“Good to see you, Jack,” Halamar said. The fire-sorcerer gave him a firm arm-clasp. “Was Seila not with you?”
“She was, but Balathorp took her, perhaps an hour ago. I think he is making a run for it.” Jack glanced over to Jelan and her crew. “We need to fight our way out of here. Balathorp is getting away.”
“That was more or less my plan.” Jelan peered through the gloom up the stairs, then nodded at the small band. “This way-”
“One moment,” Jack said. He moved over to Jelan and held up his right hand. “Can you remove this ring for me? It is cursed so that I cannot take it off myself.”
Jelan gave him a skeptical look. “What does it do?”
“It prevents me from using my own magic,” Jack said. The warlord hesitated, so he added, “I have no intention of leaving the Underdark until the drow are dealt with, one way or another. They will hound me to the end of my days otherwise. Besides, I am going nowhere until I find Seila Norwood and see her to safety. I cannot leave her in the dark elves’ hands.”
“You surprise me, Jack. Sentimentality? A sense of responsibility? What next, I wonder?” She took Jack’s right hand in her left, steadying it, and then grasped the ring in her other hand, covering it completely to suppress the ring’s curse with her own native antimagic. With one easy motion she pulled the ring off Jack’s finger, then dropped it into a pouch at her belt. “Hmm, I expected that to be harder,” she said. “Perhaps it was enchanted only so that you could not remove it yourself.”
Jack rubbed his hand with a sigh of relief. “Much better; I thank you. I am ready now.”
Jelan nodded. “Good. Kilarnan, Halamar, will you clear a way for us?”
The two mages looked at each other, then began casting. Jack sensed both of them struggling to gather the power for their spells; all the currents of magic seemed to flow toward the wild mythal, and it required an unusual effort for Halamar and Kilarnan to divert the invisible eddies to their own spell. Halamar launched a huge fireball up the stairs leading to the castle, while Kilarnan followed an instant later with a crackling sphere of lightning. Twin detonations rocked the chamber; screams and shouts echoed down the steps. On the heels of the battle spells, Jelan and her mercenaries darted up the stairs; Jack and his comrades followed. Dead or unconscious dark elves littered the landing above, killed where they’d been standing or crouching to fire down at the adventurers below. The dark elves who survived the powerful spells were quickly cut down by Jelan, Narm, and the others, or else they fled silently down the castle corridors.
“They’ll come back with reinforcements,” Kurzen observed.
“Keep moving,” Jelan replied. “To the gatehouse!” She turned to the right and headed down a new hallway of blood-red arrases and gleaming black marble. The small party of adventurers fell in around her as they hurried through Tower Chumavhraele. They took several turns, and passed through a couple of large, empty halls and foyers, until finally they halted by a large double-door reinforced with bands of adamantine. Jelan cracked it open and peeked through; Jack saw the courtyard of the castle just beyond. A squad of drow with a pair of hulking battle-trolls guarded the courtyard and the main gate leading outside.
“Not as many as I expected,” Jelan remarked. “Dresimil must have thrown most of her strength against Norwood’s soldiers. Well, she’ll have cause to regret that soon enough. Kilarnan-the trolls, if you please.”
The elf nodded. “Be on your guard. The drow will not be fooled for long.” Then he drew his wand and began to whisper the words of an enchantment, his wand rising and falling with the sonorous tones of his voice.
For a moment Jack thought the spell had failed altogether … but then the trolls suddenly straightened up, shaking their heads from side to side with snorts and growls. The drow warriors nearby turned to see what was troubling the big monsters; then one troll let out a bellow of rage and smashed at the nearest drow with its huge spiked hammer, while the other wheeled and rampaged into the middle of the warriors behind it. In the space of an instant the trolls and the drow were locked in a furious melee, as the simple-minded monsters flailed and struck at their masters under Kilarnan’s spell.
“Well done,” Jelan said to the mage. “The rest of you, follow me when I charge.”
“Stupid beasts!” one of the drow warriors cried. “Have you lost your minds?”
“They’ve been charmed!” another dark elf who must have been the captain of the detachment shouted back. “Stay away from them until the spell passes!”
The drow warriors scrambled back from the trolls, but not before another one had been hacked down by a huge axe. Jelan watched them scatter, and then she suddenly threw open the tower door and sprinted toward the captain while his back was turned. Narm, Kurzen, the priest Wulfrad, and the tattooed warrior Monagh followed after her; Halamar found a good vantage to throw bolts of fire at the drow as they struggled to meet the new attack. Jack decided to make use of the small crossbow he’d taken from the guard down in the dungeons, staying a few steps back from the heavy fighting. He shot a dark elf who looked like a wizard just before he finished whatever spell he was intoning. Meanwhile, in a few vicious passes of her blade, Myrkyssa Jelan cut down the distracted dark elf captain while the rest of the band and the charmed trolls made short work of the others.
“That seems like a very useful spell,” Jack said to Kilarnan, impressed by how quickly his companions had cut the drow guards to pieces. Perhaps their odds were better than he had thought.
Kilarnan gave him a small nod, then motioned with his wand again and sent the two trolls lumbering off into another castle doorway. “Trolls are weak-willed creatures, easily controlled,” he said. “Still, the enchantment will not last long. Best to send them far away and tell them to forget what they were doing, before they recover and turn on us.”
Jelan headed for the castle’s main gate, and motioned to her companions to draw the foot-thick bolt securing the doors. In a few moments they had the castle gate open. No more drow were close by, but Jack could see dark phalanxes several hundred yards off to his left, near the spot where the cavern of Chumavhraele ended and the labyrinthine tunnels of the Underdark began. There was heavy fighting near the tunnel mouth; half a dozen brilliant globes of yellow light, carried aloft before ranks of human soldiers, dispelled the gloom like miniature suns. The clangor of steel echoed through the dank air, along with the distant roaring cacophony of battle. “Norwood’s almost here!” Jack said.
“Excellent,” Jelan replied. “If we hold the gatehouse, we’ll keep the drow soldiers from falling back to the castle when Norwood’s forces overwhelm them. We’ll be the anvil to Norwood’s hammer, if we can hold this spot long enough.”
“A sound plan,” Jack agreed. He bowed to the swordswoman. “Give Dresimil Chumavh and her charming brothers my best if they appear, will you? I am going to rescue Seila.”
The Warlord nodded. “Take Narm or Kurzen with you. I doubt Balathorp will be alone.”
“I’ll go,” Narm said. “Jack has a knack for forgetting to divide treasure, it seems, and Balathorp is a wealthy man.”
The rogue gave Narm a wounded look. “As I said, I incurred additional expenses … but if you wish to assure yourself of my honesty, then suit yourself. Shall we be on our way?”
Skirting through the mushroom-forest and avoiding the road leading up to the castle gate, Jack and Narm headed out into the dark cavern. Jack was struck by how deserted the place seemed. Dresimil Chumavh must have thrown almost her entire strength into the effort to block Norwood’s invasion, which boded well for Jack’s current mission. Every drow warrior and orc slave who was off fighting on the far side of the cavern was one less they’d have to avoid in their pursuit of the slaver.