Descent into the Depths of the Earth (38 page)

“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, and 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.

Oh, I
so
enjoy the way we work together!

The prisoners stayed in place as the captives at the far end
of the line began to drag the huge chain out of long line of manacles. Jus
hacked lengths of chain into sections, passing them to prisoners to use as
flails.

“You have a choice: die like dogs on the altar, or kill the
drow!” The Justicar hurled lengths of chain to the eager half-orcs at his side.
“We outnumber them twenty to one. Charge when I say charge, or just lie here and
die!”

Overhead, the gate spell crashed into life, the arch of bone
glowing and shimmering as a path was forced into another world.

Escalla looked at the black widows swarming up the temple
steps.

“When we get outta here, we’re going somewhere totally devoid
of damned spiders!” Cursing, Escalla stripped herself naked right before the
prisoners’ eyes. She tossed her scroll case to the Justicar and shouted, “You
idiots do what Jus tells you if you want to stay alive!”

As Jus worked his way through dense packs of prisoners,
freeing the rows one by one, the distant drow choirs increased the tempo of
their maddened hymn. Escalla made a flash of light as she changed her shape into
a big spider, making human captives cringe away from her in panic. The spider
picked up the lich staff and Polk’s bottle in one clawed leg, then turned and
sped toward the mistress of the drow.

“Outta the way, people! Come on! Spider comin’ through.
Move!”

Escalla the spider scuttled through the ranks of prisoners
nearest to the altar. Halflings were being dragged toward the altar stone by a
dozen guards. The priestesses beside the bone gate finally unlinked their hands,
drained by the effort of casting their spell. The white-robed faerie stood
before the gate, arms open in a gesture of supreme triumph. Behind the faerie,
Lolth plunged her whole head into the vast, deep bowl of blood, storing up life
energy to allow her to seize the Nightshade key.

Escalla the spider leaped onto a drow’s back, dodged a horde
of black widows who tried to drag her along in their dance, and leaped over to a
spider-centaur’s back. Awkwardly clutching her bottle and staff, she tried to
hide herself amongst the chaos. A halfling was flung on the altar and horribly
killed, the death sawing right through Escalla’s bones. She paused, uncorked
Polk’s magic whiskey bottle, and then bellowed down into the open neck.

“Faerie wine! Faerie wine!
Vintage sixty-three!”

The bottle began to gush with wine. Escalla joined a cluster
of excited black widows that surged to the side of the blood bowl as the latest
corpse was strung up above. Sixty corpses now lay in a heap beside the altar,
the bodies sliding and tangling. Drow worked fast, killing, hanging, cutting
free—a frenzy of activity. Escalla jumped onto the bowl’s rim, saw Lolth as the
monster plunged her head deep and drank, then hurled the magic whiskey bottle
into the blood. The enchanted wine spread through the blood in an invisible
swirl.

A drow high priestess half-caught the splash of the bottle
being tossed into the bowl. Whirling, the priestess saw a spider clutching a
rune staff perched at the edge of the bowl. The woman froze, and an instant
later Escalla had leaped onto her face and bit with poisoned fangs. The drow
fired a wild spell, hitting another drow who screamed and simply withered away
to ash. Crashing the runestaff into the drow’s face, Escalla blasted the woman’s
head apart.

“Hands off! No one touches the faerie!”

The dead drow flew back across the temple steps. Back in
faerie form, naked and drenched in blood, Escalla looked up, her lich staff
smoking in her hands. Above her, a row of headless corpses poured blood into the
golden bowl. At the bone arch, a masked faerie in white stared at her, utterly
appalled. Drow priestesses, still dazed, turned to look at the intruder in
shock. Guards paused in mid cut as they butchered screaming victims. Surrounded
by stares, Escalla wiped blood from her face.

“You people have pissed me off
for the last damned time!”

