The Lost Library of Cormanthyr (37 page)

He slammed against the chasm wall opposite the side with the trail on it. His breath whooshed out of his lungs, and he lost another few inches on the rope. When he had his breath back, he sheathed the long sword and climbed the rope to the chasm top.

The drow didn’t notice him from their position, concentrating their crossbow fire on the humans they had pinned down.

Baylee slipped his quiver over his shoulder and opened it. He assembled the long bow and strung it quickly, gathering up a fistful of arrows. He pulled the first one back smoothly, letting the fletching touch his ear as he lined up his shot. Then he released.

The heavy flight arrow smashed into the drow’s chest, penetrating the chain mail shirt the warrior wore. He crumpled without a sound. By that time, Baylee had two other arrows in the air.

One of them took the drow behind the first through the neck. The second missed its target as the drow warrior ducked back to safety.

Baylee reached into his quiver and chose one of the incendiary arrows, knowing it from the way the fetching was put together. He broke the glass-vialed tip, then ignited the end with a flint and steel striker. The flames caught at once, twisting into a ball of flames at the end of the arrow.

Putting all thoughts of conventional and civilized warfare from his mind, the ranger loosed the arrow into the body of the first drow he’d killed. It was the only source of flammable materials he had at his disposal.

The arrow sailed across the intervening space like a comet, then thudded into the corpse with a meaty smack. The flames spread out in fiery bits, catching the dead man’s clothes on fire at once.

The other drow drew back, handicapped by the bright light that dimmed their sensitive vision.

Baylee stood and threw the coils of rope across the chasm, commanding it to take hold again. He tied the lantern to his chest on one of the many straps the armor had. Once the enchanted rope had secured itself to the other side, he tied the other end to a stalagmite. Slipping his bow across the rope, he held on to both sides, then slid across the rope, landing on the trail in a crouch. He dropped the bow at his feet, drawing the long sword. A blur of movement warned him of the quarrel’s flight as it sped toward him. He spun, bringing the sword up and hoping. He didn’t catch the quarrel squarely, but the swing did move him from in front of it.

Xuxa swooped in without mercy, raking her claws and tail across the drow’s face.

Baylee surged ahead, drawing the parrying dagger and opening the spring-trigger. The two side blades sprang out at once. He engaged the drow who had fired the crossbow bolt, catching the man in the midst of reloading. He struck the hand crossbow aside with the parrying dagger, then buried his sword in the man’s chest.

Another drow swung at him with a short sword.

Baylee blocked the cut with the parrying dagger, put a foot on the dead drow he’d run through, and yanked his sword free. Xuxa swooped across the drow, raking away his eyes.

The dark elf fell back, screaming in pain.

“Down, lad,” Civva Cthulad called from behind Baylee.

The ranger ducked at once, watching as the justifier thrust his military pick deep into the drow’s chest. The drow struggled to get free, but Cthulad leaned into the weapon, giving his weight to it. The length gave him comfortable room to work with even from behind Baylee.

“Now,” Cthulad said, withdrawing his weapon. The dead warrior dropped.

Baylee stood, aware that Cthulad was going to await any openings that might present themselves. Baylee cut and thrust, beating the swords of the next opponent down. The flames of the dead man’s burning clothes continued to burn bright enough to cause the drow warriors problems.

“We can’t stay out here in the open long, lad,” Cthulad said, thrusting again. “We’ll have to break the drow before the hook horrors get through Calebaan. Otherwise, a lot of those men behind us will die.”

Baylee dodged another sword thrust, sliding quickly to the side. In a roll of motion, he thrust the parrying dagger on the ground, then reached for the extended arm of the drow, grabbed the man’s elbow, and threw him over the edge of the chasm. The drow screamed the whole way down, then quieted abruptly. Long before then, Baylee had the parrying dagger in his hand again.

Cthulad lashed out with the pick again, driving another drow back. Baylee surged into the gap left by the retreating drow and the one he’d dragged over the side of the chasm. He used the long sword to hammer through the circle of steel the drow warriors tried to put up to block him. He swiped the parrying dagger across a man’s arm, rendering it useless in a spray of crimson. The blood splashed across Baylee’s face but stayed out of his eyes.

