The Howling Delve - Jaleigh Johnson [45]
Cautiously, Meisha approached the edge of the chasm and looked down. Chaareff she chanted, and het stiletto burst into flame. The fire licked along the blade to stroke her fingers, but she ignored the heat. Twisting her wrist, she flicked the blade, dropping a tiny ball of fire down the hole. It plummeted quickly out of sight, the last butst of light in some dying creature's eye. The fire illuminated writing on the walls of the chasm, but the script was unlike the markings on her ring. Not Varan's work, then-some other wizard? Either way, Varan must have known they were here.
Off to the side of the chamber lay a pile of rope that looked like it had once been a net. One end was tied to a nearby stalagmite, but the rest was hacked into several pieces.
Meisha extinguished het blade with a word, but at the same time, she found herself bathed in green light. She dived away, landing hard on her elbow just as a circle of light filled the ceiling shaft and shot downwatd. The green thread briefly connected the two holes.
A portal, she thought. She got to het feet as the first figures dropped through the magical doorway.
There were six in total, but they came through in pairs. Magic slowed theit descent, allowing them to twist in midair to avoid plummeting down the chasm. They landed opposite het across the hole.
A woman and five men-one a halfling. Meisha managed to note that much befote they saw her. The chasm yawned between her and any close-range weapons, but the woman had a crossbow. She and the halfling stood off to one side. Three other men stood behind them, one in robes with a wand swinging from his belt. Their leader was sizing her up just as she evaluated them.
The wizard drew his wand and loosed a flame arrow, illuminating a black beard curled around thick lips. Not bothering to dodge, Meisha readied her stiletto. The missile streaked toward her. At the last instant she braced herself for the impact and watched the attacking wizatd's eyes widen when she simply absorbed the spell against her chest.
"My turn," she said around a plume of smoke, but she had already buried her blade in his abdomen. She turned to face the halfling and the woman.
"Take her alive," said the leader, but Meisha drowned him out with a spell. Her eyes glowed red in the semi-darkness. The woman raised her crossbow, but Meisha finished her spell, thrusting both hands out from her body, the flats of her palms pressed tightly together. A searing jet of wind like the breeze off a coal fire shot across the chasm, slamming into the halfling. The gust lifted him off his feet, driving him into the far wall. The crossbow bolt skittered away across the cavern floor as the woman fell to the ground.
The other men charged, coming from both sides of the chasm. The hot wind stalled them. Meisha tan straight at the datk abyss, the spell sweeping before her in a billowing arc.
She jumped, buoyed up by the wind, cleating the chasm easily and landing on the other side. This caught her attackers by surprise, leaving her only the woman to contend with. She reached out, grabbing Meisha's arm, thinking the Harper meant to run, but Meisha instead dropped flat to her back. Her momentum pulled the woman down. Continuing the movement, Meisha wedged her foot in the woman's abdomen and pushed, somersaulting her backward and down into the chasm.
Meisha started to sit up, but the woman caught the lip of the hole and Meisha's shoulder, dragging her back and costing het the opportunity fot anothet spell. She wrenched free, but the men were pushing through the wind and closing in on het.
Grabbing anothet daggei, Meisha drove the blade upward into the back of the first man's thigh. He howled in pain and dropped heavily against her. She pushed him away and felt a hot sting at her lower back. Meisha went down with a cry, unable to recover