Margaret Weis - Dragons of The Dwarven Depths

“Tasslehoff? Is that you?”

It would be just like the kender to abandon his post and chase after her. He was probably planning to sneak up on her, jump at her out of the shadows, then collapse with laughter at her fright.

If it was Tas, he didn’t answer her shout.

She heard the noise again. It sounded like harsh breathing and scraping footfalls, and whoever it was, it wasn’t bothering to hide anymore.

“Tasslehoff,” Tika faltered. “This isn’t funny…”

Even as she said the words, she knew it wasn’t Tas. Fear twisted into a cold, hard knot in her belly. Her throat constricted. She couldn’t breathe or swallow. She shifted the torch to her left hand, almost dropping it. Her right hand closed spasmodically over the dagger in her belt. She didn’t want to die, not alone, in the darkness, and at the thought, a little whimper of terror escaped her.

She couldn’t see, but she could hear the sound made by claws scraping across the stone floor, and she knew immediately her pursuer was a draconian. Her first panicked instinct was to run, but though her brain was screaming at her to flee, her legs refused to budge. Besides, there was nowhere to go. Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide.

The harsh panting and grunting came closer and closer. The draconian was finished sneaking about.

He emerged into the torchlight right in front of her, racing straight at her. At the sight of her, his hideous scaly face contorted in a slavering grin. He gurgled, saliva flicked from his jaws. He wore a curve-bladed sword, but he had not drawn it. He did not want to kill his prey; he wanted to enjoy it first.

Tika let the beast-man draw close to her—not from any planned strategy, but because she was too terrified to move. The draconian’s red eyes gleamed; his clawed hands opened. He spread his wings and leaped at her, planning to drag her to the stone floor with him on top of her. Determination hardened in Tika. Determination steadied her hand, turned her terror to strength. Swinging the torch in a wild, backhand stroke, she bashed the draconian in his leering face. Her hit was perfectly if accidentally timed and caught the draconian in mid-flight. The blow knocked the baaz’s head one way and his momentum carried his feet in the opposite direction, upending him. He landed with a heavy thud on the stone floor, his wings crumpled beneath him. Tika flung aside the torch, and holding the dagger in both hands, she was on the baaz in an instant. Screaming in fury, she slashed and stabbed.

The draconian howled and tried to grab hold of her. She didn’t know what part of the draconian she was striking; she couldn’t see all that well, for a red rage dimmed her vision. She struck at anything that moved. She kicked, stomped, stabbed and slashed, knowing only that she had to keep fighting until the thing stopped moving.

Then her blade struck rock, jarring her arms painfully The dagger slid out of her blood-slick hands. Panicked, Tika scrabbled to find her weapon. She caught hold of it, picked it up, whirled around, and saw her foe dead at her feet. The rock she had hit was the draconian, turned to stone. Sobbing for breath, shaking all over, Tika tasted a horrid, bitter liquid in her mouth. She retched and felt better. Her frantic heartbeat slowed. She breathed a little easier, and only then felt the burning pain of the scratches on her arms and legs. She picked up the torch, held it over the draconian and waited for the corpse to turn to ashes. Only when it finally disintegrated did she believe it was dead.

Tika shuddered and was about to slump down on the stone floor, when the thought came to her that there might be more of the monsters out there. She hurriedly wiped the blood from her hand to get a better grip on the knife and waited. The pain burned in her arms and her legs and she began to shiver.

Her thinking cleared. If there had been any others, they would have attacked her by now. This one had acted alone, hoping to have his prize all to himself.

Tika took stock of her wounds. Long jagged scratches crisscrossed her arms and her legs, but that was the extent of the damage. Her violent attack had taken the draconian completely by surprise. The scratches burned horribly and bled freely, but that was good. The bleeding would keep the wounds from putrefying.

Tika cleaned out the scratches with water from the water skin, rinsed the draconian’s blood from her face and hands, and swished the water around in her mouth to rid herself of the horrid taste. She spit the water out. She was afraid to swallow, afraid she’d throw up again. She was bone-tired, sick and shaking. She longed to curl up in a ball and have a good cry, but she couldn’t bear the thought of spending another moment in this horrid tunnel. Besides, she had to reach Riverwind and there was no time to waste.

Gritting her teeth, Tika thrust Rabbitslayer in her belt and walked determinedly on.

Tasslehoff led Caramon, Raistlin, and Prince Sturm, as the kender was now calling him, up the airshaft. Reaching the top, they peered out cautiously and hopefully. They had not heard any sounds of draconians during the night and had hoped that, having slain the dragon and looted the place, they would have moved on. Instead, they found the draconians camped out underneath the way out.

The draconians slept on the ground, curled up, their tails wrapped around their feet and their wings folded. Most of them slept with their heads on lumpy sacks filled with whatever treasure they’d found in the fortress. One draconian had been left on watch. He sat up with his back against a rock. Every so often, his head would nod and he would slump forward, only to jerk awake again.

“I thought you said it was an army,” said Caramon dourly. “I count fifteen.”

“That’s almost an army,” Tas returned.

“Not even close,” said Caramon.

“Fifteen or fifteen hundred, it makes little difference,” Raistlin said. “We still have to get past them.”

“Unless there’s another way out.” Caramon looked at Sturm, who shook his helmed head.

“Thorbardin lies that way.” He pointed to the south. “Across the Plains of Dergoth.”

“Yeah, I know,” Caramon said. “You’ve told us that three times in the last five minutes. Is there another way out of this fortress? A secret way?”

“Our army stormed the gates of the fortress. We came in through the front and swept aside the defenders.”

“This is the only way,” said Raistlin.

“You can’t know for sure. We could do some exploring.”

“Trust me,” Raistlin said flatly. “I know.”

Caramon shook his head, but he did not continue to argue.

“We will simply wait for the draconians to leave,” Raistlin decided. “They will not hang about all day. They will likely return to the fortress to continue searching for loot. Once they have gone inside, we can depart.”

“We should just kill them now,” Sturm said. “They are merely goblins. Four of us can handle such vermin with ease.”

Caramon looked at Sturm in astonishment. “Goblins? Those aren’t goblins.” Puzzled, he looked at Raistlin. “Why does he think they’re goblins?”

“Remarkable,” said Raistlin, intrigued. “I can only speculate, but since draconians did not exist during the time in which the prince lived, the helm does not know what to make of the monsters. Thus the prince sees what he expects to see—goblins.”

“Great,” Caramon muttered. “Just bloody great.”

He peered over the edge down a sheer wall, black and smooth, that extended for about thirty feet, ending in a massive pile of rubble—chunks of the fortress, boulders, and rocks all jumbled together. At the foot of the rubble heap was the large patch of dry ground on which the draconians were camped and beyond that the mists and miasma of a swamp.