She resolved to keep telling herself that until she believed it.
The vitan in charge—she wondered sourly what he’d done to anger Yzil—gave the command, and the company advanced. Soon the seabed sloped high enough that the locathahs, koalinths, and their ilk had to plant their feet and wade with their upper portions sticking up out of the water. At that point, stealth became impossible, and Wraxzala decided she, too, might as well experience the world above the waves. With luck, she might even have a few heartbeats to get used to it before she had to start fighting for her life.
She swam upward, through the heaving interface between sea and air, and onward. Once she exited the water, the medium supporting her felt thin and insubstantial, yet she didn’t fall. In fact, precisely because it offered less resistance, she had a giddy feeling she might even be able to swim faster above the waves than below.
She zigzagged awkwardly, seeing how much effort it took and how it felt. Other ixitxachitls rose from the waves to either side. Then, on land, among the dilapidated huts, some creature started yelling. She couldn’t understand the words, but it was obvious what was going on. A sentry had spotted the invaders coming ashore.
Hulking bipedal shapes with folded wings, serpent heads, and dragging, writhing tails shambled forth from the shacks. Wraxzala had never seen such brutes before, but according to the wretched, meddling waveservant, they were called “dragonkin.” In these first confused moments, the reptiles failed to understand just how many ixitxachitls and thralls had risen from the depths to threaten them. They evidently thought they could make a stand on the beach and push the intruders back.
The ixitxachitl commander shouted an order. Dozens of locathahs with their goggle-eyed piscine faces, and brawny koalinths with big, scalloped ears and shaggy manes now plastered to their skulls, shouldered and discharged their crossbows. Many of the bolts flew wild. Like Wraxzala herself, the missiles moved differently in air. But some found their marks, and dragonkin fell.
Most of the surviving reptiles scrambled for cover, from which they would likely seek to harry and slow the advance. The invaders would need to root them out before they could pass in safety, but though they’d pay a toll in blood, they could certainly manage it. The real problem was that two other dragonkin turned, spread their leathery pinions, and flew inland … to fetch reinforcements, without a doubt.
Though Yzil had been too cagey to say it in so many words, Wraxzala understood that, according to his strategy, that was more or less what was supposed to happen. As she and her companions fought their way up the mountainside, they were supposed to lure the enemy forth to engage them.
But by the poison tides of the Abyss, please, not yet! If the wyrms and all their minions descended on the invaders before they even established a beachhead, they’d have little trouble wiping them out.
Wraxzala had absolutely no inclination to imperil herself by chasing the fleeing dragonkin. But unfortunately, only ixitxachitls had any hope of overtaking them, because only they could swim in air. The thralls had partaken of a simpler, less costly enchantment, which merely enabled their gills to function out of water. For they, after all, had legs to provide mobility on land, and their masters had assumed that would prove sufficient.
“No more shooting!” Wraxzala cried. She waited for other voices to echo the order then charged forward. Several other ’chitls did the same. At least she wasn’t entirely alone.
She raced over the ruined village. The rocky ground rose steeply just behind it. Patches of vegetation clung to the lower slopes.
She still felt clumsy speeding through the air. Every slight flick or tilt of her body achieved too much, and she veered crazily from one overcompensation to the next. But she couldn’t worry about that now.
She peered, trying to pick out a dragonkin, and spied a rhythmic flicker of mottled wings. Unfortunately, the reptile had a considerable lead, in distance and elevation, too.
Only magic could hinder it now. Still pursuing, she rattled off an intricate sequence of rhyming palindromes. The power, as it gathered and poised itself to strike, made a sound like bright, wicked laughter.
A set of shadowy, disembodied jaws appeared directly in front of the dragonkin. The reptile tried to veer off, but the construct leaped at it and caught it anyway. The shadow creature plunged its fangs repeatedly into the dragonkin’s body.
The dragonkin wrenched free and riposted with its spear. The lance plunged right through the shadow-stuff without doing it any harm.
