After several hours of walking, the darkness ahead finallybegan to resolve into a single, massive wall.
A city nearly filled the northern sector of the cavern, a city of pus-white walls encrusted with strange minerals. The walls glowed like a corpse glimpsed sinking in the murky depths-a pale shape, cold and unwholesome,that sent a shudder through the soul.
The city towers rose hundreds of feet into the air. There were sky bridges and spires, tall spines capped with impaled corpses, and buildings fashioned into leering demon masks. The walls of the city seemed to shift and move, as though pulsing with living, corrupted blood.
A city. There would be thousands of drow, any number of them capable of casting spells to root out an intruder. Escalla stared uneasily. Beside her, Jus stood and gazed upon the city in cold appraisal.
After a moment, the Justicar looked at the locator needle. It pointed northeast past the eastern edge of the city and toward the rear cavern wall. Collecting his friends, he moved off to the east, skirting the city walls and keeping carefully to the cover of toadstool groves.
Agog, Polk hurried forward and pointed toward the city. “We’re not goin’ in?” The man seemed disappointed. “I thought we were going in.”
Jus looked down at the irritating little man and scowled. “Polk, we are not tourists.”
“But it would look good in the chronicle! How can I tellpeople we almost reached the city of the drow?”
Escalla glowered at Polk then removed the man’s hat and peered inside. “Polk,I think this thing is restricting the blood supply to your brain.”
“Eh?”
“Nothing.” Escalla replaced the hat and pulled it down tight. “If you’re thatkeen on entering the place, be my guest.”
“You’re not going to come?”
“Polk, I’ll kiss a duck before I put my silken little faerie butt insidethose city walls.”
Jus kept the walls in sight, following them for almost a mile until they finally curved away toward a great pale cliff. Flowing between the city and the cliff face, there was a black river, its water gleaming like liquid metal in the hideous light.
Jus ducked into cover and looked carefully at the cliff and the plateaus above the city. Escalla joined her friend’s side, checked thelocator needle, and pointed up the cliff.
“There. Real close. The needle’s going mad.”
“Then that’s it.” Jus looked at the cliff face on the far side of the river.“We’ll head to the cliff face, climb it, and bypass the city.”
Listening in, Polk tugged at his collar then stuttered forward in fright.
“So son, ah, did the river just happen to escape you? The black river? Theevil, black, sinister, underground river?”
Shooting a sidewise look at Polk, Jus raised his brows. “Don’t like gettingwet?”
“Son! Big things with teeth live in rivers-especially in underground rivers!”
“I thought fighting toothy things was heroic, Polk?”
“Not when it’s in the water!” Polk stamped his foot. “As senior tacticaladvisor, I’m putting my foot down.”
Jus looked at the man, feeling tired, then pointed at the forest of toadstools all around them.
“We’re going to float over on a mushroom cap, Polk. Only an idiot swimsrivers in the underdark.”
“Oh.” Polk sniffed, then decided to take a look at a gianttoadstool. “Well all right them. Good to see my advice is always followed.”
“Right.” Jus wearily waved his party onward. “Come on. We’llget out of sight of the city walls.”
This was Jus in his element. He led his companions stealthily down toward the shore, selected a giant toadstool as a boat, and unsheathed his sword. Benelux made a glad battle cry and flashed brilliantly with light, only to see the entire party scowling at her in annoyance.
The sword hurriedly shut off its light and said, Sorry.
Jus grunted in reply and tipped the toadstool over, severing the stalk where it joined the cap and making a paddle by carving the stalk with two long swipes of the hideously sharp sword. He pushed everyone in and paddled the makeshift raft into the water. The river wasn’t wide and was soon crossed.
Jus left his companions standing and staring in amazement as he attacked the cliff face with astonishing speed. The man moved like a mountain goat, lunging upward from crag to crag. When a spider the size of a cat lunged out of a crevice at him, the ranger pulped it with one single massive blow of his fist. Watching admiringly from below, Escalla could only shake her head in love and pride.
“Oh man, he is so harsh!”
Finally, a rope came spilling from above. Jus’ magicrope-taken from another enemy in a far distant place-lengthened and spilled tothe ground. Henry and Escalla looked at one another in agreement, then chased Polk up the rope. It was no easy task.
