[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.They lifted their daggers and whips, surrounding him.One raised her arms, speaking the words of a spell.Zak kicked out, crushing her jaw before she could finish uttering the enchantment.She fell to the floor, moaning.Another priestess raised a wooden rod that glowed with fell magic, ready to strike him down.Zak lashed out with the dagger, and the rod fell to the ground, still gripped by the priestess's severed hand.She clutched the bloody stump of her wrist and staggered away.Despite himself, Zak grinned.They had sought to work their justice upon him.Well this was his justice.Again he felt that clarity that came to him only when slaying things of evil.These were the ones who worked Lloth's wicked will, these priestesses of Arach-Tinilith.These were the ones who gave the Spider Queen her power.Maybe he was a killer.Maybe he was no better than they, than any drow.But if he was going to kill, at least let it be creatures of evil, like this.His grin broadened as he plucked a second dagger from one of the corpses.The hilts hummed against his two hands.These were enchanted blades, wickedly sharp.Terror blossomed in the eyes of the four remaining priestesses.To them he seemed a fiend, a fey thing, more terrible than a creature of the Abyss.They turned to flee, and two more died as Zak drove a dagger into each of their backs, piercing their hearts.He started to pursue the remaining two priestesses, but was brought up short by a quartet of male soldiers.The first thrust out his sword.As he did, Zak performed a move he had invented himself long ago.He poised one dagger high, the other low, and both slightly offset.The torque vise, he called it.As the soldier lunged forward, Zak brought the daggers together, catching the other's arm between.Bone shattered with a sound like glass grinding.The soldier went down screaming.Zak laughed, making quick work of the remaining soldiers with the magical spider daggers.In seconds, four corpses slumped at his feet.He leapt over them, no longer thinking, driven by instinct to pursue the evil priestesses.Three shadowy forms lowned before him.The smoke swirled and parted.Zak halted, gazing up at the hideous creatures.Half drow, half spider.Murder and madness glinted in their red eyes.Driders.The newly created monstrosities advanced, wielding weapons in drow hands, reaching out with barbed legs.Now Zak was on the defensive.He lashed out, and a severed spider leg fell writhing to floor.Again he struck, and another leg fell.But the driders kept advancing.In their bloodlust they seemed to feel no pain.They bore down on him until his back came up against rough stone.His breath grew short in his lungs.His arms ached.He could not keep the driders at bay much longer.The abominations grinned, green spittle running down their chins, as they sensed their imminent victory.Zak looked around in desperation, searching for a way out.There was none.Then his eyes locked on something above.It was a long shot, but it was his only chance.Taking aim, he hurled a dagger with all his might at a clump of stalactites hanging from the cavern ceiling.The dagger bounced off the stone without effect.Zak dodged a spider leg, weighed his one remaining dagger, and threw.This one broke as it struck the stone.The blade burst apart in a spray of violent purple magic as its enchantment was released.The force of the explosion knocked loose several stalactites.The heavy stone spikes plunged downward.As one the driders shrieked in agony.Zak edged away from the dying creatures.Each of the driders had been pierced through its bloated abdomen by one of the stalactites.Foul ichor bubbled from the wounds.Even as he watched, the driders fell over, their spider legs curling up.The crimson light flickered in their eyes and went dark.Zak shook his head.He had done them a favor.Better to die than to live for centuries as monsters.Zak gazed down at his blood-spattered clothes.A bitter laugh escaped his lips."Ah, but are you not already a monster, Zaknafein?"Distant shouts echoed off cold stone, approaching.The two surviving priestesses had gone for help.Soldiers would arrive soon.More than Zak could fight.Glancing around, his preternatural eyes detected the empty opening of a side passage.Levitating, so as not to leave any telltale warm footprints, he passed through the opening and plunged into the winding ways of the Dark Dominion.Minutes later, Zak sank back to the stone floor of the tunnel, his powers of levitation exhausted for the moment.He listened with pointed ears but heard no sounds of pursuit.Weary, he leaned against a rough wall, and only then realized he was trembling.He had escaped spending the rest of his life as a drider
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]