Extinction

Ryld turned to hurry back the way they had come. He saw Valas shoot him a quick, questioning glance. Then Quenthel shouted a warning to Pharaun. An instant later a roar of triumph filled the cavern. The demon was free.

Ryld was already several paces away, climbing swiftly up the narrow tunnel that had led them to the cavern. Behind him he could hear more roaring, violent splashing, and terrified shouts. An explosive rush of cold air whooshed past him?the blast of a spell. There was no way to tell whether it was one of Pharaun's?or one cast by the demon. Then a male voice screamed in mortal agony. Pharaun's?

For a heartbeat or two, he actually considered turning around. Then he decided against it. Pharaun deserved to know what it felt like not to be able to count on a friend.

He climbed upward, ignoring the sounds of battle behind him until he reached the flattened bag, which he plucked from its ledge. He dropped it into the portable hole, then folded the hole shut. He'd shake it out later when he reached the surface. If the others survived the demon attack and came looking for him, there would be no clues to alert them to the trick he'd played.

Ryld pressed on, retracing the route they'd taken from the surface. He'd taken careful mental notes as they descended, pausing several times to turn around to view landmarks from the opposite direction.

He passed the place where they'd been forced to crawl over a jumble of rock because the ceiling had partially collapsed, then the long, narrow cavern where a trickle of water had encouraged a faintly glowing patch of lichen to grow. Next came the natural chimney that rose more than a hundred paces above and below to dead ends, with several narrow tunnels opening onto it.

Reaching it, Ryld looked up the chimney and counted. The third tunnel above and slightly to the right was the one they'd come through. Touching the magical brooch pinned to his shirt, Ryld stepped out into the chimney and levitated toward it.

As he drew closer to the tunnel mouth, he heard a faint clink from somewhere inside it. Instantly recognizing the sound of chain mail links clinking against each other, he whipped up the hood of his piwafwi and drew his feet up under its hem. The magic of his cloak enfolded him, throwing his body into shadow. He drifted past the mouth of the tunnel he'd been heading for?to one side of it, so the person he'd just heard wouldn't spot the movement of shadowed gray against shadowed gray?then he halted the equivalent of a dozen paces above the opening. He hung there, carefully controlling his breathing so that not even a whisper of sound escaped his lips. He waited.

A moment later, a dark face appeared in the tunnel mouth. The strange drow's ebony skin blended with the darkness of the tunnel behind it, as did the black mask that hid his lower face?the symbol of a cleric of Vhaeraun?but his white hair and faintly glowing red eyes stood out in sharp relief. He peered up at where Ryld floated. A chimney was a natural place to expect an ambush.

Slowly, Ryld slid his finger into the trigger of the crossbow that was strapped to his wrist, but the cleric didn't appear to have spotted him.

After a quick scan of the chimney above, the cleric turned his attention downward. Pulling a forked bit of bone out of a pocket of his piwafwi, he grasped it with the thumb and forefinger of each hand and held it over the chimney, then spoke the words of a spell. The bone glowed with a soft purple light. A moment later, the light coalesced at the point of the V-shaped bone, then erupted into a sizzling purple spark. The spark began to drift up, then hesitated and drifted slowly and steadily downward. It came o a halt in front of the tunnel Ryld had just climbed out of before it winked out.

The priest turned and signed to someone in the tunnel behind him, They went this way.

That seen, Ryld's suspicions were confirmed. The cleric was from House Jaelre and was seeking vengeance for the death of his high priest.

Ryld watched in silence as the cleric and two well-armed males descended toward the tunnel. The cleric and one of the warriors simply stepped out of the tunnel and drifted magically downward, but the second warrior was forced to climb down the narrow corner of the chimney, his back braced against one wall, hands and feet against the other. Tactically, that was the moment for Ryld to strike?or to flee, since the grunts and scuffing noises the climbing male was making would cover the sound of him entering the tunnel they'd just left.

Ryld didn't care about Quenthel Baenre. He had accompanied her because he'd been ordered to. Valas could take care of himself in a fight, and Danifae was from another city, and no concern of Ryld's. But Pharaun, even though he was a powerful mage, had just been in a fight with a demon. He would be easy pickings for those three. .