Condemnation (36 page)

“How do you know the gray dwarves haven’t overrun the outpost already?” a priestess of Tuin’Tarl asked.

“We do not, Mistress Tuin’Tarl. The duergar wizards and clerics are preventing our efforts to scry the surroundings, a common tactic in warfare of this sort.” Andzrel nodded to Nimor and added, “That is why it is essential to deploy a screen of capable scouts, to find out through mundane means what our wizards cannot see. Zhayemd of Agrach Dyrr is charged with the command of our reconnaissance.”

Andzrel waited a moment to see if the priestess had any more questions, then went on, “In any event, our armies travel faster than the gray dwarves, and we have a much easier route. I would expect our vanguard to reach the Pillars of Woe three to four days from now. If we hold the upper exit from the gorge, the duergar will never break our defenses. As you can see, it is something of a race, and therefore we should make all possible speed.”

“What plan do you have for battle, Zal’therra?” asked another priestess, the mistress of the House Xorlarrin contingent.

Nimor smiled at the remark. Zal’therra had certainly been instructed by Triel to rely on her House weapons master’s advice in planning the battle, but the high priestesses naturally talked past Andzrel as if he wasn’t even there.

“Andzrel will present it,” the Baenre priestess replied, as if she’d just finished explaining it all to him and choose to allow him to show off her genius.

If the weapons master took note of the slight, he did not show it.

“We will build a strong, well-anchored line across the mouth of the gorge. A few hundred troops should suffice for this, but we will commit a thousand. The remainder of our soldiers will be held in reserve and secure various small passageways and flanking caverns in the vicinity.” Andzrel set down his baton and faced the assembled priestesses, his face expressionless except for the keen glitter of determination in his eyes. “I mean to allow the duergar to come to us, and break them between the Pillars of Woe. When they have hurled their strength on us in vain, we will pursue them back down the gorge and slaughter them and their minions in heaps.”

“And what if the duergar choose not to force the Pillars?” Mez’Barris asked, addressing Andzrel directly.

“The duergar are invading our lands, Matron Mother, so the burden of action is on them. If they decide not to try the Pillars, we will wait them out—our supply lines are much shorter than theirs. In a matter of days they will have to choose between going forward and going back.”

Mez’Barris gazed at the map, considering Andzrel’s answer.

“Very well,” she said. “I want to see just how quickly we can reach the spot you have in mind. Extend the march by two hours a day. If we reach the Pillars of Woe in three days, we should have time to rest before battle is joined. I want our fastest forces to make a dash for the Pillars, just in case. There is no reason we couldn’t have a couple of hundred scouts at the top of that gorge in a day and a half. Now, if you will excuse us, I wish to discuss with my sister priestesses the best use of our talents in the upcoming conflict.”

Andzrel offered a shallow bow, and withdrew from the room. Nimor fell in beside the Baenre weapons master as they left the black pavilion, flanked by a handful of other officers. The tent stood in a large, round tunnel crowded with soldiers and pack lizards, banner after banner of various Houses stretching out of sight up and down the passage.

“Zhayemd,” said Andzrel, “I want you to assume command of our vanguard, as Matron Mother Del’Armgo suggests. Take your Agrach Dyrr cavalry and make speed tomorrow and the next day. Our lack of information about the duergar army makes me nervous. I’ll have some of the other riders join you, so that you’ll have a strong company to hold the pass if worse comes to worst.”

“I must consult with our high priestess,” Nimor said, though he had no intention of doing any such thing. The weapons master, still under Nimor’s powerful and lasting enchantment, would trust him anyway. “I believe she will support the suggestion, though.”

“Good,” Andzrel said as they reached the Baenre camp. He clapped Nimor on the shoulder. “If you find the duergar somewhere they’re not supposed to be, report back at once. I want no foolishness out of you. You are the eyes of our army.”

Nimor smiled and said, “Do not worry, Master Andzrel. I intend to leave nothing to chance.”

Jezz the Lame crouched awkwardly in the shadow of a ruined wall, gazing across a small square at a large, round tower a stone’s throw away.

