Standing up high, they could see that menaces increased by the hour. At first only birds, but now larger animals, ventured into the valley to drink from the sunken spring. Noises carried: the insane laughing of hyenas, the screech of an owl, a crashing of pottery or roof tiles upset by some big body leaping.
Off to the east, in a space that had once been a park with dry fountains and tree stumps, ensued a weird battle. The skeleton of an elephant wagged its bony head and lashed out with bare tusks to protect a skeletal elephant calf that cowered against tall legs of bone. Undead mother and child were threatened by a quartet of live cheetahs. The quick-springing cats, so thin and gaunt they resembled skeletons, worked in pairs, two distracting the cow's front while two more nipped at her missing flanks. Amber and her friends marveled that the cats attacked walking bones. The hungry animals couldn't comprehend that a familiar target was unsuitable for eating.
Reluctant to quit their safe post, the three friends lingered a while, watching and listening, but finally they linked hands and slid down a wall onto heaped bricks. Reiver led, steering by dead reckoning past mounds and walls and gaping holes. They hadn't gone a hundred feet, slipping through an ancient villa, before they found trouble.
Behind a tall mansion with a caved-in roof lay a garden. In Cursrah land had been precious, so the garden was small, perhaps thirty feet square. Neat walkways ran between raised beds. Dry fountains sprouted from the walls. High walls and a thick iron gate threw shadows that prevented the friends from immediately spotting the danger. The first warning was a clicking of enormous claws.
Reiver dodged left into shadows. Hakiim was unsure which way to jump. Behind, Amber belted his shoulder with her capture noose so Hakiim stumbled right. Thus Amber retreated from whatever clicking thing rushed from shadows.
In near darkness, the daughter of pirates saw a bobbing coil curve above head height. At first she imagined an ostrich's head on a sinewy neck, but something low and wide also threatened her front. Startled, with no better defense, Amber snapped her capture noose like a whip. Wood thumped on a surface hard as a teak table. What could this thing be?
A lumpy claw clamped her thigh and squeezed. Amber gargled in pain as twin bony ridges ground at her flesh. In a flash, she knew what had attacked her. Forcing down the pain, Amber batted her sturdy staff low and sideways. A solid tonkl sounded. The claw on her thigh eased its grip, and Amber yanked her leg back. Throbbing, her leg betrayed her and she dropped to one numb knee on sandy tiles between garden rows.
Now, lower, Amber could recognize her assailant silhouetted against the whitewashed mansion. She'd "seen" these brutes before, on parade in the long-lost Palace of the Phoenix. A grotesque manscorpion of a long-lost race, for the creatures were thought extinct throughout Faerun-were still extinct, for this one was undead.
The creature bore a torso like a man's but with skin dark red and hard as an enameled shield. Its coarse face was fixed in a perpetual scowl. The scorpion thorax was segmented and propped by eight bowed legs, and two arms with pincer claws clamped Amber's thigh. The high-arcing tail stinger worried her most. It might be tipped with venom, still potent after centuries of burial. Of all the undead creatures reawakening in this nightmare city, Amber supposed the manscorpions most dangerous, for their desert-seasoned bodies had probably been half desiccated in life. This one had most likely been a mercenary privately hired by the villa's wealthy owner to protect the grounds. It was still intent on its task.
The horror clicked and clacked on the narrow garden path, closing toward Amber while snapping both claws. She was grateful it didn't carry a spear like the palace guards. Scooting backward on one good knee, dragging her deadened thigh, she jabbed at the thing's frowning face with the capture noose. Built low to the ground, the mannish head was below hers, but that meant the stinger tail could fly over its head to impale her. Perhaps it was best she kept to one knee.
"Amber!" Hakiim called from the right. "Which one's you?"
"I'm here! Stay back! I can fend it off-"
"I'll get behind it!"
Eager to help, but clumsy as ever, Hakiim dashed in the dark, stubbed his toes against a raised flower bed, yelped and tumbled, but gamely limped to circle the fiend. Amber yelled, but Hakiim didn't hear over his own panting and scuffling. Where was Reiver?
A clay flowerpot answered. Lobbed from the left, it shattered against the manscorpion's back. Flinching, the beast clicked half around, wary to watch Amber and yet meet the invisible assailant. Another flowerpot thumped in dried weeds. The next crashed on the creature's chest armor. The thing buzzed angrily.
Hakiim limped into the path behind the undead guardian. The manscorpion spun on clicking claws to face the apprentice. Amber saw it hesitate or take aim. The curved tail snapped down; evidently it could strike ahead and behind. Hakiim yelled and dodged as the thing slung its stinger again.
Wishing they'd avoided this garden altogether, Amber freed some rope and flipped her capture noose over the scorpion's mannish arm, then snugged the noose tight. The thing buzzed again, a cluttering noise deep in its gullet, and pulled, strong as a pony.
Amber yelled, "Hak, back up! Get clear so we can run."
Hakiim skipped backward, but that freed the manscorpion to whirl on Amber. Lunging, it tried to nip her belly with its pincer. By bracing her feet and pushing, Amber held the thing at bay. The pincer snapped at the rope. Cursing, she pulled again, wary of a stumble. If she got tangled with the manscorpion, she'd come in range of that stinger. Still, she was reluctant to disengage, not wanting to lose her staff or get spiked in the back. What to do?
"Push it this way!" Reiver appeared from the night carrying a long rectangle-a door. Evidently the thief had slipped the iron pintels off a garden shed, probably where he'd found the flowerpots. Skipping across dead flower beds, the thief hollered, "Get ready to run!"
From a raised flower bed, Reiver swung the awkward door to bat the manscorpion in the face. The thing's buzzing was constant, angry as a giant wasp. As it spun toward Reiver-evidently it wasn't very smart, and could only attack one person at a time-Amber loosed her capture noose.
Hakiim yelled, "Here's an exit!"
Dashing down a walkway toward Hakiim's voice, her thigh wincing at every step, Amber called, "Leave it, Reive-ow! Damn. Run!"
"Coming!"
Making sure Amber was clear, Reiver pitched the door and dodged in its shelter past the manscorpion. He almost made it, but at the last second the guardian's prehensile tail lashed.
Pausing at the door, Amber shrieked as the stinger lanced Reiver in the kidneys and he stumbled. The thief recovered, vaulted a fallen pedestal, and jumped after Amber and Hakiim into a high-walled alley.
"Reiver!" Amber caught her friend's arm. "It stung you-are you poisoned?"
"Not I," Reiver laughed with delight at being alive. Bumbling along in the dark, he boasted, "My camel suffered the damage!"
"Camel?" chirped the two.
"You won't believe it," chuckled Reiver.
Pushing along in the lead, Hakiim insisted, "Believe wha-Shoes of the Shoon!"
The alley gave onto a side street, and Hakiim stepped out directly between two black-robed bandits.
Twisting aside too late, Hakiim was knocked into a wall by a heavy crossbow batting for his head. Rather than defend herself, Amber made the mistake of propping Hakiim. The other bandit slashed down with her scimitar. Amber yelped as the blade flashed, and her wrist blazed with pain. Horror stunned her, and she thought, she cut my hand off!
The flat of the scimitar swung at Amber's face, and she dropped flat, sprawling on the ground to avoid it. Numb fingers pronged the dirt and pain shot to Amber's elbow, but the sting let her understand the attack. The scimitar stroke had been made with the back of the blade. Amber cursed. They want to capture us alive for the White Flame, she thought. For talking as loud as that, we deserve to be punished. A brutal kick bounced her off a wall, and she slumped, half stunned.