Daughter of the Drow by Elaine Cunningham Page A

that. The result was not at all what Fyodor had hoped it might be.
    One of the creature’s antennae furled back, then whipped up toward Fyodor’s face. Reflexively, he raised the torch to ward off the attack; antenna met flame with a searing hiss. The giant arachnid reeled back, but not before its second antenna snapped forward, low and fast. This one hit Fyodor’s ankle, and the end wrapped around and around as though it were a striking whip. So quickly did the second strike come that Fyodor was yanked off his feet when the creature retreated from the torch’s flame. The back of Fyodor’s head hit hard on the rocky floor, and a hundred tiny, brilliant lights burst behind his eyelids.
    The painful light flashed and faded in an instant, and Fyodor once again found himself in total darkness. The fall had knocked his torch from his hand. He groped around for his sword; it, too, had fallen out of reach.
    Fyodor was not one to be easily discouraged, but he was beginning to dislike his chances in this fight. He drew a knife from his sash and hauled himself into a sitting position. He did not need light to know where one of the creature’s antennae was.
    As if sensing Fyodor’s intent, the insect relaxed its whiplike hold. The flow of blood resumed in the man’s numb foot, and feeling returned with a sharp, prickling rush. Perhaps, he dared to hope, the creature had lost interest in him now that there was no more light.
    But then there came the quick skittering rush of many legs and a sharp, rending stab as the creature’s small, beak-shaped mandibles found Fyodor’s leg. The man hissed with pain and drove down hard with his knife. The weapon glanced off the creature’s bony shell. He stabbed two more times, with no success. The monster clung, and its side-by-side mandibles began to grind together in an attempt to rip loose a chuck of meat. Fyodor’s next thrust was into the flesh of his own leg.
    Using the knife as a lever, Fyodor pried the creature’s beak open. He rolled away from the grasping mandibles, several times and as fast as he could. In his wild retreat he rolled over a hard, familiar shape.
    Fyodor’s hand closed on his cudgel and he rose to his feet. The next time the antenna whipped forward to seize his ankle, he was ready. As long as the creature’s antenna held him, he had a good idea where the rest of the body must be. Rushing forward, he began to beat wildly at the arachnid. Many, perhaps most, of his blows rang with the sound of wood on rock, but a good many of them landed on the monster’s shell. Once the creature seized his ankle with a pin-cer; Fyodor thrashed the clawed appendage until it let go. The taut antenna also relaxed, and it seemed the scorpion-thing would release him altogether. Fyodor was not feeling so generous, himself.
    The fighter planted a heavy boot on the creature’s antenna, pinning it firmly to the ground. He did not dare let the monstrous insect out of the range of his driftwood club, for fear he could not see or turn aside the next attack. Fyodor redoubled his efforts and smashed with all his strength again and again into the arachnid’s protective shell.
    Finally he was rewarded with a cracking sound and the sudden pulpy give that suggested victory was within reach. The man continued to batter at the creature until it was reduced to a sodden mass.
    Breathing hard, Fyodor reached for the flask tucked into his sash. His leg burned with cruel heat where the giant scorpion-thing had bitten him, and he knew the pain he felt now would be a pale thing compared to what must come next. He pulled the cork from his flask and tipped some of the liquid onto the open wound.
    Some tame later—perhaps a short time, perhaps not—Fyodor came to himself again and found he had been sleeping on a bed of cold rock, For many minutes he lay where he had fallen, piecing together bits of memory until he could recall all that had happened to bring him to this place. The terror that was the