Condemnation (11 page)

Before Halisstra could cry out another warning, one blow of its massive taloned fist knocked her sprawling to the ground. It turned to fix its pale and terrible gaze upon Valas. The Bregan D’aerthe scout screamed in terror and averted his eyes, dropping one kukri and allowing the second to droop limply from his hand.

Jeggred roared a challenge and bounded toward the monster, talons extended. The dark giant slammed the half-demon to the ground with one blow of its long black hand. The draegloth scrambled back to his feet and leaped up to rake deep, black furrows across the giant’s thighs and abdomen, seeking to eviscerate the creature, but the wounds closed after the draegloth’s claws passed through the thing’s flesh. Jeggred howled in frustration and redoubled his futile assault.

“Stand back, you fool!” Pharaun cried from nearby. “It is a nightwalker. You need powerful magic to harm it.”

The wizard chanted a dire spell, and a bright bolt of green lightning shot out to smite the creature high in its torso—but the pernicious energy just flowed away from the monster’s featureless black hide, leaving it unharmed.

Your spells are useless, whispered a dark and terrible voice in Halisstra’s mind. Your weapons are useless. You are mine, foolish drow.

“We will see about that,” Halisstra snarled.

She picked herself up and dashed forward, raising her mace. The weapon was enchanted, and she hoped it would prove powerful enough to harm the creature. A long arm with deadly talons raked at her, but Halisstra tumbled beneath the monster’s grasp and hammered at the nightwalker’s knee. With a sharp crack of sound and a flash of actinic light, the weapon detonated with the force of a thunderclap. The nightwalker made no sound, but its knee buckled, and it staggered.

Quenthel’s whip hissed through the air, flaying at the creature’s face. The vipers tore and snapped through dark flesh, leaving great gory wounds, but the monster seemed unaffected by the deadly venom coursing through the weapon. Apparently even the most virulent poison did not discomfit its shadowstuff.

Ryld, wheeling and spinning, slashed at the monster with his gleaming greatsword. The nightwalker reached out to wrest away his weapon, but the Master of Melee-Magthere danced back and sheared off half the creature’s hand with one savage blow. The nightwalker screamed soundlessly, its anguished cry stabbing through their very minds. Ignoring the others, the creature fastened its baleful gaze on Ryld, and conjured up from the black soil underfoot a dreadful, dark vapor that blotted out all sight.

Halisstra groped her way into the black mist, seeking the monster. The vapor seared her nose like vitriol and ate at her eyes, burning like fire. She persevered, and felt the giant looming over her. She raised her mace and struck again, hammering at the creature’s legs. From beside her she heard the hiss of Quenthel’s whip, tearing into dark flesh. Great black talons raked through the vapor, ripping at Halisstra’s shield, driving her to the ground.

“It’s here!” she called, hoping to lead someone else to the battle, but the acidic mists burned like fire in her throat.

She narrowed her eyes to nothing more than bare slits, and flailed back at the monster. The nightwalker’s venomous will settled over her like a blanket of madness, seeking to rend away her reason, but she endured the new assault, lashing out again and again.

Ryld’s sword lanced through the murk like a white razor, opening dreadful wounds in the shadow creature’s body. Black fluid splattered like droplets of poison, and the mind-whispers of the nightwalker rose into a hellish mental shriek that dragged Halisstra to the very edge of madness—and there was silence.

She felt the thing abruptly discorporate around her, its body exploding into black, stinking mist that dissipated into the shadows.

Still gagging on the poisonous black vapors the creature had raised, Halisstra stumbled out of the dark cloud and fell to all fours, gasping for breath. Her chest burned as if she’d drunk molten sulfur. When at last she could open her eyes and take notice of her surroundings again, she found that most of the rest of the party had fared little better than she.

Ryld slumped against a stone, his greatsword point down before him. He was leaning on the blade, exhausted. Quenthel stood close by, her hands on her knees, coughing wretchedly.

When at last she could draw breath, the high priestess looked up at Pharaun and said, “That is what you encountered before?”

The wizard nodded and said, “Nightwalkers. They roam the Fringe. Creatures of undead darkness, evil personified. As you saw, they can be … formidable.”

The Mistress of the Academy drew herself up and returned her whip to her belt.

