Book VIII, Part 16
“Scatter!” Cal cried, but even as the shout echoed against the cliffs, the companions were leaping to action.
Benzan drew and fired in the smooth, practiced motion of a veteran of the bow who’d survived dozens of deadly situations. Even as the long shaft lanced into the air, he was running, nimbly darting over the broken landscape of uneven boulders that fronted both sides of the twisting track. The elven brothers were also plying their bows, and Fariq was holding his magical rapier in one hand, and a long black wand in the other, from which a pair of magical bolts streaked up into the air to meet the diving creatures.
Time seemed to slow as everything happened at once. Benzan’s arrow intersected with the diving arc of the first beast, the enchanted missile flaring with magical flames as it sank into its chest. The creature twisted its thick neck toward the fleeing tiefling, and then the air seemed to... shimmer in a tight column that momentarily connected the two beings. Cal, even though he was a good distance away, felt the buzzing in his head return, more penetrating and sharp, as though someone had touched the tip of a dagger to a point inside his skull.
Benzan, however, the obvious target of the attack, was far worse off. The tiefling staggered and cried out, and as he turned Cal could see fresh blood trailing down his face from his nostrils. Other than the faint shimmer, there had been no physical evidence of the attack, yet clearly the creatures possessed some sort of magical power that allowed them to strike from a distance.
That was confirmed a heartbeat later, as the second creature lowered its head toward the rest of them. The familiar buzzing returned, but this time was accompanied by a sudden explosion as the ground erupted from under them. The elves shouted and dove for cover as shards of shattered rock battered them, and Cal staggered as something hard glanced off of his temple. Gingerly he felt the point of impact, feeling the warm slick of blood.
The two beasts flew over them in a rush of air, flapping their wings to gain altitude as they began to wing around for another pass. Cal turned, and as he did, he saw the first creature already swooping into its dive, its claws extended...
“Fariq!” he cried in warning, as he saw the creature’s target.
The Calishyte spun, but it looked as though there was no way that the man could avoid that snatching claw. But to Cal’s amazement, the sorcerer darted into the attack, leaping into a flip that barely cleared the snap of the creature’s claw. As he spun past a flash of silver flared in the sunlight, and when he landed again on the stones, a line of blood trailed from his rapier. The dragon-beast beat its wings furiously and pulled upward and away to the left, narrowly avoiding the looming cliff, trailing blood from the gash in its leg.
“On to the cave!” Cal cried. He paused only a moment to call upon a haste spell, giving him enough of a boost to keep up with his longer-legged friends. The elves had already joined Benzan, who still looked a bit dazed, with a garish streak of red across his face where he’d wiped the blood trailing from his nose with the back of his hand.
“Here they come again!” Eloren cried in warning, lifting his bow for another shot. The first two creatures had turned and were diving again, their huge jaws open in a silent cry. The buzzing noise returned once more, precursor to another attack.
“Go!” Cal yelled, not pausing as he rushed past the others toward the black opening in the cliff. It was still far, too far, but if they stayed out here...
The elves had fired and were already running, and while their arrows were true the tiny missiles failed to divert the huge creatures from their pass. Another pulse sent up a shower of debris as a cluster of piled stones exploded, but the companions were scattered enough so that only Valdis took a few glancing hits that were not serious. But as the second creature dove in, swooping deeper toward the valley floor, the elf’s eyes widened in sudden fear.
“Eloren!”
The Harper Scout turned too late, and while he tried to dive out of the way of the claw, it snapped hard around his shoulders and drew him struggling into the sky. Fariq blasted the creature with another pair of magic missiles from his wand, but the creature barely noticed the impacts as it swooped back up and to the side to avoid the sheer cliff face. Its momentum was too great, however, and abruptly it released its captive, spreading its wings wide and drawing its body back so that its thick legs absorbed the impact of the collision. With its massive claws clasping the rock it used its momentum to drive it higher. For a moment the beast seemed to be running up a vertical cliff, then it pushed off and spread its wings again, flapping with powerful strokes to lift its ponderous bulk back into the sky.
Eloren was driven into the cliff face with a sickening crunch, and for a split instant he hung there, splayed out against the rock. Then he was falling, plummeting the fifty feet to the hard stones at the base of the cliff, landing just a short distance from the dark opening to the tunnel complex.
