“Now!” Sadira hissed, still clenching the granite block between her lips.
Without the slightest hesitation, the elves lifted their bows and fired over the heads of their children. As the astonished templars cried out, Katza yelled, “Run, children! Over here!”
By the time Sadira had pushed herself free of the hole, five templars lay dead with arrows in their skulls. The elves had missed only the woman holding Cyne. As the other bolted to freedom, the templar drew her blade across the boy’s throat. He did not die without a fight, managing to smash an elbow into her ribs as his lifeblood gushed out of the wound.
Screaming in rage, Katza rushed the woman with her dagger. Before she had taken three steps, six bowstrings hummed and a flight of arrows shot past. This time, they did not miss their target.
Sadira took the granite block from her mouth and threw it over the children’s heads, uttering her incantation. In the same instant, a hidden Nibenese sorcerer cast a spell, and a spray of rainbow-colored lights shot from the thicket. The sorceress and her companions were momentarily blinded.
Sadira heard a series of loud crackles as her own spell took effect. Though she could not see it, she knew that a high wall of granite was sprouting from the ground where her stone had landed. The barrier had been intended to serve as a temporary shield while the elves took their children and fled into the tunnel below, but she suspected the enemy’s spell would interfere with their plans.
Hearing the patter of small feet coming toward her, Sadira yelled, “Into the tunnel and back to the well chamber. Tie yourselves to the rope and tell Magnus to pull you up.”
A moment of silence followed, and Sadira feared that their children would not obey. Then Huyar snapped, “Do as she says!”
As the children clambered into the hole, Sadira summoned the energy for another spell. It seemed to take forever for her vision to clear, but at least she could make out the silhouettes of the Sun Runners around her.
Only Huyar and Grissi seemed to be recovering from the spell. The others were staring into the air with blank expressions on their faces, mumbling in awe and making no effort to shake the effects of the spray of color.
Huyar grabbed the nearest warrior and began slapping him. “Wake up!” His efforts had no apparent effect on the elf.
Sadira heard the hiss of arrows flying through the air, then a half-dozen dazed elves dropped to the ground without so much as a gasp. The sorceress looked toward the wall she had created. Three Nibenese soldiers, their tabards bearing the insignia of the royal cilops, were rushing around each end of the granite barrier.
The sorceress reached for another spell component, then heard the clatter of clawed feet scrambling across a patch of rocky ground. The Nibenese unleashed another flight of arrows, and this time Grissi was among those who fell. Huyar gave up trying to wake his dazed companions and reached for his sword.
“It’ll do no good!” Sadira said. “Dhojakt’s coming.”
“Then I hope he tears your eyes out,” the elf said, jumping into the hole.
Although Huyar did not know it, it occurred to Sadira that he had done exactly the right thing. She lowered herself into the opening until only her head and shoulders were protruding from it. While keeping a watchful eye on the Nibenese, she continued to draw the energy for as spell, but it did not reach for any components.
A moment later, Dhojakt came around the corner of her rock wall. In the moonlight, she could see him clearly enough to tell that his nose was swollen and purple, with a single huge lesion where there had once been two flaring nostrils.
Dhojakt’s black eyes went immediately to where Sadira was hiding. The sorceress saw a hateful light flicker in the pupils, then he said, “I thought this would be the easiest way to lure you away from your protectors.”
The prince pointed a finger in her direction, and Sadira allowed herself to drop into the tunnel below. Her body still tingled with the magical energy she had summoned, she turned and sprinted after the sound of Huyar’s fleeing feet. A loud sputter echoed behind her, and she glanced back to see black dust billowing through the hole. Thankfully, the cloud settled to the floor and did not spread down the passageway. Within moments, flaxen rays of moonlight were once again streaming through the opening.
Sadira looked away from the hole and waited until her elven vision began to function, then ducked into the cramped aisle where she had seen the halfling. There, she stopped and listened. Huyar’s footfalls had grown silent, and the only sound was the waterfall whispering in the abyss at the far end of the corridor.
A moment later, she heard the Nibenese archers enter the grotto, with the rattle of Dhojakt’s many legs close behind. Intentionally dragging a foot along the floor so they would hear her moving, Sadira crawled through the passageway-being careful not to look into any of the strange crypts, lest she witness another moving halfling.
Upon reaching the end she ducked around the corner to wait. In one hand, she held her dagger. With the other, she withdrew a small piece of hardened tree sap from her satchel. The milky nugget had been shaped to look like a lump of crystallized acid.
Soon, she heard the Nibenese soldiers crawling through the passage. As she had hoped, they were groping their way blindly. There had been no time to light torches, and, since he could not draw energy through the grotto’s white stones, Dhojakt had been unable to use his magic to help them see. At the end of the line, his claws ticking impatiently as he forced his men forward, came the prince.
Sadira watched as the first three men crawled from the small tunnel, their nervous faces glowing bright red. She held perfectly still until they realized they had left the cramped corridor behind and began to rise. At that moment, she attacked, slashing her dagger across the first man’s face and kicking him off the ledge in the same swift motion.
Sadira barely had to attack the second guard. He lashed out blindly with an obsidian short sword, the momentum of his swing carrying his blade toward the abyss. She stepped behind the swipe and used her shoulder to nudge him over the edge. He had not yet started to scream when she drove her dirk under the third guard’s chin. The man died with an astonished gurgle, then, as she stepped away, collapsed onto the ledge.
“What’s happening there?” demanded Dhojakt’s angry voice. “Go!”
The fourth guard obeyed, scrambling forward over his dead comrade’s body. Her body tingling with the thrill of combat and the magical energy she had summoned earlier, Sadira stepped forward again. This time the sorceress drove her blade into the hollow at the base of the man’s skull.
The fifth guard froze at the exit and would not move.
“I said go!” Dhojakt screamed.
The fifth and sixth soldiers were catapulted into the abyss as the angry prince rushed forward. Dhojakt poked his head out of the passageway and looked toward Sadira.
“You’ve caused me enough trouble!” he spat. His bony mouthparts were fully extended, dripping venom and clacking in fury.
Sadira backed away, keeping her dagger in front of her and the hardened tree sap hidden in her other hand. Dhojakt did not even try to summon the energy for a spell, no doubt having already discovered it would not work. Instead, he seemed only too happy to leave the safety of the tunnel and follow the sorceress onto the precarious ledge.
As the prince crawled over bodies of his two dead guards, Sadira stopped. To her right opened a dark passage. Though it offered the sorceress some small reassurance as a possible escape route, she suspected that if she needed to flee, she would not survive long enough to use it.
Dhojakt wasted no time attacking. Once he was past the dead men, he rushed forward-but not along the ledge where Sadira had expected him to approach. Instead, his centipede’s body slipped up the wall, and he approached while hanging from the side of the cavern. When he reached the doorway at the sorceress’s side, he stopped and reached down to grasp her.