As they skimmed just above its surface, the fog-thing tried even harder to seize them, and since its extrusions didn't have to shoot far, the griffon had less time to dodge. Blasts of flame seared and dazzled them, and Aoth's thoughts threatened to shatter into panic and confusion. The latter resulted from too much magic unleashed in too small a space and in too short a time, straining the foundations of reality itself.
He struggled to ignore the distractions and
One of the dream vestige's arms leaped up directly in front of Brightwing. She veered, but Aoth saw that she had little chance of avoiding it. Then an ammizu, a squat, bat-winged devil with a face like a boar, dived at the necromancers' servant and the misty tentacle twisted away from the griffon to snatch for the baatezu.
The shadowy vapor below gave way to black water. In another moment, Aoth and Brightwing hurtled beyond the dream vestige's reach.
'I'm not doing it a third time,' Brightwing rasped.
'I wasn't going to ask. Take me back to Lallara.'
'It seems,' Tammith said, 'that you're a bad loser.'
Tsagoth laughed. 'Not really. I rather admire the way you tricked me. I'm here because Szass Tam ordered me to seek you whenever my other duties permitted. You could consider it a compliment of sorts that he took special notice of your departure.' He vanished.
Tammith had been expecting such a trick. She whirled and swung her sword in a horizontal cut at the level of Tsagoth's belly.
But the attack fell short. She assumed he'd position himself close enough to attack instantly, without the necessity of stepping in, but she'd been mistaken.
He sprang at her before she could recover. She flung herself to one side, and three of his snatching hands closed on empty air. The fourth, however, grabbed her shoulder, yanked, and came away with flesh, leather, and lengths of rattling chain clutched in the talons.
She cried out at the burst of pain but couldn't allow it to slow her. Tsagoth pivoted toward her, and she heaved her blade into line. He halted rather than risk impaling himself on her point, and she retreated farther away from him.
She'd kept herself alive for at least another moment, but that was all. She had no hope of winning. She still carried the hurt the zombie had given her, Tsagoth had just injured her a second time, and he overmatched her in any case.
But if she couldn't prevail, she might still survive. She couldn't turn into bats and flee over open water, but he wouldn't be able to harm her if she melted into mist, and so, although the savage part of her protested, she willed the transformation.
Pain stabbed into her back. She lost control of the change, and her form locked into solidity again.
In fact, she lost control of everything and couldn't move at all. Her legs buckled beneath her, dropping her to her knees. She would have fallen farther, but something was holding her up. Her head lolled backward, and then she could see it. At some point, Tsagoth had used his hypnotic powers on one of the sailors, who now crept forward and thrust a spear into her back.
The mortal had done a good job of it, to penetrate her mail and plunge the lance in deeply enough that the wooden shaft transfixed her heart. That was why she couldn't move, and likely never would again.
Tsagoth advanced and reached for her head, probably to tear or twist it off. Then a thunderous shout staggered the blood fiend and flayed flesh from the upper part of his body. Winddancer and Bareris plunged down on top of him. The griffon's talons impaled Tsagoth, and his momentum smashed him down onto the deck.
Tsagoth heaved himself onto his knees, tumbling his attackers off of him. He scrambled upright, and gathered himself to spring before Winddancer found his footing or Bareris could shift his sword to threaten him. Then Mirror, resembling a sketch of Bareris wrought in smoke and starlight, flew down on his flank. The ghost cut, and his intangible blade sheared into Tsagoth's torso. The blood fiend staggered.
Attacking relentlessly, the newcomers pushed Tsagoth down the deck toward the stern. Bareris slipped off Winddancer's back, ran to Tammith, shoved the unresisting sailor away from her, and, grunting, pulled the spear out of her back.
As soon as he did, her mobility returned. She felt an itching across her body and realized that, with a length of wood jammed in her heart, she'd already started to rot. Now the process was reversing.
Bareris threw the spear over the side. 'I have to fight.'
She bared her fangs and stood up. 'So do I.'
She expected him to protest that she ought to keep away from Tsagoth, at least until her wounds closed, but he didn't. Something in her manner must have told him he couldn't dissuade her. He simply turned and advanced on their foe, and she glided after him.
Bareris didn't try to climb on Winddancer's back, nor, biting and clawing, did the griffon need a rider to encourage him to fight. Battling in concert, the four of them-bard, beast, ghost, and vampire-harried Tsagoth, each defending when the blood fiend oriented on him and attacking from the side or rear when their adversary sought to rend a comrade.
By degrees, they slashed Szass Tam's agent into a patchwork of gaping wounds, and dark sores erupted where Mirror's sword had penetrated. The fiend couldn't heal them fast enough, and Tammith prayed that he was too lost to battle rage to realize that his only hope was to translate himself through space to safety.
His wolfish muzzle partly sliced from the rest of his head, he leered at her as if he'd read her mind, as if to promise that he wouldn't leave with the matter between them unresolved. Then he charged her.
That action required him to abandon any attempt at defense, and Bareris, Mirror, and Winddancer all cut deep. But Tsagoth didn't drop, the reckless tactic caught Tammith by surprise, and she couldn't dodge in time. The blood fiend grabbed her and bulled her onward. They smashed through the rail and plummeted into the sea.
The circle of abjurers recited the final line of their incantation, and power whined through the air. Some of the shrouds attached to the foremast snapped. But the cloud-thing across the water continued devouring every sentient being it could seize, exactly the same as before.
Aoth was disappointed, but not surprised. Lallara and her subordinates had tried thrice before with the same lack of success.
The zulkir pivoted and lashed the back of her hand across a female Red Wizard's mouth. Her rings cut, and the younger woman flinched back with bloody lips.
'Useless imbeciles!' Lallara snarled. Then she looked at Aoth, and, to his amazement, gave him a fleeting hint of a smile. It was the first such moment in all his years of service. 'There. That made me feel a trifle better, but it didn't help our situation, did it?'
'No, Your Omnipotence. I guess it didn't.'
'Then it's time to go. Would you care to accompany us? Perhaps you've earned it, even if this last piece of information-or alleged information-you brought me is worthless, too.'
'Mistress, is it possible that if you and the other zulkirs all combined your powers-'
'I think not, and for all we know, the others have already transported themselves to safety.'
'Surely it wouldn't take long to find out for certain.'
She scowled. 'The dream vestige has turned the tide in Szass Tam's favor, and our fleet is going to lose. I don't like it either, but that's the way it is. Now, do you want to live?'
'Yes, Mistress, very much. But I have griffon riders in the sky.'
She looked up, then snorted. 'By my estimation, not many, not anymore.'
'Still.' He swung his leg over Brightwing's back.
Tammith and Tsagoth splashed down into the dark water, and it paralyzed her as completely as the spear, even as it ate at her like acid. As they sank deeper, the blood fiend clawed and bit at her eroding flesh.
Something else plunged into the sea. Her eyes were burning like the rest of her, but she could make out Winddancer's talons ripping at Tsagoth, and Bareris's sword stabbing repeatedly.
