Though it appeared insubstantial the trident was solid enough when it touched the banelar. The creature jerked back and to the right, avoiding two of the three prongs, but the third dug a ragged furrow in its slimy underbelly.
The banelar hissed in pain, but looked at her with strangely renewed confidence, and cursed at her in what sounded like Orcish. Svayyah ignored the insult and blinked away before it had a chance to bite at her.
Svayyah materialized at the edge of the hole, her snake’s body folding over the stack of lumber. She whipped the spectral trident around herself again and didn’t hear the banelar speak the command word for its ring.
“How many cuts will it” she started, then the breath was once more driven from her lungs by the ghost of a ram.
The force of the blow sent her sprawling like a limp, fallen vine, into the pit. She scraped against the dull edge of the saw blade that still hung from the rig. If she’d hit it at a slightly different angle the fall might have cut hereven killed her.
Svayyah wondered at the banelar’s freshly attuned senses. She knew of any number of spells that might have helped, and knew it must have cast one. It was beginning to anticipate her blinks. It had sent the ram at her even before she’d appeared at the pit’s edge.
And it can still jump, she thought.
She rattled off the words to a spell as fast as she could and still be sure it would work, then blinked away before she had a chance to see its effect. But just the thousandth of a heartbeat before she altered her location she saw the banelar arc through the air, coming right down at her into the pit.
She was well away when the long steel saw blade shattered into thousands of twisted, razor-sharp shards.
Svayyah barked out a laugh and twisted her spectral trident in the air in front of her. As she expected, the banelar leaped from the pit. It was alive, but bleeding from dozens of cuts.
“That will cost you,” it threatened.
“We have spent all we wish to already,” Svayyah sneered. “Your miserable existence ends.”
While she spoke the banelar stuttered out a ragged-edged incantation, swaying in time with it. Svayyah gathered the defenses she’d cast on herself close to her. She closed her eyes and slithered backward. The spell hit her in the eyes, making them water. Her vision blurred. She struggled to keep them open, battled to resist the magic that sought to blind her.
Not concentrating on any particular destination, she blinked away. She arrived somewhere nearby, but was momentarily disoriented. She saw a moving shape, blurred and indistinct, but knew it was the banelar.
“Someone’s miserable existence ends now,” the banelar hissed. “Of that I can assure you.”
Devorast, she thought. It’s going after Devorast.
She heard the banelar’s voice chanting in Draconic. Svayyah recognized the words, even the cadence, and gasped. She blinked the last of the fog from her eyes and disappearedonce again knowing precisely where she’d end up.
The thing lunged at Devorast, whose eyes widened. He was helpless, and Svayyah could see from what parts of his face he could move that he didn’t like it any more than she would have.
The naga appeared directly behind the banelar, her weapon made of shadowstuff held firm in the air above her head. She stabbed down hard, pushing the trident with the strength of her mind. It sank deep into the serpent creature’s purple carapace, but she wasn’t fast enough.
Devorast opened his mouth, but couldn’t scream. The banelar bit into his shoulder so hard Svayyah heard its fangs scrape bone. The sizzling noise that accompanied that sound confirmed Svayyah’s fears.
Svayyah twisted the spectral trident and pulled back with it, letting it slip past her body to drag the banelar off of Devorast. The banelar had a grip on Devorast’s shoulder for the heartbeat or so it took to die, and the spell that held him rigid disappeared all at once. When the banelar’s fangs came out, Devorast fell to his knees. With joints stiff and creaking, he put a palm to the wound, but hissed and pulled his hand awayburned by the already potent venom, made caustic by the banelar’s spell.
The vile creature slumped to the ground, still and lifeless, so Svayyah let the spectral trident disappear.
She looked down at Devorast, who lay on the ground, writhing in agony, his jaw stiff and his eyes closed. Bright red fluid bubbled up through the punctures made by the banelar’s fangs, as though his blood boiled.
Svayyah spoke the words of a spell and turned her head north, in the direction of the humans’ keep on the banks of the Nagaflow. Not identifying herself, but being sure to mention Devorast by name, she whispered on the winds a message that would carry the half a dozen miles to the nearest human ear. She told them that Devorast was going to die, and die soon, and that he needed their help.
“We will stay with you until your people arrive,” the naga told him, though she wasn’t sure he could understand her.
Devorast was breathingpanting evenso he was still alive, but he’d lost consciousness. Fortunate, Svayyah thought.
Knowing it would take time for the humans to cross the half a dozen miles from the keephopefully with one of their priestsand able only to hope that Devorast would still be alive when they got there, Svayyah turned her attention to the banelar. She used a spell to slip the rings off its still, limp tentacles, then stared at the brooch. It was a black triangle, its top rounded, the point on the bottom. In the center was a gold disk overlapped with an ebony symbolthe letter Z from the human alphabet-emblazoned above it. She didn’t recognize the mark, didn’t think it was the symbol of any god, but knew it had to have some significance. Banelars rarely if ever acted on their own. They were servant creatures. The brooch was a protective device, one that ate her magic missiles, but it was a sort of badge, too, that claimed the banelar in the name ofwho? What?
Svayyah turned to the fitfully-sleeping Devorast and said, “I hope you live long enough to find out who sent this wretch, and exact your revenge.” She sighed and studied the dying man. The muscles under his smooth skin quivered with strange tremors. “And now perhaps you will start to carry weaponsor at least a thrice-bedamned healing potion or two.”
34
22 Tarsakh, the Yearof the Staff (1366 DR) Second Quarter, Innarlith
Anyone who understood the difference between beautiful and pretty could see that the girl was the latter. Her round face and big brown eyes were pleasing to the eye, but lacked definition. Her black hair was clean and combed, but she didn’t bother doing too much more with it. Her simple white silk shift revealed enough of her body that customers knew what they were getting; not enough to appear crass.
“If there is anything I can get you while you” she said.
“Nothing, thank you, girl,” Marek interrupted, waving her away. “We aren’t customers. We’ve come to see the lady of the house.”
He could see the girl thinking, considering her response, sizing him up. She glanced at Salatis, and Marek could tell she recognized him. When her eyes passed Insithryllax and settled back on Marek, the Red Wizard could tell she’d never seen either of them before, and that concerned her.
“You can go, Cassiya,” Nyla said. The girl couldn’t help herself, she sighed in relief and scurried out. “I know she’s not your type, Master Rymiit.”
“She may be mine,” Salatis cut in with a cheerful leer.
An annoyed grimace passed quickly across Nyla’s face, then she smiled and turned to Salatis and said, “I can do better than that for the ransar.”
Salatis dipped in a shallow bow and was about to speak when Marek said, “The ransar told me you had something to say to me?”
Nyla sighed and sat in one of the deep-cushioned easy chairs scattered around the tastefully-decorated parlor. A fire roared in a fireplace big enough to stand in, and the air smelled of wood smoke and rose oil. The woman put a hand to her forehead and traced around the edge of her eyepatch with the tip of a finger.