Escalla thundered a magic cloud across the drow. The temple
steps were instantly swept with boiling venomous steam. Drow screamed and died,
drow ducked and dived, priestesses sheltered behind magic spells or crawled
hacking on the ground. Naked, bloodstained, and screaming in battle frenzy,
Escalla lunged at the enemy faerie as the creature whirled to flee.

* * *

From the prison pen, the Justicar gave a huge bellow of rage.
He whiplashed his magic rope and dragged one drow screaming down into the mob,
where captives pounded the creature into a bloody pulp. Other drow fired
crossbows, and Jus parried three bolts in a blur of steel. The drow stopped to
reload, and Jus crashed his blade into the palisade, blasting through the
palings. Two thousand enraged prisoners surged behind him in a mob that boiled
with rage.

Crossbows hammered a storm of steel at the Justicar. Quarrels
ricocheted from his stoneskin spell, then the white blade ploughed through the
drow. Blood exploded as elves died, and then the prisoners smashed into their
guards in a maddened storm of steel. Chains flailed, and drow screamed.

At the heart of the maelstrom, Jus caught a drow sword as it
flashed toward him and severed the drow’s arm. Waving his sword, the big man
bellowed and led an enraged wave toward the temple steps. A hundred guards were
staggering, reeling, and dying as they left Escalla’s deadly cloud.

Prisoners crashed into the drow with a noise like exploding
worlds. Steel and flesh crashed home, the prisoners clawing into the drow like a
tidal wave of rage.

Jus bellowed through the cavern, making the whole temple
shudder,
“Kill them! Kill them all!”

Chains, fists, and swords struck home. Drow fought in a mad
panic. Somewhere in the distance, a wild stutter sounded as Henry’s crossbow
began firing at something. Jus stormed up the steps as lightning bolts ploughed
into the human mob, the drow screaming in frenzy and rushing down the temple
steps to meet fists and rage with steel. The Justicar parried a spell, the white
sword smashing lightning back into the drow, then hacked madly into the drow
sorcerers.

Blood flowed, hundreds died, and still Lolth drank. With her
head buried deep in the steaming, bloody foam, the demon mistress ignored the
chaos around her as she slaked a thirst and began to glow with unholy power.

* * *

At the tunnel entrance, the echo of charging feet had become
an unending drum roll. Polk lifted his head, pitched a magic light stone through
the entrance, and saw at least a dozen drow racing toward them.

“Here they come!”

The sudden light bought them a moment as the drow slowed to
shield their eyes. Private Henry opened fire—spaced, careful shots, each one of
them a tribute to his two long weeks of military service. The first shot spat
sparks from a drow’s mail armor. The second pierced his target, the drugged
quarrel paralyzing his victim almost before the creature screamed. Third and
fourth shots flickered through the air, making one drow curse and clutch his
thigh before he collapsed.

The fire came sharp and fast. Sure that half a dozen
crossbowmen covered the entrance, the remaining drow fell back into the shadows,
awaiting enough reinforcements to carry out a headlong rush.

Polk shoved crossbow bolts into the top of Henry’s magazine.
He kept one worried eye upon the tunnel mouth as everything suddenly turned
still and silent.

“We got three of them.” Jubilant, Polk stared at the tunnel.
“Do you think that’s it?”

The temple cavern behind them suddenly shook as thousands of
human voices rose in a battle roar. Amongst it all, the massive bellow of the
Justicar and the screaming of his sword almost tore the rocks apart. As if on
signal, a solid rain of crossbow bolts tore wildly from the tunnel, the bolts
striking rocks near Polk and flying uselessly through the sky. With a manic
scream, a dozen drow came charging from the passage, throwing bows aside and
drawing swords as they howled in bloodcurdling hate. Henry fired his crossbow,
the weapon whirring as a solid sheet of arrows blasted a drow leader off his
feet.

The bolts flew into the tunnel in a terrifying swarm. A drow
officer lifted his sword and screamed as he charged. Suddenly a stream of death
ripped across his chest, and the drow spun in a mist of blood. Three more elves
raced past the corpse, only to jerk back with arrows jutting from their flesh.