Talal stood, balancing on his heels. He trotted clumsily to the cavern wall and placed his bare palms on the stone. He shifted his weight, drawing himself up to his toes and holding the position until he was satisfied the substance would support his weight. Grunting, he hauled himself up the sheer stone wall, moving much faster than the halfling and his comrades had dared.
Meisha kept her eyes on the night hunters as Talal scuttled across the ceiling to the body. He stopped and freed his arms to dangle upside down, using his swinging momentum to carry him to the stalactite. He grabbed the stone tip protruding through the unfortunate Braedrin's chest and hung on with one hand. The other he positioned at the man's back and pushed, grimacing as the corpse slid off the stone into the crook of his arm.
The weight was too much, even for the magic. Reluctantly, Talal let the body fall away into space. Braedrin hit the floor with a loose thud, his arms and legs caught clumsily beneath him. Talal pumped his legs, swinging up to grab the ceiling again. Blood dripped from the stalactite, and the bats began to stir.
Talal turned, heading back toward the wall. The bats glided in a narrow circle and went for him at the same time.
Meisha was waiting. She stroked a hand over the flame column, her eyes widening as if she awoke to a lover's touch. Her irises became rings of fire as she envisioned the shaping, how to use the raw power within her to sculpt the spell.
A pair of arrows—each as long as her forearm—burst from the twisting column and streaked toward Talal. The boy shrieked and ducked his head, but the flame arrows veered away from him to impale the bats. Leather wings caught fire and fell from the air. The bats' tails whipped uselessly against the ground. Meisha watched them smolder as the light died out of her eyes.
Blinking, she felt herself come out of the grip of the magic as Talal dropped down beside her. A ghost of the expression he'd worn earlier—as he watched Varan play with his toy—passed over his face when he looked at Meisha.
The Harper felt a wave of regret. The boy had lived in Amn all his life, and had probably never seen or cared to see Art such as this. "Please don't be frightened," she said, trying to smile. "It's not so worlds-shaking terrible as it all seems."
Talal squatted next to Braedrin's body, his back to her. "Don't they all say that?" he muttered.
He started to say something else, but a tentacle roped him from above, jerking his head to one side.
"Talal!" Meisha bit back the spell that instinctively jumped to mind. She followed the tentacle to the corner, between two rock outcroppings, where a mass of gray, mottled flesh writhed.
With a gesture, Meisha cast the flame rope in the direction of the surrounding stone. The creature wailed at the brightness but did not loosen its grip on the boy.
Braedrin's fate, Meisha thought. A choker, by all the gods, and it had a decent grip.
Talal's eyes bulged as his throat disappeared under layers of spongy flesh. The choker flexed muscles that had no clear definition, trying to yank the boy off his feet, but Talal dug in, the sticky substance keeping him rooted in place.
Looping one arm around the tentacle, Meisha prepared to cast another spell. If she could heat the thing's flesh sufficiently, the pain would make it release the boy. She'd used the same spell to try to escape from Kall, long ago. Somehow, she didn't believe the choker would be as tenacious as the merchant's son.
Her hands began to glow with the weight of the spell. Heat rose to bathe her face and she heard Talal's choked whimpering.
She looked to the boy, afraid she might be too late. Talal's panic-stricken eyes met her own, and Meisha realized he was afraid of the heat. He was choking to death, but he feared her magic more.
Meisha hesitated, then released the spell on a muttered curse. She drew a dagger from her boot. The ropey tentacle was too thick to slice in half, so she brought the steel down overhand into its soft flesh. The choker writhed, releasing its prey and scuttling back.
Talal collapsed on the ground, clutching his throat, and bats poured from a hollow in the upper corner of the chamber.
The light from the flame rope faltered as bats—not as large as the first two, but still impressive—filled the room. Meisha sank to her knees, her back throbbing from wielding the dagger. She felt warm moisture that was not sweat soaking through her jerkin.
Stupid, Meisha thought. She'd reopened her wound. The bats would love her now. Talal was still on the floor, half-hidden by a cloud of dark bodies. Meisha felt the rush of air from leathery wings stir her hair and clothing. Bites stabbed her flesh, a few at first, but gradually increasing as the bats narrowed their attacks. By some luck, the choker faired no better. The bats did not discriminate in their frenzied biting, and choker screams rang out, echoing Talal's frantic cries.
