The Lost Library of Cormanthyr (20 page)

Baylee feinted with the mace, drew the drow’s sword to block, then stepped in and hammered the man in the face with the buckler. The drow’s nose broke, and blood cascaded down his split lips.

The drow female’s voice rose in harsh command, speaking the grating elvish language of her kind.

Breathing hard, Baylee pressed his advantage. At first he thought he was about to be overrun by the other drow warriors flanking the one he engaged. But they pulled back unexpectedly. However, when the first skeleton warrior came crashing into the midst of the drow, he understood.

The two-handed sword wielded by the undead creature cleaved a drow in twain, dropping the halves to the ground. Fired by its own supernatural rage, the skeleton warrior didn’t hesitate about attacking the next drow. The drow warrior put up a valiant effort to block the creature from his mistress, but the skeleton warrior battered him aside, stretching him out unconscious or dead.

Slipping the sword of his opponent and pushing it away with the small shield, Baylee blocked the drow’s dagger thrust with the mace, then slammed the buckler into the man’s face again. Robbed of his senses by the blow, the drow collapsed at Baylee’s feet.

The female drow growled her order again, gesturing to the ground.

Shifting, Baylee spotted the circlet laying in the grass. Moonlight kissed the silver and glinted against the pure white of diamond. The ranger surged forward, intent on seizing the prize. If he gained control of the circlet but did not choose to exercise control over whichever skeleton warrior whose soul it contained, the undead creature would continue to wreak havoc while trying to reach its previous enslaver.

Baylee managed two steps, then a drow stepped before him. The hand crossbow in the warrior’s hand snapped as the missile fired. Baylee twisted in mid-stride, throwing himself off-balance. Xuxa! Get the circlet!

The azmyth bat broke into view, swooping low across the ground with her feet lowered. Baylee caught himself on one hand, then pushed up and swung a foot into the drow’s crotch. With a high-pitched shriek, the drow went down. Behind him, Xuxa dragged her claws across the circlet and ripped it out of the drow’s hands as he was about to take it. Her leather wings beat the air hard, trying to gain height as two other drow warriors scrambled after her.

Baylee locked eyes with the drow woman.

“Baylee Arnvold,” she hissed in the human tongue.

Roaring in rage, the skeleton warrior reached the drow it was after. The undead creature’s free hand reached out with reflex much too fast to be mortal. It caught the drow’s head in its bony grasp, then yanked the drow warrior from his feet.

Even held by his fearsome opponent, the drow did not give up. He flailed at the skeleton warrior with his short sword.

Baylee watched as the skeleton warrior’s inexorable strength shoved the drow’s head back. The ranger’s stomach chilled at the cruel death that was about to happen. It was one thing to kill a man in combat, but this was another. The drow’s eyes bulged in fear and resistance. With a snap, the dark elf’s neck broke and his body went slack.

The undead creature laughed with foul glee, then tossed the corpse to the side. It turned its empty black gaze toward the sky and spotted Xuxa. Unerringly, it took off in pursuit of the azmyth bat hovering over the area.

Baylee looked back at the drow female. She had frozen in place, the gold circlet once more on her head. She had known his name and his face. The fact that the drow party had invaded the forgathering was no accident. They had come for him.

And seeing the magic the drow female had at her command and remembering the story Cordyan Tsald had related, Baylee guessed the woman had helped in Golsway’s murder if she hadn’t planned it all herself.

He stepped toward her, intending to take the battle to her.

“Baylee!” Serellia’s warning cut through the sound of combat.

Looking around, Baylee realized his friends had joined him in the battle with the drow. But so had the skeleton warriors. One of them swung its two-handed sword at Baylee. Leaning backward, the ranger flipped out of the way. The sword nicked his leather armor, slicing through neatly and scoring the flesh underneath.

Baylee prayed the great sword wasn’t poisoned. His feet pounded into the ground, bringing him face-to-face with the undead creature again. Maybe it would have had him, but Aymric was suddenly there, his falchion managing to turn his larger opponent’s swing. The two-handed sword thudded into the ground, cleaving deeply into the earth.

