Chapter 10 - Part 10

Get up, Delegado told himself.

But his body didn't listen.

He watched the mind-flayer move about, his brain not processing what he was seeing. It was like he was drunk - very drunk - nothing made sense.

He could not make his body move. The floor was cold.

K'gah was in the doorway, trying to kill Orphan, or at least trying to keep him from coming into this temple.

"Orphan," whispered the half-orc. It was a tremendous effort just to make his lips move. The sound was almost a nothing.

MOVE! Delegado insisted to himself mentally.

His leg twitched, but that was it.

The mind-flayer bent down and wrapped its tentacles around Nebly's head. The gnome's eyes shuddered as he died, but he did not scream.

It's killing its spy, Delegado realized. Or maybe not a spy, Nebly seemed to be a dupe.

That thought rustled away as the mind-flayer turned around, eying the prone figures. Delegado knew that he had best not draw attention to himself.

The mind-flayer's tentacles were dripping with gnome brain juice, it was disgusting.

There was a flash of heat, then a buzz of electricity. Magical traps. Mines, Delegado remembered. A Cyran army officer had once referred to magical land mines. They made the same noise when discharged. The Karrns had made a bunch of cheap zombies set the mines off so that their infantry proper could move in.

The men whose lives had been entrusted to Delegado's command were dying. Acting as the mind-flayer's zombies, clearing mines so that the Xoriat-cursed thing could get to - what?

Delegado finally got an arm to move, and began to push himself up.

No, came an oily, alien thought. Sleep.

Delegado lost consciousness.