A lesser fighter would have fallen away in terror. A less sturdy person would have simply melted before the reeking horror.
A less angry dwarf, even Athrogate, might have flinched.
The collision was not demon and dwarf, as the diseased abyssal creature had clearly wanted. No, it was demon and Skullcrusher, Athrogate whipping the huge mace across before him, swatting the monster in midleap and sending it flying to the side. Acidic green mucus flew from it, leaving a trail and splattering Athrogate’s weapon and arms.
The magic of Skullcrusher would not allow the mighty weapon to be damaged by the stuff, though, and the anger of Athrogate would not allow him to be daunted by a few minor burns. He charged in pursuit of the demon, raining blows upon it before it regained its footing.
The creature fought back wildly, leaping side to side, clawing with its hideous hands, even spitting acid in the dwarf’s face.
That only brought a roar of outrage, though, and the dwarf pounded in even more recklessly and viciously, sending Skullcrusher into a series of short downward strikes, pounding at the upraised arm of the demon, then, eventually, at its head. Athrogate accepted the clawing of the creature’s other arm, the three hooks tearing into his flesh deeply. He just yelled louder, as if using his voice to drown out the pain.
His voice and a memory.
He was fighting for Amber here, and no wound would slow his strikes.
Down went the demon to its knees, and it slumped forward.
Athrogate changed his angle of attack, batting the monster’s face with a great two-handed swing that sent its head snapping out to the side and sent the beast spinning down to the ground.
Athrogate swung again, but too high as the thing dropped, and the momentum of his fury sent the dwarf stumbling over the prone monster, finally floundering in a bush a few strides beyond it. He twisted and clawed his way back out, turning with murderous intent.
But where the demon had been now kneeled a dwarf on all fours, shaking her head groggily.
“Ah, but no ye don’t,” Athrogate whispered, and he advanced with a low growl, lifting Skullcrusher up over his head for a killing blow.
He staggered just before he finished the dwarf, though, as a bolt of golden light slammed him in the chest, knocking him back a stride. A second, similar bolt struck the kneeling dwarf, and she crumpled down to the ground.
It had not been an attack, on either, Athrogate understood as the nature of the enchantment registered. He had been struck with some weird healing magic, one that projected force along with the warmth to soothe the pain and salve to wash away the biting acid.
He looked across the small lea and saw Yvonnel standing there beside the pony. “The necklace!” she yelled at him. “Take the necklace!”
Athrogate’s first thought was to cave in the kneeling Stoneshaft dwarf’s head, and he even moved to that effect, but Yvonnel’s order to him wasn’t mundane. It too was magical, carrying great weight, and delivered so closely after the powerful healing spell, it surprised the dwarf. Before he even consciously registered the movement, Athrogate found himself holding a silver chain festooned with a large milky-blue moonstone.
He heard a voice in his head, growling and sinister, a liquid voice full of phlegm and disease, one demanding entrance.
But a second voice was there as well: the commanding tones of Yvonnel, telling Athrogate to drop the phylactery.
Athrogate, too willful and angry to be possessed to any extent by either the demon thing or the priestess, settled it his own way. He tossed the bauble into the air, took up his huge mace, and batted it far and high. It went into a nearby tree, crackling along the branches, and there it hung, out of sight.
The kneeling dwarf gasped repeatedly. Athrogate turned on her, his anger unsated, but he found Yvonnel there, standing between him and his prey.
“Move yerself,” he told the drow woman.
“The dwarf is no longer possessed,” Yvonnel told him.
“She’ll be dyin’ with a better chance o’ seein’ Moradin, then.”
“Do not, I beg.”
“Beg?”
“For yourself, Athrogate.” Yvonnel moved aside just a bit, giving Athrogate a better view of the battered dwarf woman, her light hair streaked with blood, her breathing still coming in raspy heaves. “You know nothing of her, of—”
“I know she’s one o’ them!”
“One of what? A Stoneshaft? Yes, but did she have a voice in the decisions? And once the necklace was put upon her, did she even know what it contained? You do not know that she welcomed the possession. You do not know that she didn’t fight it with every bit of courage she could muster.”