At the top of the cliff, Polk fumed and glared, looking at Escalla in hurt betrayal.
“No need to push! I was going!”
“Yep, and now you’re here.” Escalla hovered where she couldkeep an eye on Henry as he climbed. “Hey, Cinders! See anything?”
Cave. Lots drow. The black hell hound skin gleamedbeneath the dim, hellish lights. Smell spiders.
“Spiders. Great.” Escalla needlessly gave help to Henry asthe boy crossed the cliff’s edge. “That sounds real fun.”
Puzzled, the Justicar scowled. “I thought you liked bugs?”
“I’m starting to get an overdose.” The faerie made a face indisgust. “Face it, man, this arachnid diet you’ve had me on just isn’t good foranybody.”
Cinders’ nose pointed north. Across the flat plateaus, dimshapes of towers could be seen, each one swimming with eerie lights. Keeping low, the party sped northward, hugging ripples in the cave floor and moving in silence.
Beyond the towers, the cavern wall was pierced by a horrible tunnel mouth-a vast carving of a spider that seemed to suck the cavern roadsinto its maw. Escalla looked up at the spider’s mouth, spared a swift glanceacross the plateaus, then shuddered as a shiver crossed her spine.
“I guess this must lead to the temple?”
“I guess.”
Jus was lying flat just ahead of Henry and Polk, carefully scanning the tunnel mouth for the faintest sign of guardians. Escalla sat beside Jus, ludicrously tiny next to his armored bulk. With her long hair stirring in a strange breeze from the tunnel, Escalla stared wide eyed into the dark and swallowed.
“I think Lolth’s in there.”
“I know.”
The faerie wilted, suddenly feeling sick. She leaned her head against Jus’ shoulder and held onto his arm.
“Jus? I am just so sorry I had to drag you here.”
“Sorry?” Jus turned, a strangely puzzled look crossing hisface before he softened with a strange, sad little smile. “Someone has to lookafter you.”
“Yeah.” Escalla ruefully gave the man a smile. “Hey, Jus?”
“What?”
“Present for my man.” The girl threw dust over Jus’shoulders, a stoneskin spell shimmering as it took effect. “Stay safe.”
“Thanks.” Jus loosened his sword in its sheath. “I love you.”
“Yeah, I know.”
The big ranger and tiny faerie clasped hands, squeezed, then released each other. They rose up and began to move toward the tunnel mouth.
Behind them, a grinning Private Henry nudged Polk as he watched Escalla and the Justicar. Hefting his crossbow, the boy rose to his feet, followed his friends, and then idly glanced over to one side.
Sitting in a shadowy crevasse, a drow looked at him. Henry’sjaw dropped, and the elf’s eyes widened in shock. The drow took one look at theparty and gave a sudden panicked cry. Something big erupted from the shadows in the cave behind her. Emerging into the meager light, a troll reared from the darkness and slashed at Escalla with its claws, the creature’s talons strikingsparks as they crashed against her stoneskin spell.
Henry dived, already streaking sideways to cover the faerie. He screamed and pulled the trigger of his crossbow. The machine kicked like a mad thing, blasting a dozen crossbow bolts straight into the monster’s flesh.The beast reeled but remained very much alive and angry. Henry dragged out his sword and flailed at its hide, driving the staggering monster back toward the tunnel mouth.
Seeing her pet guardian on the retreat, the drow flung up a hand and total darkness descended-a darkness obliterated a second later by Jus’magic light stone. The drow had already turned to run. Jus whip-cracked his enchanted rope, bringing the drow down in a screaming heap. The creature fumbled for its hand crossbow and fired a shot that was parried aside by a lightning-fast flicker of the Justicar’s sword. An instant later, the elf’s headfell to the ground.
The troll roared, its wounds already healing closed. The creature bashed at Henry, who blocked the monster’s claws with his sword even asthe barrage sent him to the ground. Jus reared up behind the troll, his sword held high and his face terrifying. The magic sword screamed in strange joy as it cleaved down through the troll’s shoulder and into the chest, sending itcrashing to the ground.
“Cinders!”
The monster had already begun to rise. Grinning gleefully, the hell hound blasted flame into the troll. Fire ripped the flesh off its bones, making the troll bubble like a torch as it finally died.
