Troy Denning - The Siege

The elf rotated his head forward again. Deciding there was truth in what he said, Vala lowered her guard and moved to within four paces of him, where his chill aura grew so uncomfortable she began to shiver. She had seen enough undead in the past six months to recognize him as some sort of lich, but his presence did not engender the same sense of fear and corruption she had experienced back in Karsus when she and Galaeron and their companions had fought the lich Wulgreth. What she wouldn't have given to have Galaeron at her side, with his Tomb Guard's knowledge of all things unliving-but the old Galaeron before he fell victim to the corrupting influence of the Shadow Weave. Gods, how she missed that one, the Galaeron who had been so steady and earnest and noble.

The lich-elf turned down a smaller side corridor- still so wide three Vaasans could have stood abreast- and sent a spider the size of a pony skittering along the wall. Hanging in its web overhead were several silk-wrapped packages, some with clawed feet or beastly snouts poking out. From one dangled a halfling-sized boot, the toe still twitching. As she passed beneath this cocoon, Vala slowed and raised her sword to cut the halfling free. "Leave him."

Vala looked up to find the lich-elf's head turned backward on his shoulders again, watching her.

"He is a relic thief and has met a relic thief's end," the lich-elf said.

Vala lowered her sword. She knew firsthand how elves felt about treasure thieves, and the last thing she needed was an angry lich… of any sort. She mouthed a silent apology to the halfling and followed her guide a hundred paces down the corridor to an iron door, which he opened by means of an ancient bronze key and a word of passing. They descended a long iron staircase filled with dog-sized rats and knee-high centipedes, all of which fled before the chill aura of the white elf.

"I'll say this, you make this place a lot safer," Vala observed. The elf didn't respond.

The staircase descended into a natural cavern filled with limestone formations. The place stank so foully of offal and mold that Vala had to cover her mouth and nose to keep from retching. When they stepped onto the floor of the chamber, she recognized a strange regularity to many of the largest formations, where the stalactites and stalagmites met to form a wall of cage like columns. Peering out from between many sets of bars were glowing red eyes of various shapes and sizes, some the size of Vala's fist, some no larger than pinheads. One of the nearest cages had no eyes, only a mold-covered skull with six ebony fangs propped against the bars with the tip of one dark horn poking out to touch the ground.

A chorus of low groans and rasps arose from the nearest cages, gradually mounting toward a din of bestial growling and rumblings. Though Vala was holding the hilt of her darksword, she could see nothing beyond the stone bars but red eyes.

"Mind the prisoners," the lich-elf warned. "They'll be hungry."

Vala eased away from the cage she had been peering into, only to hear a wet plop as something struck her armored thigh. The lich-elf cursed in some ancient language she did not understand, then spun toward the source of the saliva and loosed a flight of golden energy-darts. When the bolts passed through the bars and exploded into her attacker, Vala glimpsed a bristly muzzle with long curved tusks, a pair of fan-shaped ears, and a set of folded wings rising up behind its shoulders. The creature roared and tore at the inside of its cage with four huge claws. When the energy bolts faded, it vanished back into the darkness inside its prison.

The lich-elf pointed at a glob of green mucus bubbling on the surface of Vala's armor. "Wipe that off before it takes root," he said. "The last thing I want is you spreading devil spawn through my Irithlium."

"Your Irithlium?" Vala tore a strip from the hem of her undertunic and wrapped it over the back of her dark-sword, then scraped the stuff off and flung the cloth into the creature's cage. "Who were you?" The lich-elf's eyes brightened. "Were?"

"No offense meant," Vala said. "It's just that I'm not friends with many undead."

Nor was she friends with this one, as the lich-elf made clear when he turned and continued through the chamber without speaking. Taking care to avoid the occasional glob of mucus that came flying her way, Vala followed as closely behind as her tolerance for cold allowed. They passed through the strange prison and wandered the dark caverns beneath the Irithlium until her legs grew weary with exhaustion. Periodically, she would try to learn more about her guide by engaging the lich-elf in conversation, but he only spoke to utter a word of passing or warn her about some deadly hazard into which she had nearly stumbled. Twice they were ambushed by spell-flinging dark nagas, one of which actually succeeded in wrapping the lich-elf in a web spell before Vala diced it into six three-yard pieces. Before continuing on, her guide was grateful enough to inform her that his name was Corineus Drannaeken.

Finally, they ascended a vertical shaft into the sub-basement levels, emerging in what had once been the central fountain in an elaborate two-story complex of work chambers. Clambering past a giant constrictor snake that had been immobilized by Corineus's aura of cold, they slipped out of the basin and sneaked down a narrow service corridor. Near the back, the white elf stopped and pulled a loose wall stone out of place. A section of stone wall grated open and rumbled aside. He uttered a word of passing, then motioned Vala through the opening.

Ever the cautious one, she dropped to a knee and peered around the corner-and found herself looking underneath a floating beholder into a large room filled with wands, crowns, bracers, and other items even she recognized as magical. There was also a mind flayer, whirling toward Vala's door, and half a dozen confused bugbears scrambling for their weapons.

Cursing herself for a fool and Corineus for a faithless double crosser, Vala whipped her darksword at the mind flayer. Waiting only long enough to see that the spinning blade was flying toward its target, she launched herself forward and rose beneath the beholder, pinning it against the ceiling of the opening while she drew her dagger.

"Ressamon, you idiot!" the beholder screamed. "Stun it-stun it before-"

Vala drove her dagger into the monster's underside. The resulting shriek was more angry than pained, and the mordant smell of powdered stone filled the air as the beholder began to spray the rock above with its disintegration ray. "Ressamon!"

But Ressamon, if that had been the mind flayer's name, was already lying on the floor beside its amputated head. Finally gathering their wits, the bugbears sprang over the illithid's body to charge Vala.

Driving her dagger into the beholder's underside again, she extended her free hand to summon her sword. It flashed between two of the charging bugbears, slashing open a furry knee and buckling the leg. The astonished brute collapsed in front of two companions and sent them sprawling, prompting the rest of the band to stop and whirl around to see who was attacking from behind.

The darksword arrived in Vala's hand, and the beholder's disintegration ray finally cut through the keystone of the hidden archway. With a thousand tons of stone settling on her shoulders, she had no choice except to leap into the chamber ahead and let the wounded eye tyrant escape behind her. She tucked into a diving somersault, taking a bugbear's legs off at the knees as she rolled past, then came to her feet and brought her dagger over her head, driving it to the hilt in the nearest furry back.

The roars of the wounded bugbears were lost to the sound of the collapsing doorway. Vala ducked a massive axe as the quickest of the bugbears whirled to attack, then removed the arm holding it and opened its chest on the backstroke. She glimpsed another axe coming and barely managed to pivot away, though not before the blade slashed along her chest, denting steel scales and hurling her into a pair of hairy arms as big around as her waist. With her arms pinned at her sides, Vala brought her feet up over her head and smashed her booted feet into her captor's face.