“There,” he said. “The beholder’s tower. There’s a flight of stairs leading up to the door, which we have previously found to be unlocked but guarded by deadly magical traps. You’ll see several small windows in the upper levels, perhaps large enough for a small drow to slip through. We haven’t tried those, though.”

Ryld, who crouched just behind the Jaelre, leaned out to take a look for himself. The tower was much as Jezz had described it, surrounded by the sprawling ruins of Myth Drannor. After using Pharaun’s magic to speed their travel to the old elven capital and resting a few hours to prepare, the company had spent most of the night fighting their way through the ruins.

Myth Drannor was little more than a great wreckage of white stone overgrown with trees and vines, but once it had been something more. The old surface elf city might not have been as large as Menzoberranzan or as infernally grand as Ched Nasad, but it possessed an elegance and beauty that equaled, if not exceeded, the best examples of drow architecture.

Ryld cast a careful glance to the rooftops.

“No sign of devils,” he said. “Perhaps we’ve slain enough that they’ve decided not to trouble us anymore.”

“Unlikely,” Jezz said with a snort. “They’ve drawn back to organize another attack, and await the arrival of more powerful fiends before trying us again.”

“In that event, we should take advantage of the respite to do what we came to do,” Quenthel said. She too moved up to study the tower. I see nothing that encourages me to change our plan. Pharaun, cast your spell.”

“As you wish, dear Quenthel,” the wizard began, “though I must say that I do not entirely agree with the stratagem of—”

Angry glares from every other member of the company silenced Pharaun before he finished his protest. He sighed and fluttered his hand.

“Oh, very well.”

The wizard straightened and carefully spoke the words of his spell, the potent syllables ringing with magical power. An intangible wave seemed to roll over Ryld and the others. In its wake, Ryld felt strength and quickness drain from his limbs, and Splitter seemed to grow heavier in his hand, its gleaming blade suddenly dulled. Ryld was no wizard, but like any accomplished drow he had over the years armed himself with various magical devices and enchantments to increase his speed, his strength, the toughness of his armor, the deadliness of his weapons. Pharaun’s spell temporarily abolished all magic in the vicinity, leaving Ryld without the benefit of a single enchantment, and the other drow were similarly affected. The strangest effect of all was the sudden inertness of Quenthel’s fearsome whip. One moment the snakes hissed and writhed of their own accord, alert and vicious, and in the next they dangled like dead things from the weapons haft.

“Stay close to me, if you wish to stay within the spell’s effect,” Pharaun said.

He licked his lips nervously. Within the zone of antimagic he’d just created, he could cast no spells, and his own formidable array of enchanted devices and protections were inert, too. The wizard readied his hand crossbow, and loosened his dagger in its sheath.

“I feel like I’m going up against a dragon with a dinner knife,” he muttered.

Ryld clapped him on the shoulder and stood. He sheathed Splitter and drew his own crossbow.

“Yes, but your spell pulls the dragon’s fangs,” he said.

“Get moving,” Quenthel said.

She looked more than a little uncomfortable herself. Evidently she didn’t care for the unmoving silence of her weapon. Without waiting, she loped across the courtyard and bounded up the steps leading to the tower’s door. The others followed, blinking in the light of the approaching dawn. Ryld made a point of keeping watch on the ruined streets and walls behind the party, watching for the return of any of Myth Drannor’s monstrous denizens. The last thing they needed was a band of blood-maddened devils to descend on them while they’d suppressed their own magic.

At the door of the tower, Quenthel stepped aside for Jeggred. The hulking draegloth moved up and wrenched the door open, bounding inside. Masonry cracked and clattered to the stone steps. Quenthel followed hard on his heels, then Danifae and Valas. Ryld looked around one last time, and noticed Jezz hanging back.

“You’re not coming?” he asked the Jaelre.

“I intend to observe only,” Jezz replied. “Defeating the beholder is your task, not mine. If you survive, I’ll join you in a few minutes.”

Ryld scowled, but ducked inside. They were in a foyer of some kind, illuminated by slanting rays of dim light from holes in the ancient masonry. At the far end of the room, a second door stood. Once the foyer might have been a grand and impressive hall, but the tiles of the floor were cracked and split by deep green mold, and the proud banners and arrases that hung on the walls were little more than tattered rags. Pharaun stood close by, examining an intricate symbol clearly etched on one block of the floor. The whole emblem was a little larger than his hand, with a great complexity of curving lines and characters.

