Henry dived, already streaking sideways to cover the faerie. He screamed and pulled the trigger of his crossbow. The machine kicked like a mad thing, blasting a dozen crossbow bolts straight into the monster’s flesh. The beast reeled but remained very much alive and angry. Henry dragged out his sword and flailed at its hide, driving the staggering monster back toward the tunnel mouth.
Seeing her pet guardian on the retreat, the drow flung up a hand and total darkness descended—a darkness obliterated a second later by Jus’ magic light stone. The drow had already turned to run. Jus whip-cracked his enchanted rope, bringing the drow down in a screaming heap. The creature fumbled for its hand crossbow and fired a shot that was parried aside by a lightning-fast flicker of the Justicar’s sword. An instant later, the elf’s head fell to the ground.
The troll roared, its wounds already healing closed. The creature bashed at Henry, who blocked the monster’s claws with his sword even as the barrage sent him to the ground. Jus reared up behind the troll, his sword held high and his face terrifying. The magic sword screamed in strange joy as it cleaved down through the troll’s shoulder and into the chest, sending it crashing to the ground.
“Cinders!”
The monster had already begun to rise. Grinning gleefully, the hell hound blasted flame into the troll. Fire ripped the flesh off its bones, making the troll bubble like a torch as it finally died.
“Jus!” Escalla screamed.
Two hundred yards away, a female drow sat upon a huge lizard. The dark elf stared blankly at the adventurers, then turned and fled toward the towers. Escalla shot off in pursuit, only to see the drow spring into the air and turn into a flying manta. The sorceress flew hard and fast toward safety. Unable to catch the drow, Escalla sped back and helped Henry back to his feet.
“Boys, we’re gonna have company!”
The Justicar looked back toward the disappearing manta. With his hell hound over his back and his white blade gleaming, the big man turned, leaped over the burning troll, and sped down the spider tunnel. Escalla blinked then slapped Polk and Henry, shoving them in Jus’ wake.
A long tunnel sheathed in horrific bas relief wound through solid rock like a monstrous black gullet. With his magic sword sheeting light into the darkness, the Justicar ran fast and hard, Cinders streaming flames and smoke behind. Jus sped through tunnels and over a stream. The tunnel walls spread out to become a vile promenade a hundred yards wide. Scenes of slaughter and perversion were carved into the walls, blurring past like a nightmare as the ranger charged through, but so far, the tunnels remained strangely empty of drow.
The tunnel ran for a thousand yards, and then a thousand more. Thundering forward, Jus never slowed his pace. Far behind him, Private Henry and Polk fell behind, struggling forward and reeling in a daze of exhaustion.
The tunnel finally ended in a vile riot of sculpted spiders and orgiastic rites. Sitting at the tunnel mouth, a female drow had half risen to make a challenge when Jus smacked her in the guts with his sword, cutting the dark elf in half. A second elf turned to scream a warning to a vast temple building just beyond. Her head fell from her neck before she could even scream.
Jus erupted out of the tunnel and saw another drow staring at him from ten feet away. The magic rope snapped out. Jus jerked the drow toward him and broke the creatures neck with one vicious twist of his hands. His long-contained fury finally released, the Justicar was already on the move, tossing his prey aside as he sped into the cover of ornate gardens of fungi and bone.
“Whoa!”
Escalla flew out of the corridor, bypassed the three dead drow, and urged Polk and Henry onward to glory. The two humans collapsed, wheezing painfully and almost ready to vomit. Laden down with chainmail, Henry had almost killed himself on the one mile run, but he still carried his crossbow in his hands.
Panting hard, the party drew in the sight of a horrible new cave. Red light, thick as blood clots, spilled outward, hazing the cavern like a hideous living mist. It revealed a large cavern, perhaps a mile wide—a place that seeped poison like a canker buried deep in the heart of the Flanaess. The place seethed with evil, a presence foul enough to stain and thick enough to cut.
Buildings stood nearby, vile colonnades of stone carved until it seemed the walls were made of flayed corpses, screaming skulls, and grasping claws. Far beyond, at the heart of the huge cavern, a trumpet’s call set the cavern shuddering. A sudden flash of light—dark purple like fluid from a severed vein—spurted upward from an unseen point at the center of the cave. With it came an ocean of terrified human screams.
