The Howling Delve - Jaleigh Johnson [98]
Thumb-sized teardrops of flame appeared, one above each of the fingers of Meisha's open palm. She murmured an incantation, and the flames began to spin in a circle like tiny stars. They shot across the cavern, peppering the wizard's apprentices with tiny firebursts. Protection spells flickered and peeled away as the wizard continued to grapple with the dark, killing energy.
Meisha grabbed the stalactite for leverage and swung around the base. She started to drop down and felt a painful coldness shoot up her leg. Whirling, putting her back to the stalactite, Meisha saw another thief crawling along the walls, his hands and feet covered with the same sticky climbing aid Talal had taken from the halfling. He held a barbed whip in one hand and a blade between his teeth.
Meisha put a hand over her thigh where the whip had ripped away cloth and flesh above her boot's cuff. She was in the crossfire of the wizard and the whip-wielder now, and the man's whip obviously bore some type of enchantment, for her leg was rapidly going numb with the cold.
She looked below. Morgan was nearest, but he bled liberally from a gash across his eyebrow. He ran below her to aid Garavin.
Her mind worked rapidly. Meisha pointed at the man on the wall, holding her arm out almost perpendicular to her body, affording him an easy target. He took the bait.
The whip snapped out, circling her arm, driving its barbs in deep. Cold spasms shot up to her elbow. Meisha clenched her teeth against the pain and called the fire. She prayed it would be enough to siphon off the cold. She pictured the whip in het mind-the shape, the coil of tope and spines when it lay at rest, then up, into human hands, ready to strike, to steal her life-force…
Fire filled her veins, coiled out from her trembling finger. She sent a jet spiraling along the whip's length, all the way up the thief s arms. The fire whip slashed across his face, leaving a red line between his nose and his ear.
The man shrieked and raised his hands to his face. His grip on the ceiling faltered, and he fell to dangle above the tumult by his legs.
Meisha did not linger to see if he would drop. Her arm fell uselessly to her side, aching with the pressure of a thousand needles. She pushed off the stalactite with her good leg and flew to a corner, putting her back to the wall for some cover.
The battle below was growing more and more desperate. For all their skill, they were outnumbered. Where was Dantane?
Then Meisha saw him, flying up from the ground. He intercepted a stream of missiles from the wizard, who'd managed to rid himself of the black energy but not its effects. The electtical ball had burned his robes away at the chest, exposing singed hair and blistered skin. His face ttembled with rage. Dantane smiled and cast another spell.
"Dantane!" she cried.
"Are you all right?" the wizatd asked when he flew up to join her. He came in at an angle to examine her leg.
"Forget it," said Meisha. "The arm's worse. I can't cast, not for a while."
"We don't have that long," Dantane teplied. He rummaged in a pocket of his robes.
"We're not going to make it." Meisha leaned her head back against the wall. She was sweating. So hot…
Dantane pressed a vial between her limp fingers. "Drink this. Stay here," he said. "I'll get to Kail."
Meisha started to ask what that would serve, but she saw something across the cavern that stole the breath from her body.
Talal, clutching one of her boot daggers-she hadn't even known it was missing-was sneaking up behind one of the men fighting with Laerin. The half-elf saw the boy in time to check his own swing, a blow that would have cleaved through his opponenr's skull and likely taken Talal's head as well.
"Fool," Meisha whispered, a sob in her throat.
White-faced and shaking, the boy reared back and stabbed the Shadow Thief. The boy wasn't strong, but he had four years of pent-up hatred and grief driving the blow. Meisha didn't see where the blade penetrated, but the man stiffened. Blood trailed from the