By then, all the drow were converging on El. She fled back to her open fighting ground with the blades of the fastest outcasts slicing at her backside. More of her leathers fell away as she sprang across a drift of tangled and blackened drow bodies, spun around, and ducked low in a lunge that spitted one pursuing dark elf who was too close and moving too fast to stop himself in time.
He went down noisily and messily, taking El’s sword with him, and she sprang back again to give herself space and time enough to snatch up some swords from the fallen before the sixteen surviving outcasts reached her.
She had a scepter that could blast down one drow at a time, if it behaved like all the other scepters of the same design she’d seen in the past, but she needed time enough to use it on one obliging target after another. The bite of just one sword would make it explode-and her ironguard would help this shapely body not at all against that.
Gnaw-worms as long as a drow arm wriggled down the tunnel walls, drawn by the smell of spilled blood and cooked death. The wizard’s spellstops hung in the air around El like unpleasant smells, clinging to her. They would hamper rather than truly stop spells, but just one of them would slow magics too much to keep her alive in a sword fight-and the dung pile had cast six of them, hrast him.
The drow were wary of her now, and moving slowly to ring her, keeping their blades ready and their eyes on her.
“I don’t like fighting,” Elminster murmured aloud, to no one in particular. “I’d rather be left alone, to spend my days messing around with the Art. Trying new things, creating, feeling the flows …”
Inside his head, Symrustar nodded wordless agreement and approval, as together they recalled magic unleashed, beautiful glows rushing out into the night …
The drow were coming.
El backed to the wall before the sixteen could encircle her, yielding most of the flat stone floor so as to have solid rock at her back. All they had to do was come at her four at once, one to each side and two in front of her, and not let her draw one of them into another’s way … and she couldn’t hope to parry them all.
Of the spells she’d just burned into her mind, she was using the ironguard, and could see an immediate use for the guardian blades, the timetheft, and the-oh, but hey, now! If she … aye …
Yes, Symrustar agreed.
She mustn’t forewarn them. Cast the whirlblade storm in careful silence and then hold it in abeyance, waiting until they were all emboldened enough to draw near. Aye, go down fighting, and let them think they’d slain her. There, ’twas done …
And here they came.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The drow advanced on El from all sides, their eyes baleful. They moved in slowly, readying their handbows.
Hrast. She crouched, the swords she’d snatched from their fallen fellows held ready, the blades turned sideways to serve as tiny shields. Yet she’d have to be falcon-fast, and have the very luck of all the gods, to deflect a fired dart before it struck her.
The silver fire could burn away poison, but oh, did it hurt. Her eyes and throat, she must protect above all else-
They all loosed at once, many darts singing in at her.
El flung herself aside, along the rock wall, slashing the air in front of her face with both blades in a wild crisscross flurry that sent three darts or more clanging aside.
A dart smote her forearm hard and stuck there, where her armor had been hacked away. Another ripped into her left breast, and a third hit hard high on the inside of her right thigh.
The drow charged, flinging their handbows down and running hard. Most of the darts had missed her, but a warm burning spreading swiftly through her told El the three that had struck her bore poison of some sort, probably spider venom. If it was handspider or stinglash, it would slow her and eat away at her, numbing and eventually paralyzing her. She had to end this swiftly.
El rushed to meet the closest drow, cut at his face, then ducked aside to slash at the next nearest. Then she spun and raced for the wall, trying to get back to the spot she’d chosen to make her stand. They came after her like wolves.
When she pretended to stumble, then fall, they pounced. Only to watch her roll, spin around on her shoulders, and kick up at them. She boosted one rushing drow over her and sent another staggering aside, then rolled after him and viciously sliced his ankles out from under him.
He toppled, shrieking, and El sprang up, slashed out his throat, and danced forward to meet the next wave of charging drow: four dark elves in motley armor, one lurching along on a leg that had been wounded long ago. Beyond his bobbing shoulder she briefly caught sight of gnaw-worms wriggling among the rocks, seeking the dead, and the drow wizard spending a spell on another arrivaclass="underline" a roaming wild spider he might think she’d summoned. Eerie fire burst into being around the arachnid, making it convulse-and then El was too busy fighting four drow at once to see more.
Two used small knives to stab at her, wielding their swords only to fend her off. Those knives glowed, which meant they knew she was protected against unenchanted steel. The other two drow bore no glowing weapons, so El paid attention only to their arms and movements, to keep them from knocking her down, ignoring the blades that passed through her like smoke. That let her slip behind one, so a knife meant to gut her slammed hilt-deep into his belly instead.
El elbowed that groaningly wounded drow into the warrior behind him, and sprinted away from them all to fence for a moment with yet another outcast, who gave ground, his face tight in alarm as he defended himself, seeking only to parry.
She spun away from him and ran, heading again for the spot she’d chosen for her stand, the smooth rock that was lower than its surroundings. This time she made it.
Spinning around again to face her foes and gulping in deep breaths, fighting to get her wind back, she watched them come for her again.
In a tight pack this time, angry and wary at how many of their fellows had fallen, the wizard crouching low behind them.
“That won’t save him,” El murmured aloud, slow anger beginning to stir in her. She had her breath back now; let them come …
Sound the warhorns, Symrustar murmured in her head, sounding amused. The real bloodletting begins.
There were fourteen coming for her now. The fifteenth was down among the rocks behind them, rocking and groaning as he clutched his deeply stabbed belly. The boldest gnaw-worms were already converging on him.
Time for a little goading. El gave the advancing drow a sneer, waved the three darts still hanging from her where she’d left them-to let her blood spill more slowly than if she’d plucked them out-like a grand hostess showing off treasures, then struck a hand-on-hip pose and beckoned her foes mockingly.
One drow promptly shouted a war cry. He and four others rushed El, the rest following more slowly.
Good. Now for the ruse. She met them with both blades, seeking to slay rather than defend herself, feigning agony when two drow swords slashed through her. One blade left behind the fresh fire of more spider venom, but neither did her any other harm-as she spitted one warrior hilt-deep on her sword ere letting go of it, and slashed open the face of another.
They all went down together in a heap, one drow dying and another blinded by his spurting blood and oblivious to everything except the agony of holding his face together with both hands. El cut his throat in the same slash that drove her blade into the neck of the drow beside him, who was busily scrabbling to pick up the blade he’d dropped in his fall.