Stormlight - Ed Greenwood [90]
They died just as Maxer had died.
Sometimes it was a terrible thing to be a Chosen of Mystra.
Enough brooding. Somewhere off to the right should be the outermost passageway, and a stair that would take her up. Then she could circle back toward the foe. Shayna Summerstar, pretty little lure that she was, would have to start following, not lying in wait here, there, and everywhere.
A lance of ruby light split the darkness behind her. Storm threw herself headlong through a door, onto rubble, and smelled burnt leather from her right boot as the ravening radiance sang on down the passage. Calling up a shield spell, she stepped back out into the hallway. Ruby fire stabbed at her again.
She had a brief glimpse of Shayna's smiling face, chestnut hair plastered to an ivory forehead beneath a coronet whose upswept tips were emitting the ray- and then ruby death struck her shield, splashed out a spectacular shower of rosy sparks, and rebounded back down the hall.
There was a startled cry and then darkness and silence. Tasting her own weapon was not something a Summerstar heiress welcomed, it seemed.
“Tha’s a Battlestar circlet,” Storm murmured aloud. “Did she slay Zarova to get it?” She turned and ran lightly down the passage, heading for the stair she’d intended to use. No skulking. No liitle miss was going to dictate where she could go in this battle.
She was halfway up it when a rattle of tiny bouncing stones warned her. She threw herself sideways, slipped on stones, and ended up half over the rail. The wind was knocked out of her and she almost plunged over it.
A moment later, a statue as large as she was smashed into the steps above her. The impact showered her with jagged stone shards. The statue bounced past and slid to the bottom of the stair, leaving ruin in its wake. The rail under her shuddered, but the stair held.
"Bitch," she muttered to herself. "So it's toss the tower at Storm time again, is it?" She ascended the stairs at a run, lifting her voice merrily in the ballad "I Walk Carefree In the Moonlight."
A fist-sized stone whizzed past her nose. She grinned, somersaulted, and listened to another stony missile strike the floor and skitter away into the night Aiming was not Shayna's strength.
Storm finished her song as she dodged forward in a series of zigzag runs at the place where Shayna must be-and was rewarded by a soft curse and the sounds of frantic fleeing.
Now we're getting somewhere. Run, little rabbit, and don't look back, because I'll be close behind you.
They burst out into an open gallery, running toward where the foe had toppled the pillar. Shayna was a pale, flitting form ahead. Storm put her head down and sprinted.
She was only a few paces behind when Shayna darted aside, into a chamber whose floor now formed a jagged bridge across an open, blasted ruined area.
Startled at how close Storm was, the Summerstar heiress called on her coronet again, splashing the bard- and the pillars on either side of her-with ruby fire. Storm's shield held, but the pillars burst apart-and the Bard of Shadowdale had to leap for her life as the ceiling came down..
Mocking laughter echoed around Storm as she rolled, came to her feet and ran on. She caught her hand on a doorframe to spin around into that room- and found the space no longer had a floor.
She fell hard, jarring her chin against her knees as she struck loose rubble with both boots… and then started to slide helplessly backward. Above her, ruby fire flashed again. A larger explosion shook the loftiest levels. Storm saw remnants of walls toppling slowly down at her as she rode shifting rubble down. At last she could roll over and find her feet again. Huge stone blocks were crashing down all around her by then.
It was time to find another stair and do it all over again.
"Shayna, dear!" she called gaily, "I'm coming for you!"
Storm was rewarded with a hissed curse and ruby death stabbing wildly down through an empty chamber behind her. As sparks danced and flew in the darkness, Storm