Jack picked himself up, his shoulder aching from the slaver’s club. “Well, I had thought the Watch would see to you, but I was mistaken,” he retorted. “More’s the pity.”
Balathorp drew the sword at his hip and grinned wickedly, advancing on Jack. Jack glanced around, looking for some potential advantage or distraction, but nothing leapt to his eye. Several of the slavers were thrashing about the rocks and mushrooms at the head of the caravan, apparently in pursuit of Narm, but others were turning back this way. He took a deep breath, drew the drow rapier he carried, and advanced to meet the slaver. He needed to defeat Balathorp quickly and quietly, before the rest of the slaver’s gang came running.
The slaver lunged forward and aimed a thrust straight at Jack’s belt buckle. Jack parried and riposted; Balathorp’s blade leaped to meet his own, and the duel was on. Balathorp was tall and had a significant advantage in reach, but Jack was quicker. They were a close match in skill, but Jack faced one crucial problem: Time was not on his side. The shrill song of steel beating against steel already rang in the air, and Jack could hear the shouts of alarm from the rest of the slaver gang. Even if he could wear down Fetterfist and best him in a fair fight, he could never hope to beat five or six at once; he was no Myrkyssa Jelan, after all.
Balathorp recognized Jack’s vulnerability, too, and he grinned as he shifted to the defensive, switching to cautious jabs and quick slashes. “You fool,” he said to Jack. “Did you think to steal my wares? You will pay with your life … or better yet, you will join your dear Seila in chains.”
“Not this day, I think,” Jack replied. He took a step back out of sword reach, and invoked his spell of invisibility again-something he was not sure he could do, but the growing swell of the wild mythal’s power seemed to invigorate his arcane talents as it increased. Balathorp swore and backed up himself, swinging his sword in a wide arc to fend off any invisible rush Jack mounted. The rogue watched the slaver’s sword whip past once, then twice, before jumping inside his reach and sinking his rapier into Balathorp’s black heart.
The stricken slaver groaned and staggered. “A base ploy,” he gasped.
“For a base foe,” Jack snarled. His invisibility spell faded, spoiled by his sudden lunge. He snatched Balathorp’s keys from his belt, then kicked the slaver off his swordpoint and hurried back over to Seila. Several of Balathorp’s thugs saw the whole thing, taking in the scene with cries of dismay, but Jack coolly bent down to Seila’s manacles and opened the lock with the slaver’s keys.
“Jack!” Seila called, looking over his shoulder. Running footsteps and roars of challenge grew loud behind him.
“I know,” he answered. He grasped her hand and brought to mind his spell of shadow-teleport. An instant before the thugs’ blades skewered both of them, Jack and Seila vanished into the cavern gloom.
Hand in hand, Jack and Seila made their way through the gigantic mushrooms of the drow cavern, retracing the path they’d followed in their first escape from Chumavhraele months before. Behind them Balathorp’s slavers vainly scoured their area around the crossroads for any sign of the noblewoman and the rogue, but Jack’s spell had carried them two hundred yards or more in the blink of an eye-there was no trail for the slavers to follow, and Jack had no intention of lingering any place their enemies might blunder into them.
“We seem to be making a habit of this,” Jack said to Seila as they hurried along. “Remind me to hide a change of clothing and some good food and drink somewhere around here for the next time we find ourselves fleeing the dark elves’ domain.”
Seila squeezed his hand and shook her head, even though she smiled. “I should have known you would find a way to slip away again.”
“I had some timely help. Myrkyssa Jelan set me free; she’s down here with a band of sellswords, looking for a way to throw a handful of peppers in Dresimil Chumavh’s bowl of cream. I came straightaway to find you.”
“I can’t believe that you came back for me a second time, especially after my father treated you with such suspicion.”
Jack snorted. “I didn’t pluck you away from Balathorp to win Lord Norwood’s regard. I simply couldn’t live with myself if I left you in the slavers’ hands.”
He paused to study their direction; Seila tugged on his hand, and when he glanced at her, she flowed into his arms and kissed him with such fierceness that his head swam. “There will be more later,” she breathed into his ear when she finally drew away. “That is twice now you have saved me, Jack Ravenwild. I don’t care what my father thinks, any man who would do that is a man worthy of my love.”
He drew a deep breath to slow the racing of his heart, and allowed himself a wry smile. “We haven’t escaped yet,” he said.
“Should we make for the platform again?”
“Not this time, my dear. Your father brought a small army down here to deal with the dark elves once and for all. If he isn’t storming Tower Chumavhraele, he will be soon; I think we’ll be able to find him there.”
They reached Malmor’s paddocks, and Jack motioned for Seila to wait. He peered around in the gloom, looking for any sign of Narm. The half-orc was nowhere in sight; Jack frowned, but told himself that it was possible that he’d been forced to retreat in some inconvenient direction. He was just about to move on again when he finally caught a glimpse of a tall, broad-shouldered figure trotting up along the trail behind them. Narm was limping, and blood ran freely from a shallow cut across his forehead, but he seemed otherwise unharmed.
“Seila, this is Narm,” Jack said. “He is the leader of the Blue Wyvern adventuring company. Narm, this is Seila Norwood.”
“A pleasure,” the half-orc said gruffly. He looked at Jack with a scowl. “Next time, you create the distraction and I’ll sneak up to free the girl.”
“I am sorry you were hurt on my behalf, Master Narm,” Seila said. “I am truly grateful for your help.”
Narm looked down at the ground and gave a small shrug. “It was nothing, m’lady,” he mumbled.
“Let us press on,” Jack suggested. He led the way back toward the tower, listening closely for any sounds of fighting and peering cautiously into the shadows of each mushroom-stalk and boulder they approached-the last thing he wanted to do was to blunder into a battle. The road between pastures and tower seemed deserted for the moment. The black battlements loomed over them, still adorned with their eerie globes of witch-light and faerie fire. Jack could hear fighting within the walls, but no one was in sight atop the ramparts.
Seila paused suddenly at his side, pulling on his hand with hers. “What is that?” she murmured.
Jack glanced back at her, and saw that she was gazing up at the cavern ceiling. A flickering aurora of emerald energy danced in the high air of the great cavern, organizing itself in great spirals orbiting above a central point some distance away from them. “The wild mythal,” Jack said. “The drow intend to use its magic against your father’s soldiers, I wager.”
“It’s growing stronger.” Seila pointed, and Jack realized that she was right; a visible thread of energy lanced straight up from the cavern floor toward the swirling aurora above them. Moment by moment, the thread seemed to grow a little brighter, a little more substantial, driving back the eternal darkness of the Underdark.
“So it is,” he agreed. That did not seem like a good sign, to say the least. The mythal spell was evolving in front of them, and Jack could feel the subtle currents of its magic shifting and flowing in response. “Come along. I’d like to see what Elana and our mages make of this.”
They came to the castle’s gatehouse. The gates stood open, and whole companies of armsmen from Raven’s Bluff-some in the uniform of the city’s army, others wearing the colors of various noble houses-seemed to be engaged in occupying the castle. There was no sign of Jelan, the Moon Daggers, or the Blue Wyverns, but in the middle of a band of twenty or thirty captains, banner-bearers, and Norwood bodyguards stood Marden Norwood himself. The silver-haired lord stood just outside the courtyard, watching as the captains of the city’s assault force directed the taking of Tower Chumavhraele. Jack could see human, dwarf, and elf soldiers storming the doorways and halls of the drow castle; shouts and the clatter of steel rang from the depths of the fortress.