A bat hit Meisha from behind, pinning her on her stomach to get at the source of the blood. Frantically, she rolled, but her vision was all leather and claws. Meisha stabbed with the dagger, making a slit in the creature's wing. Slashing diagonally, she split the leather curtain in half and scrambled free.
She crawled to Talal and rolled the boy onto his stomach. Slapping the bats away, she lay flush against his back. Blood from a dozen bites soaked her as she wrapped her arms around him.
"Close your eyes and don't move," Meisha said against his ear. Without waiting for him to comply, she chanted a spell and prayed the pain wouldn't make her lose consciousness.
The flame column wavered and dropped, falling into itself like a water spike in a dying fountain. Plunging straight down, the fire emptied into Meisha's spine.
The Harper came up with a howl, her back arching. Flames burst from her wound, her eyes, and her mouth, smothering the bats in a blanket of charnel heat. She hoped her body was enough to protect Talal from the upward blast of flame. The oily scent of burning meat filled the air as bats rained around her.
Meisha came down on her back, gulping air that tasted foul but felt sweet on her lungs. Dizziness caused the cavern's ceiling to waver and bend, but at least there were no more bats.
She looked around for the choker and found it huddling out of range of the fire cloud, dangling from the stalactite where Braedrin's body had been. Lambent eyes watched them in the flickering light from the burning corpses.
It was weighing how much of a fight they had left to offer, Meisha thought.
Angrily, she flung out an arm, focusing on her tingling fingertips, gathering power until.. . there, just enough. A tongue of flame sparked from her finger, illuminating her nail with a purple glow. She followed that glow with her eyes as she traced a circle above her head and around Talal's shoulder, past their feet and back up, encasing them in a ring of power only Meisha could see.
"Trothliese!" she cried, and fire sprang up where her finger had traced. The ward would last, even if she lost consciousness, but if the choker got brave and crossed the flames or dropped down on top of them, they'd be dead. Meisha hoped the fire and the deep dagger wound would be enough to convince the creature not to risk it.
She lay back, letting the flames from the circle wash over her. Her eyes slid closed. She had no strength left.
She awoke sometime later as if from a fever dream. Sweat poured off her skin, yet she shivered with cold. The ward fire still burned.
"Are you spent?" asked Talal. He was sitting up, his knees drawn under his chin. He looked like a small, terrified boy.
Meisha angled her head to look at him. She smiled crookedly. "Hardly," she replied.
She looked beyond the ward, but the choker was gone. Braedrin's body lay outside the circle, nipped and chewed by the deep bats. His eyelids were gone, making the whites appear huge in his ravaged face.
"I think I can walk. We should get out of here." Meisha pulled her gaze away from the chilling sight, just in time to see the dwarves walk through the cavern wall.
They came through in silent procession, armed, ringing the fire ward with their own protective circle. There were ten in total, but Meisha's shocked gaze fastened on the leader—a dwarf in dented plate armor, holding a broken battle-axe.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The Howling Delve
4 Marpenoth, the Year of Lightning Storms (1374 DR)
"I remember you," Meisha whispered, when the dwarf came to stand in front of her.
He shifted the weapon from fist to fist, and Meisha saw, in the hollow of a hairy throat, a translucent chain, as thin as a cat's whisker. A pendant hung from the chain, with a carved scene depicting the figure of a mountain with a hole in its center.
Meisha had seen a similar pendant around the neck of a gold dwarf scholar, long ago. And before that, around the neck of the ghost that haunted her arrival at the Delve. It was the symbol of Dumathoin.
"Keeper of secrets," she greeted the ghost.
"Bearer of the Harp," he replied. He stood so close, his breath should have stirred the air, yet Meisha felt nothing.
The spectral circle fell back to flank their leader. The dwarves' faces held no expression. Meisha wondered whether they saw her at all. When the leader spoke again, his eyes glowed with faint, silver light. Meisha felt the words scrape against her bones.
"Take the warning."
Wetting dry lips, Meisha rose to her knees, which put her roughly at eye level with the ghost. She felt Talal scuttle behind her, pressing against her back. The dwarf paid him no attention.