Chapter 8: Grand Melee

Amalagh shifted his muscular body uneasily as he waited in line with the other students. The masters would take their time coming here, just to make the pupils uncomfortable so as to catch them off guard. A Sargtlin with no sense of personal discipline was useless to his superiors and would be quickly and severely punished for his incompetence if he were ever caught unawares.

Anglin appeared first, his weapons still resting as casually as they always did on his lithe form. Amalagh wondered fleetingly if the master had ever used the weapons, or if they were merely for show. He had never fought in training; even Randiir or Zumud rarely handled the manual sparring with students, saving such work for the lower-ranked lieutenants under their command.

Anglin seemed to be the lore master of Melee-Magthere; for four hours a day every day since their entrance to the Fighter's Academy he had harangued to the initiates the sins of their hated and reviled cousins, the surface elves. He preached the evil of the surface rivvil and the righteousness of the dark elves, never ceasing his tirade and exhorting his audience with practiced ease. Most of the cadets listened eagerly, always looking for someone to blame for the hardships in their lives, however trivial.

Amalagh reflected on the lecture from earlier that day, the latest of many speeches unsubtly laced with hatred and prejudice.

"It was the foul surfacers who cast us down into the dark caves that we now call home!" Anglin had shouted. He was greeted with shouts of rage and bloodlust as the students fell into his deceit.

"Threatened us with death, they did!" the master continued, his voice rising in a magically amplified crescendo. "They said they would cast us into Hell. They, who know nothing of Hell!"

Another chorus of jeers and angry roars rumbled up from the crowd. "Suffered, I have!" shouted one drow in the front row of the huge hall. Amalagh had scoffed at their ignorance; the war between the drow and their surface cousins had taken place thousands of years ago, but they spoke of it as if it had happened yesterday, as if they themselves had been witnesses to their expulsion from the light.

"But we are better for it, my brothers," Anglin had said, and Amalagh cocked an eyebrow at the use of such a personal term as 'brother'. It was inconceivable to the Lolth-touched that Anglin was capable of such a bond as brotherhood, for his relationship with the cadets was more like that of a sava player and his pawns. "We have persevered in the foulest depths or the darkness and we have grown stronger! Better than our kin, who so foolishly sent us here to die in the first place. We fought for what is now ours; whose blood has been so willingly given for the Spider Queen?"

"OURS!" was the deafening reply as nearly every one of the drow in the room yelled in unison.

"And whose blood must yet be paid?"

"THEIRS!" said the voices of a thousand dark elves, their aching throats salivating for the blood of their surface kin.

Anglin had then smiled wickedly; he was not even a priestess of Lolth, and he had these cadets eating out of the palm of his Queen's hand. He began the chant of praise to the Mother of Lust, and the males joined him enthusiastically: "Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill!"

Amalagh looked to his left and examined Zumud, who had stood next to him in a corner during every one of Anglin's speeches since their first sparring match. The weapons master's face was always cold and blank, deadly serious and firmly set. His red eyes stared straight ahead, as if fixed on something only he could see, some unseen harbinger of doom.

"They are fools," the Lolth-touched had said, speaking in an attempt to break the uncomfortable moment between him and his master. Zumud was very introspective in public, keeping things close to the vest and never revealing any sign of weakness. Amalagh knew that kind of behavior well. Those who had once trusted and then felt the cold, empty feeling of betrayal were usually exceedingly paranoid afterwards. In his brief life, Amalagh had seen many get stabbed in the back, more often literally than metaphorically, and he had developed very similar defenses.

"They are so willing to prostrate themselves before the Spider Queen, who grants them nothing beyond a lifetime of servitude and, if they are lucky, a quick death in battle rather than sacrifice on her altar."

"They want a scapegoat," Zumud replied, not looking at his apprentice. Even though he addressed Amalagh, his voice was still distant. "The gullible want something to blame for their own grievances, and a savior from said problems. The Spider Queen gives them that, in a way."

"They are still fools."

