The Siege by Troy Denning

Author:Troy Denning
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Juvenile Fiction, Fantasy & Magic, Fiction, Fantasy, Fantasy games, General
ISBN: 9780786919055
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
Published: 2001-12-01T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TEN

19 Mirtul, the Year of Wild Magic

The white elf turned his back to Vala and the dead Shadovar and started down the murky corridor.

"Come."

Vala stood where she was and didn't move. She didn't even lower her sword.

"Come?" she gasped. "After you killed Parth and everyone else?"

"I did not kill them, woman. I saved you." The elf continued away, but his head turned to face her, his neck giving a mushy crackle as it traveled the last few inches to sit backward on his shoulders. "From what I saw, I will be of more use to you than they were."

"Doing what?" Vala asked, starting after him.

"Surviving."

The elf rotated his head forward again. Deciding there was truth in what he said, Vala lowered her guard and moved to within four paces of him, where his chill aura grew so uncomfortable she began to shiver. She had seen enough undead in the past six months to recognize him as some sort of lich, but his presence did not engender the same sense of fear and corruption she had experienced back in Karsus when she and Galaeron and their companions had fought the lich Wulgreth. What she wouldn't have given to have Galaeron at her side, with his Tomb Guard's knowledge of all things unliving-but the old Galaeron before he fell victim to the corrupting influence of the Shadow Weave. Gods, how she missed that one, the Galaeron who had been so steady and earnest and noble.

The lich-elf turned down a smaller side corridor- still so wide three Vaasans could have stood abreast- and sent a spider the size of a pony skittering along the wall. Hanging in its web overhead were several silk-wrapped packages, some with clawed feet or beastly snouts poking out. From one dangled a halfling-sized boot, the toe still twitching. As she passed beneath this cocoon, Vala slowed and raised her sword to cut the halfling free.

"Leave him."

Vala looked up to find the lich-elf's head turned backward on his shoulders again, watching her.

"He is a relic thief and has met a relic thief's end," the lich-elf said.

Vala lowered her sword. She knew firsthand how elves felt about treasure thieves, and the last thing she needed was an angry lich… of any sort. She mouthed a silent apology to the halfling and followed her guide a hundred paces down the corridor to an iron door, which he opened by means of an ancient bronze key and a word of

passing. They descended a long iron staircase filled with dog-sized rats and knee-high centipedes, all of which fled before the chill aura of the white elf.

"I'll say this, you make this place a lot safer," Vala observed.

The elf didn't respond.

The staircase descended into a natural cavern filled with limestone formations. The place stank so foully of offal and mold that Vala had to cover her mouth and nose to keep from retching. When they stepped onto the floor of the chamber, she recognized a strange regularity to many of the largest formations, where the stalactites and stalagmites met to form a wall of cage like columns.

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