enslaved them, he considered again, and he slowed his pace as he moved along the uneven, cracked stones of one twisted hallway. He could only imagine the force that had so broken this place, as if the whole of the mountain had twisted, turning the hallway as a slave might wring the dirty water from a cleaning rag. At various points along the wide cracks in the walls or floor, Tiago noted volcanic rock. He could feel the heat from it, and that truly unsettled him.

Had the primordial escaped again? While he had been off in the Silver Marches fighting the war, had Ravel’s family been blasted by another volcano of primordial power? The last known eruption had been decades before, after all. How could the stone still be throwing such heat?

Noting movement in a wider chamber up ahead, the drow put those thoughts aside and picked up his pace even more, breaking into a trot.

He lifted his arm, turning his shield as he did so that Doum’wielle could see, and motioned her ahead, then shifted his fingers in the silent hand code of the drow, side by side.

Doum’wielle hustled to catch up. Before them lay an oval-shaped room, with the wider chamber opening left and right beyond. It was lighter in there, and brightening now, as if the kobolds within might be stoking a fire. A ghostly image drifted past, beyond the oval, and both companions stutter-stepped a bit, caught by surprise for a heartbeat before realizing that it was merely a bit of steam.

“Stay close,” Tiago whispered. “We ask once for surrender, then we kill them all.”

The drow’s eyes sparkled and he couldn’t suppress his grin. Too long had it been since he had felt the thrill of battle. Indeed, not since the werewolves haunting the forests around Longsaddle. They had noted the kobold lair upon first entering the complex, but Tiago had stayed away, fearing that these were slaves of Q’Xorlarrin. He did not want to be discovered by Matron Mother Zeerith and the rest of her House.

Not until he had the head of Drizzt in a sack.

Three strides away, ready to leap through the opening, Tiago broke into a sprint and gave a battle cry.

But kobolds appeared from around the edges of the opening at just that moment, each holding a large bucket, which they swept across, throwing forth the liquid contents at the opposite edge of the oval.

Tiago pulled up and spun a circuit to slow, but his momentum was too great, and Doum’wielle pressed him from close behind. He gave another yell, this one in alarm as his mind whirled in fear of what these little rats had thrown at him.

Oil of impact that would explode if he brushed too near, perhaps? Acid to bite at him as he dived through?

Even as his mind tried to sort out the surprise, liquid struck stone and hissed in protest, and a wall of steam filled the opening, glowing red.

Shield leading, Tiago dived through. He hit the ground, tucking that shoulder, waving his sword left and right to fend off any attackers in the opaque veil as he rolled around and came up to his feet.

Doum’wielle came in behind him, not as gracefully and not in a roll, tripping past the threshold and stumbling, but holding her feet as she fell toward Tiago.

Fearing that she’d stagger right past him, Tiago turned and shieldblocked her, jolting her upright and steady.

“What-?” she started to ask, but he hushed her, having no time for her idiocy.

Tiago felt as if sweat was running from every pore in his skin. It was hot in here, and not just from the steam. He noted lines of glowing red and suspected them to be lava.

Uncooled lava, and they could hardly see.

Beware every step! he started to sign, but then, realizing Doum’wielle wouldn’t begin to make out the intricate movements in this thick haze, he spoke the warning instead.

His voice had betrayed their position, he realized a moment later, when rocks soared in at them.

Tiago’s shield unwound, growing by the heartbeat, and he managed to duck behind it to avoid the volley, though the small stones lobbed his way didn’t seem as if they would cause much harm anyway.

But then the first hit his shield, a slight tap. It turned into a more profound one as the ball of stone exploded.

Tiago staggered back even as other missiles banged against the shield, each exploding like the first, driving Tiago back, ever back.

Doum’wielle cried out and went rolling past him to his right, more rocks chasing her, landing all around and pop-popping like the small fireworks and grenades Tiago had used himself at a Baenre celebration, fashioned by the priests of Gond in days gone by, when they had experimented with smoke powder.

These grenades were different, though, for they didn’t burst and whistle like those fireworks. They cracked and popped, throwing stone shards, and burning red, bright and angry, but only briefly.

“Forward!” Tiago ordered Doum’wielle. They couldn’t stand there and suffer the continuing barrage.

But all she returned were screams of pain. Tiago couldn’t see her clearly, but his glance showed him her shadowy form, on the floor and writhing.

The drow tucked his head behind his shield and followed the path of the stones across the room to the throwers. He got hit again, repeatedly, each explosion staggering him, halting him momentarily or even driving him back a step. Tiago reached into his drow heritage, into the magic of the Faerzress that tickled the life-force of his kind, and brought forth a globe of darkness, aiming it in front of him at the far end of the room, where he suspected the kobolds to be.

The barrage slowed, the rocks came in less accurately, and Tiago pressed ahead, shield leading, sword poking forward from all around it. He went into the darkness without hesitation, and thrust more powerfully, scoring a hit.

He dismissed the globe of darkness and found himself faced up with a pair of kobolds, both waving short swords, both holding rocks-missiles that showed the red streaks of contained lava. Behind him, Doum’wielle was still crying out in pain, though it was more a whimper than a scream at that point-a poignant reminder to the son of House Baenre not to let one of those rocks hit him.

The mist thinned, and then he was against not two, but four kobolds, coming at him fearlessly-no slaves these! — and fanning about him, stabbing with short swords, cocking their arms to launch their grenades as soon as an opening showed.

So Tiago gave them that opening-those on his right, at least-as he swept his shield out to the left.

The two on the right let fly, Tiago dropped below the barrage and fast-stepped out to the right, stabbing fiercely, impaling a kobold who fell limp in front of the drow before he’d ever withdrawn the blade.

The mist thinned some more, and Tiago had a better grasp of the room and the grenades. The kobolds stood in front of and beneath a long, slender stalactite, but none like Tiago had ever seen. It dripped red lava, like a leaking, open boil on the skin of the primordial-and onto a mold of solid stone, one that let the lava spread out into a semicircle where it would fast harden and blacken.

So shocked was he by this surprising display of cunning by the miserable little rat-faced kobolds, that Tiago almost forgot that he was in the middle of a fight.

He barely avoided the stab of a short sword from the right, and just got his shield up to deflect the thrust of one of the creatures on his left. He enacted the magic on Orbbcress, his blocker, then, catching the sword fast against the edge. He jerked down and pivoted left, turning the stubborn kobold, who would not surrender its blade.

Bent low, overbalanced, Tiago and Vidrinath turning fast, the kobold surrendered its head instead.

A scraping sound brought the drow back to center, to see a crack opening into a door behind the dropping stalactite, the glowing eyes of a horde of kobolds within.