The dolgrim shrieked in agony and fell away from her sword, blood spraying from the ruined socket where its eye had been. Lirra turned away from the creature before it could fall to the ground, selected another target, and set upon it.
Ranja assumed her full bestial aspect and leaped off her horse to engage the nearest dolgrim, while Osten remained on his mount, swinging his sword as the creatures came at him. But given the dolgrims’ diminutive stature, his sword missed as often as it hit, and the creatures were able to come in close and attack his horse, using their weapons or even their teeth to wound the animal. The steed screamed in pain and started to go down under the assault. Osten vaulted out of the saddle in time and managed to land on his feet just as a pair of dolgrims rushed at him. His horse fell to the ground and was overrun and slain by dolgrims who then quickly moved on to other targets.
Longstrider and Shatterfist lost no time in engaging the enemy. It was, after all, what they’d been created for. The two warforged waded into the sea of dolgrims with devasting effect, Longstrider’s spiked feet slashing flesh, snapping bones, and crushing bodies with his spinning kicks while Shatterfist’s hands reduced dolgrims to so much oily white pulp with one blow after another. The creatures shrieked as they died, their cries high-pitched and grating, sounding more like yowling cats than unnatural aberrations.
Vaddon and Ksana dismounted and smacked their horses on the flank, sending them pounding into the ranks of the dolgrims, in hopes that the animals might escape or, failing that, at least kill some of the creatures before dying themselves. The two fought back to back, Vaddon’s sword flashing almost faster than Lirra’s eyes could track, Ksana’s halberd matching him strike for strike. Despite Vaddon’s age, he fought like a warrior in his prime, his blows precise and economical, guided by years of battlefield experience. Ksana fought with a fluid grace. The cleric’s face was calm, almost beatific, as if she were praying instead of fighting for her life.
How long the Outguard fought against the dolgrims, Lirra couldn’t have said. She fell into a state that she was well familiar with from her time on the battlefield, a state wherein she ceased thinking consciously and gave herself over to her training and experience, letting her body do what it needed to in order to survive. The state was quite peaceful in its own way, and since her symbiont was happily occupied with slaughtering dolgrims, the pressure she felt from the aberration’s constant attempts to escape her control and subvert her mind had lessened. In many ways, this was the most relaxed she’d felt since bonding with the tentacle whip-and wasn’t that a sad commentary on her current state of existence?
But Lirra had fought in too many campaigns not to recognize when her side was outnumbered, and before long she realized that the Outguard was losing this battle. A number of their people had fallen to the dolgrims, though thank the Host those closest to her remained alive, if not altogether unscathed. Still, if they didn’t turn the tide soon, the dolgrims would overwhelm them and they would all perish here, their life’s blood soaking the soil and feeding the Nightwood’s trees.
Lirra heard the thought-voice whisper.
The whip stabbed another dolgrim in the eye, and the creature screamed briefly before the symbiont’s poison stole away its life. Lirra followed the whip’s action by ramming her sword into a dolgrim’s upper mouth, angling upward to pierce the creature’s brain. As she yanked her blade free, she realized the tentacle whip was right. She’d been a fool. How many times on the battlefield had she commanded a squadron of soldiers to attack as a distraction or delaying tactic so that she could maneuver the main attack force into position? Elidyr might have trained as a scholar and artificer instead of a professional soldier, but he had a keen mind-albeit an insane one now-and would have had no trouble devloping the simple strategy of keeping his foes busy while he prepared to achieve his true aim: repairing the Overmantle and releasing the daelkyr lord from Xoriat. And Lirra and the others had fallen for his stratagem like green recruits fresh out of basic training.
Lirra continued killing dolgrims as she thought furiously. They couldn’t continue fighting a losing battle against these creatures, not if they were to have any hope of reaching Elidyr in time. But given the dolgrims’ superior numbers and their implacable savagery, there was no way the Outguard could prevail against them. Not unless something could be done to tip the scales in the Outguard’s favor. But what?
Lirra continued hacking away at one dolgrim after another, the tentacle whip sometimes helping by keeping the creature’s extra hands busy, other times simply by injecting poison into their bodies.
The thought-voice spoke again.
She remembered Elidyr holding forth a hand, the air distorting around them as he unleashed a newfound power, a wave of vertigo passing over her, accompanied by weakness and nausea. She recalled her uncle’s words: Did you enjoy that? It’s a little taste of Xoriat chaos energy.
Was the tentacle whip hinting that she had the same power? She hadn’t been touched by the daelkyr as Elidyr had, but the power of Xoriat had been flowing through the portal while the Overmantle had been active. Perhaps the chaos energy had affected her more than she’d realized. Then again, perhaps her symbiont was toying with her, building up her hopes for its own amusement, just so it could see them dashed when she attempted to use a power she didn’t possess.
Lirra didn’t see what other option she had though. She swung her sword in a wide arc before her in order to push back the nearest dolgrims, and then she thrust out her free hand-the tentacle whip lashing the air to keep more dolgrims at bay-and, without a clue how she might release a power within her that she didn’t know for certain she possessed, she concentrated. At first, nothing happened. But then she became aware of a stirring deep inside her, as if she was tapping into a vast reservoir of power that she hadn’t known existed. The air around her hand began to waver, and then she felt a sudden surge of energy rush through her arm and blast forth from her hand.
A dozen dolgrims were caught in the line of fire, and Lirra could sense the chaos energy rolling over the creatures like a wall of flame. They staggered backward, swaying on legs suddenly grown too weak to support them, dropping their weapons and falling to the ground, where they lay twitching and mewling like newborn kittens. The Outguard defenders wasted no time wondering what had caused so many dolgrims to collapse all at once. They moved forward swiftly and killed the creatures while they were disabled. Not the most honorable of combat techniques, perhaps, but imminently practical given their current situation.
Lirra was able to release two more blasts of chaos energy, each less potent than the first, before she could do no more. The power simply wasn’t there for her to draw on anymore. Still, it did its work. By the time she was finished, thirty or more dolgrims had been slain, and twice that number had fled in terror of the wild-eyed woman who commanded the power of Xoriat itself. Those few dolgrims who had the discipline-or perhaps simply the bad judgment-to stay and fight were easily dealt with by the Outguard.
One dolgrim remained alive, however. While the others were being killed by her companions, she selected one at random-one that had not been reshaped by Elidyr’s flesh-molding power-and kneeled down next to it. The creature stank, just like Ranja had said earlier. Rotten mushrooms and snail slime. The dolgrim lay on the forest floor, arms and legs quivering as it struggled to overcome the debilitating effects of the chaos energy and get back on its feet, whether to fight or, more likely, to flee. Lirra sheathed her sword and kneeled by the dolgrim’s side. She commanded the tentacle whip to lower its barbed tip to within an inch of the creature’s right eye, and as an extra touch, she told the whip to allow a bead of poison to form on the tip. The dolgrim looked up at the barb with wide, terrified eyes, its breathing rapid and shallow.
Doing her best to ignore the creature’s stench, Lirra leaned her head close to its ear.
“Can you talk?” she asked.
The dolgrim opened its upper mouth once, swallowed, and then tried again.
“Y-yessss …” it hissed.
“Good. Now listen to me very carefully. All of your friends are dead, dying, or gone. You are alone. The only chance you have of surviving is if you answer my questions quickly and completely. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
The creature’s speech sounded clearer, and Lirra knew she had to hurry before the effects of the chaos energy wore off.
“A man named Elidyr sent you to kill us. Tell me how to find him and you get to live.”
The creature opened its upper mouth to reply, but it lower one spoke first.