“Jus!” Escalla screamed.
Two hundred yards away, a female drow sat upon a huge lizard. The dark elf stared blankly at the adventurers, then turned and fled toward the towers. Escalla shot off in pursuit, only to see the drow spring into the air and turn into a flying manta. The sorceress flew hard and fast toward safety. Unable to catch the drow, Escalla sped back and helped Henry back to his feet.
“Boys, we’re gonna have company!”
The Justicar looked back toward the disappearing manta. With his hell hound over his back and his white blade gleaming, the big man turned, leaped over the burning troll, and sped down the spider tunnel. Escalla blinked then slapped Polk and Henry, shoving them in Jus’ wake.
A long tunnel sheathed in horrific bas relief wound through solid rock like a monstrous black gullet. With his magic sword sheeting light into the darkness, the Justicar ran fast and hard, Cinders streaming flames and smoke behind. Jus sped through tunnels and over a stream. The tunnel walls spread out to become a vile promenade a hundred yards wide. Scenes of slaughter and perversion were carved into the walls, blurring past like a nightmare as the ranger charged through, but so far, the tunnels remained strangely empty of drow.
The tunnel ran for a thousand yards, and then a thousand more. Thundering forward, Jus never slowed his pace. Far behind him, Private Henry and Polk fell behind, struggling forward and reeling in a daze of exhaustion.
The tunnel finally ended in a vile riot of sculpted spiders and orgiastic rites. Sitting at the tunnel mouth, a female drow had half risen to make a challenge when Jus smacked her in the guts with his sword, cutting the dark elf in half. A second elf turned to scream a warning to a vast temple building just beyond. Her head fell from her neck before she could even scream.
Jus erupted out of the tunnel and saw another drow staring at him from ten feet away. The magic rope snapped out. Jus jerked the drow toward him and broke the creatures neck with one vicious twist of his hands. His long-contained fury finally released, the Justicar was already on the move, tossing his prey aside as he sped into the cover of ornate gardens of fungi and bone.
“Whoa!”
Escalla flew out of the corridor, bypassed the three dead drow, and urged Polk and Henry onward to glory. The two humans collapsed, wheezing painfully and almost ready to vomit. Laden down with chainmail, Henry had almost killed himself on the one mile run, but he still carried his crossbow in his hands.
Panting hard, the party drew in the sight of a horrible new cave. Red light, thick as blood clots, spilled outward, hazing the cavern like a hideous living mist. It revealed a large cavern, perhaps a mile wide-a placethat seeped poison like a canker buried deep in the heart of the Flanaess. The place seethed with evil, a presence foul enough to stain and thick enough to cut.
Buildings stood nearby, vile colonnades of stone carved until it seemed the walls were made of flayed corpses, screaming skulls, and grasping claws. Far beyond, at the heart of the huge cavern, a trumpet’s call set thecavern shuddering. A sudden flash of light-dark purple like fluid from a severedvein-spurted upward from an unseen point at the center of the cave. With it camean ocean of terrified human screams.
Jus rose from cover, paused, and let Cinders glare at the terrain.
Spiders. Steel. Cooking smells. No drow.
“Right.” Jus flicked a glance at the buildings jutting outfrom the colonnade. “Military barracks, empty ones. Something’s going on.”
The group moved around the barracks, crouching low. Escalla faded to invisibility, lofting high to gaze farther into the awful cave. After a few moments, the group cleared the barracks, and Escalla’s voice came driftingdown from above.
“Oh crap.”
Dropping Polk and Henry into cover behind a ridge of glowing minerals, Jus looked sharply upward.
“What?”
“Guys, you know those missing Keolanders?” Escalla’s voiceseemed dazed. “I think we just found them.”
The mineral ridge looked down upon a vast purple pit that swirled and pulsed like blood. A stockade surrounded the pit, and chained in rows were hundreds, perhaps thousands, of screaming prisoners. There were humans from Keoland, elves and half-orcs, halflings and gnomes. Drow agents had spent months plundering the world above, seizing victims for a hellish feast of living blood.
A vast temple stood at the far end of the cave, a temple shaped like the egg of a titanic spider. Beside the temple doors, two drow blew upon huge horns. A thin, exquisite drow priestess came strolling from the temple, her naked body smeared with runes painted in sacrificial blood. A dozen priestesses followed her, accompanied by loping centaur creatures that were part drow and part spider. Perhaps a hundred drow gathered at the temple steps, screaming out a hideous hymn to their goddess.