“I think I understand why you hesitated to volunteer this method of travel until now,” she said.

Despite his exhaustion, the wizard preened.

“Careful, Quenthel,” he said in a mocking voice, “you almost acknowledged my usefulness.”

The high priestess’s eyes narrowed, and she straightened proudly. She obviously didn’t care to be the subject of the wizard’s humor. Seemingly ignorant of the smoldering glare Quenthel fixed on him, Pharaun made a grand gesture indicating the formless dark ahead of them.

“Our path leads now into the shadow of our own Underdark,” he said. “I suggest we redouble our efforts and finish our march quickly, as there may be more nightwalkers about.”

“That’s a damned cheerful thought,” grumbled Ryld. “How much farther now?”

“Not more than an hour, perhaps two,” Pharaun answered.

The wizard waited while the dark elves stood and fell in behind him again. Ryld and Valas, the two who had borne the virulence of the nightwalker’s dread gaze, seemed gray with weariness, hardly able to keep their feet.

“Come,” said Pharaun. “Mantol-Derith is no Menzoberranzan, but it will be the most civilized place we’ve seen in days, and no one is likely to want to kill us.

“Not right away, at least.”

FIVE

Nothing more troubled them for the rest of the shadow walk, and they emerged from the Fringe not long after the nightwalker’s attack, returning to the mundane world on the floor of a narrow, subterranean gorge. The walls were marked with various trail signs and messages from previous travelers who had stopped there. It was obviously a commonly used campsite near the trade cavern. The company rested there for hours, warming up from the insidious chill of the Shadow Fringe. After resting, they left the gorge and found their way out into a long, smooth-sided tunnel that bored for miles through the dark, broken by occasional open caverns along the way.

Valas led the company, as he was familiar with their arrival point and the route they found themselves traveling. After the burning skies of the daylit surface and the miserable gloom of the Plane of Shadow, the routine perils of the Underdark felt like old friends. This was their world, the place where they belonged, even those of their number who had rarely journeyed outside their home cities.

After a march of about two miles, Valas called a brief halt and knelt down to sketch a crude map in the dust of the passage floor.

“Mantol-Derith lies not more than half a mile ahead. Remember, this is a place of trade and association with other races. We do not rule Mantol-Derith—no one does—and so it would be prudent to avoid giving offense to anyone you encounter there, unless you’re looking for a fight that may waste our time and resources.

“Also, I have been considering how best to find our way from the trade cavern to the holdings of House Jaelre in the Labyrinth. From here our path must traverse the dominion of Gracklstugh, city of the gray dwarves.”

“Under no circumstances will we approach Gracklstugh,” Quenthel said at once. “The gray dwarves destroyed Ched Nasad. I see no reason to present myself at their doorstep for slaughter.”

“We have few other options, Mistress,” Valas said. “We are northeast of the duergar realm, and the Labyrinth lies several days southwest of the city. We cannot skirt the city to the south because the Darklake is in the way, and the duergar patrol its waters. Skirting the city to the north would take us at least two tendays of difficult travel through tunnels I do not know well at all.”

“Why did we bother to come this way, then?” Jeggred muttered. “We might as well have returned to Menzoberranzan.”

“Well, for one thing, Gracklstugh still lies between us and House Jaelre, whether we’re in Mantol-Derith or Menzoberranzan,” Pharaun replied. He tapped three points on Valas’s crudely sketched map. “The gray dwarves must be addressed in either scenario. The question is simply whether we dare to pass through Gracklstugh, or not.”

“Could you shadow walk us past the city?” Danifae asked.

Pharaun grimaced and said, “I have never traveled past Mantol-Derith in this direction, and shadow walking is best employed to reach a familiar destination. At any rate, it wouldn’t surprise me to find that the duergar have defended their realm against the passage of travelers on nearby planes.”

“Are we certain that the gray dwarves would object to our presence?” Ryld asked. “Merchants from Menzoberranzan journey to Gracklstugh often enough, and gray dwarf merchants bring their wares to Menzoberranzan’s bazaar. It’s possible that Gracklstugh had nothing to do with the duergar mercenaries who attacked Ched Nasad.”