Once the reptile realized it couldn’t strike back, it started veering and dodging, trying to distance itself from its attacker. The flying jaws, however, matched it move for move.
Wraxzala was reasonably certain the construct couldn’t kill the enormous brute, but that wasn’t the point. The harassment was just supposed to keep it in place while she beat her way closer. She was trying to steal up on it, but in this strange environment where all sound seemed muffled, couldn’t tell if she was being quiet or not.
Finally she judged she’d sneaked close enough for a different and perhaps truly devastating curse. She whispered the opening words, and the jaws faded away as the spell that had birthed them exhausted the last of its force.
She hoped the dragonkin would simply attempt to continue on its way. But despite its uncouth appearance, it had brains enough to realize a spellcaster had afflicted it. Now free of the punishment, wounds bleeding, it tilted its wings and wheeled in the air, seeking its tormentor. It spied Wraxzala, snarled, and threw its spear.
Underwater, it was impossible to fling a lance for any distance, and so the attack caught her by surprise. Reflex jolted her into motion, though, and she dived. The spear streaked over her.
She declaimed the final syllable of her invocation. The dragonkin grunted as its body went rigid. Unable to move its wings, it plummeted and crashed down amid some big, sturdy plants—Wraxzala thought they were called “trees”—on a ledge.
She swam warily downward, peering to see what had become of her foe. If she had to use another spell to finish it off, she would, but hoped the fall had killed it. With a long night of battle ahead of her, she needed to conserve her power as much as possible.
Unfortunately, on first inspection, the thick, tangled limbs and their shroud of leaves confused her eyes. She was used to picking lurking enemies out of a mass of kelp or coral, but here the shapes were different.
Hoping it would help, she swam lower still. With a sudden rattle and snap of branches, the dragonkin exploded out at her. Its talons slashed at her face.
She spun herself out of the way and onto the reptile’s back, between the roots of its wings. She drove her fangs into its neck.
It convulsed, and they fell together. Twigs jabbed and gouged at her as they crunched and bounced through the foliage, finally jolting to a stop at the crossing of two substantial branches midway down.
The dragonkin was hearty. The virulence in her initial bite hadn’t shocked it into helplessness. It fumbled at her with its claws, trying to grab her and tear her loose. But the angle was awkward for it, and it couldn’t manage a solid grip. She ripped open a throbbing artery in the side of its neck, and its life quickly pumped away.
She drank some of it then swam back up above the trees, where other ’chitls were wheeling and swooping about. “I killed one of them,” she called.
“We got the other,” replied a warrior. He was one of the stupid ones: He sounded gleeful, as if the raid were a game.
Wraxzala wondered just how playful he’d feel when the wyrms emerged from the apex of the volcano. It would happen by and by. She and her comrades had merely delayed the inevitable.
Tu’ala’keth cautiously raised her head halfway out of the water, ducked back down, and turned to Yzil, who was hovering beside her. “The way is clear,” she said.
“Good.” He and the other ’chitls in the vanguard swam up into the air to see for themselves.
She rather wished she were able to do likewise, but the ’
chitls hadn’t offered her this particular magic. They claimed they barely had enough for themselves. She suspected they were simply unwilling to share the precious resource with someone they regarded as a “slave creature,” but she hadn’t made an issue of it. During her time with the pirates, she’d had plenty of practice walking and assumed she’d manage well enough.
Trident in hand, her new satchel dangling at her hip, she waded up onto a shelf of granite and took another look around the sea cave. The air was damp and salty, alive with the echoing boom and murmur of the surf. Shells, starfishes, and clumps of weed littered the floor where it sloped down to meet the water. An oil lamp, unlit at the moment, reposed in a niche in the wall, and bits of broken stone lay about the entrance to a passage slanting upward. Someone had smashed away rock to make the path more accessible.
“You were right,” said Yzil. “There is a way up.”
Tu’ala’keth shrugged. “It was not difficult to deduce. The wearer of purple mentioned that in time, he and his fellow lunatics might provide undeath to the dragons of the sea. How could humans accomplish that without workrooms where land and water come together?”
