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Chapter 19:

Battle Lines

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The first rays of sunlight found the Blades and the Companions of the Hall as they began to enter the catacombs that housed Bodhi's vile lair. All door save for the one that lead directly into the lair had been collapsed. That bothered Brynn for two reasons. The first was that now it would be far more difficult to get in undetected, nigh on impossible in fact. The second reason was a little more abstract. The men and women who had loved ones interred in the catacombs, or ancestors or what have you, did so because they wanted to in some way preserve the remains of that loved one eternally, even if that only meant a bronze plaque on the stones beneath a cobweb covered skeleton's niche. No doubt in collapsing the passages down to the catacombs themselves, Bodhi and her minions had turned to dust many of those fragile skeletons, destroyed their tombs, and desecrated their eternal sanctuary.

Then again, the rage had been getting crafty as of late, not just demanding death and vengeance, but trying to find ways of turning Brynn into a mass murderer -the sort that would have made Bhaal proud- without her even knowing it had happened. It had a way of turning the slightest irritation or wrong into a problem of epic proportions that she had to right. Her own mind was turning against her. Irenicus hadn't just taken her soul with his machine, he had left her vulnerable to her own darker side, and that made Brynn feel very afraid.

Crouching down like a cat at Brynn's side, Imoen examined the floor and the stone walls of the hall that lead out of the antechamber of the catacombs. "All clear so far," she said. She twitched, as if jolted by a static charge. "I can feel her," she murmured after a moment.

A sickening smell, that of dead flesh kept preserved, though not as perfectly as it had been when alive, wafted down the hall. A cloud of bluish-white mist followed, and a pair of black bats with glowing red eyes. The mist and bats shifted and morphed into the forms of four vampires. Their red eyes sent a chill down Brynn's back, and she reached for her katanas and drew them. She pushed Imoen back, putting her out of danger of the vampire's terrible attacks for the moment, and shifted into a defensive stance.

"We have been waiting for you," one of the vampires, a female, hissed. In life she might well have been a beautiful woman, like so many of the other victims Bodhi had made vampires, but now she was twisted. Whatever beauty this creature had had was utterly gone.

"No, really?" Brynn snapped back sarcastically. "I was wonder what the welcoming committee was for. "Go back to your tombs, you stinking corpses, unless you want to be just plain dead instead of undead."

The female spokes-vampire smiled, showing her gleaming white fangs. "I think not," she said.

All four together the vampires attack Brynn, but Brynn dropped flat on her stomach on the ground, and from behind her a volley of arrows struck the four vampires. One was hit in the forehead, another in the shoulder, a third in the stomach, and the fourth was struck a fatal blow through the heart. Flames sprang up on the clothing of the vampires, and their screams of rage and pain for a moment made the song of the rage in Brynn's head shut up.

The rage was pleased.

Brynn was disgusted.

Frantically the vampires tried to swat out the flames that had begun to burn away their undead flesh. The fire itself could not kill them, but the burns would never heal completely, and the creature would always be horribly disfigured. The fourth vampire, the one struck through the heart, lay still on the stone floor of the hall, the fire ravaging it's body. Soon, there would be nothing left but ashes and it would be dead for good.

The second wave of the attack consisted of Brynn, Minsc, Drizzt and Bruenor. Anomen and Jaheira stayed a little behind them in order to provide healing spells in case one of the vampires managed to hit one of the four.

Slipping in and out of her chosen opponent's range, Brynn deflected the supernaturally powerful slamming punches aimed at her with ease, though she had trouble finding time to get in an attack of her own. Each opportunity that presented itself came right after the vampire had attacked and Brynn had blocked, and the power of the Vampire's fists was such that it made Brynn's arms go numb for a moment and threw her off balance. This, she decided as her left wrist began to ache, was one of those times when she needed both hands on one katana. Quickly she sheathed her left-hand blade, and brought her right blade up to block another attack. As the force of the blow drove her backward, Brynn gripped the hilt of the katana with her left hand, shifting her grip so that the sword slid forward, the razor sharp edge slicing through the steel-like skin on the vampire's fore arm and then plunging directly through the vampire's chest until the tip came out the other side. She shifted her grip slightly and changed the direction of her pressure on the blade, now pushing downward instead of thrusting forward, and the sharp edge of the katana sheared through the undead flesh all the way from the vampire's right breast to it's left hip.