“I have heard nothing that suggests to me that we should risk entering Gracklstugh,” Quenthel said. She made a curt gesture with her hand, silencing the debate. “I prefer not to gamble on the hospitality of the gray dwarves, not after the fall of Ched Nasad. We will go around the city to the north, and trust that Master Hune can find us a way through.”

Halisstra glanced at Ryld and Valas. The scout chewed on his lip, worrying at the problem, while the weapons master simply lowered his eyes in resignation.

“We are only a mile or two from this cavern known as Mantol-Derith?” Halisstra asked, pointing at the sketch.

“Yes, my lady,” Valas replied.

“And regardless of which course we choose, we must pass through the place?”

The Bregan D’aerthe scout simply nodded again.

“Then perhaps we should see what we can learn in the trade cavern before we make our decision,” Halisstra offered. She could feel Quenthel’s eyes on her, but she did not look at the Baenre. “There might be duergar merchants there who could shed some light on the question for us. If not, well, we’ll have to provision ourselves there anyway before striking out into the wilds of the Underdark.”

“A reasonable suggestion,” Pharaun remarked. “There are a dozen mercenary companies based in the City of Blades. Is it not likely that the duergar we fought in Ched Nasad were hired by a drow House, and had no special allegiance to Gracklstugh?”

“They did Gracklstugh’s work when they destroyed the city,” Quenthel said darkly. She stood and set her hands on her hips, still staring at the sketch on the floor. She thought for a moment, then angrily swept it out with her foot. “We will see what we learn in Mantol-Derith, then. I suspect that time is of the essence, and if we can avoid a detour of twenty or thirty days to skirt the city, we should do so, but if we hear anything to indicate that Gracklstugh may be closed to our kind, we strike out into the barrens.”

Valas Hune nodded and said, “Very well, Mistress. I suspect we will be able to arrange passage unless the duergar are openly at war with Menzoberranzan. I’ve dealt with the gray dwarves before, and there is nothing they would not sell for the right price. I will seek out a duergar guide in Mantol-Derith and see what I can learn.”

“Good enough,” said Quenthel. “Take us to the duergar, and we will—”

“No, Mistress, not ‘we’,” the scout said. He stood and brushed off his hands. “Most duergar have little liking for drow under any circumstances, less so for noble-born drow, and even less for priestesses of the Spider Queen. Your presence would only complicate things. It might be best if I handled any negotiations myself.”

Quenthel frowned.

Jeggred, standing close behind her, rumbled, “I could go along to keep an eye on him, Mistress.”

Pharaun barked sharp laughter at the thought and said, “If a priestess of Lolth makes a gray dwarf nervous, what do you think he’d make of you?”

The draegloth bridled, but Quenthel shook her head.

“No,” she said, “he’s right. We will find a place to wait, and perhaps see what news there is to be had, while Valas takes care of the details.”

They resumed their march, and soon came to Mantol-Derith. The place was much smaller than Halisstra expected, a cavern not more than sixty or seventy feet in height and perhaps twice that in width, though it twisted and snaked for many hundreds of yards. She was used to the immensity of Ched Nasad’s great canyon, and the stories she’d heard of other places of civilization underground usually involved tremendous caverns miles across. Mantol-Derith would have been nothing more than a side cavern in a drow city.

It was also much less crowded than she would have expected. The marketplaces in her home city had always been busy places, thronged by common drow or the slaves of nobles engaged in their various errands. The market of a drow city usually hummed with industry, energy, and activity, even if those qualities were peculiarly distorted to match the aesthetic tastes of drow society. Mantol-Derith was comparatively silent and forbidding. Here and there throughout the caverns winding length, small groups of merchants sat or squatted, their wares secured in coffers and casks behind them instead of rolled out on display. No one shouted, or haggled, or laughed. What business transpired there seemed best conducted in whispers and shadows.

Creatures from many different races gathered at Mantol-Derith. More than a few drow merchants held various corners of the cavern, most from Menzoberranzan if Halisstra read the blazons on their goods correctly. Mind flayers glided smoothly from place to place, mauve skin glistening damply, tentacles writhing beneath their cephalopod faces. A handful of sullen svirfneblin huddled together in one spot, eyeing the drow with unalloyed resentment. Of course the duergar were present in numbers, too. Short and broad-shouldered, the gaunt gray dwarves gathered together in secretive cabals, conversing with each softly in their guttural tongue.