“So ye’re thinkin’ I should just pretend that this one, that all o’ them, played no role in me Amber’s death, eh?” the dwarf growled, and he couldn’t even pry his clenched teeth apart as he finished, “They cut off her head.”
“I know,” Yvonnel said, her voice thick with sympathy. “I know, and I understand your pain and your rage. But there is more at stake here than just this one woman’s life.”
Behind Athrogate, a branch cracked and fell. Both Athrogate and Yvonnel stared at it, at the rotted wood and dead leaves, and the silver chain with the moonstone bauble wrapped about it, hissing.
“Do what you will,” Yvonnel stated and rushed past Athrogate to the phylactery. She began to chant before she got there, an old, harsh language that Athrogate had heard enough times now to understand that she was banishing the demon that lurked within that gemstone, damning it back to the Abyss, where it belonged. He had witnessed this before, against beings more powerful than this one, he was sure, and so he had no doubt of the outcome.
He swung back around, his knuckles whitening from the grip on his mace, his teeth grinding. He lifted the weapon, but dropped it back down, then took up a fistful of bloody hair and yanked the woman’s head back so he could look her in the eye.
Athrogate winced. He saw fear there, and something deeper, like some violation spilling out through her wounded eyes.
“Dwarf?” Yvonnel asked.
Athrogate glanced back at her over his shoulder. “She makes one move, says one thing, I’m not likin’, and her head’s getting split.”
He let go and walked off, back toward the hillock and the refugees, muttering curses with every step.
Drizzt knew that he was running out of time, and he had not put nearly enough ground between himself and the pursuing arachnid to keep ahead of it without Andahar. From a high hilltop he spotted the monster—or at least, he spotted the line of devastation it was leaving in its wake, winding like a river of destruction through the forests in the east.
He looked down to his left, to a small hamlet of farmhouses, and wondered if he should go down and warn them.
“Or are there even farmers remaining there?” he whispered. The forests and fields were full of demons, after all.
That notion almost had him turning Andahar down that way, but he held back. The spider would likely run right past the hamlet if Drizzt went nowhere near it, since the other one had paid him no heed when he hadn’t blocked its way.
Drizzt turned his mount the other way and galloped off, trying to focus on the road ahead. The unicorn was a magical item, not a living creature, he had to remind himself repeatedly. He could push his own body beyond its limits, but not so with the magic here—twelve hours, no more, and once that time had elapsed, either in a single summoning or in several smaller stints over the course of a day, Andahar would be lost to him for nearly a full day.
So he galloped full speed, knowing the mount wouldn’t tire and knowing, too, that every yard of distance he put between himself and the spider gave him a better chance of surviving a day without the unicorn.
Despite his own terrible predicament, he continued to think of that other spider as well, the one that had so fully ignored him, the one so obviously focused on some other target.
He was pretty sure that he knew who that target might be.
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“So is it the pony or the halfling?” Yvonnel asked. She was in a fine mood, then, convinced that the dwarf woman now in the cave with the other refugees was not complicit in the darkness that had come to the Crags. She had used powerful spells of divination on the dwarf, Leerie by name, to detect any lying during her questioning, and though dwarves were by nature hard to read and resistant to magic, Yvonnel had been confident enough in the interview to allow Leerie into the cave unattended.
Not that she was in any shape to cause harm to the sturdy farmers after the beating Athrogate had put upon her.
“Aye,” Athrogate answered, and he, too, seemed a bit lighter.
Because he hadn’t crushed Leerie’s skull, Yvonnel knew.
“Aye?” she echoed. “One or the other?”
“Both,” Athrogate explained. “Bruenor gived the name to Regis long ago—was always hungry with a belly always growlin’. Regis passed it on to the pony.”
Yvonnel sighed, finally catching on to the contraction in this language new to her. “And here I thought dwarves the most ridiculous in their naming conventions,” she mumbled.
“Aye,” laughed Athrogate. “Once knew a priest named Cordio Muffinhead . . .” He started to elaborate, but stopped when a crystalline bird flew to a nearby branch, chirping a warning.
