“Play with the elf!”
“No!” The second Cabal narrowed its eyes, studying the hapless spellcaster as it might a favorite treat. “I want him! He is mine!”
“After I am done!”
“I don’t think I’ll be much fun to play with after the first of you,” Dru interjected when he saw the second reconsidering its position.
“I want him first!” it finally responded.
The twin behemoths turned and bared their multitude of sharp teeth at one another. As he had suspected, they were as possessive as Melenea. It was a common failing with familiars. Other than a few exceptions such as Sirvak, whom Dru had worked to make as separate an individual mind as possible, most were nearly perfect reflections of their masters and mistresses. Cabal was even more extreme than most.
“I will have him!”
“I will have him!”
The first one snapped at its doppelganger. That led to a snap from the second. Both were working to make the other back down, a futile ploy considering they were equally stubborn. Melenea would have never backed down and Dru hoped her pets would follow suit.
“Mine!” The two beasts shouted in simultaneous fashion. They leaped as one, coming together in the air, jaws biting and claws tearing. Dru crawled backward as fast as he could to avoid being crushed by their falling bodies.
Both Cabals landed on their feet, still locked together in combat. Identical scars decorated their shoulders and blood dripped from their jaws as each tried to tear out the other’s throat. There is no worse enemy than one’s self, Dru thought as he watched in horrified fascination. He still dared not take Xiri and attempt to flee. The moment the Vraad moved to escape, the twin familiars would forget their feud and turn on him. Of that he was certain.
The battling beasts stepped back from each other, blood spattering their faces. Magical though they were, in order to be useful to a Vraad, a familiar had to be flesh and bone. The wary combatants circled one another, baring their fangs and again seeking to frighten off one another.
Xiri stirred at that point, both cheering Dru with the fact that she was still alive and adding to the sorcerer’s fear by moving so near the creatures. If she caught their attention, they might break off the battle long enough to make certain she did not try to escape.
Once again, the Cabals joined. So evenly matched, they might fight for days without pause, neither ever gaining an upper hand. Dru could hardly wait out all that time. Had this been the Nimth of long ago or even a few months past, Cabal would have been nothing to him. Yet, in a place where his sorcery was suspect, Melenea’s familiar, doubly strong now, could easily be his equal or even his superior.
He glanced briefly at the wriggling towers, his thin hope there fading away. The citadel still acted like a living creature. Two smaller towers even sparred with one another, a reflection of the battle between the familiars. A portion of the edifice now seemed to be flowing down and away, not molten, for the walls and buildings still held some semblance of their function. As with so many things of late, it was a phenomenon that he would have dearly loved to study, but not during his present predicament.
It was now impossible to tell which of the wolves was which, not that it really mattered. They rolled in a jumble of fur, blood, and dust, their snarls loud enough to hurt Dru’s ears. The two leviathans crashed into a low overhang and the rubble that fell to the ground sprouted arms and legs. A hundred or more magic-spawned gargoyles scattered to escape further fragmentation.
Even if the familiars never ceased their fight, how long would it be before the wild power affected Dru and his companion? He had no idea how much resistance elves had to such chaos.
Some of the living towers had returned their attention to the movements of the familiars. Dru studied the back and forth swaying of the snakelike bodies and tried to make himself as still as possible. The two Cabals had broken from one another again. Both turned one wary eye toward the Vraad, as if to warn that he had better not try to escape. Dru tried to look panic-stricken, which proved to be easy since he was not, in truth, far from that point already.
Satisfied, the twin wolves backed away. They had not abandoned their fight. Instead, each sought to find better ground from which to attack. It was their only venue left. An advantage of position would break the deadlock created by their identical abilities.
“Dru.” It was a whisper, one barely heard among so much noise.
He blinked, trying not to show his shock. “Xiri?”
“What do we do? They won’t fight forever.”
That was debatable, based on what he knew of Melenea’s nature, but it was still important that they escape before too long. Not merely for their sakes, but for Sharissa’s.
“Can we outrun them?”
Dru shook his head, and whispered back, “They could catch us even if each of them had two broken legs and half their bodies ripped apart. Melenea knows her sorcery well. What they lack in personality and intelligence, they make up for in ability. They have reflexes a thousand times greater than the animal they resemble.”
“What do we do?” Xiri’s voice cracked for the first time that he could recall. He wanted to go to her and hold her, for both of their well-beings.
Dru looked up once more at the nearly hypnotic swaying of the towers. “We hope that it won’t take much more.”
Before she could question his statement, the familiars charged at one another. One Cabal had taken to a hill that kept crumbling. The second had opted for lower but more stable ground for its starting point. Each evidently hoped the earth itself would prove the deciding point. If the one above stumbled, it might lose its footing and fall, leaving it open to its counterpart’s attack. If it maintained its balance, it would have the opportunity to leap onto its twin, crushing the other beneath it and enabling it to reach the neck.
As the two monsters closed, Dru caught a twitch of movement from the living citadel.
With a swiftness even the wolves would have had trouble matching, the largest of the towers, so very much serpentine in movement, struck at the charging combatants. It had no mouth, though it might have thought it did, but its girth and the pointed tip were sufficient. The living tower caught both wolves, coming down upon them with a mass so great that it continued on even after meeting the ground. It withdrew almost instantly, leaving behind a deep crater.
The wolves had never even noted its coming.
Dru was already moving, hoping that the actions of the one spire would hold the others back for a moment. Xiri was on her feet even as he reached her and the two ran with all the speed they could muster. Neither dared to look back, even when they heard movement.
A powerful shock wave sent them flying forward. As Dru tumbled, he saw another of the towers retreat, its strike having fallen short by only a few yards.
There was one benefit of the second assault. Dru and Xiri had been tossed out of reach of the murderous spires. The two of them lay where they had fallen until their hearts had slowed to something approaching normal. Beyond them, the towers of the citadel started to collapse like wax candles tossed into a fire. Even still, the tallest made one token attempt to reach them. It fell far short. A moment later, the entire tower fell for a final time, its base no longer solid enough to support it. It continued to flop around for a few seconds more, a horror suffering its death throes.
“That… was…” Xiri took another breath and tried again. “That was… I cannot find a word that satisfies me!”
“Astonishing, amazing, horrible, terrible, insane, unbelievable, impossible…” Dru’s smile was wan. “Use all of them and more. It’s the only way you might ever describe it in sufficient fashion.”
She squinted, trying to locate something. “Do you think that those creatures are dead?”
“Cabal? I doubt there’s much left that could do anything to us. For a time, I was afraid it wouldn’t happen.”
Her eyes became dishes. “You knew the citadel would attack them?”
“It was watching like a snake, striking at movement. I hoped that it would attack them before they decided to make peace.”
“What if they had?”