No longer in control of its lower half, its spine having been sliced in two, the vampire fell to the floor. Quick as lightening Brynn reached for one of the wooden stakes strapped across her chest bandoleer-like, and drove the stake through the vampire's heart. In an instant the vampire's flopping and struggling ceased and Brynn took the time to cut off its head and throw that and the rest of the body into the flames that raged around and through the corpses of the other fallen vampires.

As Brynn flicked the blackened blood and fluids off of her katana she was attacked from behind. A shout of warning alerted her a moment too late. She felt her left shoulder snap under the vampire's blow, and then a feeling so cold that it burned. For a moment her vision swam, and she nearly stumbled as she turned around to face her attacker. The vampire came at her again, but Brynn brought her katana up and deflected it just enough so that the attack missed. Her left arm hanging useless at her side, Brynn fought off the vampire, but she couldn't get enough strength through the pain in her shoulder and the feeling of weakness that had suddenly overcome her to launch an assault of her own.

But that's what her friends were there for. Brynn heard the twang of a bow and the vampire seemed to leap forward. The creature hit her square on with such force that it knocked her to the ground, and a jolt of fiery pain lanced through her whole left side. The vampire hissed, showing its terrible fangs, and smiled a terrible smile. It leaned forward and tried to bite at Brynn's unprotected neck, but Brynn slammed the hilt of her katana into its temple and kicked it off of her. Dropping the katana, she went for another wooden stake and drove it home. A moment later the vampire joined its fellows in the pile of burning bodies, and not long after that the fourth vampire fell to Drizzt.

"Yer hoggin' all the blasted fun!" Bruenor growled, hefting his battle-axe and scowling.

Brynn looked at him a little foggily. Her shoulder hurt like hell and she was having trouble feeling the fingers on her left hand. She had probably pinched a nerve or something when her shoulder had been broken. "You can have th' next ones," she slurred, leaning her right hand against the stone wall and trying to shake the feeling of weakness.

"My lady, you need healing," Anomen said, approaching her with an outstretched hand.

Brynn gave him the same foggy look she had given Bruenor. "Guess I do," she admitted. "Damn shoulder hurts."

Anomen placed his hands gently on Brynn's shoulder, eliciting a small grunt of pain from her despite his caution, and began to chant a spell of healing. The pain subsided as soon as the spell had been cast and the feeling in Brynn's fingers returned as well. She rotated her shoulder around to test it out. Sometimes pain still remained after healing, because even if the spell healed the major damage it didn't always get out all the kinks. She drew her left hand katana and went through a quick series of practice cuts, making sure she had her full range of motion and all of her strength.

"Good," Brynn said. "Let's go..."

"Wait a moment, my lady," Anomen insisted. "That vampire did more than simply injure you, it drained you of energy. Such a thing may well have weakened you a considerable bit."

Oh, well that explained why she felt so weak. Brynn shrugged and let Anomen cast a second spell, and soon after she felt a tingle of energy course through her as the feeling of weakness disappeared.

"Now," Brynn said, "let's go."

With Imoen, Nalia and the halfling, Regis, checking the hall for any possible surprises that Bodhi might have left, the Blades and the Companions continued on.

The hall opened into a large rectangular room with large heavily decorated carpet in the center of it. A staircase leading down into the lowest level of the catacombs and another hallway began on the opposite side of the room and a third hall lead off just to the left of the one the party had just come through. The huge ornate main door opened out from the right wall. Aside from the lamps that lit the room with a soft, eerie light there was nothing else in the room.

Brynn gripped the hilts of her katanas tighter anyway; vampires could appear from nowhere, as her previous experience indicated. Behind her, Brynn heard the distinctive sound of Jaheira's footsteps as the druid moved up to stand at her side.

"I was thinking," Jaheira said in a quiet voice, "that we might split up here."

Brynn looked at the other half-elf out of the corner of her eyes for a moment before returning to her careful watch of the room. "Hmm?" she inquired.

"The lower chambers are not large enough to bring in a force of ten, let alone fifteen. Sixteen if you count Do'Urden's panther friend. There will not be enough room to fight."

