He kept them from taking his life with effort. The mace vibrated in his hand, and his other hand hadn't quite recovered from the blow of the skeleton warrior.
"You need to live, Baylee Arnvold," a feminine voice said at his side.
Stepping back to take advantage of a tree that broke up the two drow, Baylee glanced at his side and saw Cordyan Tsald fall into position beside him. "This isn't your fight," he told the watch lieutenant.
"I have questions that you need to answer," she replied, then riposted a low sword thrust. Her return blow drew blood from the draw's shoulder. "If you die tonight, Captain Closl will still be asking them in the morning."
Baylee beat the other draw's attack to pieces, filling the air with the mace and the buckler. He swung the small shield at the end of his arm and slammed the black adamantite against the draw's knee hard enough to break bone. When it came to survival, there were no rules of conduct.
"I have questions of my own I want answered," he growled. "This drow female knew my name. Were there any drow involved in Golsway's death?"
"If we had known there were," the watch lieutenant replied, "I'd have been searching the Underdark, not this forgathering."
Glancing past his opponent, Baylee saw that Xuxa had landed in the top of a tree. She had her wings spread out to hold herself up in a branch while she kept the gold circlet clutched in her clawed feet. Below her, the skeleton warrior pursuing the circlet started climbing the tree.
Without warning, the sky flared into magnificent golden light that drained the shadows and darkness from the immediate area. The drow in front of Baylee drew back, raising his arm in front of his eyes.
Half-blinded himself, Baylee glanced back toward the direction he'd come from and spotted Carceus less than fifty paces distant. The priest held his hands aloft, and the light seemed to pour from them.
The skirmish line the drow had held broke. Arrows flew at them, filling the air as the archers among the rangers tried to find their targets.
Baylee stared hard into the group of drow, seeing that the female among them was once more conscious. Her hot gaze rested on the ranger briefly, then she called to the drow warriors. They flocked to her quickly, having no place to hide under the fierce light of Carceus's creation.
A ruby limned hole opened in the air behind the female drow. Two of the skeleton warriors held the line against the rangers. One of the drow popped open a bag and pulled it over the warrior next to him, swallowing the other man instantly.
"They're escaping!" someone yelled.
"Let them!" yelled another. "There's been enough death tonight, and I've no wish to visit the Underdark before morningfeast."
Baylee raced toward the drow group, but two of the skeleton warriors fronted him. He drew up, frustrated. The hole behind the drow group flared a deeper red as it flashed. Then it was gone. A handful of fletched shafts cut the air where the dimensional door had been.
The skeleton warriors turned from Baylee and ran back toward the area where the dark elves had disappeared. Both of them searched the grass until they found the gold circlets. One touched the circlet immediately to his forehead. Under the clear light of Carceus's spell, Baylee watched as the skeleton warrior and the circlet turned to dust, blowing away in the strong wind left over from the dimensional door. Then the second skeleton warrior knelt in the grass. Its arms spread out in supplication as its dead face turned toward the sky.
"It looks like it's praying," Cordyan said quietly at Baylee's side.
"Maybe it is," Baylee said. "In the end, those creatures may be capable of great evil, but not all of them had beginnings in evil. Good men have often been bound to the curse of those gold circlets, I am told."
The second skeleton warrior drew the circlet to its forehead and turned into a pile of dust that rapidly blew away in the rising wind.
Baylee glanced anxiously about. Two of the skeleton warriors had been accounted for, and one climbed the tree Xuxa took shelter in. But a fourth remained.
"What are you searching for?" Cordyan asked.
"The fourth skeleton warrior."
"Why?"
"Because it will follow them," Baylee said. "No matter how far they go. The magic they used to control it will bind it to them. If we want to find them, all we have to do is follow the undead creature."
"It looked like they all threw the circlets away," the watch lieutenant stated. "And the other two skeleton warriors didn't try to follow anyone."
Baylee surveyed the bodies of the dead drow in front of him. Seven dark elves lay stretched out near the battleground. "Then the people who controlled them were dead."
"The ones who controlled the skeleton warriors were the most protected of the group," Cordyan pointed out.
"I know." The situation didn't make sense to Baylee either. The people who controlled the skeleton warriors had been deep within the group of drow. He quickly searched the dead, seeking answers.
Two of the drow had died by the sword, their bodies opened up in great gashes. But the third one he checked didn't appear to have a mark on him. Grabbing the corpse by a shoulder, the ranger pulled and rolled it over.
He spotted the black fletchings of the small crossbow bolt that jutted out from the back of the man's neck. The bolt was of dark elf design, matching ones Baylee found in the small quiver on the man's thigh. "This man was killed by his own." He released the corpse and let it fall back to the ground.
"As was this one," Cordyan informed him grimly. She indicated the quarrel sticking out from below the man's left ear.
"They were taking no chances about being followed," Baylee said. "Someone had already taken into account the cost of failure."
Cordyan let go the corpse she'd handled and looked up at Baylee. "They came here for you."
"Perhaps."
The light from Carceus's spell faded from the sky and moonlight returned to highlight the watch lieutenant's features. "There is no 'perhaps' about it," she replied. "Whether there was a drow involved with Fannt Golsway's murder or not, his death exhibited strong magic. Just like this."
Baylee knew it was true. His thoughts had already taken the same fork in the stream. He gazed around at the carnage that had ripped so bluntly into the festive atmosphere of the forgathering. Only moments before, so many of the people around him had been involved in swapping stories, swapping possessions, eating and drinking, competing, and perhaps even flirting at love.
Now, they tended the wounded and dead comrades among them, and sought to tip the scales on the ones they might lose. Thankfully, a number of clerics and druids had attended the forgathering. Those who had healing potions shared willingly among the fallen.
Guilt chafed in Baylee's mind.
You did not know, Xuxa chided him. If you had, you would not have brought this trouble among your friends.
Baylee looked at the tree where the azmyth bat held her prize from the clutches of the skeleton warrior. The undead creature swayed unsteadily in the thinner branches near the top of the tree, searching in vain over and over, like some kind of artisan's automaton for safe passage higher.
He turned at the sound of his name and saw Serellia approaching him. Her beautiful face was streaked with blood, and tears ran down her cheeks. Her sword remained naked in her fist.
"It's Aymric," she said.
Baylee felt like a cold fist closed around his heart. "Where?" He knew many people in many places, but so few actually got close to him. The elf was one of the closest.
Serellia guided him to Aymric.
Pale and disheveled, Aymric lay on the ground as Karg and two other men sought to bind the horrible wound across his midsection The skeleton warrior's sword stroke had laid him open. The elf looked up at Baylee and tried to speak.