Daughter of the Drow - Elaine Cunningham [48]
The battle in the forest clearing troubled him deeply. Before that night he had fought only to protect his people and his land. He had entered the battle frenzy for the sake of a band of drow thieves! What next: would he join Thay's wizards in storming the tower circles of Rashemen's Witches? No, it was far better he should die here, in this deep, distant land.
The path before him rose up sharply and suddenly. Fyodor scrambled to the top of the incline and lifted his torch high. Ahead the tunnel dipped and made a hard turn to the right. To his surprise, a faint light emanated from the passage.
Carefully, as silently as he could, he crept toward the light. The sound of dripping water grew louder as he went, and the air became as moist as a marshland in springtime. When at last he rounded the corner, the sight beyond stole his breath.
He was in yet another cavern. This one was smaller than the last, but stranger than any sight he had yet seen. The walls were wet here, and growing on them in strange-shaped formations were patches of moss and fungi that glowed in luminescent shades of purple and blue. The light reflected off the wet black rock and filled the whole cavern with the strange color. Fyodor held out his hand; even his skin seemed to glow weirdly in the faint bluish light.
The young warrior took a deep breath and looked around. He had come to think of the Underdark as little more than a hive of solid rock, but in this cavern grew a staggering variety of plants. Curly, dark blue ferns surrounded a small pool, and pale silvery moss hung, like a lacy veil, in draping folds from the ceiling of the cavern. Nearby, under an overhanging ledge, grew clusters of mushrooms. Fyodor crouched down for a closer look.
Never had he seen mushrooms with such colors or such odd shapes. Some looked like the mushrooms of his home forests, except they were much larger and of a deep shade of violet. Others were more ethereal, with delicate stems and thin, fluted edges that looked as if they might crumple if touched. There were puffballs, swirled with crimson and lavender, and pale mushrooms that stood like short, stout sentinels.
He might try to eat some of the odd plants, Fyodor decided, but only as an alternative to starvation. Even in his homeland mushrooms held poison; who knew what effect these strange plants might have? At least the pale, thick mushrooms were somewhat familiar. If it should come to this, he would try those first. He reached out to touch one. The mushroom twitched away and let out a shrill, whistling shriek.
Fyodor jerked back his hand. "The mushrooms scream," he muttered in disbelief. Who knew what the ferns might have to say? He didn't care to find out, but there was water beyond the fern bed and he could not afford to pass it by.
He waded through the curling blue ferns without incident, then stopped short. The bones of some long-dead wanderer lay half in, half out of the water. But such bones! They seemed to be the remains of a lizard, but the skeleton was fully the size of a paladin's war charger. Stranger still, remnants of rotted leather and bite of metal lay around the enormous bones. Fyodor leaned in for a closer look. The skeleton was intact, but for a broken bone on one leg.
The warrior shook his head as he realized what must have happened. Someone had ridden this lizard creature as a mount, and when the leg broke, the useless lizard was simply abandoned. Even the gift of death had been denied the wretched thing. Fyodor thought of Sasha, and wondered what manner