The Lost Library of Cormanthy - Mel Odom [41]
A cacophony of cluttering and squeaking and sometimes challenging growls kept her company as she passed through narrow valleys that had been riven in the land, and through the remnants of dungeons and houses that had fallen in the battle. The only things she feared in the subterranean world beneath the corpse of Myth Drannor were the Phaerimm, the Sharn, and the baatezu. Only those stood a true chance against the magic forces she con?trolled. And those she knew how to avoid.
She walked into a large cavern that she identified immediately.
Turning, she reached into the bag of holding at her waist and took out a pair of climbing claws that would cling to the rock better than her hands would. She put another set on, strapping them on over her boots.
Lean and limber, she scaled the side of the cavern with ease. Her piwafwi caused her to blend in with the shadows even as she moved. From a distance, she knew she would only be detected as an occasional ripple of movement, if at all.
At the top of the wall she put her climbing gear away and located the trail she'd been looking for. The path was scarcely two feet wide. She had to turn sideways to ease through the rift splitting solid rock. Sixty feet further on, the rift widened into another cavern.
She knew Shallowsoul couldn't have been hoping to get her lost. In the four years she'd been down in the caverns with Shallowsoul, she'd explored much of the surrounding territory. She knew her way around the areas here. So she wondered what Shallowsoul's intentions might have been. Second-guessing someone skilled in treachery was second nature to the drow, but Shallowsoul's psychology added in the mercurial element of madness and paranoia. It was frustrating that one who had so much of what she wanted also came so powerful.
Voices below her caught Krystarn's attention.
She froze in the opening and listened. They were still too far away for her to hear properly. Taking up her hand crossbow in her free hand, she crept to the ridge in front of her. The tip of the quarrel in the pistol was coated with poison, guaranteeing no human-sized survivors.
From the coloring of the ruby glow in front of her, the drow knew that someone had a fire going below. She peered over the edge.
A group of hobgoblins sat around a cookfire. Krystarn did a quick accounting, finding there were more than forty of them in all. Nearly half of those were male warriors. The rest were divided almost equally between females and children. She shifted, getting ready to creep even closer till she could hear them.
"You're still doing his bidding, aren't you?" a voice said at her side.
Krystarn leaped to her feet, the morning star and the hand crossbow at the ready. Her eyes narrowed when she spotted the figure in front of her. "Shouldn't you be off rattling chains and haunting your crypt like a good little ghost?" she asked sarcastically.
The being drew himself up to his full height. Obviously of elven blood, he wore raiment fit for a king. He looked far too pale to be healthy, even for a Moon Elf. "You know very well I am no ghost," he declared haughtily. "I am a
baelnorn, sworn and loyal protector of my family's wealth and power."
"An annoyance by any other name."
The baelnorn pursed his lips, the pride suffusing him coloring even his undead face. "You know that I have no respect for you, drow. Your kind were never welcome in fair Myth Drannor, even when the city opened its arms to the humans and dwarves."
"Then allow me to pass in peace, ghost. I know that you won't offer me any harm as long as I don't try to unlock your family's crypts or the secrets they left hidden behind when they fled before the Army of Darkness. And I have no intention of trying. I have found the treasure I seek."
"Yes," the baelnorn agreed, "and you scurry around Folgrim Shallowsoul's feet like a sniveling lapdog. And you call yourself a warrior of the drow race. Hah!"