02 The Siege by Forgotten Realms

Author:Forgotten Realms [Realms, Forgotten]
Format: epub
Published: 2010-04-10T11:55:04.159000+00:00

As it was, Vala was so feverish that catching up to her quarry was out of the question. It required all of her strength just to limp down the tunnel in such an awkward stoop and avoid splashing her bandage with the cloudy fluid standing stagnant in the bottom. Though the sewer had not been used for its intended purpose in six centuries, the filth that filled it had been spawned of constant death and decay and reeked even more horribly than the

offal it had been intended to carry. She came to a T in the passage and, ten paces up the right branch, glimpsed a short length of thorny tail disappearing around another corner. Vala stepped into the mouth of the opposite fork and brushed her shoulder and arm against the filthy wall, leaving a broad drag mark in the mildew, then retreated back to the intersection and pressed her back to the wall. Having predicted the little phaerimm would flee to the right, Corineus was waiting a hundred paces up the tunnel, ready to drive the thing back toward its lair. Vala would have preferred to force the thornback into the baelnorn's ambush, but his aura of cold made it impossible for him to surprise anything in the dungeon. The crack and rumble of an approaching spell battle heralded the return of the phaerimm. Vala kissed the blade of her darksword and said a prayer for her son in case Tempus should decide to take her in this rank place, then held her weapon ready next to the intersection. A few moments later, a brilliant orange light erupted from the tunnel mouth, blinding Vala and scalding her skin. She turned away, raising her free hand to shield her face as a crackling ball of flame hissed past and vanished down the opposite passage. Vala opened her eyes and saw only circles of popping orange. The phaerimm could have been three inches from her face preparing to sink its tail barb into her

throat, or it could have been lurking ten feet up the passage, waiting to see what its spell flushed out. Guessing the phaerimm would be a little behind its spell, she counted three seconds, brought her sword down, and hit something solid. A fierce wind gusted through the sewer and died almost instantly. When Vala's sword fell free and touched the floor and she found herself still alive she deduced that she had at least hit the thing and began to slash about the intersection at random, weaving her blade through a blind figure-eight defense and trying to blink the orange spots from her eyes. "You killed the phaerimm," Corineus said from up the passage. "Are you trying to kill its ghost as well, or do you have no further use for me now that we have destroyed the last phaerimm?" "It's dead?" Vala stopped weaving but did not return her sword to its scabbard. Phaerimm were tricky creatures, and even if the Shadovar helmet protected her

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