"Do you doubt the Queen's power?" Zumud had inquired, finally turning towards his pupil after his long staring contest with empty space. "You have seen the powers of the priestesses, even if they are minor in rank. You know how dangerous they are, and you are also aware of the consequences of blasphemy."

Despite his previous words, Amalagh had blanched under his mentor's withering gaze. "Yes, master," was all he could say in reply.

He now stood at attention as Anglin entered the room, followed by Randiir. It struck Amalagh as odd that he had never seen the berserker fight either, but with Randiir's imposing physique it was understandable why no one dared to challenge him. He was almost two inches shorter than Amalagh, but his shoulders were several inches broader and bound with sinew. The vest he wore could barely contain his brawny torso, and his huge, tattooed arms bulged with muscle. Despite his stature, something about him struck the Lolth-touched as unnatural, as if the muscles on his form were not real. But the serrated axe at his hip seemed real enough, so Amalagh decided to reserve judgment until a battle between them came.

Zumud came last, and the one-armed master didn't so much as glance Amalagh's way. This was their public face; to others, there was no connection between them. No one knew of the lessons Zumud had given the young Shaiith warrior.

Anglin stepped forward to speak just as the other two masters fell in step behind him. "This will be the first real test of your combat abilities. We have taught you the basic techniques and more, but now it is your time to put your skills to the test against your peers. Welcome," he said, pausing for dramatic effect," to the Grand Melee!"

With a dramatic flourish of his hands, Anglin summoned racks of weapons to the room in front of the students, but an inspection revealed that these were not ordinary weapons. Anything with an edge had been rounded and dulled to non-lethal capabilities; they would not kill, but still hurt tremendously when struck against flesh. Amalagh selected two of similar craft and weight to his two longswords and thrust them into his empty scabbards.

"There is only one rule to this Melee: once you are pointed out by a master, who will indicate so with a red light, you are required to cease fighting. Consequences for failure to comply with this rule will be extreme. Other than that, there are no restrictions on tactics or weapons, except that you must use the weapons provided." Anglin's grin now went from ear to ear, and with one more sweep of his arms he said, "Have fun."

Amalagh suddenly felt weightless as he transcended the Material Plane for just a moment before reappearing in a corridor he did not recognize. Scrambling quickly up a ledge to his left, he emerged upon a squat square structure. Pivoting, he saw more of the same formations arranged all around him as far as the eye could see.

Welcome, Anglin's voice boomed in his head, to the Dragon's Teeth.

The Lolth-touched fell as the telepathic message overwhelmed his senses, and only barely felt the thud of his body striking the stone floor. An aching pain clawed its way into his brain as the master's voice continued to echo.

Eventually the mental cacophony subsided, and Amalagh pushed himself up. Still reeling from the pain that split his forehead, he stumbled forward to the closest intersection where four paths converged into one small square.

Another scream pierced his head, but this one was coming from his ears, not his brain. Another drow, eyes shining and mouth wide in anticipation of victory, swooped in from Amalagh's right with a long blunt sword, trying to take advantage of the larger elf's dazed and unarmed state. The young warrior's blades appeared in his hand and, no longer unarmed, he met his smaller counterpart head-on. As the other drow tried to press with an attack routine, Amalagh felt as though time slowed to a crawl. Compared to Zumud, this student was slow, too slow. Or was it just that he was faster?

Moving with speed he did not know he had, the Lolth-touched slapped his left-hand blade against his opponent's second weapon – a short blade about the size of a standard drow main-gauche – and parried the longsword with his own. The warrior's defenses were quickly laid bare as his blades were outside of Amalagh's, and the massive fighter hammered both swords viciously into his opponent's temples. A red dot of defeat appeared on the student's forehead as he collapsed, unconscious from the double blow that had struck him.

Amalagh moved on, slipping between the Dragon's Teeth and swiftly defeating any student who he came across. After a half hour, he had dispatched at least ten of his fellows, who could not hope to equal his speed and strength.