“No!” Valdis cried, reaching his brother’s limp form just moments after he struck, as his body settled into a dip between several protruding rocks.
“Again!” Fariq warned, and Cal looked up to see another of the creatures diving. With the companions now closer to the cliffs, the creatures were taking a more circuitous route, sweeping around the valley in a broad circle and coming parallel to the massive stone face to avoid another collision. All of the creatures bore wounds, now, but none of them, even the one that had suffered the glancing impact on the rock face, appeared to be hindered by their injuries.
Cal looked over at Fariq, and saw the man’s outline shimmer, then disappear. Nodding to himself, he continued running toward the fallen elf, the words of a healing song already coming to his lips.
Even before he reached him, it was clear by the look on his brother’s face that he was too late.
Benzan cried out in defiance and fired his bow aggressively, scoring another hit before diving behind cover before the inevitable counter from the flying attacker. The ground erupted where the tiefling had been standing, but he’d apparently avoided the worst of it; as the dragon-creature wheeled off again, Benzan rose from his hiding place and fired another arrow that caught the beast on the hindquarters.
Another of the creatures was already swooping into another dive, coming lower this time, extending its claws as if to try another grab. Valdis, his face stricken, carried the limp form of his brother toward the nearby slit in the cliffs, Cal right behind him. The gnome saw a chance to confuse their foes, and quickly cast an illusion of a swooping roc, its wingspan easily as broad as that of the creature, that flew down from above on a collision course with the diving creature.
But to his surprise, the creature did not react at all, just flew right through the silent image. There was no time to puzzle out the significance of that, however, for the buzzing had started again, and Cal glanced over his shoulder to see a second creature sweeping down from behind them, starting its own dive.
“Go!” Benzan shouted, throwing Cal’s own advice back at him, urging the gnome ahead of him as they rushed toward the narrow cavern entrance. The creatures had spread their wings and slowed, obviously intent now on landing as their prey disappeared into the opening in the cliff face.
Cal and Benzan ran into the darkness, which seemed to swallow them up despite the narrow shaft of diffuse light that penetrated from the opening in the cliff wall. Valdis had already carried his brother’s corpse further into the cleft, to where the opening of the first dark tunnel waited as a wall of absolute black. Beyond that, the companions knew, waited the sundered guardians that had warded the complex, and the network of passages and chambers that culminated in the black portal that was their destination.
“Fariq?” Benzan asked, looking around. He, of course, was not hindered at all by the darkness.
“Here,” came a voice from nowhere, close by.
“We’ve got to get deeper in,” Cal said, already moving toward the dark tunnel. They could all hear the creatures moving around outside, the noise drawing closer quickly.
“Eloren?” Fariq’s voice came, softly.
“He’s dead,” Cal said. “But Dana should be able to help him, when she finds us.”
“Dana...” Benzan said. He abruptly stopped, turning back toward the narrow shaft of light behind them. “We’ve got to kill those things, before she and Lok...”
“I know,” Cal said. “But we’ve got to have a plan, otherwise they’ll rip us to pieces with those blasts of theirs...”
As if to punctuate his statement, a dark shadow fell over the opening outside, and the evil buzzing filled their heads in a cascade of sudden pain. The companions staggered as the sonic pulse reverberated off the confined space, until the walls themselves seemed to vibrate around them.
“Deeper!” Cal shouted over the noise, barely audible but filling their heads from within. The companions staggered into the tunnel, Fariq calling up a globe of shimmering light that drove back the shadows enough for them to see where they were going. Benzan turned and with a curse fired an arrow toward the opening outside. That attack was rewarded by a cracking that was a very real and nasty sound, as the creatures turned their assault upon the stone walls of the cavern itself.
“They’re trying to collapse the tunnel on us!” Benzan shouted in sudden horror.
Cracks appeared in the stone ceiling as the vibrations continued to build, and the buzzing turned into a whine that reached a pounding crescendo in their heads. Dust began to fall, forming a thick cloud that caught in the rays of light that filtered in from outside.
“We’ve got to—” Benzan cried, staggering back toward the entrance, fumbling for his sword.
He was cut off as the ceiling exploded, and the world fell in upon him.
Great story as usual, I look forward to reading more.