“Bah, but I’m ready to bash another one!” the dwarf declared and leaped up, taking up Skullcrusher.
But Yvonnel, listening to the warning ward, was shaking her head. “No demon,” she said, and she cast the crystalline bird into the air. She motioned for Athrogate to follow and ran off after her magical creation.
They didn’t have to go far, for they had barely come upon a well-worn trail when the rider came into view and was immediately recognizable to the pair, as was his distinctive mount.
Drizzt recognized them in turn. He galloped Andahar right up to them, skidded to a stop, and leaped from the unicorn, staring incredulously at Athrogate for many heartbeats before wrapping the dwarf in a great hug.
“How did you survi—?” he started to ask, but stopped and noted the dwarf’s companion, who was as powerful a cleric as he had ever known. “My friend,” he said instead, “it warms my heart to see you alive.”
Athrogate didn’t disagree, but still wore his dour expression.
“We will hoist a mug in toast to Ambergris,” Drizzt said quietly. Not wanting to waste a precious moment of Andahar’s remaining time, Drizzt dismissed the unicorn.
“Aye, to me Amber,” the dwarf cheered.
Yvonnel began to join in, but was cut short by the drow warrior. “But first, you must be gone from here, both of you. Run, and do not look back.”
“We been killin’ demons,” Athrogate replied.
“And gathering refugees,” added Yvonnel. “Including a dwarf who was possessed, but is now free and repentant. I believe that we can help—”
Drizzt was shaking his head. “I am pursued by a beast beyond us, beyond us all. It is cutting a line of devastation behind me in its pursuit. If you encounter it and are lucky, it will ignore you, but if not, it will surely destroy you.”
“Bah!” The dwarf snorted.
Yvonnel, though, wasn’t so quick to dismiss the words. She knew all about Drizzt and all about his friends, and the enemies they had overcome. She had orchestrated Drizzt’s explosive leap into the face of Demogorgon! So to see him so clearly unsettled . . .
“Where?” she asked.
Drizzt glanced back the way he had come. “Not far. But you have time to turn aside from its path as long as I am not with you. It will turn as I turn. It hunts me and me alone.”
“What is it?” Yvonnel pressed.
“There’s no time—”
But then Drizzt remembered who he was talking to. She was possessed of the intimate and complete memories of her namesake, Yvonnel the Eternal, who had lived for two millennia as the drow voice of the Spider Queen, and who knew more about the creatures of the lower planes than any drow now alive. And maybe—just maybe—she knew of a way to defeat it.
“A demon, I believe.”
“A spider?”
“Yes, and there are two.” Drizzt paused at Yvonnel’s gasp. “One for me, and one charging for Gauntlgrym, last I saw. I thought it best to steer this one away, because I feared that Bruenor and the others could not defeat two of the beasts. Its eyes throw fire and lightning and turn people to stone. I have seen them shot with my own bow, dropped under tons of stone, but with not a hint of injury . . .”
“Retrievers,” Yvonnel explained. “They are retrievers.”
“You do know of them,” said Drizzt.
“Then ye know how to beat ’em,” added Athrogate.
“Yes,” she answered Drizzt, “and no,” she said to the dwarf. “I fear that Gauntlgrym cannot defeat even that single one. A retriever’s limitation is also its strength. It is a golem singularly attuned to one target and it will pursue that target until it captures or kills it. The other creatures of the material plane can barely touch a retriever—they are but witnesses in a play that does not include them. Part of the golem’s magic is that it and its target alone fully share their place of existence.”
“But I was the one who shot the beast pursuing me.”
“With a bow that shoots arrows of lightning. You will not harm it. It is beyond you.”
“Then what?” Athrogate demanded, growing agitated.
“Run, Drizzt Do’Urden,” Yvonnel told him. “Keep running. Run as far as you can run. I will seek a solution, but there is little I can promise.”
“Bah, but I ain’t about to move aside so some fat spider can kill me friend!” Athrogate protested, and he slapped Skullcrusher across his palm for emphasis.
