Windwalker (3 page)

A warning heat began to kindle in the drow’s left cheek. He slapped a hand over the dragon-shaped tattoo emblazoned there with magical ink—a talisman that warned of nearby dragons and indicated with faint, colored light the creature’s kind and nature. No telltale glow spilled through his fingers. There was a dragon ahead, but it was a deepdragon, a creature of darkness.

The drow scowled. Of course that would be Pharx, for what deepdragon would allow an interloper so close to its lair? Pharx was a powerful ally. Any battle the dragon joined would be short and decisive. Victory was important, of course, but Gorlist had his own vengeance to consider.

With an impatient flick of his ebony fingers, Gorlist dispelled the levitation magic holding him aloft. He swooped toward the tunnel floor like a descending raven and hit the stone floor at a run. The time for secrecy and stealth was past.

Gorlist raced toward his father’s hidden sanctum, leaving in his wake blinding explosions of magical lights and alarms that keened like vengeful banshees. The wall ahead shifted, and a ten-foot, two-headed ettin broke away from the stone. The monster rose up before him, blocking the passage with menacing bulk and a spiked club. Gorlist ran through the utterly convincing illusion as easily as a pixie might flit through a rainbow.

The tunnel traced a curve, then ended abruptly in solid stone. Gorlist sped around the tight turn and hurled himself at the wall, leaping high into the air and snapping both feet out in a powerful double kick. The “stone” gave way, and he crashed through the hidden door.

Wood shattered, and spellbooks tumbled to the floor as the concealing bookshelf gave way. Gorlist rolled quickly and came up in a crouch, a long dagger in each hand. With a swift, practiced glance he took in the small battlefield.

His father’s study was empty.

It was also a disaster. Cracks slithered up the stone walls. Artwork hung askew or lay broken on the mosaic floor, which had buckled and heaved until it was little more than a pile of rubble. Part of the ceiling had given way, and chunks of it lay in heaps against one wall. Dust still rose from the recent stonefall, and water released from some tiny, hidden stream overhead dripped steadily onto the rubble.

Gorlist nodded, understanding what had happened. As he’d anticipated, Liriel Baenre had come to reclaim the magical artifact Nisstyre had taken from her. The wizard had responded with a tiny, conjured quake—a canny move on Nisstyre’s part. There were few things the people of the Underdark feared more than a stonefall tremor. There no better way to send the troublesome wench scurrying out into the open—to a place that offered Nisstyre every possible advantage.

Bloodlust sang in the warrior’s veins as he picked his way through the ruined chamber and sprinted down a tunnel leading to the dragon’s hoard cavern. Pharx would be there, ready to protect his treasure. Surely this was the battlefield Nisstyre would choose!

Gorlist was nearly there when a shriek of terrible anguish seared through the air. Without slowing his pace, he seized the flying folds of his cape and drew the magical garment around him in a shield of invisibility.

He burst onto a walkway encircling the vast cavern, squinting into the bright torchlight—or so it seemed to his sensitive drow eyes—that filled the hoard room with flickering shadows. Pharx’s lair was dominated by an enormous heap of gold and gems. The hoard glittered in the light of several smoking torches thrust into wall brackets. The object of Gorlist’s deepest hatred climbed this pile, moving with a dancer’s grace over the shifting treasure.

Liriel no longer looked the part of a pampered Menzoberranzan noble. The erstwhile drow princess was clad in simple black leathers, and the sword on her hip was serviceable at best. Her elaborate braids had been loosed, and thick wavy hair tumbled down her back like a wild, Whitewater stream. Gorlist could not see her face, but it was emblazoned in his mind: the patrician tilt of her small, stubborn chin, the catlike amber hue of her scornful gaze. For a moment Gorlist could see nothing but Liriel, and his thoughts held nothing but hatred.

His sharp eyes caught an anomaly: a smooth wash of gold amid the jumbled treasure. Beneath the acrid dragon musk lay the stench of burned flesh — a not uncommon scent in a dragon’s lair but under the circumstances, ominous. Gorlist caught sight of the dying drow embedded up to his chest in cooling, molten gold.

There was no mistaking Nisstyre, despite the ravages of a heat so furious that it could melt coin as if it were butter. A large, glowing ruby was embedded in the seared forehead, and its magical light dimmed with the swift ebbing of the wizard’s life-force.

