The necromancer still needed to be dealt with, but the darkness left Morwen as good as useless. She needed to see her target to cast her spells. “I need a light,” she complained.
“I’m trying,” the demon replied. Sparks were firing from his hands, but they were snuffed out immediately.
“Got it,” Szat said. His hands lit up the sanctum and everyone within it.
Goron and his axe still whirled around on a floor strewn with bone fragments. Caroc was nowhere to be seen. Siarl stood beside the altar, his cowl pulled down over his face. Wreaths of shadows twirled around his hands like serpents. Morwen stepped back and stared. The necromancer’s staff was not with him. If it wasn’t with him, where was it?
“Kill my children, will you. “Daro sarod kado ka do,” Siarl chanted.
The bones around Goron sprang into the air and whirled around the necromancer.
Goron stopped dancing with his axe to gawk in amazement.
Siarl’s hands swirled around knitting the bones to his person with invisible threads. He added layers and layers to his skeletal suit until he was invisible under the ten-foot tower.
“Bone golem,” shouted Morwen. Her eyes were frozen wide open. Only the most powerful necromancers could command such magic and without the use of the exarch’s staff too.
The room shook as Siarl stomped toward Goron who stood motionless with his jaw locked in an expression of disbelief.
Szat’s flung a fireball at Siarl’s head, but it bounced off harmlessly in a shower of sparks and left only a black smudge.
Morwen cut a deep gash into the back of her hand with her dagger. She needed a lot of blood for this. “Kroduv.” She absorbed the shadows surrounding her and revealed a cowering Caroc.
“Birm.” Morwen hurled a clot of darkness, the size of a cow, at the bone golem. The bolt slammed into the golem’s chest momentarily throwing it into darkness before dissipating.
The bone golem kept coming.
Goron recovered his wits and sprang to meet Siarl. The golem threw a wild right with a fist made from a human skull.
Goron slipped under it easily and brought his axe down on an exposed kneecap. There was a shower of bone shards, but the knee held. Siarl delivered another right.
Goron was lifting his axe to strike again when the fist thumped into his chest and sent him skidding across the floor. He lay cradling his ribs and gasping for air as the golem bore down on him with his fist raised for the death blow.
Caroc bolted for the door and plunged his hand through the shimmering aura. There was a burst of blue light.
“You shall not pass,” a voice boomed. Caroc somersaulted into the air and was hurled across the stone floor to join Goron.
The shadows around Morwen had resettled. It was up to her. “Kroduv g’uo.” Tendrils of shadow shot out from Morwen’s hands and snaked around the bone golem’s legs. Siarl took one more step and halted, unable to move.
“Run,” Morwen shouted. The tendrils wouldn’t hold for long.
Caroc dragged himself up. He was about to bolt but hesitated and extended a hand to Goron. The warrior reached up and grasped it. Wincing from the pain, he heaved himself to his feet, and together they stumbled to the door.
Morwen groaned, “Not the door, you idiots. This way,” Morwen dashed under the southern arch and stormed down the passage. Szat’s arms were wrapped so tightly around her neck she struggled to breathe. Caroc jerked his head up at Morwen’s warning, then flung out an arm to redirect Goron who was still doubled over.
Siarl’s clattering footsteps gradually grew distant, and Morwen slowed to a walk so she could think. They didn’t have the magic or brawn to defeat Siarl, that left escape as the only option. As far as Morwen understood, the blue door was the only way in and out of the catacombs.
The door required a password to exit. She realised that now. Knowing the zealotry of the Sisters of Murdus, she guessed the password would be religious and from their beloved sacred text, The Light of Love. The sisters, in their arrogance, would never have suspected a warlock to have read the sanctimonious tome. It so happened, Morwen had and could recite it verbatim. Know your enemy was her belief. All she required was several hours alone with the door, so she could recite the various passages to unlock it.
“What do we do?” Caroc asked.
“We keep running, and I’ll try passwords on the door every time we pass it. It might take a day, but there’s no other choice.”
The three continued through the dust-choked corridors until they found themselves back at the empty sanctum. “Love is the light in the darkness,” Morwen repeated and motioned Goron to try the blue door.
“You shall not pass,” a voice boomed and Goron catapulted through the air to land with a thud on the dusty stone floor.
Goron groaned and rubbed his backside.
“I think I have it this time,” Morwen said. “Service to others not to self.”
Goron got back up and tried the door. Again the voice boomed he could not pass and flung him like a rag doll through the air.
Loud footfalls echoed from the north passage. Morwen and Caroc helped Goron up and fled through the southern passage. They were too tired to run, but a brisk pace kept them well ahead of Siarl and would guarantee Morwen several minutes at the door. It was a ridiculous game of cat and mouse. If Siarl had any sense, he would camp beside the door and leave the companions no choice but to fight him. It was a fight they would lose.
“Aren’t we looking for a staff?” Caroc said. The question jolted Morwen from her thoughts. He stood over a skeleton whose bony fingers clasped an iron staff. His skull was tilted at Caroc, and he appeared to watch them benignly from hollow eyes. Morwen had walked
