The Nether Scroll - Lynn Abbey [87]
"Dru?" Tiep called in a voice not loud enough to reach his fingertips. "Dru?" he called, a
bit louder.
"Tiep? Is that you, Tiep?"
Dru came down the tunnel. Tiep got Rozt'a on her feet and they met him halfway. The
lump on Dru's shoulder was the goblin, who wasn't moving and might have been dead for all Tiep knew or cared.
There was safety in his foster father's embrace, and not merely because they'd found each other. Druhallen hadn't merely thrown off the Beast Lord's compulsion the way Tiep had. Being a wizard, Druhallen kept the Beast Lord at an arm's length-at two arms' lengths. As soon as they'd entered Dru's shadow, Tiep felt the pressure ease in his mind. By the time they were touching each other, Rozt'a stood tall without any help from him, though maybe magic had nothing to do with that.
"What happened?" Tiep whispered. "Did you get the scroll?"
"Later. We've got to get out of here while the Beast Lord's distracted."
So much for impressing Druhallen with his cleverness.
Dru wasn't worried about being seen or heard as they escaped from the pool chamber. Speed was more important, and keeping a hold of Rozt'a.
"You can take care of yourself, can't you?" Dru asked.
Tiep straightened proudly. "Sure I can."
"Good. Stay close and be ready to grab Rozt'a if she breaks away. She's got no defense except what you or I can share with her. I'll whisk up some light as soon as we're out of range."
Out of range was farther into the escape tunnel than any of them would have liked. Rock fall cluttered the path. They couldn't move fast, or quiet, and there were no guarantees that the Beast Lord had called all his swordswingers to the pool chamber. Dru was in command of their path and pace. He said he remembered the way, but there was a danger they'd miss an intersection in the dark. Tiep was relieved when Dru finally cast his light spell. Not only did that mean that they were beyond the Beast Lord's compulsion, but they could see fallen rocks and the intersections, too.
They got more good news when they returned to the spot where they'd battled and blasted the Beast Lord's swordswingers. The corpses were untouched.
"No one's come back for their dead," Rozt'a said. Her voice was shaky, but her mind was working again. "That means the ones that ran off haven't reported yet and there've been no other patrols."
A fighter's morale, she said, depended in part on his confidence that he'd be given an appropriate funeral before his death was avenged. She seemed to think the Beast Lord cared about morale; she didn't remember anything that had happened after they'd found the granite wall. Tiep whispered and told her what she'd missed without going too deeply into the details.
"It's all a blank," she shrugged. "I remember hitting that rock until I saw stars, then nothing but a slice of empty in my memory. Damn strangest thing that's ever happened to me."
Privately, Tiep thought it was lucky more than strange, but neither he nor Dru said anything. And the goblin was still unconscious over Dru's shoulders.
"The little fellow knew what was happening, I think," Dru explained in a soft voice as they walked away from the swordswinger corpses. "I told him to jump, that we'd come back for it, but he knew a goblin was going to die, one way or another. He wasn't coming down without the scroll. He had both hands on it and was pulling for all he was worth when it came alive like a bolt of lightning and threw him against the wall. He started to come around once, when the Beast Lord was loading the athanor. I had to hit him pretty hard to keep him quiet."
Tiep was unimpressed. "You should've left him behind and come with us."
Dru replied with a sigh, nothing more.
"At least you got the scroll," Rozt'a added.
"No. We hid while the Beast Lord was loading up the athanor. I was pretty sure it couldn't see us as long as we did nothing to attract its attention. Things got pretty wild after it left and the transmutation was underway.