Blades of the Banished - Robert Ryan Page 0,33

Lanrik looked into the room as they passed. There was little to see. Desks and chairs rotted on the dirt-covered floor. Shelves, fallen down and broken, cluttered the room. And there were books too. Many of them. Most appeared wet and moldy, though some seemed better preserved. This was likely Assurah’s study, though what Aranloth could have discovered within it after thousands of years and the depredations of water and vermin, he did not know.

They continued down the stairs. Erlissa supported the lòhren on one side, and he on the other. It took them a long time, and all the while Lanrik considered different plans to evade the serpent. None would work.

They must rely on the same method to get down and out as they had to get up and in, but this time the creature was ready and awake, and they were tired. Erlissa had barely got them through last time, and his arrows had not helped much. They annoyed the thing, but not much more.

At length, they reached the smithy. There they rested a few moments. Lanrik looked around. Once more he went to the tempering barrels. The sludge at the bottom of the second one intrigued him. Working on a hunch, he drew forth an arrow and dipped the barbed head in the muck at the bottom. If that was the serpent’s venom, it could do no harm to try and shoot it with its own poison.

Erlissa and Aranloth approached.

“Is that what I think it is?” she asked.

“I think so.”

She frowned. “I see what you’re trying to do, but the serpent will likely be proof against its own venom.”

Lanrik shrugged. “Probably so, but it does no harm to try.”

They moved down the stairs to the last level before the pit. He held the arrow carefully, being sure that it did not come into contact with anyone. He saw Aranloth study it intently, though whether for fear of the venom or some other reason he did not know.

At the bottom of the stairs they approached the great iron door.

“Tread carefully,” Lanrik said. “There’s venom on the floor.”

He had sudden doubt if the substance that he had dipped the arrow in was venom. The floor here was corroded by it as though tongues of intense flame had licked it, and yet, if the substance in the keg had been venom, how could the wood resist its corrosive power?

It was a good question, and he had no answer other than that wood was not stone.

“Exactly what manner of creature is it?” Aranloth whispered.

Erlissa glanced nervously at the door while she answered.

“It’s a great serpent, massive and strong. Its back is black, its belly scarlet. Time has not diminished it, rather it has grown cunning through the ages and perhaps, being drawn from ùhrengai in the beginning, has learned how to use that power to sustain and strengthen itself.”

The lòhren looked grim as they moved to the door. Carefully, Lanrik peered through the grilled window. He saw nothing, for the pit was dark. Nor did he hear anything, not even a whisper of sound among all the dry bones. The serpent could be close, or not, and he would not know.

He shrugged at the others, and then put his hands to the iron bolt that fixed the door in place. Looking up at them, his eyes questioned if they were ready.

Erlissa nodded curtly. Aranloth took a deep breath and straightened as though preparing himself.

A long moment Lanrik waited. He did not wish to enter the pit again. And yet there was no other way.

With sudden force he lifted the bar and then pulled the door open. The iron hinges grated. A flash of blue lòhrengai burned at the tip of Erlissa’s staff, and then they were through and shambling along the ledge that led down the side of the pit.

Erlissa took the lead. Her black hair trailed behind her, and the walnut staff gleamed with power in her hand. Aranloth came next. He moved quickly, though what effort it cost him Lanrik was unsure. He did notice a strong tremor beneath their feet and knew at once that the lòhren diverted some of his great focus on the struggle with the elùgroths to the benefit of their own predicament.

For his own part, Lanrik nocked the arrow to his bow and came up the rear, eyes roving below for any sign of the creature.

He saw nothing but the mass of white bones in the pit of death. There was no movement, no