forward.
He wasn’t done, though. He tried to heave himself around, presumably to jab at his foe with the stub of his broken weapon or simply seize him in his enormous gray hands.
But Khouryn found a vital spot before the ash giant located him. He reversed the urgrosh, stepped in, and thrust the spike between two ribs. It punched deep enough to reach the heart. The giant made a croaking sound, shuddered, and then slumped motionless.
Panting, wiping giant blood off his face, Khouryn turned to see how the rest of the battle was going.
Not too badly, he decided. A few of the dragonborn had fallen, but two of the giants’ frontline fighters had too. At the moment, the adept looked like the most serious problem. Either he’d emerged from hiding on his own, or Medrash and Balasar had finished their first opponent and flushed him out. Then they’d charged him.
They hadn’t reached him though, because he’d turned the solid ground beneath them into loose ash and cinders, and they were floundering in it like it was quicksand. Meanwhile, the adept stood with his arm stretched out to the remaining spire. Moving slowly for now, but accelerating as it started to come out of its turn, the column was looping around to make a run at the two dragonborn.
Fortunately, the adept was fairly close. Khouryn charged.
The giant heard or glimpsed him coming. He turned, growled words of power, and lashed his arm like he was throwing a stone.
In reality, he was throwing several. Appearing in midair, the conjured barrage hurtled at Khouryn, who threw up an arm to shield his face.
Some rocks missed. One bounced off his helmet with a clank. Two others cracked against his mail, stinging him but doing no actual harm. He ran on.
The shaman backpedaled and slashed his hand through the opening zigzag pass of another spell. But he was so focused on self-defense that he lost control of the spire. As Khouryn understood it, the peculiar landforms rarely fell over when they wandered around on their own, but that wasn’t the case here. The pillar was moving as the giant wanted it to move, and deprived of his psychic guidance, it toppled.
Happily, it wasn’t yet close enough to land on Medrash and Balasar as it crashed to pieces, and a moment later they succeeded in dragging themselves out of the soft ash. Both were now covered in the stuff, and the filth made an odd contrast to the pearly radiance of Medrash’s sword and the glyphs of light still hovering around his body.
The two dragonborn and Khouryn advanced on the adept. We’ve got this, Khouryn thought. It’s been a hard fight, but we’re going to win.
Backing away, the shaman reached inside his horsehair tunic and brought out a gray, gleaming egg-shaped object. He raised it over his head and chanted. Power groaned through the air. But that was all that happened, and Balasar laughed a short, derisive laugh.
As if in response, something bellowed. Khouryn looked over his shoulder.
Big gray creatures were bursting out of the pocket of ash the shaman had created, and the piles and drifts the fallen spires left behind. The things were as big as ogres, and lizardlike, but something about their shapes made Khouryn think of bears as well. Diseased bears, for sores and pustules dotted their scaly hides.
One of the lizard things charged Balasar. Khouryn took a stride toward his friend, then saw from the corner of his eye that a second creature was racing at him. He pivoted to face it.
It lunged, jaws open wide to reveal a mouth full of blisters and slime. It snapped, he sidestepped, and its fangs clashed shut on empty air.
But drops of its slaver spattered his exposed skin and, smoking and popping, burned him. Snarling at the pain, grateful that none of the viscous stuff had landed in his eyes, he cut at the creature’s head.
The urgrosh split hide and flesh and cracked the skull beneath. But it wasn’t enough to kill the lizard-bear. It turned and sprang at him, and he dodged and chopped at it again.
It still wouldn’t go down, and then the ground crumbled beneath his feet. As he plunged down into the powder, he realized that the adept had played the same trick on him that he’d used on Medrash and Balasar. He also realized he couldn’t defend himself while half drowning in the dry, hot quagmire. All the lizard thing had to do was lean down and nip his head off.
It started to. Then Medrash rushed in on its flank and cut its neck. His luminous blade bit deep, and the beast collapsed.
Then Medrash stuck his sword in the ground. He had to grab Balasar to heave Khouryn out of the ash, because Medrash’s off hand was useless. A different lizard thing had torn away his shield and shredded the arm that supported it. The wounds fumed and made a sickening sizzling sound as acid continued to eat its way into his flesh.
“Heal yourself!” Khouryn said.
Medrash swayed. “The others…”
“You can’t help anybody if you pass out!”
“You’re right.” Medrash pressed his good hand to the injuries and recited a prayer. Light shone between his fingers.
Meanwhile, Khouryn surveyed the battlefield, then cursed. The advent of the lizard creatures had shifted the balance of power disastrously. He and the dragonborn likely could have handled either them or the ash giants, but not both together. Half the Daardendrien warriors had fallen already, and the rest were hard pressed.
“We have to make a run for it,” he said.
Medrash gave a curt nod, and then he bellowed, “Retreat!”
Retreating was particularly difficult for him and Khouryn with most of the enemy between them and where they wanted to go. But, miraculously still unscathed, Balasar came to fight alongside them, and that helped. Together they killed one lizard-bear, lamed another, and scrambled away faster than it could follow. The adept filled the air around them with embers, but the sparks only singed them a little before they sprinted clear. Maybe Medrash’s circle of runes protected them.
Then Khouryn felt the slant of the ground beneath his feet. He and his friends had reached the slope, anyway.
Eventually, they reached the top too, and at that point Medrash stopped running and glared back at the pursuing giants and lizard things. Balasar and Khouryn stopped to stand to either side of him.
The paladin shouted, “I’m right here! Kill me if you can!” Khouryn could tell the declaration carried a charge of divine power. Even though he wasn’t the target, the words echoed inside his head. They certainly set hooks in several of the enemy, who left off chasing other dragonborn to veer toward Medrash. And his two companions.
“Now how is this a good thing?” Balasar asked. Then an ash giant pounded up to him, and he caught the first chop of a stone axe on his shield.
He probably riposted too, but Khouryn didn’t see it. He had to turn and contend with a giant of his own.
The next few moments were a frenzy of bashing, hacking giant weapons and the blades that leaped and darted in reply. Chanting a prayer, Medrash began to shine like his sword. Lacking any comparable mystical resources of his own, Khouryn simply kept in constant motion and used every skill and trick he’d mastered in training yards and battles across the East.
Somehow it kept him alive until Balasar yelled, “Everyone’s gone past us!”
Medrash thrust the point of his sword into the ground. “Torm!” he bellowed. Brighter light flared from the weapon. Khouryn didn’t feel a thing as it washed over him, but it slammed giants and lizard-bears reeling backward.
Which enabled the three defenders to break away. As they turned and ran, the glow in Medrash’s sword, the radiance shining from his body, and his ring of floating runes all winked out together. Which likely meant that for the moment, he’d exhausted his ability to channel his deity’s power.
Below them, one of the guards they’d left with the horses was still waiting, still holding a string of the animals ready. Balasar, who’d evidently noticed that it took a dwarf a bit of time to clamber up into the saddle, picked Khouryn up and dumped him there before springing onto his own mount.
Medrash swung himself onto his horse. The guard started to do the same. Then something cracked, and he collapsed, his head abruptly misshapen inside his dented helm. Blood gushed from under the rim. Khouryn realized one of the giants had thrown a stone with lethal force and aim.
The guard appeared beyond help, and the riders spurred their steeds and left him sprawled in the dirt. They
