The Temple of Yellow Skulls (38 page)

Nu Alin smiled to himself and hurried to catch up.

The sounds of the battle deep in the ruins followed them, the screams of drow beginning to match the roar of soldiers. Nu Alin caught a hardening of Ivriashalal’s expression and the look of concern that passed between Larcees and Quarhaun. “We should hurry,” Larcees said to the priest.

“We can do nothing until the others are in position. And if the dragon thinks his creatures have the upper hand, so much the better,” Ivriashalal answered. But she did glance over her shoulder. “Are we close, Diue?”

“Just ahead,” said the drow who had looked back for Eklabet. She moved forward to point the way to cover. Nu Alin found himself looking out, along with the others, on a wide courtyard amid the ruins.

A dragon paced the courtyard—and once again, what Nu Alin saw through his host’s eyes and what he saw with his own senses were very different things. Eklabet saw a green dragon, strangely lean and disfigured by some disease that left its scales reddened and oozing.

Nu Alin saw his new master, full of strength, power, and the Voidharrow. It was all he could not to break down with joy, to draw his swords and slaughter the pathetic lesser beings around him in a bloody offering to the one who would begin the new age.

The dragon’s head swung toward him—then immediately away, and Nu Alin could almost believe he had felt his presence touch him. A message seemed to shiver through his being, much like the visions Albric had once received from the Elemental Eye.
Stay your hand
.

Nu Alin forced Eklabet’s grip to slip from her swords. None of the other drow seemed to notice. “He saw us,” muttered Larcees.

“If he saw us, we’d be dead,” said Quarhaun. “What’s wrong with him? I’ve never heard of a dragon that looked like that.”

“He’s sick,” said Ivriashalal. “All the more reason to put him down.” She pointed at a bulging leather sack around which the dragon paced as if it contained his entire hoard. “The skulls?” she asked Diue.

The warrior nodded. “I saw him toying with them on one of my scouting trips.”

Larcees’s eyes fixed on the sack. He rubbed his palms on his robes. “Are the others in position?”

Diue rubbed a hand over a bracer on her right forearm. Nu Alin saw a flicker of sparks, dimmer than fireflies, where her fingers passed, then she nodded. Ivriashalal’s eyes narrowed. She nodded in turn to Larcees, who stretched out his hand, curled his fingers into an arcane gesture, and spoke a low, hissing word.

The dragon roared in fury as ghostly light flashed around him, coalescing into webs with strands thick as rope. Phantom spiders skittered through the webs and swarmed over the dragon. At the same moment, bands of other drow dashed from their hiding places around the courtyard. Swords and white eyes flashed in the moonlight.

“Now!” said Larcees. “The skulls!” He led the dash from their own hiding place toward the waiting leather sack. The others followed him and Nu Alin followed them. A sense of amusement at their earnestness flittered through him, but he held his tongue just as he had stayed his hand.

They were about ten paces out into the courtyard when the dragon’s fury faded into sudden silence.

Tiktag scrambled into a hidden niche in a hollow wall just in time to see the drow’s spectral webs snare Vestapalk. For a brief moment, Tiktag dared to hope the dark elves might actually succeed in putting an end to the dragon’s schemes. As Vestapalk thrashed against the webs, drow burst from hiding around the courtyard with their swords at the ready.

Then Vestapalk’s roaring ceased and Tiktag knew hope had been a fantasy.

The drow didn’t even have a chance to halt their charge. Vestapalk spun to face the nearest band of drow, and the thick strands that had seemingly held him in place tore like dusty cobwebs. His chest expanded as he inhaled, his head snapped forward, and he unleashed his deadly breath upon the dark elves.

Tiktag had seen his master attack enemies with his breath many times, choking them with a cloud of poisonous gas. What spewed from Vestapalk’s throat and mouth, however, startled the kobold at least as much as it did the drow.

Instead of roiling green-yellow gas, fine red mist sprayed out, flashing and glittering in the moonlight. Some of the drow fell back, some of them leaped ahead, as they tried to escape the cloud. It was already too late, though. The first drow to go down dropped to his knees, clutching at his throat. The second one simply collapsed, twitching and shuddering. One by one, all of the drow caught by the cloud fell to the ground before they’d taken five steps more toward Vestapalk.

Vestapalk didn’t even pause. He leaped into the midst of the next band of drow, hurling them aside with raking sweeps of his claws. An instant later, he swung to another band and breathed out a second spray of the Voidharrow. The drow tried to scatter but most weren’t quick enough and more went down.

Some among the first group to suffer Vestapalk’s breath were shambling and stumbling back to their feet. Other drow called out to them—until they saw what Tiktag, from his hidden perch, had already seen. The drow’s white eyes were already turning crystal red. Hideous plague blisters were already swelling on their skin. The Voidharrow had them. Tiktag shuddered and bit down on his tongue.

Closest to him, the band of drow that included the caster who had attempted to snare Vestapalk broke down in a frightened scramble of waving arms and incomprehensible Elven shouts. It looked almost as if they might come to blows, then the group split apart. The spellcaster ran, like a lone madman, for the sack of golden skulls; all of the others turned and sprinted back for the edge of the courtyard. A female in ornate armor barked something at one of the others, who pulled a bolt from her belt as she ran, dropped it into a small crossbow, then loosed it into the air.

It rose with a piercing shriek in some kind of signal. Instantly, any drow still stupidly trying to make a stand against Vestapalk turned and fled.

