Depths of Madness - Erik Scott De Bie [104]
The halfling didn't see her coming-so intent was she on slitting a warrior's throat. S'zgul hissed like a desert cobra, lashed the tiny creature about the legs, and yanked her down.
"Gark katulu!" she growled at the halfling.
The little creature rolled over, gazing up at S'zgul in confusion, fear, and…
S'zgul hesitated, startled. "Daltyrex-naka!"
Then the halfling smiled-a hideous expression to the lizard priestess-and showed her empty hands. A knife slid out of her sleeve and she opened S'zgul's throat in a flash of pain.
The priestess reeled until a dusty gray rapier split open her back, carved her heart, and brought only painful blackness and the hiss of her father, master, and lover.
Twilight took a moment to wipe the blood off Betrayal with the aid of the fiendish lizard's half cape. It marked the creature as a spellcaster, likely, or a shaman. Probably the one who had dispelled Slip's conjured darkness, though it didn't really matter. All the lizards were dead, and they had killed them before an alarm could be raised. Good enough.
It was good to fight, as well. Having to evade band after band of these lizards had caused trepidation and nervousness, and nothing wiped away such feelings like a good, bloody slaughter. Twilight's muscles felt loose and her blood was pumping-hunger was a thing of the past.
Had she been thinking rationally, she might have been disturbed that dealing death made her feel alive.
"You're fast," she said to the halfling, still panting in glorious abandon.
"All in the wrist-where the blood is." Slip held out her hand. Her little dagger had disappeared.
"That snake said something to you," Twilight said as she helped the tiny woman up. "I didn't hear. What was it?"
The halfling blinked, gazing up at her with those blissful brown eyes, and shrugged. "I don't speak fiend."
Gargan's eye twitched.
Twilight was no longer listening. She looked to the center of the chamber, where the lizards had been feeding. There, lying on the floor, was their meal. She recognized the pale golden flesh, the ravaged hair. Even the face, with its bugging eyes, one still present, the other a bloody hole.
"Gods," Slip said. "Is that…"
"Not possible," Twilight said. "Not-"
Then the emerald eye opened and it lunged for her, gasping and moaning. Two bloody stumps where hands should have been scrabbled at her chest.
"Taslin?" Slip gasped.
Twilight hit the forehead with Betrayal's hilt. The body fell back to the ground, writhing, and she hit again. And again. And again, beating that head into paste. Dark blood splattered the floor, and she could feel her teeth go through her tongue, but she didn't care. She pounded until those limbs stopped battering her.
When the animate priestess was finally stilled once more, Twilight could stand. She'd watched Taslin die, and she'd killed her again. She tried not to think about the implications of her wrists, severed as though by a knife and not by any lizard's claw.
"We keep moving," said Twilight.
The others were too busy staring to argue.
CHAPTER Twenty-Four
From the chamber of the slaughtered lizards, they went north where the tunnel arched up. It was widely traveled, as evidenced by the smoother floor and walls where feet and hands had worn the stone. The tempo of Twilight's heart and the frequency of events were increasing', and she felt driven, hurried. She had to stop herself from running.
"Stay alert," she said. "An ambush could be around any curve. Swift and silent."
Gargan and Slip nodded-they both understood exactly what she meant.
They ascended into a series of caverns that spread like a disordered honeycomb around them, walls painted with dried lizard filth and old blood. Bones littered every passage, all picked clean, as though gnawed bare and tossed heedlessly. The fiendish lizards were plentiful here-scores, even hundreds of the creatures swarmed the warrenlike catacombs.
Twilight's blood was hot and