The Queen of Stone_ Thorn of Breland - Keith Baker [84]
“Then ready yourself for battle,” Sheshka said, nocking an arrow to her bowstring. She nudged the door open with her foot, revealing the corpses of two guards. One lay in a pool of blood; his head had nearly been severed from his body, likely by the blades of the Valenar elf. The other had been felled by magic. A focused burst of flame had melted her steel breastplate and charred the muscle beneath, leaving metal bound to seared flesh.
“You’ll need the myrnaxe,” Sheshka said. If the sight unnerved her, she gave no sign. “This is a night for silver.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The Great Crag
Droaam
Eyre 19, 998 YK
Thorn had already intended to use the sewers as her escape route, and—thanks to Jharl—she knew exactly where to go. She led the way at a hard run. With only a few hundred feet to go, speed seemed more important than stealth. And it was. Thorn was less than ten feet from the privy chamber when she heard the sound of thunder rolling down the hall—iron-shod boots pounding against the stone. She darted into the latrine and pressed herself tight against the wall. Sheshka followed close behind her, taking the other side. Moments later, a troop of armored ogres stormed past them, loping toward Sheshka’s quarters.
“Skullcrushers,” Sheshka murmured, once the sound had faded. “The elite guards of the Crag.”
So she was right, Thorn thought. Either the Aundairian had been caught and then confessed, and the guards had been sent to save Sheshka—or they’d come to finish what she started. Either way, trouble lay ahead. “Olladra, Aureon, smile on your servant Beren,” she breathed.
Thorn thought that Sheshka might need the rope and climbing tools she’d brought with her, but the medusa knew what to do. She’d slung her bow and was sliding down through the ogre’s latrine.
The last time Thorn had passed through the sewers, she’d been a gaseous cloud. That had many advantages—floating through the air was far easier than clinging to scum-encrusted walls while trying not to slip and tumble into the sewage below. And in her ghostly form, she’d lost her sense of smell. This time, Thorn was solid, and her senses were sharper than ever. In her haste to follow Sheshka, she’d neglected to use her nose clip, and the odor was horrific. She struggled to keep from retching, which was no help as she fought to keep her grip on the wall.
If the stench bothered Sheshka, she gave no sign of it. The medusa was cool and efficient, descending at a steady, methodical rate. Her serpents had settled against her back and shoulders, coiled quietly against her skin.
Thorn had plotted the path the night before, and she knew exactly where to go. But it was one thing to plan this journey in bed, and another to actually crawl through the foul pipes, surrounded by flowing water and scuttling insects. Yet even bad things come to an end, and eventually they dropped into the main sewer line—an underground river of filthy water, flowing deep below the Crag. A path ran along the edge of this subterranean canal, but the pipe Thorn and Sheshka were in opened up immediately above the water, and they had to swim through the ghastly tributary to reach the walkway.
“Thank Aureon for magic,” Thorn muttered. Thanks to her masking spell, the waste hadn’t clung to her, but she didn’t know if she’d ever be able to drive the odor from her mind. She reached into her cloak and found her nose clip. Better late then never.
“And praise to his Shadow,” Sheshka said. The common myth of the Sovereign Host was that the god Aureon had been the first among the Sovereigns to master the art of wizardry, but in his quest for knowledge, Aureon had given malevolent life to his own shadow, and that force was responsible for all manner of dark magic, along with the creation of many monsters. Thorn had heard that many of the people of Droaam worshiped the Shadow, but she’d never