Extinction - Lisa Smedman [48]
But the defense of the tunnels was going too well. Alerted by Triel's warning, the matron mothers had poured troops into the Dark Dominions southeast of the city, forcing the enemy advance to grind to a halt. The duergar seemed to have withdrawn, leaving only the tanarukks to fight. And while the Scoured Legion might have thousands of troops, forcing an army through those narrow tunnels was like trying to shove a melon through the neck of a bottle. Yet they continued to send troops forward. It was almost as if they'd expected the tunnels to be undefended.
Sighing, Andzrel allowed his attention to wander. His eye settled on one of the wisps of smoke that had had been drifting in for some time from the tunnel to his left. It rose steadily upward, drawn by air currents that were surprisingly swift, toward a narrow crack that ran the length of the ceiling. Then it slipped inside the crack and was gone.
It was followed, a moment later, by another drift of smoke-one that was curiously shaped, with tendrils that looked like arms and legs. It, too, vanished into the crack. Then a third puff of smoke appeared, one with a bulge at the front of it that looked, for all the world, like a shaggy-
Suddenly realizing what he was seeing, Andzrel barked an order at the junior officer who stood beside him.
"Lieutenant! The smoke… shoot it!"
With a swiftness born of strict training and absolute obedience, the lieutenant whipped up his arm and fired his wrist crossbow in the direction indicated. A poisoned bolt whizzed through the air toward its target.
Instead of passing through the "smoke" and striking the stone behind it, the bolt sank into something soft, with a dull thud. An instant later, a tanarukk materialized out of thin air. It tumbled, arms and legs thrashing, toward the floor of the cavern, the battle-axe it had been carrying landing with a loud clang beside it. The tanarukk was dead even before it slammed into the stone floor, the virulent drow poison having done its work.
The lieutenant immediately fitted another bolt into the crossbow at his wrist and scanned the ceiling.
"Master Andzrel," he croaked, "where did it come from?"
Andzrel peered down the corridor from which the two-dimensional tanarukk had come. No more wisps of "smoke" appeared. The dead one seemed to have been bringing up the rear.
Short and stocky, with a prominent lower jaw and curving tusks, the tanarukk had a ridge of horn across its forehead that gave it a thick, unintelligent look. The trick it and its fellows had played on the drow, however, was anything but stupid.
"The mote important question, lieutenant, is where the tanarukks were headed," Andzrel said, "and how many have slipped past us already. If I remember my geography correctly, that crack leads to the main cavern."
A runner emerged from a side tunnel.
"Good news, sir," the man panted. "We're not only holding them… they seem to be falling back. The enemy has all but disappeared."
As Andzrel cursed-surprising the runner, who'd obviously expected elation on his commander's part-the forefront of a company from House Barrison Del'Armgo trotted into the room. They were reinforcements sent in at last by the Second House, only after House Baenre's troops had secured the tunnels.
Leaping down from the broken stalagmite, Andzrel strode toward the captain who commanded them, a slender female in adamantine armor with white hair drawn up in a topknot.
"Captain!" he barked, foregoing the usual bow that was a ranking officer's due-and the Barrison Del'Armgo captain, being female, certainly did outrank him. "Turn your company around. March back to the main cavern at once."
The captain's eyes blazed an even deeper red as her cheeks flushed with anger. She jerked to a halt, and the soldiers following her did the same.
"Who in the Nine Hells do you think you are?" she said, glaring down at him. "You may be weapons master of House Baenre, but you're only a-"
"This isn't the time for arguments," Andzrel said in a tense voice, his intensity making up for his lack