But open combat was not his only option. Three more unsuspecting students were easily eliminated with swift chops to the back of the neck or a swift draw across the throat which was quickly caught by the observing masters, who floated in the gloom above like specters from the realm of death and responded with a prompt red beam of disqualification. After a while, the massive drow began to enjoy the fighting. This was what he was born to do, he realized, as he felt the rush of adrenaline in his bloodstream as he prepared to engage yet another student in combat.

Readying his twin swords, Amalagh advanced into a large clearing, a sudden change from the uniform intersections of the Dragon's Teeth. The space, however, was surrounded by high walls on either side and pockmarked with towering pillars of stone about a foot in diameter. The drow charged into the space and attacked with a quick double thrust to his opponent's gut, taking him down easily.

But it then dawned on him that he had been set up when four more warriors – all with brooches displaying the symbols of high noble Houses – leaped down from the walls. One bearing the insignia and brandishing a blunted polearm similar to a halberd lowered his weapon and charged, ready to impale Amalagh. The young warrior was ready, though, as he dove to the side at the last possible moment and let the spearhead enter the stone, which softened and then instantly hardened again around the weapon. The warrior who had been welding the halberd cursed loudly and tried to tug it from the pillar, but to no avail as the Lolth-touched jabbed him in the ribs in a formal declaration of victory. A red dot appeared on the pupil's forehead, and he sat down in a huff with his arms crossed.

Amalagh turned to the next opponent in a flash—a small and wiry elf that looked as though he barely possessed the strength to lift the two blunted swords at his side—and attacked with an overly grandiose sweep of his right hand. The longsword occupied both of his opponent's weapons, allowing the strong warrior to bring the next blade across and knock him out.

The two remaining fighters—both wielding pairs of longswords—closed together, but Amalagh continued to used the pillars to his advantage, continually weaving in between them for cover and parrying the more accurate strikes with his own weapons. One of his foes sliced high with both swords, and Amalagh performed a low sweep kick to take the drow's feet out from under him. The other student hit the ground hard and air escaped from his lungs in a low wheeze, which quickly became a grunt of pain as the Lolth-touched finished him with a powerful slap of his rounded blade.

The last dark elf—the most opportunistic of them, as it were—took advantage of Amalagh's momentary concentration on his coup de grace and attacked, smashing away the large drow's sword that was still raised and breaking a finger in the process.

Amalagh felt a surge of anger rise within him from the depths of his heart, a destructive and malicious fury that threatened to consume him, much as it had on the night he had sent the leper Zabal to his fiery demise. All he could think about was the need he suddenly felt to attack.

Turning towards his assailant with a burst of speed, Amalagh thrust his sword as hard as he could and heard the crack of snapping bones. A spray of warm liquid sprayed over his face, and he quickly recognized it as blood by its peculiar tang. After what seemed like an eternity, he looked up at the other warrior from his kneeling position.

The young elf returned Amalagh's gaze, his lip quivering and his eyes fearful. The massive fighter's weapon had stuck upwards just below the lowest rib, perforating the supple leather armor and the vulnerable flesh. The other end of the blunted sword emerged from the drow's backside, having pierced the lung and shattered the ribcage with horrific ease. The force of the blow had also splintered the sword, leaving Amalagh with only a broken hilt in his hand.

The feeling of anger had subsided as quickly as it had appeared, and Amalagh could do nothing but stare into the eyes of the drow who he had mortally wounded. The eyes sickened him with their frailty and pleading look.

No, he realized, it was himself with whom he was disgusted. Not for the kill itself; killing was not new to him, for even before Zabal there had been others who he had slain.

It was manner in which he had committed the deed that infuriated Amalagh. He had allowed his anger to control him, force him into doing something so irrational as to use unnecessary lethal force.

Still on his knees and clutching the hilt of his weapon with a cold, clammy hand, Amalagh felt strange and unpleasant warmth encompass his cranium. He shifted his gaze and craned his neck to see the spectral form of Ralak-Nûl Zumud, whose wand shone with the red light of expulsion on Amalagh's forehead.