Daughter of the Drow - Elaine Cunningham [72]
If, and if again. There were far too many 'ife', but in her excitement Liriel was not discouraged. For the first time, her dream of travel and exploration in the Lands of Light seemed within her grasp. Some drow-such as these priestesses-might abandon their heritage and forsake the Lady of Chaos, but that was not an option for Liriel. She loved the wild beauty of the Underdark, and although she longed for adventure in the world beyond, she wanted to be able to return home. If she could find this amulet and test its powers, there might be a way for her to come to the surface whole, on her own terms: silent, unpredictable, mysterious, powerful, magical, deadly. Drow.
On impulse, Liriel reached forward and embraced the regal female. "I have to leave now, but I can't tell you what this visit has meant to me!"
Qilue regarded the girl's excited face and shining golden eyes for a long moment. "The Promenade Temple," she repeated softly. "Remember that name, if ever you should need it."
Chapter 11
FALSE TRAILS
Fleet and silent, Liriel ran through the forest back toward her magical gate. Her flight surprised a strange creature, a large dun-colored beast with enormous brown eyes and a pair of many-pronged horns. The animal bounded off and was soon lost among the trees. For just a moment Liriel paused to watch the graceful creature. Any other time, she would have followed it, perhaps to hunt, perhaps just to learn more about the strange and fascinating beast. Tonight a more important prize awaited her.
She had an idea where the Windwalker amulet might be, and her time to find it was short. Quickly she stepped into the gate that returned her to the Underdark. The magical flight was swift and brief, and it brought her near the place where she and the human had joined in fighting the deepbats.
Liriel retraced her steps to the glowing cave where she had met Fyodor of Rashemen. There was a mystery here, one that she must solve. She crouched down to examine the body of a deepbat the human had slain.
Even in death, the creature was imposing. The crumpled wings spanned a good seven feet, and the dagger-sharp fangs jutting from the deepbat's slack mouth were fully the length of her fingers. It was a marvel the human had managed to kill such a creature, but even stranger that the giant bats had attacked at all. Although they were dangerous in the extreme, dragazhar were highly intelligent creatures who rarely attacked anything larger and more threatening than a scurry rat. Something must have happened to embolden or threaten them, to force them beyond their normal behaviors.
Seizing the dragazhar's wing with both hands, she hauled the creature over onto its back so she might examine its underbelly. There she found the answer she sought. Scoring the creature's abdomen and legs were several long, thin cuts: the interweaving marks of twin blades. Such wounds were too fine, too precise, to have been inflicted by the human's dull blade. Draw steel had marked the dragazhar.
She examined the bodies of three other dead bats and found similar markings, including the telltale poison darts from a drow crossbow. These bats had most likely come across Fyodor as they fled from another, larger battle. After tangling with a band of drow fighters, a lone human must have seemed very easy prey.
This discovery supported one of her suspicions: in pursuit of the amulet, Fyodor had followed a band of drow into the Underdark. What the man planned to do once he caught up with the drow, Liriel could not begin to fathom. He fought well enough, but he was one lone human against the deadliest fighters of these deep realms!
It did not occur to Liriel to ask what she herself might do, alone against a band of drow fighters. After all, she was a Baenre princess and a wizard, and deadly determined