Spellfire - Ed Greenwood [21]
Burlane nodded. "A place to be wary. Yet I see no danger waiting."
"Invisible, by magic?" Ferostil suggested. Delg gave him a sour look.
"Waste all that art to hide from six adventurers?" the dwarf said derisI’vely. "Are you foolish?"
"No, he's just a gloomthought," Rymel said, grinning. "Yet if we climbed a wall of that valley when we get inside, I'd feel safer. This looks like a gods-favored spot for a lookout, if not an attack."
Burlane nodded again. "Climb the right-hand slope, then, once we're through the mouth of the valley.
Look sharp, everyone! I want no foes sounding an alarm or rolling rocks down on our heads.
Understood?"
Everyone in the company muttered and nodded agreement as they trotted onward between the rock pillars. Shandril noticed Delg peering narrowly at the rock faces to either side. To her eyes, they seemed natural, not quarried. The valley beyond lay empty and quiet.
The trail grew harder to follow as they went on. The grass grew shorter, broken here and there by bare rock, moss, and weeds, but even Shandril's eyes could still find the tracks of the mules. The unshod hooves had left deep marks in the soft, muddy patches between the rocks. The trail led upward, and the company followed until the valley opened out before them.
In the clear light of highsun, the land before them lay green and rugged, walled in by mountains. It was not over-large, and the only trees were stunted and scraggly, huddled along the base of a steep rock face that formed the northwest wall of the valley. Water gleamed in little pools to the company's left. Rocks rose brokenly to their right. Nothing living met their eyes except one lone hawk, circling high above.
There was no sign of warriors or of mules, only the faint trail running on.
The company swung to the right and began to climb.
Burlane turned to Delg. "Stay with the horses. Bring them on only at my call." The dwarf nodded.
"Does something about this place feel… wrong to you, too?" Delg asked.
Burlane nodded. "Yes," he said, mounting a rock,
"and until-"
At that moment a man in robes appeared on a rock above them, farther up the slope. He was broad and stout and thin-bearded, and he wore robes of dark burgundy.
"Who are you," he called angrily, looking down on the company, "and why have you passed the gates without leave? Speak! Show me the sign forthwith or perish!" The man bore no staff or weapon. His eyes were black and glistening. Shandril thought she had never before seen a man who looked so cruel and evil.
"What gates?" Burlane called, climbing nearer.
From where she crouched behind a rock, Shandril could see all of the company moving, weapons out, advancing on the man, shifting apart from one another. The black eyes darted coldly back and forth.
"The Gates of Doom," came the cold reply, and the mage's fingers moved as if they were crawling spiders. He chanted one rising phrase, and lightning leaped from the air before his fingers in a spitting, crackling bolt.
In the blue-white flash of the bolt, Shandril saw Ferostil raise his sword in a convulsI’ve, jerking dance. The fighter's roar of agony died away faintly as his body blackened, tottered, and fell. Shandril was too shocked to make a sound. The corpse toppled forward out of view, down between two rocks.
Rymel threw a dagger as the company leaped to attack. The short blade flashed end over end toward the dark-eyed mage, but he ignored it, speaking something coldly as he pointed at the company.
Before it reached its target, the knife seemed to strike some sort of invisible barrier, and it bounced suddenly away to one side.
Abruptly, nine streaks of light darted at the company from the mage's pointed finger. Shandril watched in morbid fascination as each glowing missile flew with frightening speed, turning in the air to follow her scrambling