Staring out over the struggling slaves, Jus felt Escalla’slittle hand upon his arm. “There! It’s a faerie!”
Escalla pointed across the valley. Flying from the temple came a tiny shape, a faerie masked and robed in white. Jus took one look at the creature and gave a cold growl. “That’s our target.”
Escalla cracked her knuckles, ready for action. “Yep. Gotit!”
The enemy faerie wore a stylized white mask, blank except for painted tears. White robes hid the faerie’s body.
Staring across the valley at the other faerie, the Justicar narrowed his eyes. “Who is it?”
“In that gear? Could be anybody.”
Escalla seemed far more interested in the preparations being made near the temple steps. A vast golden bowl had been set before an engraved slab of stone. A huge archway of bones had been raised beside the golden bowl, the structure braced by ropes and chains. Escalla took one look at the arrangements and swore.
“Damn!”
“What?”
“See that?” The girl pointed to the arch of bones where theenemy faerie hovered, painting runes with a small brush. “They’re making theirown gate! They can tap into the faerie gates and have Lolth retrieve the faerie key.”
Flat against the ground and almost invisible, the Justicar hissed as he weighed the scene below. “They can make their own gateways?”
“In theory, sure.” Escalla made a frustrated noise. “Hell ofa spell, though!” Almost all of the drow priestesses now flanked the archway,eyes closed and hands linked, their throats screaming terrible syllables. “See?Ha! It’s going to take every mage they’ve got to break into where they’regoing.”
Henry peeked over a clump of lichen, stared, and said, “Whereare they going?”
“Don’t ask!” The girl had her eyes on the temple door. “Oh mygods! Get down!”
From the gates of the drow temple, a sinister black light spilled forth. A visible cloud of evil stole slowly down the steps. The elves’chanting took on a dead, tinny sound, as though the music died as it crossed into another world.
Lolth, Mistress of Spiders, had taken on a form of flesh to enter the mortal world. Probing slowly from the yawning temple doors came a long, hideous black leg, almost pencil thin, and then another, and another. Creeping forth with mincing steps, the demon queen of spiders moved out to survey her prey.
The sheer evil of the creature struck like an icy knife. Black and gleaming, the gigantic spider loomed above the drow. Where a spider’sface should have been, the face of a beautiful dark elf woman peered forth, her face leering as she saw the slaves penned in their thousands at the temple gates. The captives tried to shrink away, the motion looking like a tide surging through a formless sea.
And then the screaming began.
Drow warriors dragged a captive to the temple steps and threw him across the obsidian altar. A priestess gave an orgiastic scream and sawed the prisoner’s head off slowly with a ceremonial knife. Blood spurted steaminginto the giant sacrificial bowl as the head was cast aside. The jerking corpse was strung up above the bow to drain its blood, while another prisoner was dragged swiftly into place and killed with savage speed. Fifty other screaming, fighting captives were dragged forward to await death in line, while the demon goddess cackled in laughter. Lolth dipped her face into the bowl and drank with manic thirst. The spider seemed to shimmer as hot blood filled her with its power.
Escalla and Henry had frozen. Only Jus and Cinders reacted, the hell hound and master both giving a killing snarl. Jus tried to surge forward to take the white sword to Lolth, but Escalla hurtled into his path.
“Stop! Jus, no! Not like this! Please!” The screams of thedoomed and dying ran hideous through the cave. Escalla ran her hands through her hair, trying to think. “All right, all right! Jus, this is not for you!” Ademon! A demon queen! The spider lady was swelling with power as she drank her hellish draught. One twitch from Lolth, and Escalla and her friends would be smears on the wall. “Jus, I’ll stop Lolth! You free the prisoners and try toclear the gate! The gate’s our only way out! I’ll come and help you when I can.”
Screams and howls sounded as the obsidian knife sawed through victims. Lolth slurped and drank, consuming gallons of blood. Her head whirling in panic, Escalla tried to think of a scam, a trick, a brilliant ploy.
Sudden inspiration struck. The faerie dived down, relieved Polk of a flask from his belt, then hovered high.
