Tangled Webs (33 page)

The drow repeated her request for directions a dozen times before she found someone who would tell her where Olvir’s cottage lay. Some of the villagers snubbed her outright, others were too awed by the very sight of the drow to pay heed to her words, and still others showed keen suspicion about her purpose in seeking out the man. Liriel had no doubt Olvir would be amply forewarned of her coming. Indeed, the seagoing skald met her outside the cottage, while his wife and children looked on curiously from behind the half-shuttered windows. He listened politely enough, but he merely shook his head when she asked him to accompany her to speak with the First Axe.

“This is one keg you don’t want to tap,” he said bluntly. “Ruathym and Luskan have a treaty-the Captains’ Alliance, some call it. The last war with Luskan near to grounded us, so many ships were lost, and we’re in no shape to take on another battle. Aumark Lithyl is a warrior, but he knows this to be true.”

“He may have no choice but to fight,” Liriel pointed out. “So you say. But even if this ring is what you believe it to be, did you see it on the hand of the warship’s commander? When the hand was attached? Well then, seems like all you got is a sea-elf’s word. That won’t hold much water around these parts-Iess now than usual, what with all the good ale those pointy-eared, magic-casting bastards poured into the sea!”

Nor would they listen to a darkelven female. Olvir was kind enough not to speak the words aloud, but Liriel heard them nonetheless.

Frustrated beyond words, she made her way back to the Green Room to search for more pieces to the puzzle. Perhaps if she could present a more detailed and reasoned whole, the stubborn males who ruled this place would give her a hearing.

One very important part of the puzzle was the myriad of strange creatures she had encountered. Liriel brought to mind the image of the hideous fishman, and she set to work finding all the information she could about such creatures. Even if Sittl was all Xzorsh thought him to be, the long-haired sea elf was in this to the tips ofhis green ears. Someone considered him important enough to have him abducted and brought to the shores ofRuathym. If, indeed, he’d been “abducted” at all.

It didn’t take Liriel long to find a familiar-sounding description, for creatures known as sahuagin were apparently frequent scourges of the northern waters. She wondered why Xzorsh had not mentioned this. He must have recognized the creature she was describing. Puzzled, she continued to read, burning candle after candle. The night was nearing the dark hour of Narbondel-midnight, the humans called it-before she thought she understood what prompted the stiff angry expression on the sea ranger’s face when she’d spoken of the creature she’d glimpsed beneath his friend’s handsome facade.

Some sages believed the evil sahuagin frequently gave birth to mutated young, babies that resembled sea elves in all things but a rapacious nature. It was supposed that most of these children were slain at birth. Liriel nodded as she read this; the drow killed all babies born with the slightest defect, and they would certainly destroy any child who was identical in form to a racial enemy; But some of these mutated sea children were spared, raised as sahuagin but with the knowledge that they would in time live among the sea elves. As spies and assassins, these sahuagin, known as “malenti,” could do untold damage to the seaelven enemy.

Liriel could well imagine why Xzorsh had rejected her suggestion so vehemently; Sahuagin and sea elves were mortal enemies. How could he believe this ofhis friend and partner? The resemblance between malenti and sea elves also suggested a shared ancestry, and Liriel was not a bit surprised to read that many sea elves denied the very possibility that malenti existed. Drow would slay anyone who so much as suggested the dark elves might bear an ancient kinship to kua-toa, the fish-men creatures of the Underdark. Liriel suspected that surface-and seadwelling elves were not without similar pride.

Yet she could not reject the idea that Sittl might be such a creature. She had to know if this was possible, and the best way to do so would be to see a sahuagin with her own eyes, to see if the resemblance ran true to the Llothgranted vision.

As was usually the case with Liriel, action followed quickly upon decision. The young wizard hurried back to Hrolf’s cottage. She cast a longing glance at her bed. Since leaving the ship she had been able to follow no set pattern of waking and sleeping hours, and the rumpled covers looked wonderfully inviting.

No time, she decided as she took from her pack a copy of the spellbook her father had given her. Any spell in that book could take most of the night to learn and cast.

