Depths of Madness - Erik Scott De Bie [103]
The shadowdancer was starting to like the gray-skinned warrior, with the intricate red designs that ran across his muscular chest. If only she could be sure he wasn't a traitor…
Her mind raced. They did not want to spoil their surprise, but neither could they delay. Slip's return brought limited healing magic, but without more food, they would weaken. Also, the longer they delayed, the longer Gestal had to learn of their coming. Their strength would wane, while his would remain high. They had to kill him as soon as they could.
"We'll go around," Twilight said. "That's the only…"
Then there came-whether real or imagined-an anguished wail that froze her heart in her chest. A woman's cry. She made out the color of the flesh the lizards were eating.
"No," she said. "No…"
Gargan was shaking her shoulder, Slip tugging at her blouse. Twilight looked at them, sharp as a knife.
"We kill them," Twilight said. "Surprise and speed. Now." "You can't be-"
"Now!" And Twilight ran toward the lizards.
"What? What are you doing?" Slip asked Gargan behind her back. "Put me d-" Then her voice fell to chanting.
Twilight didn't notice. She just ran toward the lizards, Betrayal leading.
S'zgul perceived the darkness before it fell upon them, and that only startled her more.
The black swooped in as though hurled, rather than suddenly bathing them. She watched as the darkness swallowed her fellows, shrouding torches and stealing even her fiendish sight. Her allies recoiled instinctively from the wave of black, but it did not harm them.
The darkness did not, but what came within the darkness did.
A warrior screeched as a projectile struck his back and a blade jabbed into his stomach, ripping a hole for entrails to leak out. He would have clawed at his attacker, but the blade slashed across his throat, ending his roar in a gurgle.
S'zgul bellowed in consternation, demanding calm and reason, but to no avail. The others roared and scrambled, either groping for the edge of the darkness or slashing at random with claw and rusty blade. Two fell to their own companions, and thrice as many still hacked at one another and squealed.
The survivors tried to escape, but the darkness seemed endless. Finally, one broke free of the datk, only to find death at the end of two swords-one black and one gray. As he belched and flopped to the ground, his killers plunged into the globe of darkness.
With an oath to her father, the great Demogorgon, S'zgul snarled out a few syllables. With the power of the demon prince, the darkness vanished-
–just in time for her to duck the acid-smeared sword streaking for her neck.
Her bodyguard's scaly head flew into the air, and another warrior jerked and spat as a rapier slit his heart in two. The giant and elf spun into the midst of the creatures. The gigantic black sword slashed in a great arc, beheading one lizard and disarming another-the hard way. If the cavern had been disorderly before, it exploded in lethal madness when the darkness vanished.
The priestess watched her servants fall, one after another, fast as flowing water. The speed with which the three moved amazed her, especially the white elf: the female lunged and sprang like a tiger, wounding and dispatching with unflinching brutality. What was more, the shadows swirled around her and danced about her crackling, burning blade as though to lap at the blood she spilled. A pair of warriors jabbed at her from either side with obsidian spears, but she twisted around one thrust, letting it stab into the foe at her back, and rolled between the other's legs. She stabbed up and her blade went in along a weak spot beneath the spine and burst out beside the warrior's throat.
S'zgul, who had fought countless hulking males and fierce females for leadership in the tribe, and mated with as many demons as she had slaughtered, was intimidated.
So she turned from the furious shadowdancer toward the weakest foe she could see-a half-sized creature, tiny