Araevin checked the wands he carried holstered on his left hip, and studied the dark opening in the hillside. “I suspect that Sarya emptied the place when she freed her legion. But there’s only one way to be sure, isn’t there?”
CHAPTER THREE
25 Flamerule, the Year of Lightning Storms
Maresa peered down each of four branching hallways, keeping her crossbow pointed in the direction she was looking. The deep halls of Nar Kerymhoarth were still as death, and the air was heavy with a damp, musty scent.
“Another intersection,” the genasi said softly over her shoulder. “This place goes on forever, Araevin. Which way now?”
Araevin studied their surroundings, stretching out with his senses as he attempted to discern any glimmer of the crystal. So far, the artifact had resisted any effort to magically determine its location. Either the stone was protected by its own powerful concealing enchantments, or the remaining wards of the Nameless Dungeon itself were sufficient to deflect any attempt to scry out the shard’s hiding place. After a moment, he gave up.
“Your guess is as good as mine,” he told Maresa.
“That’s hardly reassuring,” the genasi muttered. She looked for a moment more and turned to the passageway on her left. “This way first, then.”
Maresa led the way as they followed the passage. Donnor and Jorin stayed close behind her, swords at the ready. They soon came to a series of alcoves or niches in the vault. The first few they passed were empty, but then they found one occupied by a tall statue of iron. It was shaped like a proud sun elf warrior, dressed in the same sort of ancient armor that Araevin had seen many of the fey’ri wear. This was no fey’ri; for one thing, the statue lacked wings, horns, or any other demonic features. Heavy, spiked gauntlets encased its fists.
“That thing is built to fight,” Donnor said. The cleric looked up and down the hall at the empty niches to each side. The company had already passed thirty or forty of them. “I wonder if all these alcoves used to have statues in them… and where they all went, if more of them were here once.”
“Leave it alone,” Araevin decided. “It doesn’t seem to be active now.” The mystery of the abandoned war-construct could wait.
He turned away to follow his companions deeper into the dungeon. They were ten paces farther down the hallway when the squeal of rusted metal in motion stopped him in his tracks.
“I do not like the sound of that,” Nesterin said to Araevin.
Together the elves turned, and found themselves staring at the iron statue as it ponderously stepped forth from its alcove and swiveled to face them. It raised one arm slowly, as if to accuse them of some crime. Brilliant blue sparks abruptly sprang into life in its blank eyes and the joinings between its armored plates. From its outstretched gauntlet a great stroke of lightning leaped down the hallway with a terrible booming thunderclap.
Araevin threw himself aside but was still caught and spun around to the hard stone floor by the force of the bolt. His muscles jerked and kicked, leaving him writhing on the flagstones with searing white pain all along his right side and smoke rising from his cloak. Nesterin fell nearby, singed as badly as Araevin. Maresa ducked out of the way with an oath, but the lightning stroke bent toward Donnor in his plate armor and struck him with its full force. Blue sparks flew from the Lathanderite’s body, and he was flung ten yards down the hall, spinning through the air as his sword clattered to the floor.
“Donnor’s hurt!” Maresa cried.
She snapped a single shot from her crossbow at the advancing statue, but the bolt simply clattered away into the darkness like a matchstick thrown at an anvil.
“Help him,” Araevin gasped.
He picked himself up, trying to keep his trembling legs underneath him, and looked up just in time to see the statue standing over him, drawing back its ogrelike fist. He scrambled back out of the way as the ancient war-construct pulverized a head-sized chunk of the masonry wall where he had been lying just a moment before.
With a quick gesture of his hand and an arcane syllable, Araevin blasted back at the statue with a spinning globe of magical force that struck the machine in the center of its black iron torso. The blow would have crushed the chest of a giant, but other than bludgeoning a good-sized dent in the thing’s armor and knocking it back a step, the spell had little effect.
“Not good enough, Araevin,” he hissed at himself, thinking furiously of spells that might be better suited to the task.
With a rush, Jorin hurtled past him and hammered at the construct’s waist with his flashing swords. The Yuir ranger quickly realized that he couldn’t get through the ancient armor plate either, and shifted targets. Weaving his blades in front of the statue’s blank gaze and jamming sword points in any gap or joint he could find, he drew its attention away from the others.
“This way, you! Come on!” he called.
Gaerradh appeared behind the statue, fighting with a long axe in one hand and a short-hafted one in the other. Her axe-blows rang like hammers on an anvil against the statue’s back, but she kept it off-balance. With one high leaping blow she struck it hard on the side of the helm, knocking its head slightly askew, but the war-construct responded by dropping to one knee and slamming its huge fist into the ground at her feet, blue sparks flying from the blow.
The flagstone floor erupted in a jagged line through the center of the hallway, knocking Araevin and Nesterin back down and bouncing Gaerradh head-over-heels. The wood elf landed flat on her back, stunned. The war-construct reached out one powerful hand to crush her.
Lying on the shattered floor, Araevin threw out his hand and barked out the words of another spell. A thin green ray sprang from his finger and struck the construct’s arm. Wherever its sinister emerald light played, iron simply vanished into glittering black dust. Most of the machine’s right arm disintegrated before the green ray winked out again.
“Well done, Araevin!” Nesterin cried.
As the war-construct reeled back, the star elf gathered his strength and gave voice to a single deep note that cracked stone and crumpled iron plate, hammering the statue over backward. The ancient machine fell heavily to the floor, landing on its back at Jorin’s feet.
The Yuir ranger cast away one sword and gripped the other in both hands, capping his palm over the pommel. Then he dropped to a knee and drove the blade straight through the war-statue’s visor. Brilliant blue sparks exploded from the device, hurling Jorin away-but then the azure light flickered and faded, leaving nothing but a wisp of smoke and a sharp, bitter smell in the air. The statue lay still, its helmet transfixed by Jorin’s sword.
Araevin picked himself up wearily and looked around. “Maresa? How is Donnor?”
“Dazed, but still here,” the genasi said. She helped the human knight to sit up. Donnor rubbed his head and groaned, but said nothing.
“Evidently, the construct still works,” Nesterin said. He looked at the empty niches lining the hallway, and frowned. “Where are the rest of them, I wonder?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps the fey’ri removed them after they escaped.” Araevin rubbed his burned side. “Of course, if Sarya had had any number of those things at her command, we certainly would have seen them used against us in the battles near Evereska or in the High Forest.”
“It wasn’t very fast,” Gaerradh observed. “Maybe she had a hard time getting them to her battles.”
Araevin studied the wreckage of the war-construct a moment longer, and turned away. “Let’s continue. We’ll pass a warning to Seiveril Miritar to watch out for war-machines like this one when we finish our work here.”
Moving more cautiously, they continued on past the last of the alcoves-eighty-eight of them, if Araevin had counted correctly-and came to a high gallery, overlooking a large shrine below. The Nameless Dungeon had proved much more extensive than Araevin had ever suspected. Vast lightless halls, dizzying shafts, and long passageways seemed to run on for miles in the darkness underneath the hill. Its armories and barracks could have accommodated an army.