"What do you suggest then?" Brynn asked, briefly flicking her eyes in Jaheira's direction again.

"You, Minsc, Imoen, Anomen, Haer'Dalis, Do'Urden, the dwarf and myself will continue onto the lower chambers and fight Bodhi, the rest will clean out the rest of the upper levels and destroy the vampire's blood pools with the holy water given to us by General Elhan. They can also take the time to stake any of the vampires that might have retreated to their coffins after we have defeated them down below."

Brynn thought about that. Jaheira's plan had it so that the mix of fighters and spell casters on each level was relatively even, with the weaker members of the group up above where, theoretically, they would be safer while the stronger people were below dealing with Bodhi. It was that 'theoretically' that bothered Brynn. The last thing she wanted to do was leave any of her friends vulnerable, and likewise she figured that the same thing would concern Drizzt. "Minsc should stay with the group on the upper floors, he won't like being separated from Aerie when there's fighting going on. Mazzy can come down with us. Is Nalia still translating for Solaufein?"

"She is," Jaheira replied.

Brynn nodded. She frowned, catching sight of a flicker of movement from across the room. "Fine then, we split... but first, we kill some vampires."

From the opposite hall and the stairway vampires came pouring into the room. Eight in all, they charged eagerly across the lavish, blood-red carpet and attack the invaders.

Brynn slipped easily back into the tempo of the fight, warding off the blows of the three vampires that encircled her. Parry right, parry right, parry back, parry left, counter high right, high strike left, parry right. She fell into the rhythm at let the rage bubble to the surface and put more power behind her blocks so that she could withstand the arm-numbingly strong attacks of the vampires. She spun around to the left and sliced off an incoming arm, then spun back around to the right just in time to catch another blow that had been aimed for the crown of her skull with an over head block. In the meantime her free blade swept out and cut the belly of the attacking vampire open. In the one moment that she was left vulnerable by her move, the third vampire came at her, but it stopped suddenly, the glint of metal showing through it's chest. The metal vanished and the vampire turned around awkwardly to face its new attacker, only to have its knees cut out from under it as Bruenor Battlehammer went to finish off his kill. A third blow from the dwarf's battle-axe beheaded the vampire, and the archers, Nalia and Cattie-brie, were quick to set the vampire aflame as soon as Bruenor and driven a stake through the creature's heart.

"Take that, ye stinkin' corpse," the dwarf spat. Then he turned without another word and stomped off to find another victim.

Brynn, having had the odds made better by a considerable bit by Bruenor's efforts, quickly decapitated and staked her two opponents, signaled to the archers for a volley of fire arrows on the downed vampires, and looked for more things to kill. Really, there wasn't much left. Haer'Dalis was toying with a newly made vampire, jumping in and out if its reach as he taunted it and cut it up. Brynn shook her head and wished that the tiefling would just finish the damn thing and get it over with. Minsc and Aerie and between them hacked and magic missiled another vampire to death, finishing the thing off with a quick flame arrow spell after staking it. Drizzt had made short work of his first foe, and was currently finishing a second, and the eighth and final vampire was lying in three pieces on the carpet, staked and burning like a macabre torch thanks to the joint efforts of Mazzy, Jaheira and Nalia.

When the last vampire was down Brynn signaled for the group to gather together briefly. "We're going to split up," she told them. "There just isn't enough room down below for all of us. "Minsc, Aerie, Nalia, Solaufein, you're all going to stay up here and clean up the blood pools with holy water. Cattie-brie, Wulfgar and Regis will stay with you, that is if they agree." She sent a questioning look to the three in question and they all agreed. "The rest of us will be going below to get Bodhi and whatever unpleasant surprises she's left for us down there. That okay with everyone?"

Nods of agreement went all around the group.

"Great," Brynn said. "See you outside. Good hunting."

To Be Continued

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Well, I'm back from Florida now, and also back on my own computer. Thank God for small miracles. I've gone back and fixed some of the numerous errors in chapters 17 and 18 that were due in part to the fact that I was using my grandparents computer and also the fact that I was typing at night when I was tired. Hopefully things will be better now. Not much else to say on the matter, except that the next chapter should be out quicker than this one, it took me a while to get going again because of spring cleaning at my house and a school performance that I had to be in over the weekend.

Thanks much,

Blue