Extinction

Cocking an ear to the hole, Ryld listened, but if Halisstra was moving around down in the black depths it was impossible to near her above the moan of the wind. Snow had started to fall again. The flakes landed feather-light upon his head, then melted, sending trickles of icy water down his neck. His breastplate was cold even through the padded tunic he wore and his vambraces creaked each time he moved his arms. At least the tunnel would provide shelter from the wind and snow.

Clambering over the lip of the hole, Ryld cautiously descended the slope. Frost on the floor of the tunnel made the footing tricky for the first dozen paces or so, but after that it widened out, and the floor was clear. As his eyesight adjusted to the darkness inside, he saw that the tunnel forked. One path led off to the left, another straight down.

Knowing that Halisstra's only means of levitating had been her brooch, Ryld chose the left fork. He was relieved to see, after a pace or two, six pebbles that had been set on the ground to form a triangle, pointing out of the tunnel. Halisstra had indeed gone that way?and she'd left a marker to guide herself back out.

Ryld walked briskly for some time, following a more or less horizontal course for some distance but not in a straight line. Instead the tube snaked back and forth in a series of wide, gentle turns, often doubling back over itself again. At each of those junctions Ryld paused and searched carefully and found a triangle of pebbles. Thanks to Halisstra's marks he was able to make good time.

Eventually the cave veered off in a fairly straight line for nearly a thousand paces, only to abruptly bend downward at a steep angle. There, Ryld paused. He'd been trying to decide what would have created such a sinuously curved tunnel. He'd once seen Pharaun use a spell to bore a path through stone, but the end result had been lance-straight and oval, with walls whose stone looked highly polished. The tunnel he'd followed Halisstra into was round, and rougher, with occasional jagged-edged niches that looked like something had taken a bite out of the wall, and its floor was littered with patches of loose stone. Bending to examine one of those, Ryld saw that the stones were rounded, like river stones, but pitted. Mixed in with them were fragments of metal?scraps of armor from the battlefield above?that looked as if they had been tumbled in a stone-polishing drum filled with acid instead of water. The edges of the metal were smooth, yet the metal itself was deeply pitted and crumbled when Ryld stepped on it.

Ryld stood again and tightened his grip on Splitter. The cave hadn't been created by magic; it had been bored through the rock by a living creature.

He'd been praying that it was an ancient pathway, and not freshly made, but the lingering smell of acid in the air told him otherwise. The fact that the odor was getting stronger the farther along he went didn't bode well. And if he was right in his guess about what kind of creature had made the tunnel, Halisstra shouldn't have been facing it alone.

Cautiously, Ryld picked his way down the slope ahead. He moved slowly at first, aware that any tiny avalanche of stone caused by a misstep could alert the creature below to his presence, but halfway down his ears caught a faint noise: the sound of a woman singing. His heartbeat quickened as he recognized the voice as Halisstra's. She was casting one of her bardic spells?but why? Was it merely in preparation for what was to come, or was she already under attack? Grimly, he hurried forward, not caring that his feet were skidding on the ever-steepening slope.

Ahead, the bottom of the tunnel opened into a larger space, a cavern that looked as though it had been formed by the tunnel coiling back upon itself several times in succession as the creature created a nest for itself. The patch of floor that Ryld could see was dotted with puddles, and the acid smell was strong.

Moments later, he neared the bottom of the slope and saw that his guess had been correct. At the far end of the cavern was an enormous purple worm, larger even than Ryld had expected?perhaps thirty paces long. It was coiled like a snake, its head lifted and mouth gaping wide, acid dripping between teeth the size of daggers. Halisstra stood just in front of it with her back to Ryld, songsword in hand, staring the monster down. The charm spell she was singing seemed to be working. The worm swayed in time with the tune, its tiny eyes fixed and staring. Ryld felt a fierce admiration. Halisstra was the epitome of a drow female: strong and fearless, capable of handling any threat.