Tangled webs - Elaine Cunningham [69]
"Tell me," he entreated. He was immensely impressed by the female's ability to channel such a force and eager to learn what information it might have yielded.
Liriel turned her eyes toward him, but Xzorsh doubted that she saw him. Her gaze was troubled, distant. "Nothing," she murmured.
Xzorsh studied her, puzzled by the strange effect the casting of the spell had on her. "Nothing at all?"
She blinked several times, and at last her eyes focused on him. "The man still lives. Where he is, or what he intends, i do not know. But i got the feeling that he is not yet finished with me, that he and his want something from me. As does Lloth," she added in a distracted whisper.
it was in Xzorsh's mind to ask her about this Lloth, but at that moment a hideous face appeared in the cabin's portal and sent all other thoughts into instant banishment. "Merrow!" he said as he leaped to his feet. When Liriel shot him a puzzled look, he repeated urgently, "Merrow. Ogres of the sea."
"Damn!" spat the drow. She reached under her mattress and pulled out a long, keen knife, one even finer than the one Xzorsh had coveted. "Seems like a good time to break this in," she said with a touch of grim humor as she pressed it into his hands.
And then she was gone, sprinting through the hold and up the ladder to the deck, shouting an alarm as she went. In the cramped quarters beyond her cabin, pirates spilled out of their hammocks and seized weapons.
"What are we fighting, lass?" Hrolf asked happily, tucking his shirt into his breeches and falling into step with the drow as she hurried toward the rack of harpoons.
"Sea ogres."
Hrolf stopped in midstride. "Merrow? What in the Nine Hells are they doing in these waters?"
Before Liriel could answer, six pairs of enormous webbed and scaly hands slapped onto the ship's rail. Six merrow leaped onto the deck, quick and nimble as giant frogs.
"Mother Lloth," Liriel breathed as she looked up at the hideous faces. The merrow were as large as their land cousins-all were well over nine feet tall-and they moved with a speed and agility that no ogre could match.
The largest of them, a male with two ivory horns protruding like hideous thumbs from its forehead, took a step forward. "Where be the dead elveses?" it demanded in a low-pitched gurgle. "Want them, we do!"
Xzorsh, his hand resting easily on the hilt of his new knife, went forward to face the merrow chieftain. Though he was but half the creature's size, his eyes offered a challenge that the sea ogre did not disdain. "The People are no longer on this ship," he said firmly. "They have been retumed to the sea. You are relieved of the task of taking them to your master, whoever he might be."
The merrow chief actually looked pleased by this news. It tumed and grunted something to the others.
Liriel listened carefully – ogre slaves were common in Menzoberranzan, and she knew enough of their dialect to make out a few words of the merrow's guttural speech. Her eyes widened in shock as she diVined this one's intentions. She barely had time to whip the harpoon up in a defensive position before all six merrow darted toward her.
The chieftain lunged at Liriel, massive arms spread wide. Her ready harpoon clunked into its scaly abdomen, but skidded across the tough hide without penetration. Fortunately for Lirie4 the harpoon was longer than the creature's reach, and it kept those lethal black talons from closing on her. Even so, the speed and force of the attack sent the tiny drow reeling back. The butt ofher weapon hit the mast hard, and the onrushing merrow supplied the force needed to push the barbed weapon through its scaly hide.
Liriel let go of the harpoon and rolled aside as the impaled merrow came crashing to the deck. But five of the merrow remained, and all were as fast as the drow. A large, webbed hand slapped down and seized her ankle. She was dragged facedown across