The Paladins by James M. Ward, David Wise Read Free Book Online Page B

hate Undermountain.”
    Interlude 3
    Don’t worry about your debts if you’ve got friends, because a friend in need deserves what he gets!
    “This is it!” thought Shaakat to his fiendish accomplice. “This is the gate! The scent of its magic is the same as the gate in the city of the bloodforge.”
    The vrocks stood at the base of a short, pyramid-shaped platform, upon which two massive ivory tusks of some prime creature sprouted and curved together,
    forming an arch. The uprights were deeply grooved along their lengths and inlaid with some magical metal shimmering and changing color like liquid chaos.
    “Thank hideous Juiblex!” spat Rejik as he squatted down to rest upon the lowest of the glossy, crimson stone steps leading up to the gate. “This cage is a horrible death trap! I don’t think we even scratched the surface of this—this Undermountain, but we’ve already killed a slithermorph, six ibrandlin, those two illithids with the nasty staves, a score of undead, three groups of heavily armed primes, and a sodding herd of beholders, not to mention those ill-tempered reflections of us, that came out of that mirror back there!”
    “Yes, we must develop a place like this on the Abyss,” agreed Shaakat.
    “Let’s go home and tell General Raachaak we’ve found the way into the city of the bloodforge!”
    “Or—perhaps we should take the bloodforge for our own,” returned Shaakat.
    Rejik’s beady eyes narrowed. “You would suffer Morbaat’s fate, addle-cove?”
    “Raachaak isn’t here, stinkfeathers. Besides, if we capture the bloodforge, we can destroy him and ascend.”
    “We?” sneered Rejik.
    “We… for now,” growled Shaakat.
    Rejik squinted up at the gate and clicked his beak pensively. “If we fail, we’ll be turned into lowly larvae and left for the chasme on the Plane of Infinite Portals.”
    “We are true tanar’ri!” howled Shaakat. “Or I am, at least! You disgust me, baatezu’s bastard!”
    Rejik stood up and thrust his narrow face toward the other fiend. Tm tired from all the killing, today, but I still have the energy to throttle you, berk. But go! Go through the gate and see if you can find the bloodforge before I return to General Raachaak and make my report. We’ll see who ascends and who wriggles under a chasme’s stinger.”
    “Fool! We have more power than we can imagine at our wingtips, and you want to run home to whine to a balor! So be it! Let us see who’ll be a molting lackey, and who will command the bloodforge. I’m not afraid!”
    “Have fun on the other side, fighting those sentinels,” sneered Rejik. “Remember how tough the primes we encountered down here were? Ha!”
    Shaakat paused, recalling the wounds he had suffered in this curious subterranean labyrinth, at the hands of humans, elves, and dwarves in armor. Once or twice, he admitted reluctantly, they had had to flee the battle, although they came that close to winning those fights.
    “Exactly,” chimed in Rejik, reading his thoughts. “Do you think we can simply step through this gate and take our prize? We may well not be enough. Remember what Raachaak said? Others have failed before us.”
    Shaakat gazed up at the portal, then craned his scrawny neck around to look over his feathery black shoulder, at the vast complex behind them. “I have an idea,” he thought. “It will require the both of us to succeed, but it cannot fail. Rejik, will you ascend, and never fear Raachaak again, upon a bold stroke? Will you join with me… for now?”
    Rejik stared at the other vrock, pondering. He hissed ruefully, “First, tell me your plan.”

Chapter 4
    A young warrior in the best equipment ever made is still a young warrior.
    “Noph, you aren’t planning to use that boat hook, are you?” Jacob asked sharply. Noph had been watching a pair of glowing eyes under the water beside the boat for several heartbeats. He’d thought of trying to hook whatever the eyes were—at least it was a distraction