A drow behind the wounded man thrust out with a spear, driving it toward the ranger’s face.

“Watch it, lad,” Cthulad warned.

Moving with fluid grace, Baylee caught the spear thrust in the grip of the parrying dagger and turned it toward the left to the stone wall of the runnel. The steel head grazed sparks from the rock, then came to an abrupt halt. Before the drow could draw his spear back, Baylee chopped it in half with the long sword. He brought the backstroke around as the man tumbled off-balance, opening up his midsection.

The drow went down trying to hold himself together. Baylee kept himself distant from the horror of the dying man. The watch party couldn’t be allowed to be caught out on the ledge. He stepped over the drow warrior and felt the man grab for him. Bloody hands slid slickly over the ranger’s leg, unable to get a grip.

Cthulad ended the drow’s struggle with the pick.

Shadows wrapped around the tunnel in front of Baylee. He was uncertain of the placement of his opponents. He depended on his other senses, trained in the woodlands and honed by Golsway’s attention, to make up the difference.

He felt Xuxa’s leathery wing brush across his cheek, then he caught a glimpse of her as she hooked her claws into the drow’s face just ahead of him. The man screamed in pain as the bat bit deeply, then reached for her.

Baylee thrust his sword, burying it almost to the hilt in the man’s throat. The lantern swept across the scene, providing only brief glimpses of the drow warrior. Xuxa leaped into the air again.

Use the body as a shield, Xuxa advised.

Despite the fact that the dead man had bled profusely, Baylee stepped in close and sheathed the parrying dagger. He knotted a fist in the man’s tunic, supporting the dead weight by bringing it close to him. He freed his long sword, then shoved himself forward. One of the drow behind the dead man tried to shove a sword blade through the corpse, but the blade halted only inches through the dead man’s stomach, barely putting any pressure on Baylee’s armor.

A moment later, Baylee listened to the whip of leathery wings, then heard a man scream in agony. “My eyes, my eyes!”

The tunnel dipped down suddenly, throwing Baylee off-balance. He released the corpse as the tunnel opened up into another chamber. Shadows moved before him, but he had trouble discerning targets. Light from his lantern glinted across a sword blade swinging at his head. He blocked it, then instinctively followed the line of the slash and found the flesh and blood body in the shadows at the end of it. Before his opponent could draw back, the ranger thrust again. The man was dead before he hit the ground.

Light filled the chamber without warning. Baylee was careful to keep it at his back, letting it play over the handful of drow warriors in front of him. “You have a chance at living,” he told them. “Take it and run. We’re coming through.”

The drow seemed uncertain, looking among their ranks for someone who could provide an answer. Then two of them went down with throwing darts embedded in their foreheads. The remaining ones broke and ran.

From the exhibition he’d heard about at the forgathering, Baylee knew who’d thrown the darts. He turned toward Cordyan. “They didn’t have to die.”

“I disagree,” she said coolly as she stepped forward with her lantern. She put her foot on the faces of the dead men and tugged her darts free. “These are drow. If I could have, I’d have killed them all. Now we have to worry about the survivors getting confident enough to try sneaking up on us in the dark and killing whomever they can.” She wiped the darts and put them away in her clothing again.

Calebaan brought Baylee his bow. “She is right,” the wizard said. “You can’t trust even a drow’s cowardice. There may be something he lies about that he is even more afraid of.”

Listen to the truth, Baylee, Xuxa said.

The ranger settled the strung bow over his shoulder, tying it to the gnomish work leather. He took up his lantern in his empty hand, keeping the long sword naked in his fist. He kept his thoughts to himself about the matter, but he felt there was usually some other alternative to outright killing if an opponent wasn’t directly menacing.

“What about the drow woman?” Baylee played his lantern over the dead scattered in the tunnel.

“We haven’t seen her,” Cordyan answered.

“She’s part of this.”

“Well, she’s not here now.”

“Her path may yet lie ahead of us,” Cthulad said.

The ground shook again, more forcibly this time, knocking them all from their feet. The duration of the tremors lasted longer this time as well. Rocks and debris rained down from overhead, banging painfully into Baylee.