Liriel paged to a particularly difficult spell-the one that had first introduced her to the priestesses of Eilistraee. The first time she had ventured to the surface, the wizard who served as her tutor had insisted that she seek out a company of dark elves. The spell had been attuned to search for such beings and to carry her to an open place a safe distance away. It was an unusual spell, every bit as difficult as she remembered. This time she did not have the assistance of her powerful drow mentor. It was nearly dawn when Liriel at last was ready to try.

The drow began to chant softly, swaying as she did, her hands weaving in a seemingly random, seeking pattern. She felt a sudden chill, the sharp tang of a cold northern wind, and knew the casting had worked. Exactly where the spell had taken her, she could not know.

All around her was the sound of the sea. She opened her eyes and scanned the shore. Here it was rocky and wild, with no natural harbor. Above her was a sharp cliff; beyond that wisps of smoke drifted lazily into the sky. Liriel wrapped herself in her piwarwi and floated up to the top of the bluff so that she might investigate the settlement beyond.

A glance told her she was still somewhere in Ruathym. The cluster of cottages were built of wood and decorated with intricate, interlocking arches and high-peaked roofs, a style identical to the buildings of a Ruathym village.

In the village, all seemed well. The cottages were silent; hounds slept undisturbed in the courtyards. Yet Liriel trusted in the spell that had brought her to this place, and she swept a seeking gaze over the village and the shore beyond.

Her keen eyes caught the shimmering ripple as something broke the surface of the sea. A hideous, fishlike head with huge round eyes and ears like small black fins emerged from the water. With quick, furtive movements the creature pulled itself out onto the rocks and scanned the bluff above. Roughly manshaped, it was covered with dark green scales. Fanged jaws, like those of the deadly pyrimo fish found in Underdark waters, opened and closed as the creatures spoke sounds Liriel could not hear. It was a signal, apparently, for at least a score of other creatures crept from the waves and began to scale the cliff that separated the sea from the village.

“Sahuagin,” Liriel whispered excitedly; There could be no doubt. These were the creatures described in the lore books, identical to the thing she had seen when she’d looked into Sittl. The long-haired sea ranger was almost certainly a malenti-a mutated sahuagin passing as a sea elf-and Xzorsh’s life might well depend on her ability to convince him of this.

The drow’s first impulse was to reverse the spell that had brought her here so she might warn the sea ranger at once. But as she watched the creatures scale the cliff her resolution wavered. One of them, smaller and slower than the others, failed to find a secure hold for its webbed foot. It slid painfully down the rocky incline, and the claws on its feet grazed one of its elders as it went. The larger sahuagin lunged like a striking snake, jaws snapping viciously at the offending creature and sinking deep into the soft tissue beneath its rib cage. After tearing off a large chunk of flesh, the big sahuagin calmly chewed and swallowed. Its now-dead comrade continued the slide, falling unnoticed to the rocks below.

Liriel swallowed hard. She had little love for the patronizing, stubborn humans of Ruathym, but neither did she like the idea of abandoning them to the murderous sahuagin. Yet she could not warn the villagers; they would likely fear her as much as they did the fish-men. No, she’d have to handle this one on her own.

The drow reviewed what she had learned of the creatures. They hated light-they were as pained by it as any Underdark drowand they feared spellcasters. That would do for a start.

Liriel readied the spells she needed and waited until all the creatures had scaled the bluff. In precise and orderly formation, they crept past the invisible drow toward the sleeping village, their bulbous black eyes bright with fierce anticipation.

At Liriel’s command, a curtain of yellow faerie fire blazed up along the edge of the bluff cutting the sahuagin off from the sea and casting their long, hideous shadows into the village beyond. Instantly the sahuagin stopped their advance, casting frantically about for some means of escape. But there was none. The sudden bright light roused some of the villagers, and cries of alarm began to spread.

In moments the warrior-bred Ruathen poured from their cottages, fully armed and ready to do battle.

One of the sahuagin, the large and casual cannibal, whistled out some sort of command. The others fell into a wedge-shaped formation, their weapons-a motley and no doubt stolen collection of spears, tridents, and hauberkssnapped up before them. Liriel noted that the big sahuagin took up a position at the very rear, and that the creatures got progressively smaller as they neared the forward point. This did not surprise her-drow did not expend their leaders in battle, either. The sahuagin were apparently ranked according to size and strength, with those of lesser rank taking the greatest risks.