Jus rose from cover, paused, and let Cinders glare at the terrain.
Spiders. Steel. Cooking smells. No drow.
“Right.” Jus flicked a glance at the buildings jutting out from the colonnade. “Military barracks, empty ones. Something’s going on.”
The group moved around the barracks, crouching low. Escalla faded to invisibility, lofting high to gaze farther into the awful cave. After a few moments, the group cleared the barracks, and Escalla’s voice came drifting down from above.
“Oh crap.”
Dropping Polk and Henry into cover behind a ridge of glowing minerals, Jus looked sharply upward.
“What?”
“Guys, you know those missing Keolanders?” Escalla’s voice seemed dazed. “I think we just found them.”
The mineral ridge looked down upon a vast purple pit that swirled and pulsed like blood. A stockade surrounded the pit, and chained in rows were hundreds, perhaps thousands, of screaming prisoners. There were humans from Keoland, elves and half-orcs, halflings and gnomes. Drow agents had spent months plundering the world above, seizing victims for a hellish feast of living blood.
A vast temple stood at the far end of the cave, a temple shaped like the egg of a titanic spider. Beside the temple doors, two drow blew upon huge horns. A thin, exquisite drow priestess came strolling from the temple, her naked body smeared with runes painted in sacrificial blood. A dozen priestesses followed her, accompanied by loping centaur creatures that were part drow and part spider. Perhaps a hundred drow gathered at the temple steps, screaming out a hideous hymn to their goddess.
Staring out over the struggling slaves, Jus felt Escalla’s little hand upon his arm. “There! It’s a faerie!”
Escalla pointed across the valley. Flying from the temple came a tiny shape, a faerie masked and robed in white. Jus took one look at the creature and gave a cold growl. “That’s our target.”
Escalla cracked her knuckles, ready for action. “Yep. Got it!”
The enemy faerie wore a stylized white mask, blank except for painted tears. White robes hid the faerie’s body.
Staring across the valley at the other faerie, the Justicar narrowed his eyes. “Who is it?”
“In that gear? Could be anybody.”
Escalla seemed far more interested in the preparations being made near the temple steps. A vast golden bowl had been set before an engraved slab of stone. A huge archway of bones had been raised beside the golden bowl, the structure braced by ropes and chains. Escalla took one look at the arrangements and swore.
“Damn!”
“What?”
“See that?” The girl pointed to the arch of bones where the enemy faerie hovered, painting runes with a small brush. “They’re making their own gate! They can tap into the faerie gates and have Lolth retrieve the faerie key.”
Flat against the ground and almost invisible, the Justicar hissed as he weighed the scene below. “They can make their own gateways?”
“In theory, sure.” Escalla made a frustrated noise. “Hell of a spell, though!” Almost all of the drow priestesses now flanked the archway, eyes closed and hands linked, their throats screaming terrible syllables. “See? Ha! It’s going to take every mage they’ve got to break into where they’re going.”
Henry peeked over a clump of lichen, stared, and said, “Where are they going?”
“Don’t ask!” The girl had her eyes on th
e temple door. “Oh my gods! Get down!”
From the gates of the drow temple, a sinister black light spilled forth. A visible cloud of evil stole slowly down the steps. The elves’ chanting took on a dead, tinny sound, as though the music died as it crossed into another world.
Lolth, Mistress of Spiders, had taken on a form of flesh to enter the mortal world. Probing slowly from the yawning temple doors came a long, hideous black leg, almost pencil thin, and then another, and another. Creeping forth with mincing steps, the demon queen of spiders moved out to survey her prey.
The sheer evil of the creature struck like an icy knife. Black and gleaming, the gigantic spider loomed above the drow. Where a spider’s face should have been, the face of a beautiful dark elf woman peered forth, her face leering as she saw the slaves penned in their thousands at the temple gates. The captives tried to shrink away, the motion looking like a tide surging through a formless sea.
And then the screaming began.
