Paul Kidd - Descent into the Depths of the Earth

“Are they all right?”

“Pretty much. Polk just has to hope Jus doesn’t get one handfree.” Escalla nudged the boy with her battle wand. “All the trogs and bugbearsseem to be gathering at the warrens. Let’s get baby over there as innocently aspossible.”

The long canvas sausage, lumped and ugly, was covered by one of Escalla’s better illusion spells. Even so, the bobbing train of floatingshapes were a poor simulation of a giant pack lizard’s gait. Private Henry towedthe ungainly mass along through the air behind him.

Perhaps forty troglodytes snarled and fought over a vile, blood-filthy feast. Other troglodytes had gathered behind by the score, booming huge calls that shuddered through the air. Swarms of bugbears clustered nearby, glaring in naked hunger and envy at the feast.

Henry brought his lizard close to the flesh eating, blood spattered mob. Pale with fright, the boy fumbled, then tied the leash of his lizard to a stalactite only a few feet behind the snarling, jeering mobs of monsters. He breathed raggedly, his eyes bright with fright, and then felt an invisible kiss on his cheek.

“You all right, Hen?”

“Just fine.”

“Alrighty!” Escalla’s wings whirred like a dragonfly. “Juststroll over to Jus and wait for the fun!”

Henry tried to hold his loaded crossbow as innocently as possible. Wearing somewhat un-elven garments, he had already attracted side-wise glances from the drow. The magic sword Benelux gleamed gaudy and golden as it hung over his shoulder. The boy, trying to look nonchalant, began to make the long walk toward Jus and Polk.

A drow straightened his belt and began to make a determined course toward Henry. The deception could only last a few more seconds. Slapping her hands together, Escalla flew through the belly of her illusory lizard and began unplucking knots of hairy string. She whistled as she worked, the noise unheard over the roar and snarl of feeding troglodytes and the insults hurled by bugbear hordes.

The last knot untied, the tarpaulin jerked away and fell. As the paralyzed beholder thudded to the ground, Escalla tossed a magic floating disc beneath it and sent it scooting off to the north. Behind it, the canvas sausage suddenly disintegrated. Escalla turned and fled faster than any faerie had ever gone before.

The illusory pack lizard stretched, then came apart. In the packed central mob of feeders, food, audience, and jeering crowds, some heads turned-and then screamed in terror. Spreading up from the bursting body of thepack lizard came great bobbing, floating spheres-fleshy globes crowned with eyeson stalks and with fanged, snarling mouths.

The spheres began to scoot in all directions, propelled by internal gasses. The jammed hordes of bugbears and lizards froze in shock until a little voice pealed out across the cave.

“Hey, boys!” Thirty yards away, Escalla posed with aswarm of golden bees circling one fingertip. “Wanna see my party trick?”

Magic missiles flew out from Escalla’s fingertips and thuddedinto all eight floating gas spheres. The universe seemed to take a breath of shock. The troglodyte chieftain had time to swell his throat in the beginnings of a scream, and then one end of the cavern disappeared in a thunderous blast of light.

The gas spores detonated in an instant, each one exploding in a titanic fireball. Bugbears and lizards nearest to the spheres were atomized, while others flew backward as the flesh was blasted from their bones. The explosions rocked the cavern, shattering the ceiling of the warrens and bringing rock falls avalanching down. The ground shuddered. Ceilings collapsed. A few surviving monsters staggered, burned and screaming through the dust, to be crushed by rock falls cascading from above. The distant tribal warren dissolved as thousands of tons of rock collapsed in a massive cloud of debris.

Escalla gave a victory scream. With dust choking the air around her, she sat atop the paralyzed beholder, riding it like a juggernaut as it sped along on its floating disk. The girl fired a spell past Private Henry, turning cavern stone to bubbling mud and sinking drow to their deaths. Wide-eyed, the boy pelted toward the Justicar.

Drowning dark elves fired wild shots from their crossbows. Henry skidded to a halt beside Jus and Polk just as a crossbow bolt whizzed overhead to strike sparks from the cave wall. The boy dragged out a knife and hacked at the ropes binding Jus and Polk. Strands fell, and then suddenly Henry jerked in pain, a poisoned drow dart grazing the skin of his thigh. Escalla’sstoneskin spell had failed. Jus tore free and snatched the boy’s dagger from hisgrasp, hurling the knife straight into the archer’s groin.

Henry fell, alive but paralyzed. Jus reached for the sword at the boy’s belt, only to have a nasal female voice bellow at him from midair.

Not that one, fool!

The sword across Henry’s shoulders shot half out of itssheath. The handle was gaudy with jeweled unicorns, but the blade itself shone a brilliant white as though the blade were made from living light. Jus gripped the weapon and slid it free, feeling its pure, pleasurable weight singing in his hands.

Drow merchants leaped over their pack lizards, screaming in battle rage. Jus turned. In one split second he cut the legs from a drow in midair, decapitated another as it landed, and cut a swath in another that sprayed a fountain of blood. The last drow fired a crossbow. Jus angled the sword to send the crossbow bolt flickering off into the dark, saw the drow’seyes wince as the sword’s light flashed in its eyes, then an instant laterplunged the blade right through the creature’s guts. The drow folded, screamingout a spell. Its wound closed, the drow staggered back, only to be sheared in two by one massive, roaring swing of the pure white blade.

Body parts were still hitting the ground as Jus whirled and looked for targets. Echoing in his mind, the sword’s voice seemed a tad stunned.

You’ll be the Justicar. I, ah, I’m pleased to meet you.

Bugbears and troglodytes were staggering from the rubble. More drow guards were racing to the spot. Jus saw Escalla atop her strange floating mount, then the girl pointed behind him to the lich’s cave.

“Jus!”

A blast of ice-cold air swept forth, and the lich strode out of its lair. In one chilling glance the entity took in the disaster and destruction, then saw the Justicar standing in a ring of butchered drow. The monster gave a feral hiss, body crouching like a beast as it opened hands that streamed with magic spells.

From behind it, a raucous little voice screamed out across the cave. “Hey, handsome!”

The lich whirled. Two dozen yards away, a faerie in a ragged black silk dress sat astride a beholder. With a nasty laugh, Escalla wrenched open the lid of the beholder’s huge central eye, unveiling the monster’s angryglare.

A spell was already formed in the lich’s rotting mouth. Itscreamed the symbols of a death spell only to have the magic disappear. The beholder’s gaze shot out its ray of force, nullifying the lich’s magic andstripping it of its powers.

Jus raged forward, the white sword streaming with light, and the lich turned and ripped a small rod from the sleeve of its robe. Jus streaked his sword blade down, and the lich whipped up its hand, the rod shooting out to become a staff smothered in blood red runes. The sword blow was parried, but the sheer force of it blasted the lich back against the cavern wall. Screaming in fury, the undead sorcerer threw itself at Jus, the runestaff lunging for the ranger’s eyes.

The white blade flashed, sparks spitting as it hit the staff. Inhumanly fast, demonically strong, the lich fought with its staff, blurring blow after blow at Jus, each stroke met instantly by the human’s sword.