Annihilation (35 page)

The tip of the greatsword wasn’t where it was supposed to be. It didn’t seem possible to Rab that someone could move such a huge, heavy weapon so quickly, but that strange dark elf had, and it was Rab who paid the price. The tip of the sword drew a deep cut across the logger’s chest. Pain flared, and blood poured, and in that half-second of shock, the demon took his axe.

He’d been disarmed before but he’d never had an opponent actually reach out and take the weapon right out of his hand.

Rab was still puzzling over that when something even stranger happened: the dark elf drew his greatsword across the demon’s back, cutting it deeply enough that blood sprayed from the wound and the creature roared. The drow said something in a language Rab didn’t even recognize let alone understand. There didn’t seem to be any anger, any emotion at all on the drow’s face, but he was definitely trying to kill the demon.

The huge creature spun on the much-smaller dark elf, and Rab backed away. He only got one step back before the demon reached around and grabbed him by the shirt, taking some skin with it. The monster lifted Rab, who weighed well over two hundred
pounds, right off the floor without any sign of strain.

Rab grabbed at the thing’s massive clawed hand, but the demon’s skin was like steel coated in coarse fur. There was nothing Rab could do but wonder at the monster’s intentions. It whirled on the dark elf, who had his sword ready. The demon still held Rab’s greataxe in one hand but almost seemed to have forgotten it.

The demon threw Rab at the dark elf. The human barked out an incoherent, scared sound that might have been a scream or a shout. He didn’t even know. It was the sound a man makes when he knows he’s got less than a second to live and there’s nothing he can do about it.

Rab was impaled on the dark elf’s greatsword. He could feel every inch of the cold steel as it slid through his chest. Strangely enough, it didn’t hurt.

Ryld held the human up and looked past him at the draegloth. The man died trying to make eye contact with him—Ryld would never understand why humans insisted on doing that. Ryld tipped his sword down in hopes that the man would slide off but instead had to quickly jerk back to avoid the blade of the human’s greataxe, wielded by Jeggred, as it chopped down.

The greataxe hit Splitter and sliced clean through. Ryld felt his eyes bulge and his blood at once boil and run cold. Splitter was broken. His greatsword. The weapon he’d practically lived for, had developed his skills around for years, was destroyed.

The human’s axe must have been enchanted after all.

The man fell away on the remaining length of the greatsword blade, and the sudden loss of his weight made Ryld fall backward. He let go of the shattered sword, and it clattered to the floor next to him.

The weapons master reached for his short sword and almost had his fingers wrapped around the pommel when the axe blade came down again, split his dwarven mithral breastplate as if it were made of parchment, and buried itself into his chest. Ryld could feel the weight of it not only on him but in him. There was no pain, just a heavy, even pressure.

The draegloth stood over him, drool hanging from his exposed fangs in shimmering tendrils, his eyes aglow in the orange torchlight.

Ryld tried to breathe but he couldn’t. No air was getting past his throat at all. He wanted to say something, but there was no way to form words. Besides, he didn’t know what to say. He’d turned his back on everything he knew for a woman he didn’t know at all, a woman who chose a path for herself that would inevitably lead to her own destruction as surely as it had led to his. Part of him wished he’d been killed by anyone but the filthy half-demon, but another part was satisfied that it took a draegloth to bring him down. He almost wanted to thank Jeggred for fighting him in the first place. It was more than he deserved.

Jeggred moved closer, and Ryld was thankful that he couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t smell the half-demon’s breath.

Jeggred leaned on the axe blade and broke open Ryld’s chest. The sensation was something beyond pain—a mind-twisting agony that only death could possibly cure.

He watched the draegloth reach into his chest. Ryld’s body started to jerk, and he couldn’t stop it. The draegloth grabbed and groped inside his chest, and Ryld’s vision faded in and out.

When Jeggred pulled his hand away, Ryld’s eyesight came back long enough for Ryld Argith, Master of Melee Magthere, to see that his heart was still beating when the draegloth began to eat it.

The weapons master’s heart was strong, and Jeggred relished the texture as well as the taste of it. Ryld Argith was a worthy opponent, a good kill, and the draegloth wished he could stay and devour more of him. The drow was dead by the time Jeggred finished eating his heart, and he knew that Danifae and the others were waiting for him.

Not bothering to wipe any of the blood, slime, or sap off himself, the draegloth touched the ring that Danifae had given him and used its magic to return to Sschindylryn.

“Ryld Argith is dead,” Danifae said to Quenthel, her eyes darting at Pharaun.

The mage sat quietly, legs folded, in front of the mainmast. He didn’t look back at her, seemed to have no reaction at all. Danifae chewed her bottom lip, her eyes flickering back and forth between Pharaun and Quenthel.