Drow warriors dragged a captive to the temple steps and threw him across the obsidian altar. A priestess gave an orgiastic scream and sawed the prisoner’s head off slowly with a ceremonial knife. Blood spurted steaming into the giant sacrificial bowl as the head was cast aside. The jerking corpse was strung up above the bow to drain its blood, while another prisoner was dragged swiftly into place and killed with savage speed. Fifty other screaming, fighting captives were dragged forward to await death in line, while the demon goddess cackled in laughter. Lolth dipped her face into the bowl and drank with manic thirst. The spider seemed to shimmer as hot blood filled her with its power.
Escalla and Henry had frozen. Only Jus and Cinders reacted, the hell hound and master both giving a killing snarl. Jus tried to surge forward to take the white sword to Lolth, but Escalla hurtled into his path.
“Stop! Jus, no! Not like this! Please!” The screams of the doomed and dying ran hideous through the cave. Escalla ran her hands through her hair, trying to think. “All right, all right! Jus, this is not for you!” A demon! A demon queen! The spider lady was swelling with power as she drank her hellish draught. One twitch from Lolth, and Escalla and her friends would be smears on the wall. “Jus, I’ll stop Lolth! You free the prisoners and try to clear the gate! The gate’s our only way out! I’ll come and help you when I can.”
Screams and howls sounded as the obsidian knife sawed through victims. Lolth slurped and drank, consuming gallons of blood. Her head whirling in panic, Escalla tried to think of a scam, a trick, a brilliant ploy.
Sudden inspiration struck. The faerie dived down, relieved Polk of a flask from his belt, then hovered high.
“Oh, I’m gonna regret this!” The girl took a big deep breath. “All right, people, plan resolves! Let’s get moving!”
A distant hunting horn sounded down the tunnel that led to the main drow cave. The companions whipped their heads around to stare at the tunnel mouth nearby. There was a distant noise of movement, an echo of running feet as drow from the plateaus came to destroy the intruders who had violated the temple grounds.
Rising, Henry stared toward the tunnel and licked his lips. He put his crossbow down and clumsily drew his sword.
“You two deal with the demon,” the young soldier said. “Polk and… and I will hold the tunnel mouth.” The boy flicked a pleading look toward Jus when the big man turned to stare. “You can’t free those people if you’re attacked from behind.”
Jus gave the boy one long, searching look, then nodded and placed one hand upon the boy’s shoulder. Huge with anger, Jus spared one look at the main temple with its shocking scenes of sacrifice, then waved the others to stay put as he flowed into the barracks and its colonnade. Red eyes gleaming, Cinders switched his ears left and right, leering in anticipation, then slowly let his black fur rise.
The hell hound worked in perfect unison with his partner. Standing in the middle of the dark colonnade, Jus swirled. Flame whiplashed out of Cinders’ jaws, blasting into the huge black widow spiders that nested in the shadows. Big as melons, the foul creatures exploded and died even as they leapt straight at the Justicar’s face. Cinders snarled in glee, blasting the last survivors as they lunged into the attack. Teeth bared, the hell hound watched his enemies burn and gave a feral growl.
Aside from the smoldering spiders, the barracks were empty, but the supply rooms were not. Jus tossed aside baskets, threw jewels and treasures to the ground, uninterested in meaningless baubles. He found the tools he needed stacked box by box in a room filled with swords and shields. Crates of quarrels for the elves’ crossbows lay stacked beside a wall. Heaving two huge boxes onto his shoulders, Jus stalked out of the flames and curling spider corpses toward his friends, then slammed his treasures to the ground.
The big man threw open the ammunition boxes. Each one contained perhaps a hundred small crossbow quarrels, each one tipped with deadly poisons.
The Justicar set the boxes in place and said, “Here are your tools.”
Henry threw himself into place opposite the tunnel mouth, cramming a handful of the small crossbow bolts into his magazine. Jus dragged rocks to fence the boy in with cover, made sure there was a line of retreat into more cover, then tore the lids away from the ammunition cases.
“Polk! Polk, come here!”
The teamster started forward in confusion. Jus grabbed the man and positioned him beside Henry.
“Polk, you stay here and load for Henry. Whatever happens, you keep feeding crossbow bolts into that weapon. You hold them as long as you can, but if it gets too much, I want you both inside that portable hole!” The Justicar wiped clean a streak of rusty earth to the front of their position, swiping it free of dirt. “Here’s a drow cloak. It’s flame proof. Keep that iron ore deposit in front of you in case they fire a lightning bolt.”
