"They're gone, probably back to the instructors," Kiaran reported, returning from the supposed meeting place ahead. The two priestesses among the rescued drow were busy healing the soldiers even as they struggled on with their own wounds. Everyone was weary and stiff, including Val.
"To be expected," Val said quietly, tightening the bandage around her upper leg. The others had been looking to her for direction and guidance, even now that they had escaped pursuit.
"What's that?" Kiaran said, noticing the tattered and blood-stained cloth tucked through Val's belt for the first time.
The mage smiled faintly, pulling it free. "I had almost forgotten. A memento of our success," she said, letting the cloth unfurl. It was the standard of their enemy, a light gray cloth painted with crude black symbols of the goblin tongue. "It wounded them to lose it. I took it off its bearer in the melee."
One of their watchmen, a young male from House Vandree who was skilled with sword and shield, came scrambling over the rocks. "Val, the enemy is coming. They found us!" he said, a touch of panic to his tone. "There are too many without the others."
Val sprang up to her feet as though she weren't wounded, knowing that if she showed even a hint of fear that the morale of their besieged friends would break. "Crossbows and mages up on the rocks to either side of the cavern," she ordered before looking at her scout. "How long do we have?"
"An hour at most-they're taking the long path here. But we can't keep running," the Vandree noble said.
"Time enough," Val said, taking a deep breath. For a moment, she pretended she was back in her mother's chambers studying the tactics of ancient drow battles. "Alright, Kyorlin, you know traps well. Turn the passage here into a nightmare. Tripwires, snares, anything you can do in an hour. Take Szordrin with you." Both rogues nodded and disappeared down the tunnel to plot their havoc. She pivoted to face her friend. "Kiaran, I know you're tired, but I need you to work on healing as much as you can. The more warriors in fighting condition we have, the better we'll do."
"Can you do that...thing you did in the cavern before again?" Kiaran asked, nodding her obedience to the order.
"Dangerous with these injuries, but I will if I have to," Val said firmly. "But I have a fair number of tricks still. Get the warriors to focus on defending the paths up to the ledges where our ranged forces are-they can only come two at a time at most there, and scaling the walls will leave them vulnerable to fire. Alright?"
When she looked around, she saw determination in the others. They hadn't panicked but instead began to focus on what they could do, splitting into two teams on either side of the long, narrow cavern to create a fatal funnel for the enemy to charge into. Some of the mages conjured pots and coaxed hot, smoking coals to life within, covering them with a lid and readying them on the edges to be kicked down onto the enemy. One of the priestesses had revealed a stash of daylight beads that they readied to lob into the foe as well.
As far as Val was concerned, this was war and not training. Their enemy would most certainly try to kill them, so that meant using every advantage available to tip things in their own favor. They barely had enough time to get everything ready. The howls down the tunnels that came flowing after the running figures of Kyorlin and Szordrin were their first warning.
"How did it go?" she asked them, helping them climb the slopes up with both hands since the surface had been covered in loose shale.
"Marvelous," Szordrin said with a grin, helping Kyorlin up. The second, younger rogue was staggering a little with a fresh arrow wound to his hip. "This one got himself nicked, granted, but he wasn't hiding too well. That'll teach him."
"The traps?"
"I reckon we'll have taken down their forces by about half a score by the time they reached it, and at least a handful will be walking wounded," Szordrin said, climbing up himself.
"Excellent," Val praised, feeling her spirits lift slightly. "Ky, take position with a crossbow. Szordrin, stay with me."
The chaos of goblinoids charging until they were almost trampling each other came spilling out into the cavern, only to find something worse than the traps colliding with them-fire and burning explosions of vivid light followed by a hail of fire from hand-crossbows with poison bolts. By the time they met the blades of the waiting drow warriors, deafening thunder and vicious lightning joined the fray from the mages. The elemental fury was incredible, battering and shattering the defenses of the screaming attackers.
Val found herself in the thick of the battle next to Kiaran and Szordrin, hurling dark magic at the enemy. A snarling, spitting face would rear in front of her as one lifted a weapon, only to have its kidneys eviscerated by the rogue's twin short swords. On her other side, Kiaran cast deftly to ensnare a ferocious bugbear in webs of necrotic energy and then hit him across the face with her mace with a crunch of facial bones.
The fighting was fierce all around, but the three of them stood strong like an island amid the chaos. Val gave orders from the thick by flashing shorthand messages by casting glowing symbols in faerie fire or painting valuable targets in it.
A stray blow of an orc's club caught Kiaran in the ribs, sending the priestess flying backwards. "Szordrin, get her!" Val shouted even as she channeled negative energy in her hands and threw herself at the foe responsible who was trying to close on the wounded cleric. She grabbed the orc's face, flesh withering under her touch and crumbling away like dust as he shrieked and tried to wound her. Fortunately, she was inside his long reach at a place where his weapon became unwieldy.