“And?” the Mistress of Arach-Tinilith prompted.

“I killed him,” Jeggred grumbled.

Danifae looked at the draegloth, whose eyes were locked on Pharaun. Still the mage made no move and never looked at either the draegloth or her. She’d promised to spare the weapons master but had lied. Danifae half expected the mage to burn her to ciders where she stood for the betrayal. Either he was too busy with his preparations for the journey, or he didn’t care …
or he was planning something for later.

“And Halisstra Melarn?” Quenthel asked.

“I tore his body to shreds,” Jeggred went on, oblivious to his aunt’s question, “after I ate his heart. There’s barely a piece bigger than a bite left of him, spread out over that freezing mud hole.”

“Yes,” Danifae said, smiling at the draegloth, who was still looking at Pharaun, “well, be that as it may, Halisstra has in fact done the unthinkable. She enjoys the protection of Eilistraee now, and there’s no longer any doubt.”

“You have evidence of that?” Pharaun asked, his voice quieter, weaker somehow, or maybe just bored.

“She told me,” Danifae replied, still looking at Quenthel.

“It’s true,” the draegloth added.

Quenthel turned on Jeggred, her face tight, her eyes blazing. Still, she looked tiny in front of the hulking creature.

“How would you know, fool?” Quenthel spat. “You weren’t brought here to think.”

“No,” the draegloth answered, not shrinking the slightest in the face of the high priestess’s rage, “I was brought here to act. I was brought here to fight and to kill. How much of that have I done, my dear, dear aunt?”

“As much,” Quenthel replied, her voice coming out almost as a growl, “or as little as I tell you. As
I
tell you, not Danifae.”

Jeggred loomed over her, the muscles under his gray fur rippling with anticipation.

“Mistress Danifae,” the draegloth said, “is at least trying. She’s acting—”

“Without my direct orders,” Quenthel finished for him. Danifae was afraid that Jeggred would continue, so she said, “Only on your behalf, Mistress.”

Quenthel lifted an eyebrow and stepped closer to Danifae.

“We talked about that, didn’t we, battle-captive?”

“I am no one’s captive now, Mistress,” Danifae replied, “but still I serve Lolth.”

“By turning my draegloth’s head?” the high priestess said.

Danifae felt the skin on her arms and chest tingle.

“No,” she said. “Jeggred helped me help you.”

“Help me?” asked the high priestess.

The draegloth turned and skulked away. He found a spot near the bow and sat with his head bent downward. Quenthel was still looking at Danifae as if she expected an answer.

“Mistress,” Danifae said, “I am without a home. You said you would bring me back to Menzoberranzan with you if I served you. That, and a host of other reasons, is precisely why I did what I did.”

“Did I ask?”
Quenthel roared. “Did I send you to do this?”

Danifae lifted an eyebrow herself and waited.

Quenthel took a deep breath and turned away from the former battle-captive to stare out at the black water, lost in thought.

“My loyalty is with Lolth,” Danifae said, “and to the House of your birth.”

“House
Baenre,”
Quenthel said, her voice icy, “has no room for upstarts, traitors, or battle-captives.”

“I think you’ll find, Mistress,” the former servant pressed on, “that I am neither an upstart, a traitor … or a battle-captive. It is not I who dances under the gaze of Eilistraee. I am here, and I am ready to serve you, to serve Lolth, to serve Arach-Tinilith, Menzoberranzan, and the entire dark elf—”

“All right,” Quenthel snarled, “leave it out. I don’t need my arse li—”

“Never, Mist—”

“Silence, child,” the Mistress of Arach-Tinilith said. “Interrupt me again and taste venom.”

Danifae got the distinct impression that it was a hollow threat,
but she silenced herself just the same. It wasn’t easy for her to do. There was much she burned to say to Quenthel Baenre, but she decided that she would say it to her corpse instead. Besides, the vipers at Quenthel’s command were still dangerous, and all five of them stared at her, their cruel poison glistening on darting tongues.

“Everyone,” Pharaun called from where he sat, his eyes closed. “Now that we’re all here … what’s left of us anyway … we’ll be on our way.

“As the Mistress ordered,” the mage added.

Danifae took a deep breath and a last look at the dreary Lake of Shadows and said, “We’re ready, Master Pharaun.”

Quenthel turned to look at her, but only out of the corner of her eye. A thrill raced through Danifae at the emotions plain in that look. The Mistress of Arach-Tinilith was terrified.

The ship began to move in response to Pharaun’s will, and the wizard shuddered. Through his connection with the ship he could feel the cold of the water, the heat of his own body and the bodies of his comrades on the deck, and he could feel the lesser demons still being digested in the hellish transdimensional space that was the vessel’s cargo hold. He found it an unusually pleasant mixture of sensations.