Paul Kidd - Descent into the Depths of the Earth

A second guard turned in shock an instant before four feet of white hot metal ploughed through his guts. Benelux screeched in fury as Jus kicked the corpse free of the blade and rammed the sword hilt backward to smash the wolf-skull pommel into the third elf’s face. The drow reeled backward, teethbroken. Jus kicked the creature’s knees, crashing the drow to the ground beforehacking its head off in one terrible blur of speed.

The drow hymns continued, screaming and horrible. Horns bellowed, victims raved in fear, and the slaughter of the three guards went utterly unnoticed in the cacophony.

Jus crouched amidst the spreading blood of his victims, the hell hound snarling from his helmet in a lusting feral glee. Escalla joined him as the man leaped the fence to sink down behind a surging mob of prisoners.

Escalla clung hand in hand with the Justicar. At the altar, huge spider-centaurs cavorted around their queen. Lolth reared, foul and massive, her size growing as her bulk took on a hellish radiance. Giant black widow spiders the size of small dogs boiled all over the temple steps, climbing over shrieking prisoners near the altar stone. Lolth drank and drank from the giant bowl with a thirst that never slaked, surging with energy stolen from countless slaughtered lives.

Hidden by hundreds of chained prisoners, Escalla went to work. The captives were all shackled by one single chain per row of twenty, the chain running through manacles fixed to their right ankles. Shivering in shock, the prisoners stared at the huge, blood-spattered man in the black hell hound skin that crouched amongst them-then gaped as Jus rose to hack a huge whitesword down into a passing drow. The drow screamed and died, unnoticed by his comrades amongst the chaos.

The nearest prisoners were the kidnap victims from Sour Patch. A half-orc goggled as he recognized Escalla and the Justicar. Escalla saw a chained, pale figure gaping at her, the humans face smothered in pimples. Escalla clapped the man’s jaw shut as she passed him by.

“Magic wishing weasel, son! Your wish is our command! Escapesfrom certain doom half price all this week.”

Captives saw Jus standing over the butchered drow, and all of them instantly tried to surge pleading toward him.

The huge warrior bellowed and shoved the nearest men down. “Still! Stay still! Don’t move!” One blow of his magic sword hacked through thenearest chain. “Drag the chain free, but stay where you damned-well are!”

Another chain sprang free as Jus crashed the white blade down. Benelux pulsed and glowed with an excited stream of light.

Oh, I so enjoy the way we work together!

The prisoners stayed in place as the captives at the far end of the line began to drag the huge chain out of long line of manacles. Jus hacked lengths of chain into sections, passing them to prisoners to use as flails.

“You have a choice: die like dogs on the altar, or kill thedrow!” The Justicar hurled lengths of chain to the eager half-orcs at his side.“We outnumber them twenty to one. Charge when I say charge, or just lie here anddie!”

Overhead, the gate spell crashed into life, the arch of bone glowing and shimmering as a path was forced into another world.

Escalla looked at the black widows swarming up the temple steps.

“When we get outta here, we’re going somewhere totally devoidof damned spiders!” Cursing, Escalla stripped herself naked right before theprisoners’ eyes. She tossed her scroll case to the Justicar and shouted, “Youidiots do what Jus tells you if you want to stay alive!”

As Jus worked his way through dense packs of prisoners, freeing the rows one by one, the distant drow choirs increased the tempo of their maddened hymn. Escalla made a flash of light as she changed her shape into a big spider, making human captives cringe away from her in panic. The spider picked up the lich staff and Polk’s bottle in one clawed leg, then turned andsped toward the mistress of the drow.

“Outta the way, people! Come on! Spider comin’ through. Move!”

Escalla the spider scuttled through the ranks of prisoners nearest to the altar. Halflings were being dragged toward the altar stone by a dozen guards. The priestesses beside the bone gate finally unlinked their hands, drained by the effort of casting their spell. The white-robed faerie stood before the gate, arms open in a gesture of supreme triumph. Behind the faerie, Lolth plunged her whole head into the vast, deep bowl of blood, storing up life energy to allow her to seize the Nightshade key.

Escalla the spider leaped onto a drow’s back, dodged a hordeof black widows who tried to drag her along in their dance, and leaped over to a spider-centaur’s back. Awkwardly clutching her bottle and staff, she tried tohide herself amongst the chaos. A halfling was flung on the altar and horribly killed, the death sawing right through Escalla’s bones. She paused, uncorkedPolk’s magic whiskey bottle, and then bellowed down into the open neck.

“Faerie wine! Faerie wine! Vintage sixty-three!”

The bottle began to gush with wine. Escalla joined a cluster of excited black widows that surged to the side of the blood bowl as the latest corpse was strung up above. Sixty corpses now lay in a heap beside the altar, the bodies sliding and tangling. Drow worked fast, killing, hanging, cutting free-a frenzy of activity. Escalla jumped onto the bowl’s rim, saw Lolth as themonster plunged her head deep and drank, then hurled the magic whiskey bottle into the blood. The enchanted wine spread through the blood in an invisible swirl.

A drow high priestess half-caught the splash of the bottle being tossed into the bowl. Whirling, the priestess saw a spider clutching a rune staff perched at the edge of the bowl. The woman froze, and an instant later Escalla had leaped onto her face and bit with poisoned fangs. The drow fired a wild spell, hitting another drow who screamed and simply withered away to ash. Crashing the runestaff into the drow’s face, Escalla blasted the woman’shead apart.

“Hands off! No one touches the faerie!”

The dead drow flew back across the temple steps. Back in faerie form, naked and drenched in blood, Escalla looked up, her lich staff smoking in her hands. Above her, a row of headless corpses poured blood into the golden bowl. At the bone arch, a masked faerie in white stared at her, utterly appalled. Drow priestesses, still dazed, turned to look at the intruder in shock. Guards paused in mid cut as they butchered screaming victims. Surrounded by stares, Escalla wiped blood from her face.

“You people have pissed me off for the last damned time!”

Escalla thundered a magic cloud across the drow. The temple steps were instantly swept with boiling venomous steam. Drow screamed and died, drow ducked and dived, priestesses sheltered behind magic spells or crawled hacking on the ground. Naked, bloodstained, and screaming in battle frenzy, Escalla lunged at the enemy faerie as the creature whirled to flee.

From the prison pen, the Justicar gave a huge bellow of rage.He whiplashed his magic rope and dragged one drow screaming down into the mob, where captives pounded the creature into a bloody pulp. Other drow fired crossbows, and Jus parried three bolts in a blur of steel. The drow stopped to reload, and Jus crashed his blade into the palisade, blasting through the palings. Two thousand enraged prisoners surged behind him in a mob that boiled with rage.

Crossbows hammered a storm of steel at the Justicar. Quarrels ricocheted from his stoneskin spell, then the white blade ploughed through the drow. Blood exploded as elves died, and then the prisoners smashed into their guards in a maddened storm of steel. Chains flailed, and drow screamed.

At the heart of the maelstrom, Jus caught a drow sword as it flashed toward him and severed the drow’s arm. Waving his sword, the big manbellowed and led an enraged wave toward the temple steps. A hundred guards were staggering, reeling, and dying as they left Escalla’s deadly cloud.