“Well, don’t feel too smug. It’s a narrow way up. I was hoping we could sneak up on them quickly.”
“If we make haste, we still can.”
“Let’s hope so.” Yzil turned toward the other hovering, flitting ixitxachitls, and the locathahs and koalinths still sloshing up out of the depths, and started barking orders.
It took him a few minutes to get everyone organized, and he and Tu’ala’keth led the ascent. The ’chitl’s broad, flat body all but filled the passage, the rippling edges nearly swiping the walls.
He hesitated at a point where the smoothly sloping floor gave way to a succession of chiseled edges and right angles. “What’s this?”
She smiled for an instant. “Stairs. No inconvenience to you, but I suffered stumbles and stubbed toes before I learned the trick of them. I suspect your slaves will, too.”
Yzil showed his fangs. “If that’s the worst they suffer tonight, they can count themselves blessed.”
Anton had pilfered a few small knives without his captors noticing, but now that he’d figured out where to hide it, he wanted a sword. It didn’t need magical virtues like Tu’ala’keth’s cutlass or Shandri’s huge and thirsty blade. Any hilt weapon that extended his reach by more than a finger-length would do.
Surely somewhere in the caverns lay a dull, notched, rusty, poorly balanced sword nobody wanted or would miss. But he’d crept about for a long while without finding it and wandered dangerously far from his cage in the process. He supposed it was time to give up, for tonight anyway, and to steal some more food and make his way back to his fellow prisoners.
He turned, and a quavering roar shook the tunnel. It sounded as if it might actually have words in it, but since he didn’t speak the language of dragons, he couldn’t be sure.
Whether it did or not, it roused the entire complex. Echoing voices babbled on every side. Footsteps scurried. Trumpets bleated, repeating the alarm the wyrm had sounded. A sickly blue shimmer and whiff of rot washed through the air as, somewhere, one of the necromancers cast an initial spell.
Intent on covering at least some of the distance back to the prison before the tunnels filled up with cultists dashing in all directions, trying to balance the conflicting imperatives of haste and stealth, Anton trotted as quickly as he dared until red light shined from an irregular opening just ahead.
The spy felt a pang of fear and self-disgust. He’d known a fire drake had claimed that particular side gallery for its lair, but the cursed thing had been asleep ever since he’d first discovered it, and so he’d come to consider this particular passageway as safe as any.
But it wasn’t anymore. The commotion had roused the reptile and drawn it forth. Anton cast about for a hiding place. There was nowhere within reach.
The fire drake crawled out into the corridor. A runt compared to Eshcaz or any of the magnificent horrors proclaiming themselves “true dragons,” it was nonetheless bigger than a horse and wagon, and its crimson scales radiated heat and light like metal fresh from the forge. Its blazing yellow eyes fixed on Anton.
He bowed to it deeply but quickly, like a lackey in a frantic hurry. “Someone is attacking the enclave!” he cried. “The other wyrms need you, milord!”
The drake showed its fangs. “I’m a female, fool!” Wings flattened against her back so as not to scrape on the ceiling, she lunged.
For one ghastly instant, Anton thought she was charging him; then he perceived that her true intent was simply to traverse the passage as fast as possible. He flattened himself against the wall.
The dragon’s scaly flank nearly brushed him, and he flinched from the searing heat. Then the excited wyrm hurtled on by and around a bend, without ever registering that the human groveling before her had worn the rags and sported the shaggy whiskers, grime, and lash marks of a slave.
Anton hurried onward, hiding and backtracking repeatedly as the tunnels filled up. At least it gave him a chance to eavesdrop on snatches of conversation:
“—attacking up the mountain—”
Anton smiled; he’d guessed right about that much, anyway.
“—crazy to challenge the Sacred Ones.”
“They’re crazy just to challenge us! I know a spell—”
“—some kind of bats, or demons that look and fly like them.”
“No, it’s gill-men. They crawled up out of the sea.”
