The Howling Delve - Jaleigh Johnson

"You know nothing of Haig."

"But I know you, Kall. You stand before me in a cage as complex and binding as my own, and you have the gall to promise to free me?" Aazen laughed. "We are both trapped. We can only claw at each other from our prisons. The loser in this contest may end up being the fortunate one."

"Is that the way it's to be, then?" said Kall sadly. "Is that what you truly want, Aazen?"

The question seemed to stir his friend, and for a breath something faltered in Aazen's gaze. Kall took a step forward, but Aazen recoiled, falling behind the men with bows. "Kill him," he said clearly.

At close range, the arrows were a blur. Kall only saw the twin jets of flame. The missiles burned up in mid-flight.

Meisha materialized next to Kall, her eyes red as she stared down the bowmen. His friends appeared in a swarm as Dantane's invisibility cloak fell away.

Garavin swung his maul, smashing aside the bows. Their bearers fell back out of reach of the massive weapon and broke their protective flank around Aazen. Borl ran alongside his master, snarling and herding them into a corner of the room.

Morgan and Laerin fought side by side with swords and daggers. They formed a rough wall for Meisha and Dantane to cast spells behind while Kall separated from the group and chased after Aazen.

Two heads of white-gold hair met him as Isslun and her twin crowded him from Aazen's other side.

"Never turn down two at once," sang Isslun as the twins attacked in unison. She slashed high, almost lazily, aiming for Kall's throat. Her sister ducked under the strike and came up in a burst of speed at his guard.

Kall crouched, sweeping aside Aliyea's blade. "How you survived the years since our last meeting"-he came up under her sword, forcing her to follow him back to his feet-"is a mystery." He danced to one side, spinning so that Isslun was between him and Aliyea's attack. "They've been hard years, though, haven't they?" he taunted. He slashed his sword in a mimic of Isslun's strike, tracing the line of a white scar running along the woman's jaw. Isslun flinched, and Kall came at her. He shifted his grip, changed the direction of his swing and cut a much deeper line across Isslun's stomach. She let out a shocked gasp, clutching at her abdomen.

Aliyea shouted her sister's name in rage. She drew a dagger from her belt and hurled it over her sister's shoulder as Isslun crumpled to the floor. Kall spun away, but the fang sunk into his arm, and pierced through to the other side of the muscle. Pain ran a fire trail up his arm. Kall dropped back, kicking out with his foot to sweep Aliyea's legs out from under her as she charged him. She fell, but she grabbed the dagger hilt protruding from Kall's arm as she went down.

Kall felt muscle tear when the blade came free sideways, carving a hunk of flesh from his arm. Aliyea's eyes glinted maliciously as he cried out from the pain. She gripped the dagger with both hands and raised it above her head.

The dagger burst into flame. Aliyea's eyes widened. She released the burning weapon with a yelp of pain. In one movement, Kall snatched it out of the air, turned, and plunged it through a gap in her armor. The fingers of his maimed arm came away blistered from the fire. His stab wound bled liberally, making him lightheaded, but he had no time to bind it. The cavern swirled with fighters, far more of them foes. He jumped to his feet and over the twins, making his way to Garavin, who stood closest.

Near the rim of the chasm, the dwarf danced atop the ring of stones encircling the pit, swinging his maul angle-out, like a pendulum, to keep three Shadow Thieves at bay. Despite his heavy tread, the dwarf moved among the rocks as if he strode through mist, using his weight to lever the maul.

In the end, two of the men leaped forward. The man to Garavin's left swung a light flail in imitation of Garavin's maul.

Garavin feinted toward him but broke to the right, striking the second man a quick, snapping blow across the kneecap. The man's leg went out, and he was down, scrabbling on the rocks to keep from falling into the pit.

The distraction allowed the dwarf to focus on the flail. The spiked ball wrapped around the handle of his weapon. The chain cinched tight.

Instead of grappling with the larger man, Garavin relinquished his weapon to keep his footing. The man yanked his maul away. Garavin clasped his holy symbol and mouthed a fast prayer. The triumphant smile disappeared off his opponent's face. The maul turned upright, floating in the air as if held by invisible hands.

The man gaped at the rotating weapon. The maul shot out over the chasm, dragging the flail chain and its owner with it. The thief lost his grip on the weapon and pitched headfirst into the dark.

Garavin snagged his maul and the flail before they fell, turning with both weapons to the second man on the rocks.

He brought the maul around as the man swung an axe blade in a reverse chop aimed at Garavin's chin. The dwarf blocked the blow, but the weight of both weapons was too great, and the impact of the axe drove him back hard. He skirted the lip of the chasm. The axeman lunged forward to try to force him the rest of the way into the pit.

A blast of hot air caught the dwarf from behind, pushing him forward. He smashed the maul through the axeman, clipping his opponent in the ribs. Bones cracked audibly, and the man fell back. Garavin threw a quick salute skyward, where Meisha hovered above his head.

The cavern's ceiling was alive with aerial battle. Dantane and Meisha flew around each other, using stalactites for cover as they engaged the Shadow Thief wizard and his two protectors-a younger man and woman who appeared to be apprentices. Their hands moved in frantic, mimicking circles, weaving spell-shields for their master.

