Condemnation by Richard Baker Read Free Book Online

Tawny blurs crouched atop a high wall perhaps forty or fifty yards distant, a handful of lamias who carried heavy crossbows and watched carefully for opportunities to shoot into the fray, their beautiful faces twisted into evil grins. Even as she watched, one took at shot at Ryld. The bolt whistled past the weapons master’s head, smashing a divot from the soft stone wall nearby. Ryld flinched away.
    “Someone take care of the snipers!” he snapped, while slashing at the gargoyles.
    A second later, two more bolts flew at Ryld. One bounced from his breastplate, but the other caught him on the right side while his arms were raised to wield Splitter. The bolt lodged in the arm-opening of his armor. Ryld staggered back two steps and collapsed in the dust.
    Halisstra reached down and snatched up Pharaun’s wand.
    “Aid Quenthel,” she told Danifae.
    She leveled the wizard’s weapon at the lamias on the high wall. She knew something about using such devices—a talent she wouldn’t normally have wished to reveal, but the fight was desperate. She spoke an arcane word, and a bolt of purple lightning shot out at the first lamia, blasting the creature from the wall in a spray of shattered stone. Thunder reverberated in the dusty ruin. She aimed at the next lamia, but the monsters weren’t stupid. They abandoned their lofty perches at once, leaping back behind the wall to avoid more lightning.
    From the shadow of the back wall, Pharaun returned to the battle, armed with another wand. This one produced a blazing bolt of fire, which he directed against the gargoyles overhead. With shrieks of pain, the monsters flapped off, though the one poisoned by Quenthel’s whips didn’t get far before its wings folded. It plummeted down among the rooftops some distance away.
    Valas dispatched the last of his attackers with a double-handed slash that nearly cut the creature in two, and Jeggred stood amid a virtual heap of asabi bodies, his flanks heaving. The wizard glanced around once, and noticed Ryld on the ground.
    “Damn,” he muttered.
    He knelt by the weapons master and turned him over. Ryld was dying. Blood streamed from the bolt in his chest, and he fought for each breath, bloody spittle streaking his gray lips. The wizard scowled, then looked up at Quenthel.
    “Do something,” he said. “We need him.”
    Quenthel folded her arms with a cold frown and said, “Unfortunately, Lolth does not choose to grant me spells of healing at the moment, and I have already expended almost all of the healing magic I brought on our journey. There is little I can do for him.”
    Halisstra narrowed her eyes, thinking. Again, she didn’t like the thought of what she was about to do, but there was a benefit to revealing her secret. If she proved herself useful, the Menzoberranyr would be hesitant to discard her.
    Besides, she thought, they likely already know.
    “Move aside,” she said quietly. “I can help him.”
    Quenthel and Pharaun looked up suspiciously.
    “How?” Quenthel demanded. “Do you mean to say that Lolth has not withdrawn her favor from you?”
    “No,” Halisstra replied. She knelt by Ryld and examined him. She would have to move quickly. If he died, he would be beyond her assistance. “Lolth has denied me spells, just as she has Quenthel, and presumably every other priestess of our race. I have some ability to heal by a different means, though.”
    With that, she began to sing. Her song was a strange keening threnody, something dark and eerie that tugged at the drow admiration for beauty, ambition, and black deeds skillfully done. Halisstra molded the shape of her voice and the ancient words of the song, summoning the magic of her lament as she set her hand on the quarrel and drew it from the wound.
    Ryld started, his eyes wide and staring, and blood spurted over Halisstra’s hands—but the wound closed into a puckered scar, and the weapons master coughed himself awake.
    “What happened?” he groaned.
    “What