Liriel plucked the gem from Nisstyre’s forehead and gazed into it like a seer contemplating a scrying stone—which, in fact, the ruby was. She greeted the unseen watcher with a smile such as a queen might give a vanquished rival or a hunting cat use to taunt its prey.

“You lose,” she said.

Crimson light flared as if in sudden temper, then abruptly died. Liriel tossed the lifeless stone aside and half-ran, half-slid down the pile.

So do you, Gorlist silently retorted, noting the dragon-shaped shadow edging into view against the far wall.

The dragon staggered into the cavern, and Gorlist’s lips shaped a silent, blasphemous curse. It was not Pharx after all but a smaller, stranger creature: a two-headed purple female. Obviously the dragon had seen battle, and her presence indicated that she had prevailed over Pharx — but not without price. From his position, Gorlist could see the deep acid burns scoring the female’s back.

Liriel could not see the wounds, and she greeted the dragon with a fierce smile. They exchanged a few words that Gorlist could not hear. The dragon seemed about to say more, but its left head finally succumbed to injury. Enormous reptilian eyes rolled up, and the head flopped forward, limp and lifeless.

For a moment the right head regarded the demise of its counterpart. “I was afraid of that,” the half-dragon said clearly, then the second head crashed facefirst into Pharx’s treasure.

Liriel threw herself to her knees and gathered the dragon’s left head in her arms. “Damn it, Zip,” she said in tones ringing with grief and loss.

The right head stirred, lifted. “A word of advice: Don’t trust that human of yours. An utter fool! He offered to follow me into Pharx’s lair and help in battle if needed. In return, he asked only that I kill him if he raised a sword against any of Qilué’s drow. Best deal I was ever offered.”

The dragon turned aside, and her fading eyes held a conspiratorial gleam. “You’re on your own now.”

Gorlist followed the direction of the dragon’s gaze, and his crimson eyes narrowed. A young human male strode swiftly toward Liriel, his black sword naked in his hand and his concern-filled gaze fixed upon the mourning drow.

“He lives,” Gorlist muttered flatly, disgusted at himself and Nisstyre for allowing the human to survive. When last they’d seen this man, he had been sprawled beside a dying campfire. The drow mercenaries had seen only what Liriel had wanted them to see: the distraction offered by her unclad body and the lie of the human’s “death.” The truth had hidden behind the dark elves’ fascination with the deadly game—known among drow as the “Spider’s Kiss” in honor of the female spider who mated and killed—that Liriel had tacitly invited them to contemplate. Gorlist granted the female’s devious little ploy a moment’s grudging admiration.

All of Liriel’s cunning seemed to have vanished with the dragon’s death. She cradled the enormous purple head in her lap, rocking it tenderly, all but oblivious to the crescendo of approaching battle.

The drow warrior sneered. So that was the princess’s weakness. If the loss of a dragon could so distract her, imagine her state when her pet human lay dead at her feet!

Anticipation sped Gorlist’s steps as he unsheathed his sword and crept, silent and invisible, toward the unwitting pair.

Liriel gently put aside the dragon and rose. She jolted back as she found herself nearly face to face with her companion. Her astonishment turned to rage, lightning quick, and in full drow fury she hurled herself at the man, pushing him toward one of the exit tunnels.

“Get out of here!” she screamed. “Stupid, stubborn … human!”

The young man easily removed himself from Liriel’s grasp and turned toward the main tunnel. The clamor of swords announced that battle was almost upon them.

“It is too late,” he said in bleak tones. As he spoke, magical energy crackled in a nimbus around him—an aura faintly visible to the magic-sensitive eyes of the watching drow warrior. Before Gorlist could blink, the human began to take on height and power.

The drow caught his breath. Once before he had seen this common-looking young man transform into a mighty berserker warrior. He remembered little of the battle that had followed, for the memory had been seared away by the healing potions that had brought him back from defeat and near-death.

No fighter had ever before bested Gorlist with a sword. For a moment he burned to erase this insult in open combat.

Liriel brandished a familiar gold amulet—the Windwalker, the artifact that Nisstyre had considered so important. She snatched a battered flask from the human’s belt, pulled the cork free with her teeth, and tipped the flask slowly over the golden trinket.

