Darkwell - Douglas Niles [89]
"You're looking around the corners?" asked the king, incredulous. Nevertheless, they followed the bard as she quickly led them up the passage and through a winding corridor that connected to it until they reached a hole in the ceiling. They stood in a circle, looking up at a glowering patch of gray cloud, unmistakably outside the lair.
* * * * *
Kamerynn held to the trail of his quarry through the growing might of the winter storm. Even when the ground upon which the hateful thing had walked became buried beneath a thick blanket of snow, the spoor of evil lay like an obscene snake across the earth.
The unicorn never hesitated nor wavered from his mission. He sensed that the killing of the thing he followed would not bring back the world he had known, would not free his beloved druids from their stony prisons. But he sensed that killing this creature was something he could do, and that had become all-important.
The trail entered the Fens of the Fallon, a region Kamerynn had rarely trod before. But now he charged forward, wading through the freezing water and boldly forcing his way through the entwining foliage. The proud spire of his horn remained upthrust before him.
Finally Kamerynn sensed the presence of the thing itself, and for the first time, he hesitated. His nostrils dilated as he searched the air, seeking confirmation of the awareness that seemed to penetrate directly to the depths of his soul. A great darkness lurked nearby, and all the unicorn's senses urged attack.
His mind, however, counseled caution, and so he slowed to a deliberate walk, facing the blustering wind, still holding his head high. He approached a great dead tree, its huge root duster rising before him like the gaping maw of a hungry dragon, and he knew he had found his enemy.
The beast exploded from its shelter in a snarling attack of yellow eyes and long, drooling teeth. Sharp claws raked the unicorn's flanks as Kamerynn's hooves lashed out, driving the monster backward. The creature crouched on the ground before him and then sprang again.
Wiry tentacles lashed out toward the unicorn's flanks, but he skipped aside. Kamerynn reared and kicked again, but he missed the lightning-quick body of his foe. Driving his horn downward, the proud animal thrust. Kamerynn struck only air, but at the same time he heard the clamping of mighty paws behind him. His sudden attack had thrown off the cat-beast's aim.
Once more the horn missed the black pelt, and the unicorn's blood streaked his snowy flanks. Kamerynn reared backward, crying out a shrill challenge as he fought on.
It was a fight that could only end in the death of one of the combatants.
XII
The Second Scroll
"And now we shall turn to Corwell."
"Such is the will of Bhaal." Ysalla nodded her head, the yellow skull-spines bobbing in agreement. "But first my people shall have their feast and their celebration."
"But we must make haste!" Hobarth, hissing in the language of the sahuagin, argued. He himself had already gathered a hefty sack of gold coins, not so much for his own use – Hobarth had little need of material wealth – but because he thought it might prove useful in furthering the plan of Bhaal.
"You make haste, human. We have won a great victory, a battle we have fought for the spoils. You shall not cheat us of those spoils."
The cleric looked at the high priestess, surrounded by a rank of her own sahuagin clerics, and knew that further argument was pointless. "Very well. I shail await you at the mouth of the bay."
Hobarth was not a gentle man, nor was he burdened with a surplus of kindness, but the 'celebration' of the victorious sahuagin was a thing he had little stomach for. The sheer scale of the massacre could not help but raise glimmers of doubt and fear in his almost inhuman psyche.
Not, of course, that he would mourn the deaths of the many men, women, and children of the north who fell beneath the Claws of the