Liriel once again called upon drow magic and limned the sahuagin chieftain with faerie fire, so that it blazed like a green torch. The creature clacked and whistled frantically as it pawed at itself with its clawed hands, as iftrying to extinguish the flames. The others, momentarily deprived of command, faltered, and the strict formation fell apart. But then the Ruathen were upon them, and the sahuagin knew what to do. They fell into battle with vicious delight, attacking the humans with their slashing talons, rending jaws, and stolen weapons.

The drow tossed back her cloak and advanced on the leader. She dropped the faerie fIre that surrounded the large sahuagin and pulled her long dagger in preparation for its attack. But the creature merely stared at her, its fishlike eyes intelligent beyond her expectations, and filled with rapt awe. To Liriel’s astonishment and chagrin, the sahuagin fell to its knees and briefly touched its scaly head to the ground in an unmistakable gesture of adulation. Liriel did not even want to think about the implications of this. She kicked out hard, catching the sahuagin under its scant chin and sending it sprawling backward. Instinctively the creature drew a knife and parried her first lunge. Leaping nimbly to its feet, the sahuagin faced her down and presented its long knife in a weird parody of a drow challenge. Liriel responded with a feint and a quick, slashing cut. The sahuagin blocked, blocked again, then riposted. Its movements were fast, fluid, and oddly elven. As the battle progressed, Liriel was hard pressed to hold it back, though she was by far the better trained. The unlikely opponents stood toe to toe, exchanging swift and ringing blows. Liriel was relieved that this one, unlike its brethren, did not employ the sahuagin’s darting, deadly bite in battle. She was fully occupied by its swordcraft!

At long last she slipped past the creature’s guard and sank her dagger deep into its gut. She gave the weapon a vicious twist and wrenched it out, then thrust in again. The dying sahuagin’s knife dropped from its nerveless claws, and the creature once again fell to its knees, its eyes bright with adoration and fixed upon Liriel’s dark, elven face. The drow delivered a backhanded slash to the creature’s throat, ending its misery and quenching the incomprehensible, fervid light in its black eyes.

The strange encounter left Liriel feeling shaken and somehow tainted. She shook off the lingering, queasy dread and whirled to address the nearest opponent.

A large sahuagin had managed to toss a weighted net over a red-clad warrior and was poking at the trapped man with a long spear. None of the thrusts hit a vital point; the fishman was toying with its prey with obvious and sadistic glee. Without thought, Liriel conjured a small fireball and hauled it back for the throw. Startled by the sudden burst of light, the sahuagin spun to face her. Its viciously grinning jaws fell slack with astonishment as it faced the magic-wielding drow, and terror froze the creature in place. Pitiless, the young wizard hurled her weapon with deadly accuracy. The fireball flew unerringly into the creature’s enormous mouth. The explosion sent a spray of gore and ichor flying, and the headless sahuagin dropped heavily to the ground.

Liriel stepped over the body and crouched beside the wounded man. Her dagger flashed as she quickly cut him free from the entangling net. Although he bled from a dozen shallow wounds, it was apparent that he could yet fight. The drow pressed one of her own knives into his hands. Hauling him to his feet, she gave him a firm shove in the direction of the nearest sahuagin. The man tossed a quick, grateful nod toward the drow and then flung himself into battle, roaring an oath to Tempus as he went.

A brief, faint smile curved Liriel’s lips. The Ruathen were warriors to the core, ready to respect and accept another warrior who had proven worthy-perhaps even one as strange as she. The thought brought her a moment’s warmth, and then it fled as the crush and turmoil of battle closed in about her.

The drow fought alongside the N orthmen, using all the battle skills at her command. Her bolos spun around the legs of the fish-men and sent them sprawling; her throwing knives buried themselves in the eyes and throats of the sahuagin; her dagger dripped with greenish ichor. When at last the invaders lay dead, the eyes of all the Northmen settled upon their strange ally.

“You are dock-altar, yet also a rune-caster,” one of them ventured in an awed tone. “It has been long years since such a rune-casting warrior led this village in battle, but in ages past it was ever so. Most of the people of Ruathym do not much care for magic, but here we remember the ancient ways and honor them. How are you called?”