Sacrifice of the Widow_ Lady Penitent - Lisa Smedman [92]
“Not so fast, little orcling,” a whisper-dry voice said.
Terrified, Jub tried to scramble away but found himself suddenly unable to move. His heart beat furiously and his rapid breath sent pulses through his abdomen. He screamed at his body to move, but it wouldn’t. Terrified— the dracolich must have seen through his spider disguise and recognized him for what he was—Jub raged at himself. If he’d gone back the way he’d come, instead of trying to take a shortcut, this never would have happened.
The tips of two claws poked into the hole, pinching Jub between them. He gasped as they knifed into his sides. The dracolich plucked him from the hole, and with a harsh whisper, it dispelled the magic of Jub’s phylactery, returning Jub to half-drow form. Its breath held the sharp tang of acid.
“I warned you not to trespass up here,” the dracolich told him in a voice hoarse as a dying man’s. “We had an agreement.”
The paralyzation that gripped Jub’s body was starting to wear off. “Sorry,” he gulped. Hope filled him. The dracolich didn’t realize he was a spy—it thought he was one of the Selvetargtlin! “I didn’t mean to break it. I thought this was a shortcut to the surface. I didn’t know it led to your lair.”
As he spoke, Jub desperately tried to activate his phylactery. If he could suddenly turn into a fly, he might be able to buzz away up the shaft and escape. He’d be too tiny for the dracolich to grab. The dracolich, however, seemed to have completely drained the magic from the phylactery.
The undead dracolich hovered, black wings lazily flapping, its massive, wrinkled eyes staring balefully at Jub. “You were warned,” it wheezed.
Then it inhaled, filling its lungs. Acid-tinged air seeped out through the chinks between its scales where chest muscle had once been.
Jub steeled himself. This was it. He was going to die. At least he hadn’t failed Qilué. Perhaps, when they both met again in Eilistraee’s domain, she’d smile at him and thank him. Maybe gently touch his hand and—
The dracolich exhaled. A stream of acid slammed into Jub’s chest, instantly searing a hole through flesh, ribs, and lungs, melting his spine. His upper body flopped backward like a broken doll, acid-seared flesh sloughing from it. There was one brief flash of pain so intense it was blinding.
Then came gray oblivion and a soothing song that swelled through him, washing the anguish away.
CHAPTER TEN
Dhairn stared down at the head Daurgothoth had tossed on the cavern floor. The grisly trophy was deeply pitted with acid, but enough of it remained to show that the intruder had been a half-breed—drow tainted with orc, by the look of the oversized incisors.
“You and I had an agreement,” the great black wyrm hissed.
Only its head and neck were visible. Its body was still submerged in the pool that filled one end of the cavern. Foul-smelling water dripped from its emaciated flesh into the water below. A moment before, the pool had been clear, but it had grown murky and stank like rotting garbage. The Selvetargtlin would have to expend magic on purifying it before they could drink from it again.
The dracolich’s withered tail swept back and forth through the foul water in obvious agitation. “You agreed that your priests would use only certain parts of the city, and not disturb me.”
“He’s not one of ours,” Dhairn told the dracolich. “He must have been a treasure hunter from the World Above.”
Bone scratched against rock as the dracolich flexed its claws against the rocky edge of the pool. “He was climbing up from below. He could only have come from a spot near this cavern.”
Dhairn stiffened. “You’re certain?” Leathery muscles creaked as the dracolich nodded. Its skin was dark as soot, its wrinkled eyes like enormous wrinkled balls. “Yes,” it hissed. Its acid-tinged breath reeked enough to make Dhairn’s eyes water.
Dhairn scowled at the remains of the half-orc head in frustration. The jaw hung by a thread of muscle and the tongue