'Be careful,' he warned his companions. 'Even diminished as Nathifa is by the loss of her arm and eye, she is still most powerful-all the more so because she possesses the dragonwand.'
'I shall remember,' Solus said.
'You take care of the lich,' Tresslar said, a determined look on his face. 'You let me worry about the Amahau.'
Diran nodded, and together the three started toward the lich.
Nathifa was no stranger to mystic power, but she'd never experienced anything like the Amahau before. The sheer amount of magical energy that it could hold was astonishing. It had already drained a good portion of Paganus's hoard, and Nathifa could sense that it wasn't near to being full. How much magic could the dragonhead contain? With its power hers to command, she would be like unto a god herself. She could keep the artifact for herself, continue traveling throughout the Principalities and absorbing magic wherever she went. And when she finally had enough, she could travel to the Fingerbone Mountains and challenge Vol. With the power of the Amahau, she could defeat the Lich Queen, cast her down, and take her place on the throne of bones.
But Nathifa knew it was a foolish dream. She'd made a bargain with Prince Moren to get the supplies to repair the Zephyr, and the bill would come due soon-long before she could ever hope to acquire enough power to challenge Vol. Nathifa wondered if perhaps this wasn't how her Queen had planned it all along. Vol might well have sent the Ragestorm, and Prince Moren had answered her summons rather quickly. Perhaps he'd been waiting close by at Vol's command.
No matter, Nathifa decided. The die was cast, and events would play themselves out as they would. Let Vol's reign continue. As long as Nathifa finally had her vengeance on Kolbyr, she would be satisfied.
Though the bulk of her concentration was focused on controlling the Amahau, she was able to spare a fraction of her awareness to monitor the progress of the battle around her. Skarm writhed on the crypt floor, his barghest physiology doing its best to fight off the web spider's venom. Nathifa knew he was fighting a losing battle, though. The venom was simply too strong. Nathifa was pleased that Haaken had killed the web spider, but she was surprised to see the wereshark now fought with another lycanthrope. The lich had been aware that a werewolf numbered among Bastiaan's companions, and she couldn't conceive of a priest-especially one devoted to the Silver Flame-associating with such a monster. There was obviously more to that story than met the eye.
Nathifa saw no sign of Makala, and she wondered if the vampire had betrayed her and fled. Most likely not, Nathifa decided. Makala had many annoying qualities, but cowardice wasn't among them. Makala was probably lurking about somewhere, alert for an opportunity to turn the tide of battle in her favor.
She was pleased that the web mummies and her dark-eye were proving effective at keeping Bastiaan and his friends busy. If the priest and his companions could be held off for a few more moments, she'd be able to-
Pain blossomed in the empty socket where Nathifa's left eye had been, and the lich cried out, more in anger than in hurt. She didn't know how, since she was only subconsciously connected to the dark-eye, but she knew Bastiaan had somehow managed to destroy it. This knowledge was confirmed a split-second later when warm viscous fluid pattered down onto her head and shoulders.
Not now! I'm so close…
But Nathifa knew her time was up. Weakened as she was by the sacrifices of her arm and eye, she couldn't hope to stand against Bastiaan, especially not without the aid of her servants. Whatever power she had managed to drain into the Amahau would have to serve.
The lich had no need to check if Bastiaan was attacking. She knew he was as surely as she'd ever known anything in her long, foul life. She commanded the Amahau to cease absorbing magic from the items in Paganus's hoard, and she pushed the dragonwand back into the inky-black substance of her shroud. Her body burst apart into dozens of shadowy scraps that resembled ebon leaves, and they swirled about the crypt as if in the grip of turbulent winds. One scrap passed near the ceiling, close to the ear of a black bat, and Nathifa whispered, 'Time to leave.' Another scrap blew by Haaken's head, and it whispered the same thing to the wereshark. The shadow-leaves then tumbled end over end toward the rough-hewn entrance Paganus had created when he first discovered the crypt millennia ago. She was aware of Bastiaan holding forth his arrowhead symbol, the silver light blazing painfully as she passed. But her form was too diffuse and moving too swiftly for the burning illumination to do more than cause her momentary discomfort. And then Nathifa was through the entrance, a black cloud of shadow-leaves tumbling down the tunnel toward the dragon's cavern lair, her voice a chorus of delighted laughter as she made her escape.
Asenka watched as the web mummies broke off their attack and began a slow, shuffling retreat to the far side of the crypt. The undead things seemed almost afraid of them now, and she couldn't figure out why, until she turned and saw that the tomb spider had been killed-and in an extremely messy fashion. Without their parent to command the web mummies, the egg-hosts had a new purpose: to preserve the lives of the spiderlings growing inside them. They would no longer risk damaging themselves, for to do so would endanger the lives of the children they carried. A distorted reflection of parental instinct, she supposed, but one that proved an advantage for her and the others.
Her hand throbbed from where the spiderling had bitten her. But though sweat dripped down the sides of her face, and she felt light-headed and sick to her stomach, she forced herself not to worry. Even if she had taken a large enough dose of venom to prove deadly, all she had to do was hold out long enough for the battle to end, and then Diran could heal her. She was Commander of the Sea Scorpions, the elite warriors of Baron Perhata. She could deal with a little bit of poison in her veins. After all, the ale in Perhata was so awful, it practically qualified as poison in its own right, and she'd quaffed enough of the bitter stuff over the years to build up immunity to any toxic substance, right?
She was horrified to see Leontis-in werewolf form-battling the wereshark, and the scene was so nightmarish that for a moment she feared the spider venom was making her hallucinate. But then she saw Nathifa break apart into a flurry of shadows, and she decided it had to be real. Even in delirium, she wouldn't have been able to dream up something that bizarre. As the shadows flew out of the crypt, a bat descended from the ceiling and headed for Leontis and the wereshark. The bat changed as it landed, and Makala reached out and grabbed hold of Leontis by the scruff of his neck and saw that the werewolf was bleeding from dozens of cuts made by the wereshark's claws The werewolf spun around, intending to sink his claws into whoever had the temerity to interrupt his battle with a fellow lycanthrope. But before Leontis could land a blow on Makala, Haaken took advantage of his foe's distraction to snatch the werewolf from the vampire's grasp. Before Leontis could react, Haaken hurled him away, and the werewolf soared through the air-
— straight toward Asenka.
She tried to avoid being struck by the werewolf, but he was moving too fast. Leontis slammed into Asenka, and she saw bright white flash behind her eyes, followed by darkness.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Ghaji ran toward Asenka, hoping to shove her out of the way before Leontis could hit her, but he was too late. The werewolf struck her and they both went down hard.
Leontis was momentarily stunned by the impact, but Ghaji doubted he'd stay that way for long. Though the half-orc's axe wasn't made of silver and no longer produced flame, it was still razor-sharp, so Ghaji rushed forward. As Leontis struggled to rise-broken bones already setting themselves and beginning to knit-the half-orc swung his axe and cleaved the werewolf's skull in two. Blood and bits of gray matter sprayed the air as Leontis let out a sharp whine and slumped to the ground. Ghaji knew that as devastating as the blow appeared, it would do no more than slow Leontis. A creature that could heal as swiftly as he had from the fireblast in the forest would have little trouble recovering from even a serious head wound, but at least they wouldn't have to deal with the werewolf while he healed.
Ghaji wanted to go to Asenka's side and tend to the injured woman, but he was too experienced a warrior to lose his focus in the midst of battle. He forced himself to ignore his wounded comrade as he swept his gaze around the crypt, searching for the next threat. The web mummies had retreated, the tomb spider was dead, the crimson
