Daughter of the Drow (46 page)

Zz’Pzora seized the moment. She spread her wings and leaped at Pharx like a pouncing hawk. Her claws found a foothold on the male’s vertical plates of belly-armor, and her wings enfolded his spiked back. Her two heads dove in for his throat. Nothing but a dragon’s teeth could pierce a dragon’s armor, and Pharx, despite his enormous size, could not shake the smaller female. One head he might have dislodged, but not two. Locked in a deadly embrace, the enormous creatures thrashed and rolled. Zz’Pzora’s wings were pierced, then shredded, by the male’s spiky armor, but still she clung—teeth grinding and two heads tossing violently as she sought to rip through the male dragon’s scales.

Fyodor circled the titanic battle, watching for a chance to strike, but so entangled were the two creatures that he could not hit one without harming the other. Finally Pharx’s tail thrashed out, away from the clinging Zz’Pzora. The Rashemi leaped, hacking at the scaly appendage. It was not much, but perhaps it would distract the beast and give Zz’Pzora some small aid.

Pharx’s enormous maw opened in a roar of rage and pain that shook the cavern. Then the creature lowered his jaw toward Zz’Pzora’s back and exhaled deeply. A noxious, crimson mist flowed from the dragon’s mouth. It clung to the female’s back, and wherever it touched scales melted away like snow in a spring rain. Both of the female’s heads screamed, and Zz’Pzora lost her hold on Pharx’s throat.

The Rashemi stepped in, sword leading. His black blade dug deep into one of the holes Zz’Pzora’s teeth had worried open, and he leaned in hard until the sword struck bone. Fyodor gripped the hilt with both hands and threw his weight to one side, wrenching the sword in a deadly arc through Pharx’s throat. Blood poured from the creature’s fanged mouth, quenching the strange fire that ate through Zz’Pzora’s scales.

The female disentangled herself from her dying mate, and the fierce joy of battle shone in her four eyes. “Let’s go,” she rumbled, leading the way unsteadily from the cavern. “Liriel is in there. No sense letting her have all the fun!”

Slowly and at great cost, Iljrene and her forces made their way down the tunnel toward the hoard room. The tiny priestess had been cut more than once, and her garments were wet with mingled seawater and blood. Yet she did not falter, did not seem to register pain when she was wounded, or when one of her sister priestesses fell. She had a mission and she would fulfill it. Once the ship was breached and the drew children rescued, Qilue would lead a band of drow into the merchants’ stronghold. Iljrene planned to ensure they did not walk into overwhelming odds.

Liriel looked up as Zz’Pzora ducked her way into the hoard room. “Got the wizard, I see,” the dragon’s left head observed in a slurred voice “Pharx is dead, too.”

The drow smiled. “We make a good team, Zip.”

“That we do,” the dragon’s heads agreed in unison. The creature seemed about to say more, but her left head swayed, then drooped, sagging lifeless onto her bloodstained purple scales.

The right head looked down and grimaced. “I was afraid of that,” she said, and plunged down faces-first into the pile of gold.

Liriel’s eyes widened at the horrible wound on Zz’Pzora’s back. The scales had melted away, and the flesh looked as if it had been eaten away by some corrosive acid. The drow darted forward and gathered up the lifeless head of her friend.

“Damn it, Zip,” she mourned.

A flicker of light returned to the left head’s eyes. “My life has numbered more than twenty thousand days,” the dragon said, and her voice was content. “This was the best of them all.” With those words, half of Zz’Pzora died.

The right head stirred and lifted out of the golden pile. “A word of advice,” the dragon added in a rapidly fading voice. “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 offered to let me kill him if he should raise a sword against any of Qilue’s drow. Talk about a win-win situation!” The right head grinned, and not in Liriel’s direction. “You’re on your own now.” With that, the reptilian eyes glazed as the right head followed her counterpart into the darkness.

For a long moment Liriel sat and rocked the enormous head in her lap. So often she’d considered the high price to be paid for trust and friendship, but it had never occurred to her the price might be demanded from another. Then the sound of battle grew louder, breaking through the drow girl’s pain and grief. Liriel realized Iljrene’s forces had met resistance, after all.

The drow gently laid Zz’Pzora’s head down and rose to her feet. She recoiled, for she found herself face-to-face with Fyodor. Suddenly the dragon’s last, comradely words made sense.