The dragon himself whirled to look for the source of the sound. Tiktag saw his eyes, almost seeming to glow from within, dart between the larger group of fleeing drow and the lone drow running for the skulls. Those glowing eyes narrowed and Vestapalk lunged across the courtyard to snatch the spellcaster up in his jaws. He shook him once, then hurled his body across the courtyard at the fleeing group.

The savaged corpse splattered across the stones in front of them. The entire group swerved like a flock of startled birds to race right at Tiktag’s hiding spot. Out in the courtyard, Vestapalk gathered himself, preparing to pounce.

His pursuit of the drow wasn’t over, Tiktag realized. And it would take the dragon right
through
his hidden perch. Terror broke over the kobold, and he flung himself out of his hiding place, fleeing along with the drow. He didn’t even try to glance back as stone crashed and crumbled behind him, and Vestapalk let loose another furious roar.

The spiders fell to Raid’s power as surely as any other beast he had encountered. He turned them against the drow, sending them crawling through the ruins of the temple to hunt the dark elves wherever they tried to hide. Where the drow tried to make a stand, Raid fought them himself. Slim swords were no match for his axes. The heavy blades carved dark drow flesh, and drow screams were sweet in his ears. Raid snarled his rage at these creatures that would dare to challenge Vestapalk—that would dare to challenge
him!

He was so lost in the battle that at first he barely even registered Vestapalk’s own roars of fury, but they finally roused something inside him. Raid let his axes fall and looked around. If he was fighting their drow attackers, who was attacking his master? And where were all the drow that had drawn the attention of Vestapalk’s warriors?

A diversion. They’d been tricked.

“To Vestapalk!” he shouted at the nearest brutes. They turned to follow him through the ruins and any others they passed fell in behind, the command passing through their ranks in some mysterious silent communication.

It didn’t seem Vestapalk needed their aid, however. The dragon roared again, a roar this time accompanied by the furious crashing of stone. Dust from ruins that stood for centuries
rose into the air as Vestapalk plunged through them. He was chasing something, Raid realized, and grinned in anticipation. The hunt was a strategy he knew well, and while he might prefer to hunt alone, he knew how to hunt in a pack. He led the soldiers in the direction of Vestapalk’s pursuit, ready to cut off the dragon’s prey.

They came together across the pit where Vestapalk had been keeping his prisoners.

Raid reached the pit first. Down in the shadows, the prisoners huddled, too terrified to escape, even if they hadn’t been bound. Just moments later, there was movement in the ruins on the other side as a handful of drow emerged—along with Tiktag, his eyes wide in a frenzy of panic.

Why the kobold should have been anywhere near the drow left Raid confused. The drow seemed as surprised to see him as they did Raid and the brutes. One of their number didn’t hesitate, however. Putting her companions—a female in the armor of a priest of Lolth, another warrior with two swords on her hips, and a male wielding a jagged black greatsword—behind her, a lithe drow warrior turned before the pit and raced around its edge.

The sight of the greatsword, a warlock’s blade, drew up a memory in Raid. These were the very drow he’d seen below the temple. With a hiss and a gesture, Raid sent brutes around the ends of the pit to box the drow in, but the running warrior was faster than them. She disappeared into the shadows before they could reach her. The others weren’t so lucky. The brutes cut them off. The priest stared after the escaped warrior and screamed a word, maybe a name. “Diue!”

Scarce moments later, Vestapalk burst out of the ruins. Dust and chips of stone clung to his flanks; behind him, a trail of fresh destruction marked the path back to the courtyard. His
eyes were shining and his teeth were bared in a snarl that put fear even into Raid. He came to a stop just paces from the edge of the pit and loomed over those he had been chasing.

Tiktag gave a squeak of despair and threw himself on the ground at Vestapalk’s feet. “Master, let me go! I was caught between you and them. This is—”

He didn’t get a chance to complete his plea. Raid saw the priest glance from kobold to dragon.

Then she stepped forward and grabbed Tiktag by the back of his neck and put a knife to his scaly throat. “He serves you?” she spat up Vestapalk. “Let us go or he dies!”

Vestapalk blinked. His snarl faded … into a grin. “Do you take Vestapalk for a human, drow?” he asked. “Threaten him. Kill him if you wish. It gains you nothing.” He took a lazy step forward.

Raid watched realization of her own error come over the priest’s face. If she as a drow cared so little about a mere kobold, why should a dragon care anymore? She didn’t release Tiktag, but her black face turned ash gray as she turned, looking for another way out.

She should have looked to the warlock with her. As she panicked and the second warrior stood apparently frozen with fear, Raid watched him turn to consider opportunities to escape. His eyes fell on the pit.

Try it, Raid urged him silently. Jump in and be trapped.

Then he saw what the drow had. The brutes that had gone around the end of the pit in an attempt to stop the fleeing warrior had left the steep ramp clear. The three drow could drop into the pit and come running out behind the brutes’ lines if they were lucky and fast. Raid cursed and leaped for the end of the pit.

The warlock was quicker—and apparently believed in making his own luck. Before Raid took two paces, the drow pointed his greatsword at the priest and called out a harsh invocation.

Brilliant white fire seemed to condense out of the air, dripping and running over her body like candle wax. The priest screamed in shocked agony—turning Tiktag loose as she convulsed—and even though the warlock had thrown the spell, all eyes went to the living torch that was the burning priest. Even Raid found himself stumbling, distracted by the screams and the simple act of treachery. One drow would have a better chance of flight than three. In the moment of chaos, the warlock turned and jumped for the pit.