Shock froze Gorlist in mid-step. Nisstyre had coveted the Windwalker for its ability to hold strange and powerful magic. With the help of this treasure, Liriel had brought her undiminished drow powers to the surface, something few drow had been able to accomplish. Could she possibly be willing to throw away this hard-won gain?

It was unbelievable, unconscionable! What drow would willingly surrender such an advantage?

For a moment Gorlist was torn. He yearned to reveal himself, to defeat the human, to gloat at the pain the man’s death would inflict upon Liriel. Then the human began to sing in a deep bass voice. Gorlist could not understand the words, but he sensed the power of ritual behind the song.

Any delay would put his main prize at risk. Better to dispatch the male quickly and savor the second, more important kill. Still shrouded with invisibility, Gorlist darted forward, his sword high.

The human’s transformation ended with a surge of magical growth, one so sudden and powerful that it sent him stumbling forward. The stroke that should have cleaved his skull dealt only a glancing blow, but Gorlist noted the swift flow of blood and knew that, unchecked, it would suffice.

The ritual song stopped abruptly, but the man’s fall was slow, astonished, like the death of a lightning-struck tree. Liriel caught him in her arms, staggering under his weight. With difficulty she eased him to the ground. A small cry escaped her when she noted the white flash of bone gleaming through the garish cut.

Gorlist flipped back his cape, revealing himself and his bloodied sword. “Your turn,” he said with deep satisfaction.

Liriel went very still. The eyes she lifted to him were utterly flat and cold, as full of icy hatred as only a drow’s could be. In them was no grief, no loss, no pain. For a moment Gorlist knew disappointment.

“Hand to hand,” she snarled.

He nodded, unable to contain his smirk of delight. The princess was not as unaffected as she pretended to be. If her heart had been untouched and her head clear, she would have never agreed to face a superior fighter with nothing more to aid her than steel and sinew!

The stupid female closed the Windwalker then rose and pulled a long dagger from her belt.

They crossed blades. The strength of Liriel’s first blow surprised Gorlist—and unleashed a wellspring of fury.

He slashed and pounded at her, raining potential death blows in rapid, ringing succession. Gone was his yearning for a slow death, a lingering vengeance.

But the princess had learned something of the warrior’s art since their last meeting. Liriel was as fast as he, and though she could never best him, she was skilled enough to turn aside each killing stroke. Her strength, though, was no match for his, and Gorlist drove her steadily, inexorably, toward the cavern wall. He would pin her to it and leave her there to rot.

Through the haze of his battle rage, Gorlist noted the tall, preternaturally beautiful drow female running lightly along the far edge of the cavern. Qilué of Eilistraee had arrived, and fast behind her came a band of armed priestesses! His victory must come quickly or not at all.

The newcomers paid little heed to the furious duel. Lofting a silvery chorus of singing swords, they rushed to meet the mercenaries that yet another band of females herded into the open cavern.

Liriel had also noted her allies’ arrival. She made a quick, impulsive rush toward them, in her relief forgetting the uneven floor. She tripped over a jeweled cup and stumbled to one knee. Gorlist lunged, his sword diving for her heart.

The drow princess was faster still. She rose swiftly into the air, and the warrior, deprived of his target, found himself momentarily off balance. Before he could adjust, she spun like a dervish and lashed out with one booted foot.

To his astonishment, Gorlist felt himself falling. The floor of the hoard room seemed to drop away, throwing him into a maelstrom of faint, whirling lights and magical winds.

Before his heart could pick up the beat stolen by shock, he was flung out into cold, dark water. He fought off the urge to take a startled breath and began to swim for the surface.

It was all too clear what had happened. Somehow Eilistraee’s priestesses had learned of the magical gate hidden beneath the dark waters of Skullport harbor. They must have waylaid some of the Dragons’ Hoard mercenaries and stolen the medallions that granted passage through this portal. Liriel knew this, and she knew just where to find the hidden magical door. Her “retreat” from his assault had been calculated, every step and stumble of it! This knowledge pained Gorlist nearly as much as the burning of his air-starved lungs.

Gorlist burst free of the water and dragged in several long, ragged gulps of air. He dashed the back of one hand across his eyes then squinted toward the bright light of a battle.