The rogue sprang like an acrobat, neatly shooting between a troll's legs to grab the priestess and yank her back. "I'm alive," Kiaran groaned, knowing there was no time for her to nurse her broken ribs. With the male's help, she got up to her feet. "Where the hell did Val go?"
The mage had vanished into the crowd, grabbing up a broken spear with half its haft in each hand. She was surrounded, moving with unnatural agility as she lashed out with the jagged edge of wood and a spearhead. It was a struggle to keep them back, but she did her best to fight towards where she knew her friends were. Every successful stab and slash called to her lower nature, sometimes sparking a vicious grin or a laugh that felt almost alien-not hers at all.
"Better go get her," Szordrin said with a smile, tapping his blades together with a small clink. "Can't have our fearless leader getting killed."
Kiaran nodded and took a deep breath, raising the holy symbol of Lloth still clutched in her off hand as she called upon the Goddess through a sharp incantation. Invisible talons rent the air, slicing into the mass of hobgoblins, bugbears, and orcs. Even the troll charging at them was not immune. It only killed a few, merely wounding most.
The rogue took his chance then, hurtling through the gaps between bugbears as he made his way towards the flashes of magic in the press of bodies. After clobbering a goblin with his sword-hilt, he broke into the clear circle around the mage and twisted, settling his back against hers.
"Couldn't have dropped back in sooner, could you?" Val managed.
"I think of it as being fashionably late," Szordrin said cheerfully, dropping into a crouch and hamstringing the nearest orc.
With the rogue watching her back, Val felt much more secure. Kiaran was quick to rejoin them as well, reaching over to heal them both briefly before focusing her attention again on fighting with her mace. The tide of the battle was turning swiftly against the orcs with the focused fire of crossbows and the dedicated fury of the mages and warriors.
The wave broke and receded, wounded goblinoids fleeing back down the passage from whence they'd come. The victorious drow let out a few cheers and shouted insults despite their exhaustion and injuries. Val watched the enemy go, swaying slightly on her feet until Szordrin grabbed her shoulder and steadied her.
"I think that went rather well," he said with an irrepressibly good humor.
"All the same, I'd like not to repeat it," Kiaran grumbled as she walked with them back to the others, cradling her wounded ribs as much as she could. "We need to rest before we can even think about catching up with Ryna."
"Agreed," Val said softly. She cleared her throat and then called out, "Everyone, take our casualties and move out further down the path to the next camp site. Then everyone gets some food and sleep."
It wasn't a long walk, but Val was grateful when it was over. She directed the clerics to focus on the worst of their wounded. Two dead students had been touched with spells of gentle repose and their bodies laid out for a return to their families, but at least there were only two. The talking in the camp was a faint chatter to her tired ears and Val just about collapsed into her bedroll.
By the time morning came, her whole body was an aching knot of protesting muscle and battered bone. She could barely get up for the stiffness but forced herself on anyway. They'd clearly made it through the night without incident, if the peaceful breakfast of the other drow was any indication. "How far are we from the exit?" she asked, limping over to where Kiaran and Szordrin were studying the map.
"Not even an hour. We did good," Kiaran said, tapping the paper with a slender finger. "We'll be late, though."
"Better late than never," the rogue said sagely. "We got out alive and more than that, we beat the enemy. The instructors will approve."
"Valyne Duskryn," a voice said with quiet firmness.
Val turned to see one of the warriors standing before her. The tall, lithe female wore the sigil of the city's second House, Barrison Del'Armgo. The mage bowed slightly as was proper when addressing a higher noble female, at least with her rank as an arcane spellcaster. "Is there a problem, Tathlyn?"
The warrior was quiet for a moment, her expression conflicted. "I am...a friend of Ryna Faen Tlabbar. Yet you came for us and she did not," the priestess said with a slow deliberation. "I owe you a great deal and I will not forget it. But more than that, I think that I would rather follow you than her."
Val was startled, but did her best not to show it. Instead, she held out a hand to the tall female. "It is an honor, Tathlyn Barrison Del'Armgo. Allow me to introduce you to Kiaran Alaenrahel and Szordrin Mizzrym."
The rogue sprang to his feet and gave the confused warrior a sweeping bow with a bit of a flourish. "The pleasure is all mine, Mistress Tathlyn," he purred with an arch smile.
"He does that," Kiaran said as a warning, offering the warrior a soft smile. "I saw you in battle. You seem to know your way around that flail."
The stern-faced noble of Barrison Del'Armgo cracked a small smile, hand coming to rest on the vicious weapon at her belt. "It is effective," Tathlyn said simply. "I hope to demonstrate that to Ryna Faen Tlabbar when we catch up to her. I am less than pleased with being left to die."