Meisha hurled her last two stilettos. The blades caught fire as they spun through the air. One burning missile caught the woman in the thigh, forcing her to break rhythm to put out the flames licking her robes.

"Dantane!" Meisha cried, but the wizard was already casting. With one palm atop the other, his fingers flush in a rough X shape, Dantane yelled, "Krevatcya, dannan shae!"

The woman let out a desperate shout, but she couldn't get the spell out in time. A ball of black energy formed under Dantane's hands and streaked down to hit the other wizard in the chest, ruining whatever spell he'd been preparing. Instead of dissipating, the black energy mass crawled along his skin, trailing electrical sparks that singed his robes. The wizard tried to claw the ball off, gasping when his hands met a jolt of painful electricity.

Meisha spared Dantane a glance, but the wizard wasn't looking at her. He'd paused to witness the effects of his own spell. The black energy sizzled along the wizard's flesh. Dantane seemed detached, analytical as he watched it.

Thumb-sized teardrops of flame appeared, one above each of the fingers of Meisha's open palm. She murmured an incantation, and the flames began to spin in a circle like tiny stars. They shot across the cavern, peppering the wizard's apprentices with tiny firebursts. Protection spells flickered and peeled away as the wizard continued to grapple with the dark, killing energy.

Meisha grabbed the stalactite for leverage and swung around the base. She started to drop down and felt a painful coldness shoot up her leg. Whirling, putting her back to the stalactite, Meisha saw another thief crawling along the walls, his hands and feet covered with the same sticky climbing aid Talal had taken from the halfling. He held a barbed whip in one hand and a blade between his teeth.

Meisha put a hand over her thigh where the whip had ripped away cloth and flesh above her boot's cuff. She was in the crossfire of the wizard and the whip-wielder now, and the man's whip obviously bore some type of enchantment, for her leg was rapidly going numb with the cold.

She looked below. Morgan was nearest, but he bled liberally from a gash across his eyebrow. He ran below her to aid Garavin.

Her mind worked rapidly. Meisha pointed at the man on the wall, holding her arm out almost perpendicular to her body, affording him an easy target. He took the bait.

The whip snapped out, circling her arm, driving its barbs in deep. Cold spasms shot up to her elbow. Meisha clenched her teeth against the pain and called the fire. She prayed it would be enough to siphon off the cold. She pictured the whip in her mind-the shape, the coil of rope and spines when it lay at rest, then up, into human hands, ready to strike, to steal her life-force..

Fire filled her veins, coiled out from her trembling finger. She sent a jet spiraling along the whip's length, all the way up the thief's arms. The fire whip slashed across his face, leaving a red line between his nose and his ear.

The man shrieked and raised his hands to his face. His grip on the ceiling faltered, and he fell to dangle above the tumult by his legs.

Meisha did not linger to see if he would drop. Her arm fell uselessly to her side, aching with the pressure of a thousand needles. She pushed off the stalactite with her good leg and flew to a corner, putting her back to the wall for some cover.

The battle below was growing more and more desperate. For all their skill, they were outnumbered. Where was Dantane?

Then Meisha saw him, flying up from the ground. He intercepted a stream of missiles from the wizard, who'd managed to rid himself of the black energy but not its effects. The electrical ball had burned his robes away at the chest, exposing singed hair and blistered skin. His face trembled with rage. Dantane smiled and cast another spell.

"Dantane!" she cried.

"Are you all right?" the wizard asked when he flew up to join her. He came in at an angle to examine her leg.

"Forget it," said Meisha. "The arm's worse. I can't cast, not for a while."

"We don't have that long," Dantane replied. He rummaged in a pocket of his robes.

"We're not going to make it." Meisha leaned her head back against the wall. She was sweating. So hot….

Dantane pressed a vial between her limp fingers. "Drink this. Stay here," he said. "I'll get to Kall."

Meisha started to ask what that would serve, but she saw something across the cavern that stole the breath from her body.

Talal, clutching one of her boot daggers-she hadn't even known it was missing-was sneaking up behind one of the men fighting with Laerin. The half-elf saw the boy in time to check his own swing, a blow that would have cleaved through his opponent's skull and likely taken Talal's head as well.

"Fool," Meisha whispered, a sob in her throat.

White-faced and shaking, the boy reared back and stabbed the Shadow Thief. The boy wasn't strong, but he had four years of pent-up hatred and grief driving the blow. Meisha didn't see where the blade penetrated, but the man stiffened. Blood trailed from the corner of his mouth. Laerin danced to the side to avoid being borne to the floor with the body. He was just in time to catch Talal as he, too, pitched forward unsteadily. Laerin pushed the boy behind him.

Across the cavern, Kall saw Dantane flying toward him. He pulled his blade out of a Shadow Thief and moved to meet him, but another figure rose up in the wizard's path. Kall stepped aside, expecting Dantane to hurl a spell at the fool. Then he saw the tattered robes, the wild hair. …

"Varan!" he heard Meisha shout, but the din of battle reduced her cry to nothing.

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