Windwalker - Elaine Cunningham [8]
Bloodlust sang in the warrior's veins as he picked his way through the ruined chamber and sprinted down a tunnel leading to the dragon's hoard cavern. Pharx would be there, ready to protect his treasure. Surely this was the battlefield Nisstyre would choose!
Gorlist was nearly there when a shriek of terrible anguish seared through the air. Without slowing his pace, he seized the flying folds of his cape and drew the magical garment around him in a shield of invisibility.
He burst onto a walkway encircling the vast cavern, squinting into the bright torchlight-or so it seemed to his sensitive drow eyes-that filled the hoard room with flickering shadows. Pharx's lair was dominated by an enormous heap of gold and gems. The hoard glittered in the light of several smoking torches thrust into wall brackets. The object of Gorlist's deepest hatred climbed this pile, moving with a dancer's grace over the shifting treasure.
Liriel no longer looked the part of a pampered Menzoberranzan noble. The erstwhile drow princess was clad in simple black leathers, and the sword on her hip was serviceable at best. Her elaborate braids had been loosed, and thick wavy hair tumbled down her back like a wild, Whitewater stream. Gorlist could not see her face, but it was emblazoned in his mind: the patrician tilt of her small, stubborn chin, the catlike amber hue of her scornful gaze. For a moment Gorlist could see nothing but Liriel, and his thoughts held nothing but hatred.
His sharp eyes caught an anomaly: a smooth wash of gold amid the jumbled treasure. Beneath the acrid dragon musk lay the stench of burned flesh – a not uncommon scent in a dragon's lair but under the circumstances, ominous. Gorlist caught sight of the dying drow embedded up to his chest in cooling, molten gold.
There was no mistaking Nisstyre, despite the ravages of a heat so furious that it could melt coin as if it were butter. A large, glowing ruby was embedded in the seared forehead, and its magical light dimmed with the swift ebbing of the wizard's life-force.
Liriel plucked the gem from Nisstyre's forehead and gazed into it like a seer contemplating a scrying stone-which, in fact, the ruby was. She greeted the unseen watcher with a smile such as a queen might give a vanquished rival or a hunting cat use to taunt its prey.
"You lose," she said.
Crimson light flared as if in sudden temper, then abruptly died. Liriel tossed the lifeless stone aside and half-ran, half-slid down the pile.
So do you, Gorlist silently retorted, noting the dragon-shaped shadow edging into view against the far wall.
The dragon staggered into the cavern, and Gorlist's lips shaped a silent, blasphemous curse. It was not Pharx after all but a smaller, stranger creature: a two-headed purple female. Obviously the dragon had seen battle, and her presence indicated that she had prevailed over Pharx – but not without price. From his position, Gorlist could see the deep acid burns scoring the female's back.
Liriel could not see the wounds, and she greeted the dragon with a fierce smile. They exchanged a few words that Gorlist could not hear. The dragon seemed about to say more, but its left head finally succumbed to injury. Enormous reptilian eyes rolled up, and the head flopped forward, limp and lifeless.
For a moment the right head regarded the demise of its counterpart. "I was afraid of that," the half-dragon said clearly, then the second head crashed facefirst into Pharx's treasure.
Liriel threw herself to her knees and gathered the dragon's left head in her arms. "Damn it, Zip," she said in tones ringing with grief and loss.
The right head stirred, lifted. "A word of advice: Don't trust that human of yours. An utter fool! He offered