Storm of the Dead - Lisa Smedman [77]
The Nightshadow touched the phylactery on his arm and motioned for her to follow. Dagger in hand, he swam up toward the surface. Mazeer restored herself to her usual size, and pushed off from her crouched position. Halfway through the cavern, she noticed a spot where the Faerzress was dimmer, as though screened by a gauzy curtain. A kick of her legs sent her in that direction. As she swam closer to it, breathing from her bottle, she saw that the "curtain" was a loose tangle of thick strands of colorless thread, nearly invisible in the water, that made up a loosely woven bag with several large tears in it. She touched it, and the strands felt slightly sticky. Below it, she noticed what looked like a knobby white wand wedged in a crack in the floor. She swam down for a look. It turned out to be a femur, small enough to have come from a child.
Or from a svirfneblin.
Spit me like a lizard, she thought. The svirfneblin who found this passage didn't drown, he got eaten by a water spider.
She twisted around to warn the Nightshadow. Ripples marked the spot where he'd just climbed out of the water. A heartbeat later, he plunged into the water in a dive. He was only waist-deep when his body abruptly halted and his eyes flared open in alarm. Then something yanked him out of the water, and he vanished from sight.
Mazeer took a breath from her bottle and shouted a spell. Her words exploded in a flurry of bubbles. She swept her free hand in a circle, fist clenched, then opened it. The water shimmered as magical energy infused it. At her command, the water elemental she'd summoned bulged toward the surface just as an enormous spider plunged into the water, dragging the web-bound Nightshadow behind it. The elemental crashed into the monster, snapping two of the spider's legs. Then the battle raged.
The water in the cavern churned into a whirlpool that slammed Mazeer into a wall. Over the tumult of rushing water, she heard a faint crack. Pain lanced through her hand as shards of glass drove into her palm. Her bottle-broken! She fought her way to the surface. She barely had time to draw breath before she was sucked under again by the maelstrom. It slammed her into another wall and one of her ribs cracked. Dizzy with pain, she tried to push off the wall, but couldn't. The force of the water held her fast.
"Help… me… surface…" The words cost her the last of the air in her lungs, but they were enough. A surge of water-one of the elemental's wide "arms"-hurled her toward the surface. She burst into the air like a leaping fish and slammed down onto stone.
She rose, shaking, in a room-sized cavern. A hole in one wall led to a larger cavern beyond. At the far side of the pool-the spot where the Nightshadow had climbed out of the water-strands of web draped the rock. Great gouts of water erupted from the pool, spraying the walls and ceiling. The Nightshadow's web-wrapped body momentarily bobbed to the surface next to a broken spider leg, then got sucked under again.
Mazeer drew a wand woven from green willow twigs and held it ready, in case the spider won the fight. When pieces of spider floated to the surface in a dark slick of blood, she knew that battle was at an end. She snapped her fingers and pointed at a dark shape in the water: the body of the Nightshadow. The elemental bulged, lifting it to the surface. Mazeer bent down and grasped him by his shirt. She hauled him out of the water, grunting at the pain that lanced through her side. Then she passed a hand over the surface of the pool, releasing the elemental.
She rolled the web-shrouded Nightshadow onto his side to drain the water from his lungs. His head flopped and came to rest at an unnatural angle. A crunching noise came from inside his neck: broken bones grinding together.
Mazeer sighed. She had no magic that could revive him. She was on her own. And she wouldn't be able to get back, she thought as she looked ruefully down at the broken chunk of bottle that dangled from the thong around her wrist.
She