Condemnation - By R. A. Salvatore Page 0,69

hear them?" she called to Ryld. "The minotaurs are coming!"

"I thought it was the wind," the fighter growled. "Rouse the others."

He sprinted down the passageway toward the approaching host, shouting for Valas to join him from his post in the other direction. Halis-stra snatched up her pack and shouldered it quickly, rousing the rest of the company with shouts of alarm and the occasional quick kick for those who were slow to shake off their deep trances.

She readied her crossbow, loading a quarrel as she peered down the tunnel behind them.

The floor quivered beneath her feet. Great footfalls as hard as rock came in a stamping rush, and deep bellows and snorts echoed and echoed again in a roiling cacophony that filled the passage. Hot animal stink assaulted her nostrils, and she saw them - an onrushing mob of dozens of the hulk-ing brutes, huge bull-headed monsters with shaggy pelts and massive hooves, clutching mighty axes and flails in their thickly muscled fists.

Before that storm Ryld and Valas skipped and darted like sparrows blown before a gale, battling furiously for their lives against the blood-thirsty savages. Halisstra took aim quickly and shot one monster in the chest with her powerful crossbow, but the creature was so blood-maddened it simply ignored the bolt buried in its thick torso. She laid in another quarrel as the bow's magic cocked it again, only to have her shot spoiled by Jeggred's rush into the fray.

"Jeggred, you idiot, there are too many to fight!" she cried.

The draegloth ignored her and threw himself against the horde. For amoment the half-demon's size and fury held up the minotaurs' charge, but over Jeggred's white-furred shoulders and the flashing blades of Ryld and Valas, Halisstra could make out dozens more of the hirsute monsters, fanged mouths bellowing challenges, eyes glowing red with rage. Several had fallen before Splitter, Valas's curved knives, and Jeggred's talons, but battle-frenzied minotaurs shrugged off all but the most grievous of injuries, claw-ing over each other to get at the drow invaders.

Halisstra shifted to one side and shot again, while Danifae joined her with her own crossbow. Quenthel danced just behind Jeggred, flick-ing her deadly scourge at monsters threatening to swarm over the drae-gloth, and Pharaun shouted an arcane word that hurled a bright globe of crackling energy into the midst of the minotaur ranks. The sphere deto-nated with a clap of thunder and blasted bright arcs of lightning across the tunnel, charring some minotaurs into cinders, and burning great black wounds in others.

In the searing light of the lightning ball, Halisstra saw something taller and lankier than the minotaurs, behind the front ranks, a demonic presence - no, several demons - driving the angry monsters on. Huge black wings shrouded the things in shadow, and their dark horns glowed red with heat.

Roars and bellows filled the passage with rage, while the ring of steel on steel came so fast and hard that Halisstra could barely hear herself shout, "There are demons back there!"

"I see them," Quenthel replied. She fell back a couple of steps and seized Pharaun by the arm. "Can you dismiss them?"

"I have no such spell ready," the wizard replied. "Besides, getting rid of the demons isn't going to get us out of this little imbroglio. I think we - "

"I don't care what you think!" Quenthel screamed. "If you can't banish the demons, then bar the passage!"

Pharaun grimaced, but he complied by beginning another spell. Halisstra reloaded and searched for another clear shot. Ryld crouched low and hamstrung a minotaur attacking him with an axe big enough to split an anvil, and gutted the creature with an upward draw cut across its belly. Valas was upended by a flailing chain that yanked his feet out from under him. The scout rolled away, narrowly escaping having his skull pulped.

One or more of the demons behind the battling minotaurs hurled a barrage of green, fiery bolts at the dark elves. One dissipated against Quenthel's inborn resistance to magic, while two others burned Pharaun and Danifae with vitriolic fire. Somehow the wizard managed to complete his spell.

What Halisstra assumed was some sort of invisible barrier forced most of the minotaurs and their demonic masters back, while a pair of the front-line fighters found themselves suddenly cut off from their allies. While the main host of the bull creatures hurledthemselves against Pharaun's in-visible wall and tried vainly to batter their way through with their crude, clumsy weapons, the dark elves quickly cut down the minotaurs

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