“Get out of here!” she shrieked, pushing him toward the tunnel. “Stubborn, stupid

human!”

“It is too late,” Fyodor said in a despairing voice. His gaze turned to the approaching conflict, and his hand closed on the hilt of his sword. Before Liriel’s eyes, he seemed to take on height and power. The battle rage was coming upon him, and it would no doubt be his last.

Liriel’s fingers closed around the Windwalker. For one last moment, she savored her dark-elven heritage.

The ritual to bring on a battle rage! Do it!” she commanded.

Fyodor gave her a startled look, but he was too far beyond his own control to question the order. Witches commanded the Rashemi berserkers, and he had long ago accepted Liriel as wychlaran. So he lifted his deep, bass voice in song, singing in the language of his homeland the hymn of battle to come.

The drow, meanwhile, opened the amulet. She snatched the flask of magically distilled jhuild from Fyodor’s sash. She quickly twisted off the top of the amulet, then unstoppered the flask with her teeth and tipped it slowly, carefully over the tiny sheath. Liriel had no idea if this ritual would suffice to store and control the berserker magic. If it worked at all, it would be temporary. At least it would buy Fyodor’s life and those of the drow he would slay in his frenzy. No one else, Liriel vowed fiercely, would pay for the choices she had made.

Suddenly Fyodor’s song stopped, and the Rashemi’s eyes turned dull and hollow. Liriel caught him as he fell, not caring that the precious flask of jhuild clattered down among the treasure. The dark hair at the back of Fyodor’s head was parted by a deep gash, and through the swift flow of blood Liriel caught a glimpse of bone.

She looked up. Over them stood Gorlist, a bloodied sword in his hand. “Your turn,” he said with dark satisfaction.

Cold wrath coursed through the drow girl, pushing aside her grief. “Hand to hand,” she challenged, and the fighter accepted with a nod and a smirk. With careful, deliberate movements Liriel stoppered the amulet, locking her Underdark magic firmly into place. She rose and pulled her dagger. The two drow crossed weapons with a ringing clash, and the deadly duel began.

Liriel knew at once that Gorlist’s skills far outclassed her own. At first it was all she could do to hold off his furious, pounding slashes. The male was taller, heavier, and more experienced. But Liriel’s hours of practice told, and she fought with more skill than she’d thought she possessed. Yet she knew she couldn’t outfight Gorlist. Her only chance was to out-think him.

From the corner of her eye, she saw Qilue step through the portal, followed by her priestesses. They did not see her, or hear the sounds of the fierce duel over the clamor of the larger battle just now spilling into the treasure hall. The drow females drew their singing swords and rushed toward the tunnel entrance to intercept the mercenaries that Iljrene herded relentlessly downward.

Suddenly Liriel knew what she must do. Slowly, deliberately, she let Gorlist work her backward toward the invisible portal that led out to the Dragon’s Hoard ships. Qilue’s presence here meant the vessels had been secured, offering safety and escape.

When she reached the portal, Liriel feigned a stumble. Gorlist, triumphant, lunged in for the killing blow. With the speed of thought the girl levitated into the air, whirled, and kicked the fighter through the portal. Gorlist disappeared as if he had never been.

Liriel, still magically aloft, cast the spell that would close the portal and lock out her adversary. When that was done, she floated down and cast a quick glance around the cavern. A few merchants still fought, but most had fallen to the singing blades of the Dark Maiden’s priestesses. At last she was free to go to Fyodor’s side.

She ran to him, stooped down, and found he still breathed. Her arms encircled her friend, and her bright head bowed in the sincerest prayers of her life. Her entreaties did not name the goddess, but Liriel had no doubt who listened and heard.

It was thus that Qilue found her. The priestess placed a hand on the girl’s shoulder. Liriel looked up, clearly uncertain what the priestess might do now that the battle was over. She clutched the Windwalker, and her golden eyes blazed defiantly. “Nisstyre is dead, the followers of Vhaeraun routed. The Windwalker is Fyodor’s and mine now. We’ve earned it!” she snarled.

The priestess smiled down at the fierce young drow. “Not yet,” Qilue said, “but I strongly suspect that, in time, you will.”

The black ruby crystal gleamed bright as blood in the light of a circle of candles. Shakti Hunzrin bent low over the bowl, her nearsighted eyes drinking in the ___ scene magically laid out before her. Nisstyre was dead, and Liriel’s final taunt still echoed in the priestess’s ears. But the sight before her was ample proof that she had not lost, after all.