“Then your friend will watch you be destroyed,” Yvonnel calmly replied.
“What is its weakness?” Drizzt asked the woman.
“It has none. Every bit is armored. It is fast and it is strong. You’ll not kill it with magic, surely.”
“One of my blades is a frostbrand. It feasts on creatures of fire.”
Yvonnel shrugged, for she did not know if that would matter. “I will learn what I may,” she answered. “And I will find you when I do and help in any way that I can. Someone, something, very powerful is determined to get you, Drizzt Do’Urden, and to get whoever is the target of the second golem.”
“Demogorgon?” Drizzt asked.
“Lolth?” Yvonnel responded.
“But Lolth had me, in a tunnel, and she did not take me,” said Drizzt. “And if the other golem is for Zaknafein . . . we suspect that it was Lolth who returned him to my side.”
“It was not Lolth who did that,” Yvonnel stated flatly.
Drizzt began to respond, but stopped and regarded the powerful priestess curiously.
“It was not Lolth,” Yvonnel repeated. “And keeping you alive then only to hunt you now would be very much in character for the Lady of Chaos. Run on, Drizzt Do’Urden. Stay ahead of the beast. I will learn what I may.”
Drizzt reeled from the woman’s declaration, his mind spinning. “My time with Andahar is nearing its end. The magic will soon enough expire. I cannot outrun the retriever without my steed.”
“Then go and hide. Find a narrow tunnel through which the beast cannot easily follow. It will dig its way in pursuit, but not so easily.”
Drizzt tried to figure how much time he had left, even while he worked to pinpoint exactly where he was and what places might be near enough around for him to reach on Andahar. Although . . . would it even matter? If he could not fight the monster, if it was indeed quite above him, would anything matter?
Yes, he realized and quickly decided. Some things mattered, even to the doomed. He unfastened his sword belt.
“Should we run and hide?” Athrogate was asking Yvonnel.
Yvonnel considered it for a moment, then said, “Yes. And I will have my magical spies watching carefully.”
“Spider’s that bad?”
Yvonne
l, stone-faced, nodded. “They don’t rest. They don’t stop. They are almost impossible to defeat, if it’s possible at all. They are the most dependable hunters in all the planes of existence, and Lolth, or Demogorgon, or both, has apparently spared no resources in their hunt.”
“Bah, but I ain’t for buying that, eh, elfie?” the dwarf said, turning back to Drizzt.
Drizzt moved under a spreading elm tree and dropped his weapons to the ground.
“Eh?” Athrogate said again. “Put yer belt back on, elfie, and let’s kill us some spider. Doubt ye can eat the damned thing, though.”
Drizzt bent low and set his backpack atop the sword belt and weapons he had just placed down. He looked up to regard the dwarf, offering a smile. He was glad indeed to see his friend finding a way to his typically ridiculous humor. “Not this spider, Athrogate.”
He took off his cloak and bracers, and the quiver that supplied an endless stream of arrows to Taulmaril, and placed them, too, on the pile.
“Ye’re not wantin’ to kill the thing?”
“Oh, me friend, I am . . . I be wantin’,” Drizzt replied, faking a dwarven brogue. “But we cannot. When I saw you two, I did hope that we might defeat the beast, for Yvonnel’s power is as great as any I have witnessed. But she knows better, and she just told us that we three together would have no chance of defeating this abyssal golem.”
“Then run, because it’s coming,” the dwarf said somberly. “Why’re ye strippin’? Think yer horse-thing’ll run faster?”
“I will ride,” Drizzt replied, not quite answering the question. He pulled the whistle still hanging about his neck up to his lips and blew, summoning Andahar. “Andahar has little left to offer me, but enough, I hope, to get me to my destination. You and Yvonnel stay far afield of the beast. It will follow me.”
“Elfie . . .”
“For your sake, my sake, and the sake of the refugees you harbor. I do not know if it will take note of you. I have already seen instances where these monsters have turned on those in their way, and where the monsters have simply run by. If it turns on you, it will kill you, and Yvonnel, and all those you protect.”
Boundless Page 34
