Jaleigh Johnson - The Howling Delve

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.

Dantane saw the wizard too late. He tried to pull up, but flew straight into an invisible wall. The impact sent him reeling backward. He lost control of the flight spell and fell to the cavern floor at Varan's feet.

The fire beast howled in triumph. In his mind's eye, he forced the wizard to crawl to the man lying prone on the ground.

Bring them, the beast thought. He bore down on the link between his mind and the wizard's, pressing mental tongues of flame against Varan's will. He enjoyed reducing the wizard to little more than a dog, herding his prey to exactly where he wanted them.

Embrace our bond, the beast cooed, and heard the silent screams of the wizard trying to resist the mental command. Join me, and witness power unimaginable. I know your thoughts. Isn't that what you've always wanted? Who would deny such a dream?

The wizard sobbed pitifully, and the beast reached out to stroke him again with fire and claws. He gloried in the ensuing screams, as the wizard went to carry out the beast's will.

Kall broke into a run, heedless of the danger. Cold dread welled up inside him. He swept aside a blade that came at his flank and kept going. He was almost to Dantane when pain exploded in the back of his neck.

Kall went down in a protective crouch. He swung around and saw the halfling reloading his sling. Aazen motioned the halfling back and stepped to block Kall's path. Behind him, Varan rolled Dantane's unconscious body over, feeling inside the wizard's robes. He removed the portal key and turned. Kall saw his face clearly for the first time.

Varan looked terrified.

Kall sprang up. He raised his weapon to cut a path, but Aazen was there, his blade ringing off Kall's enchanted sword. "I need him alive," Aazen said, shoving Kall back.

"He'll kill us all!" Kall swung the blade high, angling it at his best friend's head. He did it without thinking, putting killing force behind the blow.

Aazen ducked, maneuvering to attack from Kall's wounded side. Kall twisted and blocked, but was forced to retreat a step away from Varan.

"That's it, Kall," said Aazen, stalking forward, inviting Kall to continue his attack. "This is exactly how I need you to be."

Kall swung again, bewildered. Had Aazen gone mad as well? "Meisha!" he shouted. If she could get Varan's attention, get through to him, they might have a chance.

Varan took the key and crawled to the dark pit. Tears streamed from his good eye, and he clutched the empty socket, making pitiful mewling noises as he moved.

"Please, don't!" Varan cried as he approached the edge of the chasm. He stared down into the dark, his terror magnified by whatever he saw. "Don't make me!" He grabbed the pouch at his neck, as if to tear it away. His hands locked into claws around the bag, and he screamed. With a violent motion, he reached inside the pouch and pulled out something small and black. Fumbling, he pressed the object against his empty socket.

It was an eye, Kall realized, but it was no human orb.

Black, with thready gray veins bulging from the sides, the eye was too large for the space Varan intended. Kall watched, sickened, as the wizard forced the organ into place with a howl of agony.

Varan lifted the stolen portal key in his other hand and slammed it down against the rocks. Words of power, dredged up from some unwilling place deep inside him, spilled out into the darkness.

The cavern began to shake in great, wracking tremors. Light flared, a halo that burst from the chasm, momentarily blinding everyone in the cavern. Meisha tried to fly, but a falling stalactite struck her out of the air. The blow knocked her senseless. She dropped, straight toward the pit.

Kall saw her fall, saw her body disappear into the green light. He cried out in wordless grief that manifested in a jarring blow against Aazen's sword.

She was gone, Kall thought. He hadn't been able to save her after all.

Grief melted into rage. Kall batted aside Aazen's unresisting blade and knocked him to the floor. For a moment, he fought the urge to keep going, to run his blade through Aazen's heart.

"Kall!" Morgan cried.

Chest heaving, Kall tore himself away from his friend's prone body and ran for the chasm. The cavern was still shuddering. The tremors seemed to come from deep below ground. More stalactites and rock shook free of the ceiling and dropped in a deadly rain. He dodged a spear that plunged to the floor where he and Aazen had just been fighting. Aazen had gotten to his feet and was looking to his own remaining men, issuing commands Kall could not hear over the rumbling.

Kall made it to Dantane. He hauled the wizard up into a sitting position. Varan had collapsed on the stones.

Dantane opened his eyes. They widened-he grabbed Kall by his uninjured forearm. " 'Ware!" he cried.

Kall reversed his blade, stabbing backward blindly, but Garavin was already there, using his maul to pluck a Shadow Thief off his feet like a rag doll.

"We have to go!" the dwarf shouted over the rumbling. "The place'll come down on our heads."

"Tunnel's blocked!" called Laerin from the far side of the cavern. He held Morgan by one shoulder, Talal the other. They limped across the room to join the group. The Shadow Thieves left alive had ceased their attacks in light of the greater danger. "It'll take a while to clear it."

"We don't have any time," said Kall.

"It's another portal," Dantane said, pointing to the glowing green halo, which had formed over the chasm rather than the shaft above. "The wizard wanted someone to go through it."

"Like Hells," said Morgan. "I say we go back through the shaft-take our chances with the Shadow Thieves."

Kall stared down the chasm. "Meisha's down there," he said. "She may still be alive. The rest of you use the key to activate the other portal once I'm gone, but I'm going through this one."