CHAPTER SIXTEEN
19 Kythorn, The Year of the Dark Circle (1478 DR)
Dangerous as plague spewers were, in Aoth's judgment, they were less so than beholders and far less so than Malark. So he lunged in front of one of the rotting giants with its twitching, snarling face, using the corpse as a wall to separate him from the rest of his foes.
Unfortunately, it was a wall that was just as intent on killing him as everything else on the mountaintop. It doubled over, opened its mouth impossibly wide, and puked up dozens of rats. Chittering and squealing, the rodents charged.
Aoth incinerated them with a flare of fire from his spear. Heedless of the blast, the plague spewer pounded forward right behind them. It had its enormous hands raised to grab, crush, and infect him, and its strides shook the ground.
Exerting his will, Aoth tried to seize it with the same magic that had failed to kill Malark. This time, he was more successful. Rotten hide splitting, muscles bursting and spattering slime, bones snapping, the plague spewer's body crumpled in on itself. More rats-the bulges that had scuttled ceaselessly under its skin-sprang clear of the demolition but, without the giant's will to guide them, made no move to attack.
The stink of charred rat hung in the air along with drifting flecks of ash. Aoth cast about, surveying the battlefield. Malark was circling right, so he dodged left. The maneuver brought him in front of a death tyrant. The bulbous creatures floated slowly, but they didn't need to close with an opponent to attack, only maintain a clear line of sight.
A ragged burst of shadow leaped from one of the death tyrant's eyestalks. Aoth dodged, but it washed over him anyway. He felt a stab of pain, but it faded after a moment. Most likely thanks to the wards Lallara had cast on him, the attack hadn't done him any actual harm.
He focused his will to strike back, then felt something else shaking the ground. He pivoted just in time to see the oncoming plague spewer flail at him with its fist.
He avoided the blow by lunging between the giant's legs, then drove his spear into its ankle and channeled power through the point. The joint exploded, half severing the spewer's foot and sending it reeling. It toppled into the path of another blaze of power from one of the death tyrant's eyes, and as it crashed to earth, the giant turned to stone.
The petrified corpse blocked that undead beholder, but by now, another had maneuvered into position. Two of its rotting eyestalks bowed in Aoth's direction. He reached for it with the pulverizing magic and managed to strike first. The pressure burst it like a boil, and viscera spilled from the ruptured husk.
Unfortunately, at that point, the crushing magic ran out of power, and it was questionable whether Aoth would have a chance to cast that or any spell again. Despite his best attempts to outmaneuver them, a dozen of his enemies, Malark included, had moved into positions from which they could attack him simultaneously. The only hope of avoiding the assault would be to jump over the cliff, and then Malark would either rain destruction down on him or go back to his filthy ritual.
Ah, well, Aoth had expected it would come to this. He'd needed a kiss from Lady Luck, as well as some of the best fighting of his life, to last as long as he had.
He leveled his spear at Malark for one last strike. But Szass Tam's protege brandished his staff, and his power stabbed through Lallara's wards. Nausea twisted Aoth's guts, and his legs buckled. The strength drained out of him all at once, and the head of his spear clanked against the ground. A plague spewer lumbered forward and stretched out its hand to seize him.
Then golden light flowered at his back. The radiance didn't hurt him. In fact, it quelled his sickness and started his strength trickling back. But it seared the plague spewer, melted one of its eyes, and sent it stumbling backward.
Aoth didn't have to look around to realize that Mirror had flown up over the mountaintop and had invoked the power of his god, and at that moment, Aoth no longer cared whether the intervention was sound strategy. He was simply grateful for another chance at life.
Malark smiled as if to acknowledge an opponent's sound play in some trivial game, then aimed his staff at a target-Mirror, presumably-in the air. At that point Jet plunged down on the spymaster like a hawk killing a rabbit.
The griffon dashed Malark to earth, but his talons didn't penetrate the human's armoring enchantments, nor did his plummeting mass snap the wizard's spine or even stun him. Malark immediately hit back with a chop to the side of the familiar's feathery neck.
Perhaps because Malark was on his back, the blow didn't land hard enough to kill. But it did jolt Jet to the side, which gave the former monk of the Long Death the chance to wrench himself out from under his attacker's claws.
Lallara floated down from above to alight beside Aoth. She jabbed the ferrule of her staff into his ribs, and a surge of vitality swept the last of his weakness away.
'Thanks,' he said.
'Get up,' she snapped. 'You have work to do.'
'I suppose I do.' He clambered to his feet and cast a thunderbolt.
Lallara too hurled attack spells but also conjured barriers of fire, stone, and spinning blades to hold back the enemy. Sometimes she even managed to drop such a wall right on top of one of Malark's servants, imprisoning it or tearing it in two. Mirror, who currently resembled a smudged caricature of Aoth, alternated between evoking bursts of divine light and battling with sword and shield. Jet repeatedly dived, attacked, and climbed back up into the sky, circling until he saw another chance to strike by surprise.
All in all, it was a fine display of fighting prowess, and yet it wasn't good enough. No matter how many of Malark's guardians Aoth and his companions destroyed, the creatures kept coming. Aoth never actually saw new ones popping into existence, but in time he decided that somehow the supply must be inexhaustible.
What was even more discouraging was that no attack seemed to damage Malark himself. Once in a while, a barrage of ball lightning or a blast of frost rocked him back on his heels, but afterward, he quickly returned to working his own magic, methodically dissolving Lallara's barriers.
Until a flying blade made of absolute darkness streaked down at him from above. Malark sidestepped the cut, then tapped the conjured weapon with his staff. The black sword vanished.
Then he looked up, and Aoth did too. Szass Tam was hovering above the mountaintop. Malark gestured and shouted a word of command, and a dozen death tyrants floated upward like bubbles to turn their virulent gazes on the lich.
That should have helped clear a path from Aoth's position near the drop to Malark's at the center of the high place. But when Aoth looked for such a route, it seemed there were just as many guardians blocking the way as ever.
He cursed, then sensed motion on his flank. He pivoted toward the onrushing plague spewer, and a thunderous shout blasted the head from its shoulders. As it toppled, rats swarmed from the stump of its neck. Meanwhile, Bareris finished hauling himself up onto the mountaintop.
'I'm glad you made it,' said Aoth. The bard responded with a nod, drew his sword, and struck up a dirge. The eerie tones had no effect on Aoth but were apt to afflict a foe with weakness and confusion.
Nevron swooped down in the midst of a throng of demons that immediately hurled themselves at Malark's minions. Lauzoril arrived in a cloud of tiny floating daggers that darted from point to point like hummingbirds. Finally even Samas Kul, whom Aoth had judged the likeliest to flee, floated up into view with his quicksilver wand in his blubbery hand.
The other council members positioned themselves near Lallara, no doubt in the hope that her wards would protect them as well. Then they attacked. Lauzoril recited an incantation in his dry, clerkish voice, and three plague spewers started mauling one another. Growling words of power, Nevron summoned a ghour, a huge, shaggy demon
