Heirs of Prophecy - Lisa Smedman [109]
As the drow glanced around, Larajin drew quickly back from the broken trapdoor. Heart pounding, she crouched against the rooftop of the tower, not daring to move. Listening, she could hear what sounded like more drow climbing out of the hole, then a flurry of conversation, spoken in a language that reminded her of the cluttering of spiders.
How many drow were down there? Larajin didn't want to risk a look. Two or twenty, it really didn't matter. Larajin had no first-hand knowledge of the drow, but the books she'd read described the underworld elves as a cruel and cunning race, even deadlier than the poisonous spiders they worshiped. The drow were said to hate all races that walked in sunlight with equal vigpr-humans and their elf cousins alike. Those they killeu… were the lucky ones. The rest were fed to the spiders. Bound tightly in their webs, these unfortunates faced a slow, gruesome death.
Touching the locket at her wrist, Larajin began the prayers that would allow her to skinwalk away from there. As the locket began to glow, she cupped it tightly in her hand, wary lest the glow give her away. As she prayed, she tried to make sense of why Goldheart had led
her there. Was Tal indeed headed this way? Was Larajin expected to use her magic to protect him from the drow below?
The voices stopped abruptly, causing Larajin to halt her prayer in mid-whisper. Had she been heard? The answer came a moment later, when another voice-lower than the others, and male-sounded from below. He was speaking the cluttering drow tongue, but between sentences there came a familiar wheeze.
Larajin didn't dare look down into the tower. Not with the moon so bright overhead. Instead she channeled the energy Sune had just blessed her with into the spell that allowed her to comprehend other languages. Her ears tingled briefly, and the words below became as clear as Common.
The drow speaking was female, and Larajin's spell revealed her words in mid-sentence. "… thank you for that, Drakkar."
Larajin let out a strangled gasp of alarm. Drakkar! She'd gone through so much to flee the man, and now here he was, in the great forest! In her panic, she missed Drakkar's reply.
The drow who had spoken a moment before continued, "How much longer, then?" she asked.
"The war builds momentum, even as we speak," Drakkar answered. "My master has gained the elves' confidence and will make a show of fighting beside them for a tenday or two-just long enough to drive the humans back. The"l"when victory seems assured, there will be a falling out "over an incident that will appear to be a deliberate act of betrayal by the elves. His forces will withdraw then. Left to their own devices, the elves will lose the war, and the Sembians, their desire for revenge sated, will return home. The few elves that survive can easily be slain, and the great forest will be ours."
As a chorus of voices chattered below-some asking why it would take so long, others congratulating Drakkar for his cunning-Larajin seized on that last word. Not
'yours' but 'ours.' She realized the wizard's dirty little secret. He might look as human as Larajin did, but despite the absence of pointed ears and glowing red eyes, drow blood flowed in his veins. Now that she thought about it, Drakkar's ink-black hair seemed too dark for a man of his age. It should have at least been streaked with gray. Its natural shade was probably pure white-something he would be careful to disguise with dye, so none would suspect his true heritage.
She understood why Goldheart had led her to the tower with the cryptic message, "He comes." It had been Hanah Celanil, speaking through her favored creature, who had wanted Larajin to overhear this exchange and realize what the ultimate end of the war would be: not just death for her dear brother Tal, but the destruction of the elves of