The tavernmaster caught himself wondering what else he should bring along, and sighed, banishing an image of himself staggering along under the weight of a generously pot-and-flask-girdled pack larger than he was. It had been a long time since he’d leaped into battle with only a sword in his hand and fire in his eyes. It had been even longer since he’d felt that invulnerable.
Durnan drew a deep breath, shrugged his shoulders once or twice to break the tension that had been building there, clapped a hand to the hilt of his sword to ensure it rode loosely in its scabbard, and set off down the narrow passage. Two secret doors ground open under his hand to let him pass, and he closed them carefully behind him. Beyond the second was a room in Undermountain he knew well.
Standing just inside it, Durnan peered around to make sure nothing had changed since he’d last seen it, then stepped carefully around the waiting falling-block trap and across the chamber. It was thick with dust, cobwebs, and the crumbling skeletons of several unfortunate adventurers still stuck to the tattered webs of a long-slain spider. Shoving these husks aside with his blade, Durnan strode softly out into the vast dungeon where so many had died.
Undermountain was the abode of the mad wizard Halaster and the graveyard of thousands of fearsome monsters and foolhardy men alike. Once it had been Durnan’s playground, a place to stay limber after a long day standing behind the bar listening to young nobles and would-be adventurers from afar boast of what they’d do and win down in the lightless depths. All too often, he’d come across their bodies too late to save them from traps they should have been anticipating and predators they should have been ready for.
Thinking of which … he drew his blade and stabbed upward as he leaned through an open doorway. It slid into something solid yet yielding, and Durnan drew back to avoid the falling body. The thing that had awaited him above the door crashed heavily to the flagstones. It was a kobold, a strangle-wire still clutched in its convulsing hands.
Durnan put his sword tip through its throat just to be sure as he kicked the heavy stone door hard, sending it smashing back against the wall of the chamber. There were some wet crackings and a bubbling gasp from behind it, and something slid to the floor. Something koboldish, no doubt.
A third of the sly, yammering little beasts scuttled into view at the far end of the room, and Durnan brought his sword up to strike aside the javelin it hurled. The bracers he wore protected him against missiles that bore no enchantments, but ‘twould be a little late to discover that this particular javelin was magical, once it was in his throat…
The throw was wide, and a smooth sidestep took him completely out of the hurtling weapon’s path. Even before it crashed off stone behind him, the old warrior was moving.
Durnan caught hold of the doorframe as he charged through the door and swung himself around hard to the right. As he’d expected, a line of three kobolds was waiting along the wall there, their spiked clubs and wicked blades raised. The tavernmaster had a glimpse of their startled faces before his blade found the face of the foremost. He kept rushing, driving the dying creature back into its fellows, tumbling them all to the floor. He kicked, stomped, and thrust ruthlessly with his blade, knowing how vicious kobolds could be, and spun from the last fallen victim to face the one who’d hurled the javelin.
It was snarling and backing away, fear in its eyes as it saw all of its fellows dead or dying. Durnan advanced a step and it spat in his direction, whirled, and fled through the archway at the far end of the room. Durnan knelt, plucked up a kobold blade, and flung it as hard as he could.
There was a heavy crash, clang, and moan beyond the arch, but Durnan was already running hard. The wise leave no foes alive behind them in Undermountain.
A thrust ended the kobold’s feeble crawl, and Durnan picked up its bleeding body and hurled it into the next room. As he’d expected, something greenish-yellow flowed swiftly down the wall toward the corpse. Durnan peered into the room—paying particular attention to the ceiling—then, satisfied that it held only one carrion crawler, sprinted across the chamber and through the right-hand door at its far end, pulling the heavy stone barrier closed behind him. Something far off and in agony promptly screamed in the dark distance ahead.
The passage before him was the only link between the warren of rooms around his cellars and the rest of Undermountain. It was always a place to watch warily for oozes, slimes, and other silent, hard-to-see creeping things.
Scorch marks and unpleasant remnants on the stones around told him the kobolds had recently cleared this way of at least one such peril. Durnan stalked cautiously on, wondering how Mirt was faring and how soon they’d meet. It felt good to be in action again, though the glory days of the Four were long gone.
Once the brazen, impudent band of adventurers he and Mirt had led had been the toast of Waterdeep and a common headache of honest merchants up and down the Sword Coast, the heroes of impudent tales men roared admiringly over in half a hundred taverns. But years had passed and the roars had faded—as, he supposed, they always did. All that was left of those times were happy memories, the deep trust they yet shared, and the linked message rings all of the Four still wore. Durnan saw Mirt and Asper often, but Randal Morn was off fighting in distant Daggerdale to keep his rightful rule over that fair vale… and the ranger Florin Falconhand, who’d stood in for Asper on a foray or three, was a Knight of Myth Drannor these days, and seldom seen on the Sword Coast. There were even whispers that he’d visited fabled Evermeet…
Durnan was still recalling splendid victories the Four had shared when sudden magelight welled up all around him in the empty passage. He’d just time to feel disgusted— taken by sorcery again?—when his world was overwhelmed with whirling lights and there was nothing under his boots anymore.
“Beshaba’s kiss!” he swore disgustedly. The tavernmaster knew a teleport was whisking him away to somewhere worse. They always took you somewhere worse.
* * * * *
Transtra stood in a room that few in Skullport knew was her own, eyes narrow and face frowning. Old Mirt’s ring had spoken and that meant one of the Four had called on him for aid. And when the Four called, it always meant trouble for someone. Sooner or later, if that fat old merchant didn’t lose some weight and gain some prudence in trade for it, the recipient of the trouble was going to be him. Perhaps on an occasion sooner than he expected, such as—this one.
The lamia noble stirred into life, tossing her flame-red hair so it cascaded down her back like languid fire, and glided across the tiles like a gigantic upright snake. The soft, ever-shifting spell-lights she loved dappled her gleaming flesh in a shifting pattern that made her slave, a thin and dirty human man cowering on his knees in a corner, swallow and turn his eyes swiftly away. Transtra was apt to be cruel when his more lusty thoughts became apparent, and her cruelty often seemed to reach the climax of its outpouring in enthusiastic floggings with well-salted whips. The slave shivered involuntarily at the memory of his last one.
The dry slithering of her scales on the tiles drew closer, then stopped. The man kept his gaze on the corner, trying not to tremble as cold fear rose in his throat and he wondered just what she might do this time.
“Torthan,” she said, almost gently, “get up and go do a thing for me.”
Torthan reluctantly raised his eyes to meet hers. “Great lady?”
“Open the gate that brings Ulisss, then go to your room,” Transtra told him.
As he hastened obediently away, Torthan could hear her muttering the first words of the web of spells she used to lay unshakable commands on the behir.
When the twelve-legged serpent thing glided into the room with deadly speed and raised its horned head to gape its jaws at her, Transtra faced it with both of her hands held over her head, spell-flames circling them.