“A symbol of discord,” the wizard observed. “If we were not protected by the antimagic field, it would have caused us to fall on each other with murderous fury … but we hardly need a symbol for that, do we?”

“The next room?” Ryld asked.

Jeggred was already by the door. The draegloth opened it and quickly bounded through, followed by the others, into a round chamber not unlike the bottom of a well. Several of the floors above had long since collapsed, burying the ground floor in rubble and wreckage, with great wooden beams protruding from the mess. Heaps of masonry taller than a drow impeded movement.

Ryld stared into the empty space above, searching for any sign of the monster that was supposed to lurk there. The others did as well, but all was still.

“I see no beholder,” Jeggred said.

Ryld was about to reply when something above them responded in a horrible, croaking voice, “Of course not, fools. I do not wish to be seen!”

An instant later the creature lashed out at them. From somewhere nigh overhead, near the top of the ruined tower, several brilliant rays of magical energy—the deadly beams each of the monster’s eyes could fire in order to wound, paralyze, charm, or even disintegrate its foes—lanced downward at the drow, followed by a great blue bolt of lightning conjured by the unseen monster. Ryld could not see the magic’s source.

The rays and crackling bolt of electricity abruptly winked out just over the drow’s heads, negated by Pharaun’s zone of null magic. The creature tried again, bringing different rays to bear and incanting some horrible spell in its deep, droning voice, but those were no more successful.

Ryld aimed his crossbow up the shaft and guessed at the spot from which the rays had stabbed down at them, loosing his bolt with practiced skill. A squeal of pain overhead told him that he’d guessed his target well. Valas, Danifae, and Pharaun fired too, while Jeggred snatched up a good-sized brick in one fighting claw and hurled it up into the darkness with surprising swiftness. Not all of their barrage struck home, of course. Even if it had been visible, a beholder’s thick chitinous hide could deflect many attacks, and scoring a square hit on the creature when it was garbed in invisibility was more than a little difficult. Still, a couple of quarrels struck home.

The beholder mage obviously comprehended the nature of the company’s defense very quickly on its own. Instead of striking directly at the dark elves, it turned its deadly gaze on the wreckage of the upper floors. With one eye ray it burned through the base of a heavy wooden beam projecting from the tower’s stone wall, and with another it seized the timber in a telekinetic grip and flung it down at Valas, who was plying his shortbow to great effect. The scout threw himself aside just in time to avoid being crushed beneath the massive timber, but lost his balance and fell amid the rubble. Dust and the cracking of stone filled the air. The beholder instantly went to work on another wooden beam. In the meantime the creature changed its droning incantation and began another spell.

“We need to climb higher,” Quenthel said. “The creature is above Pharaun’s spell.”

“Do you propose that I should jump?” Pharaun asked. He ducked a head-sized chunk of masonry clattering down from above, and took aim with his crossbow again. “The antimagic that protects us also prevents us from flying or levitating up to get at—”

“For Lolth’s sake,” Ryld exclaimed. Sign!

Valas slipped and scrambled over to one side, seeking a better vantage. The scout drew his shortbow carefully, and loosed another arrow. The beholder above let out a horrible screech. The eye rays winked out, and debris stopped falling from overhead.

The beholder retreated back above the next intact floor, Valas signed. We’ll have to go up and get it.

Ryld studied the interior walls of the ruined towers carefully. Perhaps four of the lower floors were missing, leaving at least two or three intact above the ceiling of the highest floor they could see. At a guess, it was at least a sixty-foot climb, and the masonry was old and damaged. A skilled climber could make good use of the wreckage of the beams that formerly supported the lower floors, but it was nothing he cared to try.

I don’t like the climb, he replied.

Nor do I, Danifae added. The creature knows we’re protected by antimagic. Will it expect us to abandon the spell in order to get to it?

“Possibly,” said Pharaun. At a sharp look from Ryld he signed, One wonders if perhaps we should have studied this situation at greater length before agreeing to the task the Jaelre set us.

Pharaun, like the others, moved carefully across the floor of the chamber, peering upward.