Seizing the opportunity presented, Baylee stepped forward and smashed the heavy mace against the imprisoned sword. Sparks flared up at once, but the sound of shattering steel rang across the clearing.

The skeleton warrior drew back its broken blade and paused only for a moment. Then it attacked Baylee again. The ranger blocked the blow with the buckler, feeling the impact run down his arm, numbing his hand.

Aymric stepped in, weaving a net of steel before him with his sword and dagger. “Do you know who controls this monster, my friend?” His blades licked out, scoring deep bites in the skeleton warrior’s dead flesh.

“I think so,” Baylee answered.

“Then break that control.” Aymric defended another blow from the broken blade.

Trusting his friend after their years of companionship, Baylee turned and raced toward the female drow. Around him, more rangers had joined the fray, bringing with them their animal followers. It looked as though the forest itself stood aligned against the dark elves, filled with tearing claws and flashing fangs. The drow backed down slowly, but the cost for the rangers was high.

Breathing hard, blood matting his tunic and his leather armor from the wound across his stomach, Baylee sped for the female drow. Before he could get to her, two drow warriors closed in front of him. Their swords forced him back. He went to work with the buckler and mace, trading blow for blow with each of them as he used the terrain itself against them, taking the high ground where he could, and using trees and brush to block them.

He kept them from taking his life with effort. The mace vibrated in his hand, and his other hand hadn’t quite recovered from the blow of the skeleton warrior.

“You need to live, Baylee Arnvold,” a feminine voice said at his side.

Stepping back to take advantage of a tree that broke up the two drow, Baylee glanced at his side and saw Cordyan Tsald fall into position beside him. “This isn’t your fight,” he told the watch lieutenant

“I have questions that you need to answer,” she replied, then riposted a low sword thrust. Her return blow drew blood from the drow’s shoulder. “If you die tonight, Captain Closl will still be asking them in the morning.”

Baylee beat the other drow’s attack to pieces, filling the air with the mace and the buckler. He swung the small shield at the end of his arm and slammed the black adamantite against the drow’s knee hard enough to break bone. When it came to survival, there were no rules of conduct.

“I have questions of my own I want answered,” he growled. “This drow female knew my name. Were there any drow involved in Golsway’s death?”

“If we had known there were,” the watch lieutenant replied, “I’d have been searching the Underdark, not this forgathering.”

Glancing past his opponent, Baylee saw that Xuxa had landed in the top of a tree. She had her wings spread out to hold herself up in a branch while she kept the gold circlet clutched in her clawed feet. Below her, the skeleton warrior pursuing the circlet started climbing the tree.

Without warning, the sky flared into magnificent golden light that drained the shadows and darkness from the immediate area. The drow in front of Baylee drew back, raising his arm in front of his eyes.

Half-blinded himself, Baylee glanced back toward the direction he’d come from and spotted Carceus less than fifty paces distant. The priest held his hands aloft, and the light seemed to pour from them.

The skirmish line the drow had held broke. Arrows flew at them, filling the air as the archers among the rangers tried to find their targets.

Baylee stared hard into the group of drow, seeing that the female among them was once more conscious. Her hot gaze rested on the ranger briefly, then she called to the drow warriors. They flocked to her quickly, having no place to hide under the fierce light of Carceus’s creation.

A ruby limned hole opened in the air behind the female drow. Two of the skeleton warriors held the line against the rangers. One of the drow popped open a bag and pulled it over the warrior next to him, swallowing the other man instantly.

“They’re escaping!” someone yelled.

“Let them!” yelled another. “There’s been enough death tonight, and I’ve no wish to visit the Underdark before morningfeast.”

Baylee raced toward the drow group, but two of the skeleton warriors fronted him. He drew up, frustrated. The hole behind the drow group flared a deeper red as it flashed. Then it was gone. A handful of fletched shafts cut the air where the dimensional door had been.

The skeleton warriors turned from Baylee and ran back toward the area where the dark elves had disappeared. Both of them searched the grass until they found the gold circlets. One touched the circlet immediately to his forehead. Under the clear light of Carceus’s spell, Baylee watched as the skeleton warrior and the circlet turned to dust, blowing away in the strong wind left over from the dimensional door.