“Oh, I’m gonna regret this!” The girl took a big deep breath.“All right, people, plan resolves! Let’s get moving!”
A distant hunting horn sounded down the tunnel that led to the main drow cave. The companions whipped their heads around to stare at the tunnel mouth nearby. There was a distant noise of movement, an echo of running feet as drow from the plateaus came to destroy the intruders who had violated the temple grounds.
Rising, Henry stared toward the tunnel and licked his lips. He put his crossbow down and clumsily drew his sword.
“You two deal with the demon,” the young soldier said. “Polkand… and I will hold the tunnel mouth.” The boy flicked a pleading looktoward Jus when the big man turned to stare. “You can’t free those people ifyou’re attacked from behind.”
Jus gave the boy one long, searching look, then nodded and placed one hand upon the boy’s shoulder. Huge with anger, Jus spared one look atthe main temple with its shocking scenes of sacrifice, then waved the others to stay put as he flowed into the barracks and its colonnade. Red eyes gleaming, Cinders switched his ears left and right, leering in anticipation, then slowly let his black fur rise.
The hell hound worked in perfect unison with his partner. Standing in the middle of the dark colonnade, Jus swirled. Flame whiplashed out of Cinders’ jaws, blasting into the huge black widow spiders that nested in theshadows. Big as melons, the foul creatures exploded and died even as they leapt straight at the Justicar’s face. Cinders snarled in glee, blasting the lastsurvivors as they lunged into the attack. Teeth bared, the hell hound watched his enemies burn and gave a feral growl.
Aside from the smoldering spiders, the barracks were empty, but the supply rooms were not. Jus tossed aside baskets, threw jewels and treasures to the ground, uninterested in meaningless baubles. He found the tools he needed stacked box by box in a room filled with swords and shields. Crates of quarrels for the elves’ crossbows lay stacked beside a wall. Heaving two hugeboxes onto his shoulders, Jus stalked out of the flames and curling spider corpses toward his friends, then slammed his treasures to the ground.
The big man threw open the ammunition boxes. Each one contained perhaps a hundred small crossbow quarrels, each one tipped with deadly poisons.
The Justicar set the boxes in place and said, “Here are yourtools.”
Henry threw himself into place opposite the tunnel mouth, cramming a handful of the small crossbow bolts into his magazine. Jus dragged rocks to fence the boy in with cover, made sure there was a line of retreat into more cover, then tore the lids away from the ammunition cases.
“Polk! Polk, come here!”
The teamster started forward in confusion. Jus grabbed the man and positioned him beside Henry.
“Polk, you stay here and load for Henry. Whatever happens,you keep feeding crossbow bolts into that weapon. You hold them as long as you can, but if it gets too much, I want you both inside that portable hole!” TheJusticar wiped clean a streak of rusty earth to the front of their position, swiping it free of dirt. “Here’s a drow cloak. It’s flame proof. Keep that ironore deposit in front of you in case they fire a lightning bolt.”
“Yes, sir,” said Henry.
Jus squeezed the boy on the shoulder with one big hand, gave him a long, hard look of trust that made Henry feel ten feet tall. The boy lay flat over his sights, legs braced against a stone to fight the recoil, and readied himself to make his stand. Jus tucked a last few stones into place around Polk, slapped the little man on the back, then sped away toward the palisade and its horde of guards.
The sacrifices shrieked and died. Escalla hovered, unwilling to leave the boy, then flew down to draw two magic symbols on the ground to either side of the tunnel mouth. She sped back, gave the boy a kiss, and threw a pinch of diamond dust into the air.
“Here’s a stoneskin spell and a protection against charmspells. Good luck!” Escalla smacked Polk on the backside, then unsheathed hersinister lich staff and spread it out into a faerie-sized quarterstaff. Polk looked up at her, grim and pale, and gave her a wave. Escalla lifted her staff and began to fly away.
“Polk! Fight the good fight, man!” The girl backpedaled inmidair, following after Jus. “Won’t be long! I’ll buy you a drink when we getback!”
Polk and Henry lay in cover. Without Jus and Escalla nearby, the underdark suddenly seemed ominously still. The sound of feet pounded down the long, dark tunnel, hunting horns sounded, and still the shrieking, bloody sacrifice went on.