The Lost Library of Cormanthy - Mel Odom [68]
Baylee beat the other drow's attack to pieces, filling the air with the mace and the buckler. He swung the small shield at the end of his arm and slammed the black adamantite against the drow's knee hard enough to break bone. When it came to survival, there were no rules of conduct.
"I have questions of my own I want answered," he growled. "This drow female knew my name. Were there any drow involved in Golsway's death?"
"If we had known there were," the watch lieutenant replied, "I'd have been searching the Underdark, not this forgathering."
Glancing past his opponent, Baylee saw that Xuxa had landed in the top of a tree. She had her wings spread out to hold herself up in a branch while she kept the gold circlet clutched in her clawed feet. Below her, the skeleton warrior pursuing the circlet started climbing the tree.
Without warning, the sky flared into magnificent golden light that drained the shadows and darkness from the immediate area. The drow in front of Baylee drew back, raising his arm in front of his eyes.
Half-blinded himself, Baylee glanced back toward the direction he'd come from and spotted Carceus less than fifty paces distant. The priest held his hands aloft, and the light seemed to pour from them.
The skirmish line the drow had held broke. Arrows flew at them, filling the air as the archers among the rangers tried to find their targets.
Baylee stared hard into the group of drow, seeing that the female among them was once more conscious. Her hot gaze rested on the ranger briefly, then she called to the drow warriors. They flocked to her quickly, having no place to hide under the fierce light of Carceus's creation.
A ruby limned hole opened in the air behind the female drow. Two of the skeleton warriors held the line against the rangers. One of the drow popped open a bag and pulled it over the warrior next to him, swallowing the other man instantly.
"They're escaping!" someone yelled.
"Let them!" yelled another. "There's been enough death tonight, and I've no wish to visit the Underdark before morningfeast."
Baylee raced toward the drow group, but two of the skeleton warriors fronted him. He drew up, frustrated. The hole behind the drow group flared a deeper red as it flashed. Then it was gone. A handful of fletched shafts cut the air where the dimensional door had been.
The skeleton warriors turned from Baylee and ran back toward the area where the dark elves had disappeared. Both of them searched the grass until they found the gold circlets. One touched the circlet immediately to his forehead. Under the clear light of Carceus's spell, Baylee watched as the skeleton warrior and the circlet turned to dust, blowing away in the strong wind left over from the dimensional door.
Then the second skeleton warrior knelt in the grass. Its arms spread out in supplication as its dead face turned toward the sky.
"It looks like it's praying," Cordyan said quietly at Baylee's side.
"Maybe it is," Baylee said. "In the end, those creatures may be capable of
great evil, but not all of them had beginnings in evil. Good men have often been bound to the curse of those gold circlets, I am told."
The second skeleton warrior drew the circlet to its forehead and turned into a pile of dust that rapidly blew away in the rising wind.
Baylee glanced anxiously about. Two of the skeleton warriors had been accounted for, and one climbed the tree Xuxa took shelter in. But a fourth remained.
"What are you searching for?" Cordyan asked.
"The fourth skeleton warrior."
"Why?"
"Because it will follow them," Baylee said. "No matter how far they go. The magic they used to control it will bind it to them. If we want to find them, all we have to do is follow the undead creature."
"It looked like they all threw the circlets away," the watch lieutenant stated. "And the other two skeleton warriors didn't try to follow anyone."
Baylee surveyed the bodies