Then the second skeleton warrior knelt in the grass. Its arms spread out in supplication as its dead face turned toward the sky.

“It looks like it’s praying,” Cordyan said quietly at Baylee’s side.

“Maybe it is,” Baylee said. “In the end, those creatures may be capable of great evil, but not all of them had beginnings in evil. Good men have often been bound to the curse of those gold circlets, I am told.”

The second skeleton warrior drew the circlet to its forehead and turned into a pile of dust that rapidly blew away in the rising wind.

Baylee glanced anxiously about. Two of the skeleton warriors had been accounted for, and one climbed the tree Xuxa took shelter in. But a fourth remained.

“What are you searching for?” Cordyan asked.

“The fourth skeleton warrior.”

“Why?”

“Because it will follow them,” Baylee said. “No matter how far they go. The magic they used to control it will bind it to them. If we want to find them, all we have to do is follow the undead creature.”

“It looked like they all threw the circlets away,” the watch lieutenant stated. “And the other two skeleton warriors didn’t try to follow anyone.”

Baylee surveyed the bodies of the dead drow in front of him. Seven dark elves lay stretched out near the battleground. “Then the people who controlled them were dead.”

“The ones who controlled the skeleton warriors were the most protected of the group,” Cordyan pointed out.

“I know.” The situation didn’t make sense to Baylee either. The people who controlled the skeleton warriors had been deep within the group of drow. He quickly searched the dead, seeking answers.

Two of the drow had died by the sword, their bodies opened up in great gashes. But the third one he checked didn’t appear to have a mark on him. Grabbing the corpse by a shoulder, the ranger pulled and rolled it over.

He spotted the black fletchings of the small crossbow bolt that jutted out from the back of the man’s neck. The bolt was of dark elf design, matching ones Baylee found in the small quiver on the man’s thigh. “This man was killed by his own.” He released the corpse and let it fall back to the ground.

“As was this one,” Cordyan informed him grimly. She indicated the quarrel sticking out from below the man’s left ear.

“They were taking no chances about being followed,” Baylee said. “Someone had already taken into account the cost of failure.”

Cordyan let go the corpse she’d handled and looked up at Baylee. “They came here for you.”

“Perhaps.”

The light from Carceus’s spell faded from the sky and moonlight returned to highlight the watch lieutenant’s features. “There is no ‘perhaps’ about it,” she replied. “Whether there was a drow involved with Fannt Golsway’s murder or not, his death exhibited strong magic. Just like this.”

Baylee knew it was true. His thoughts had already taken the same fork in the stream. He gazed around at the carnage that had ripped so bluntly into the festive atmosphere of the forgathering. Only moments before, so many of the people around him had been involved in swapping stories, swapping possessions, eating and drinking, competing, and perhaps even flirting at love.

Now, they tended the wounded and dead comrades among them, and sought to tip the scales on the ones they might lose. Thankfully, a number of clerics and druids had attended the forgathering. Those who had healing potions shared willingly among the fallen.

Guilt chafed in Baylee’s mind.

You did not know, Xuxa chided him. If you had, you would not have brought this trouble among your friends.

Baylee looked at the tree where the azmyth bat held her prize from the clutches of the skeleton warrior. The undead creature swayed unsteadily in the thinner branches near the top of the tree, searching in vain over and over, like some kind of artisan’s automaton for safe passage higher.

He turned at the sound of his name and saw Serellia approaching him. Her beautiful face was streaked with blood, and tears ran down her cheeks. Her sword remained naked in her fist.

“It’s Aymric,” she said.

Baylee felt like a cold fist closed around his heart. “Where?” He knew many people in many places, but so few actually got close to him. The elf was one of the closest.

Serellia guided him to Aymric.

Pale and disheveled, Aymric lay on the ground as Karg and two other men sought to bind the horrible wound across his midsection. The skeleton warrior’s sword stroke had laid him open. The elf looked up at Baylee and tried to speak.

Baylee knelt beside his friend, feeling the tears burn his eyes. He took Aymric’s hand and closed it tightly in his. “I should not have left you,” he whispered in a hoarse voice.