Realms of the Underdark - J. Robert King [40]
A third of the sly, yammering little beasts moved into view at the far end of the room, and Durnan brought his sword up to strike aside the javelin it hurled. The bracers he wore protected him against missiles that bore no enchantments, but 'twould be a little late, for instance, to discover that this particular javelin was magical, once it was in his throat.
The throw was wide, and a smooth sidestep took him completely out of the whirling weapon's path. Even before the javelin crashed off stone somewhere behind him, the old warrior was moving.
Durnan caught hold of the door frame as he charged through, and swung himself around hard to the right. As he'd expected, a line of three kobolds was waiting along the wall there, their spiked clubs and wicked blades raised. The tavernmaster had a glimpse of their startled faces before his blade found the face of the foremost. He kept rushing, driving the dying creature back into its fellows, tumbling them all to the floor. He kicked, stomped, and thrust ruthlessly with his blade, knowing how vicious kobolds could be, and spun from the last fallen victim to face the one who'd hurled the javelin.
It was snarling at him and backing away, fear in its eyes as it saw all of its fellows dead or dying. Durnan advanced a step. It spat in his direction and suddenly turned and fled through the archway at the far end of the room. Durnan knelt, plucked up a kobold blade, and flung it as hard as he could.
There was a heavy crash, clang, and moan down the passage beyond the arch, but Durnan was already running after the kobold he'd felled. The wise man leaves no foes alive behind him in Undermountain.
A thrust ended the kobold's feeble crawl, and Durnan picked up its bleeding body and hurled it into the next room. As he'd expected, something greenish-yellow flowed swiftly down the wall toward the corpse. Durnan peered into the room-paying particular attention to the ceiling. Satisfied that it held only one carrion crawler, he sprinted across the chamber and through the right-hand door at its far end, pulling the heavy stone barrier closed behind him. Something far off and in agony screamed in the dark distance ahead.
The passage in front of him formed the only link between the warren of rooms around his cellars and the rest of Undermountain. It was always a place to watch warily for oozes, slimes, and other silent, hard-to-see creeping things.
Scorch marks and unpleasant twisted and bubbling remnants on the stones around told him that the kobolds had recently cleared this way of at least one such peril. Durnan stalked cautiously on, wondering how Mirt was faring, and how soon they'd meet. It felt good to be in action again, though the glory days of the Four were long gone.
Once the brazen, impudent band of adventurers he and Mirt had led together had been the toast of Waterdeep, and a common headache of honest merchants up and down the Sword Coast-the heroes of impudent tales that men roared at in half a hundred taverns. The years had passed, though, and such things had faded… as, he supposed, they always did. All that was left of those times were some happy memories, the deep trust they yet shared, and the linked message rings all of the Four still wore.
Durnan saw Mirt and Asper often, but Randal Morn was off fighting in the distant hold of Daggerdale, to keep his rightful rule over that fair land. And the ranger, Florin Falconhand, who'd stood in for Asper on a foray or three, was a Knight of Myth Drannor these days, and seldom seen on the Sword Coast. There were even whispers that he'd spent time in Evermeet recently.
Durnan was still recalling splendid victories the Four had shared when sudden motes of magelight welled up all around him in the empty passage. He'd just time to feel disgusted-taken by sorcery again?– when his world was overwhelmed with whirling