“Yes, sir,” said Henry.
Jus squeezed the boy on the shoulder with one big hand, gave him a long, hard look of trust that made Henry feel ten feet tall. The boy lay flat over his sights, legs braced against a stone to fight the recoil, and readied himself to make his stand. Jus tucked a last few stones into place around Polk, slapped the little man on the back, then sped away toward the palisade and its horde of guards.
The sacrifices shrieked and died. Escalla hovered, unwilling to leave the boy, then flew down to draw two magic symbols on the ground to either side of the tunnel mouth. She sped back, gave the boy a kiss, and threw a pinch of diamond dust into the air.
“Here’s a stoneskin spell and a protection against charm spells. Good luck!” Escalla smacked Polk on the backside, then unsheathed her sinister lich staff and spread it out into a faerie-sized quarterstaff. Polk looked up at her, grim and pale, and gave her a wave. Escalla lifted her staff and began to fly away.
“Polk! Fight the good fight, man!” The girl backpedaled in midair, following after Jus. “Won’t be long! I’ll buy you a drink when we get back!”
Polk and Henry lay in cover. Without Jus and Escalla nearby, the underdark suddenly seemed ominously still. The sound of feet pounded down the long, dark tunnel, hunting horns sounded, and still the shrieking, bloody sacrifice went on.
Sliced flesh made a sound like crisp, wet melon—a sound that carried even over the terror, the shrieks, and the screams of sacrifices. Leering over the palisade, a female drow laughed at the prisoners below. The woman watched Lolth feeding, adding her screeching voice to the hellish hymns. She babbled in excitement to two other guards beside her… then her entire body suddenly fell in two.
A second guard turned in shock an instant before four feet of white hot metal ploughed through his guts. Benelux screeched in fury as Jus kicked the corpse free of the blade and rammed the sword hilt backward to smash the wolf-skull pommel into the third elf’s face. The drow reeled backward, teeth broken. Jus kicked the creature’s knees, crashing the drow to the ground before hacking its head off in one terrible blur of speed.
The drow hymns continued, screaming and horrible. Horns bellowed, victims raved in fear, an
d the slaughter of the three guards went utterly unnoticed in the cacophony.
Jus crouched amidst the spreading blood of his victims, the hell hound snarling from his helmet in a lusting feral glee. Escalla joined him as the man leaped the fence to sink down behind a surging mob of prisoners.
Escalla clung hand in hand with the Justicar. At the altar, huge spider-centaurs cavorted around their queen. Lolth reared, foul and massive, her size growing as her bulk took on a hellish radiance. Giant black widow spiders the size of small dogs boiled all over the temple steps, climbing over shrieking prisoners near the altar stone. Lolth drank and drank from the giant bowl with a thirst that never slaked, surging with energy stolen from countless slaughtered lives.
Hidden by hundreds of chained prisoners, Escalla went to work. The captives were all shackled by one single chain per row of twenty, the chain running through manacles fixed to their right ankles. Shivering in shock, the prisoners stared at the huge, blood-spattered man in the black hell hound skin that crouched amongst them—then gaped as Jus rose to hack a huge white sword down into a passing drow. The drow screamed and died, unnoticed by his comrades amongst the chaos.
The nearest prisoners were the kidnap victims from Sour Patch. A half-orc goggled as he recognized Escalla and the Justicar. Escalla saw a chained, pale figure gaping at her, the humans face smothered in pimples. Escalla clapped the man’s jaw shut as she passed him by.
“Magic wishing weasel, son! Your wish is our command! Escapes from certain doom half price all this week.”
Captives saw Jus standing over the butchered drow, and all of them instantly tried to surge pleading toward him.
The huge warrior bellowed and shoved the nearest men down. “Still! Stay still! Don’t move!” One blow of his magic sword hacked through the nearest chain. “Drag the chain free, but stay where you damned-well are!”
Another chain sprang free as Jus crashed the white blade down. Benelux pulsed and glowed with an excited stream of light.
Descent into the Depths of the Earth Page 27