In the dark circle of the scrying bowl was a hideous face, the face of Shakti’s new ally—a creature from another plane. Not the Abyss, but another, lesser traveled place. Few drow knew of such beings, and fewer still dared to consort with them. Those who did trod a razor-thin path. On the one side was the promise of immense power; on the other, madness and servitude. The risks were great, but so was the potential reward.

Shakti Hunzrin had developed a taste for both, in nearly equal measure.

Back in the Promenade Temple, the followers of JSilistraee mourned their dead and tended the wounded according to their usual custom: they sang and they danced. Music, eerie and haunting, filled the cavern for days. Some of the songs were prayers for healing, others praise to the Dark Maiden for victory.

The Chosen found strength and solace in their dancing, but they also took time to tend to practicalities. The dragon’s wealth was added to the temple treasury to be used in aiding the many who fell prey to the dangers of Skullport. Some of the coins would help pay the expenses of rearing and training the more than dozen drow children who had been added to the Promenade’s ranks. Elkantar took charge of this task himself, tending the children with a fierce devotion reminiscent of a brooding she-dragon watching over her eggs.

Nor was Liriel idle. She worked and danced alongside the silver-haired drow, doing whatever was needed. She ventured out into Skullport from time to time, seeking adventure and planning her next steps. She could not forget that most of her journey lay before her, that the rune she needed was as yet unformed.

She also haunted the hallway outside Fyodor’s room. His wounds were mending, but slowly, and only on the third day after the battle was she allowed to see him. There was much she needed to tell him, so he could understand what lay ahead.

The Rashemi listened as Liriel told him what she knew of rune magic. First the shaping, in which a rune was formed through a journey of discovery. Then the carving of the rune on the sacred tree Yggsdrasil’s Child, using as a tool the chisel hidden inside the Windwalker amulet. Finally, the casting of a spell that forged insight into power.

“So you see, I have to go to Ruathym. I’ve booked passage. The ship leaves in a few days.”

Fyodor nodded and took her hand. “It is right for you to go, little raven. In my land, no wychlaran would consider giving up her power for another, as you would have done in the dragon’s cavern. I will never forget that, or you.”

The drow stared at him. Understanding came to her, then rage. Snatching free her hand, Liriel leaped to her feet, head held high and eyes blazing. “After all this, do you still think so little of me? Or do you doubt I’m wizard enough to wield the Windwalker for us both?”

“It is not that,” he said somberly. “I doubt neither your friendship nor your powers. But the journey you describe is not one I wish to make.”

Liriel fell back a pace. It had never occurred to her that Fyodor might not wish to come with her. “To see the land of your ancestors!” she wheedled.

“It is a worthy dajemma” Fyodor agreed slowly, warming to the entreaty in her eyes, “but I do not want to endanger you so. You take a great risk, to travel with me as I am.”

So that was it, Liriel thought with relief. Humans worried about the strangest things! Risk!

“It hasn’t been dull,” she agreed happily, sitting down on the edge of his bed. “You’ve got to get better fast, for the ship leaves as soon as the captain is released from a certain dungeon. I’d have thought it nearly impossible to get arrested in Skullport, but Hrolf the Unruly has a certain flair for such things. Let me tell you

“

With a smile, Fyodor leaned back against his pillows, well content to yield the role of storyteller to another. His excitement grew as he listened, for the plans Liriel unfolded far exceeded any dreams for dajemma that he, the dreamer, had ever dared to fashion. Whether or not he ever regained control of his berserker .magic, the journey she described would be well worth taking.

But what pleased him most of all was the knowledge that their journey together was just beginning.

Welcome to the FORGOTTEN REALMS, the largest and most detailed of TSR’s fantasy worlds.

Look out from the high walls of Waterdeep, the sprawling, cosmopolitan City of Splendors. Beyond lies the Savage Frontier: the rugged mountains and endless forests of the Sword Coast, wilderlands that cloak the crumbling ruins of fallen kingdoms.

Travel with the caravans that cross these dangerous lands, heading east toward the kingdom of Cormyr, fabled realm of ancient forests, land of chivalry and romance. Stop over in the Dalelands, home of the crusty old wizard Elminster and the birthplace of many heroes and heroines. Then continue onward to distant Thay … and beyond.