He frowned, puzzled. Was it possible Tu’ala’keth had returned at the head of an undersea army? He couldn’t imagine how. She had no influence over her fellow shalarins. That was the galling realization that had launched her on her demented mission. He was still mulling it over when he finally managed to skulk back to the cage.
His fellow captives were all pressed up against the grille and raised a clamor when he appeared. On another night, he would have berated them for it, but it didn’t matter anymore.
“What’s happening?” demanded Jamark. “We heard all the noise and asked a cultist when he ran by, but he didn’t stop.”
Anton explained what little he knew. “So it’s time,” he concluded and, heedless of the squeal and bang, threw open the door. “Dig out the knives.”
They didn’t move; they just regarded him uncertainly. Eventually Stedd, a scrawny, homely, balding fellow who’d owned a dozen tanneries until pirates captured him and his beautiful young wife refused to pay his ransom, said, “Maybe that’s not the wisest thing to do.”
“Of course it is,” Anton said.
“Why?” Stedd retorted. “We’ve only got knives, and most of us aren’t trained warriors. Where’s the sense in taking on well-armed dragonkin, magicians, and wyrms? If somebody else has come to wipe out the cult and rescue us, wonderful. Let’s stay here where it’s safe and pray they succeed. We can thank them when the fighting’s over.”
“That might not be a bad plan,” Anton said, “except for a reason you already mentioned yourself: The cultists are powerful and have the advantage of a highly defensible stronghold. We can’t count on the newcomers, whoever they are, to win without our help. But if we sneak through the caves, stabbing maniacs in the back while they’re intent on the threat outside, maybe we can make a difference.”
“Or die for nothing,” the tanner said.
“Damn you all,” Anton said. “Half of you would be dead already if not for me. But forget that and ponder this instead: This is our one chance. The opportunity we yearned and prayed for, never believing it would ever really come. I plan to make the most of it, even if I have to fight alone. If anyone wants to help, I’ll be glad of the company. If others are so cowardly they can’t bear to leave the cage, that’s all right, too. Just stand aside while I pull out the knives.”
Jamark made a spitting sound. “Ah, to Baator with it. I don’t care if I die, as long as I kill a dragonkin first.” Some of the others muttered in agreement.
In the end, almost everyone followed Anton away from the cage, even Stedd, sweaty, eyes darting, one of the knives clutched tight in an overhand grip. For his part, Anton still lacked a blade. Since they didn’t have enough to go around, he’d decided to trust his sorcery to protect him for the time being.
“Where are we headed?” Jamark whispered.
“An armory,” Anton answered, “not too far away. It was never practical to steal from it before, but now the cultists are in the middle of an emergency. They may have left it unlocked and unattended. There may be some weapons left inside. We’ll find out.”
In his time, Diero had been a military man, serving as a war mage and officer in baronial armies and mercenary companies around the Sea of Fallen Stars. Drawing on his hard-won expertise, he had, despite the constant press of his other duties, made time to plan the mountain’s defense, and to explain everyone’s assigned duties in the event of an attack.
Accordingly, it exasperated him to see the dolts all running around in confusion instead of proceeding briskly to their proper stations.
Part of the difficulty was that most of the others lacked military training. Even the dragonkin were barbarian raiders, not veterans of a civilized army. Their human counterparts tended to be spellcasters with an unhealthy attraction to the forces of shadow, outlaws, and a motley assortment of malcontents, some every bit as deranged as dragons cultists were commonly held to be.
The real problem, however, was that the wyrms they served were ordering them out onto the mountain just any old way. Eshcaz was a case in point. Crouched in the center of the half-finished pentacle in the center of the great hall, shrouded in a haze of acrid smoke leaking from his mouth and nostrils, he bellowed commands, and lesser beings scurried to obey, more terrified of displeasing him than of any possible threat awaiting them outside the caverns.
Diero murmured an incantation. The world seemed to blink like an eye, he experienced a sensation of hurtling like an arrow loosed from a bow, and he was standing at Eshcaz’s immense and scaly feet. The smoke stung his eyes, and the heat was unpleasant.
Queen of the Depths Page 21