“The hook horrors have broken through the wall!” someone shouted from behind.

“Lead or get out of my way,” Cordyan yelled. Lantern light played across her blood-stained face.

“A moment,” Baylee responded. He played the lantern over the dead drow again. “They’re not carrying packs, nor any extra rations.”

“They’re from somewhere near,” Cthulad agreed. “The question is, though, are these all of them?”

Baylee shook his head. “The female wasn’t with them. There’s something else afoot in these twisted tunnels.” He went forward, charging into the darkness. Behind him, he could hear the chittering and clacking of the hook horrors.

Krystarn felt a stab of fear as she rounded the final corner and came face to face with the hobgoblin horde. Despite the fear she had put into Chomack, she knew there was the possibility that the hobgoblin chieftain could have figured to put her powers to the test. In a way, it was humorous, her gifting Chomack with the same skill at duplicity as she was currently employing against Shallowsoul.

The hobgoblins showed her only fear and deference. They were a ragged, motley bunch, covered with dust from the swirling debris that ran through the caverns. Chomack strode out of the waiting shadows.

“Sorceress,” the hobgoblin chieftain acknowledged.

Krystarn nodded at him. “Are your warriors ready, Chieftain Chomack?”

“Aye.”

The drow elf took the lead, guiding the large party through the labyrinthine mazes of tunnels that led up to the partially collapsed structure where she kept her rooms. In minutes, they were at the wall where Shallowsoul had always opened the dimensional door.

No lights burned in the hallway. If it hadn’t been for Krystarn’s own infravision and that of the hobgoblins, she knew she wouldn’t have been able to see a thing. Broken rock from the ceiling overhead covered the floor. She made her way through it carefully.

Halting at the dead end, she brought out the crystal ball. She chanted, summoning up her spell energy, and praying to Lloth as she focused the forces she used through the crystal ball. The crystal ball was already in tune with the magic the lich was using. She knew how to cast a dimension door, but casting one into the library was much harder. For one, she didn’t know exactly where it was in the physical world even though she’d been through it a number of times. And for another, she felt the actual distance it was from the dead-end wall was much further than she could transfer herself using her own spell.

The hobgoblins fell into line behind her at Chomack’s order. Their bared weapons clinked against their armor.

Perspiration covered Krystarn’s face as she locked into the exchange of energies. A headache throbbed at her temples. She pushed herself past the pain, thinking of the library only, of all the power that would be within her grasp in the next few minutes.

Through her slitted eyelashes, she saw the wall start to glow. At first it was a patch no bigger than the end of her finger, but quickly spread until she couldn’t cover it with both hands. And it kept growing as the dimensional door swung open wider.

The trail came to an end in a crypt.

Be careful, Xuxa warned as she fluttered to a wall and perched upside down from the rough, craggy surface.

Baylee played his lantern over the crypt, lighting tumbled stone caskets thrown across the interior of the smashed building. The roof was long gone, but the cavern above had sunk to within a few feet, giving it the appearance that a roof still existed. Pieces of half a dozen skeletons lay strewn across the floor, but none of them tried to reassemble themselves or grab for weapons, as Baylee more than half expected.

“Which way?” Civva Cthulad asked from behind him.

“The map shows that the trail runs west,” Baylee responded. “But this crypt wasn’t shown.”

“It sank from above,” Cordyan said.

“Yes,” Baylee replied. The lantern light broke against the cracked back wall. Going through it would still have constituted something of an engineering miracle.

“The drow must not have come this way,” Cthulad said.

Baylee aimed the lantern at the plain of smooth dust and dirt in front of the crypt. “If they did, any footprints they might have left have been erased or covered over.”

“Perhaps there’s a way around,” Calebaan said.

Baylee pulled back out of the crypt and went around to the left of the building. A narrow space between the building and the one next to it loomed in a slice of darkness. He shoved the lantern forward, playing it over the jumble of rock waiting ahead of him. The incline went down, deeper into the series of underground caverns. Beneath the rubble, he spotted the set of stone-carved steps that had been depicted on the map. They sat in the narrow mouth of a tunnel that continued west.