swung it against the swarming volodnis.
“On the contrary,” rasped Gameliel. “I haven’t wrecked them. I’ve rerouted the stones for my own use.”
Marrec, in turn, interrupted Ususi, “Call your rot fiends off and yield, or we’ll force you to succumb. If you yield willingly and answer my questions about the goddess Lurue…”
Ususi struck, interrupting his ultimatum. A rush of unintelligible words preceded her throwing motion. A bead of fire arced high over bowl then dropped toward the blightlord. Marrec sighed. He’d have to get his answers the hard way.
Gameliel glanced at the falling bead but was unruffled. Instead, he spewed a foul syllable. Even as Ususi’s fiery bead fell toward him, the oily sludge in which he stood inflated, as if it was a mammoth bubble of swamp gas on the surface of stagnant water. In a mere second it enclosed Gameliel in a transparent dome. The blightlord stood within, gesticulating and chanting.
The bead of fire detonated directly over the blightlord’s head. The rush of heat singed Marrec’s eyebrows, but when the flash faded, Gameliel was unharmed. The bubble was gone, and there was less ooze at the blightlord’s feet than before.
From the back of his horse, Marrec hurled Justlance at the blightlord. It sped unerringly at Gameliel, but a tendril of ooze rose up and flicked the spear away. Instead of the blightlord’s chest, it buried itself in a rune-etched stone, its shaft quivering.
Gameliel finished incanting. A flash of dark green heralded the sudden appearance of a monster no more than arm’s length from Ususi. The powerfully built creature stood taller than Ususi on her mount. She yelled in alarm and shrank back on her saddle. Marrec recognized the monstera forest troll, and a big one at that.
Already Gameliel was chanting away on another spell. Marrec knew a troll so close would challenge Ususi’s ability to defend herself, but the cleric judged that he had to deal with the blightlord first, or they might face even more trolls.
Time to use up another hoarded spell, Marrec decided. The slime shield had to be burned away.
He called on what grace was left to him, channeling a searing beam of divine light, which he hurled as a spear at Gameliel’s heart.
Again the slime bubble rose up and absorbed the blast, or at least part of it. This time, a trickle of light played across the blightlord’s form. Gameliel cried out then cursed as he lost the weave of his spell.
The volodnis continued their attack on Gunggari and Elowen across a quarter span of the Mucklestones bowl, not Marrec’s concern right then.
What about… soot and coal!
His glance back revealed Ususi squirming in the troll’s grasp. With both hands clamped upon the wizard, the troll was attempting to pull her into two pieces.
Justlance appeared once more in Marrec’s hand, and in a single liquid movement he cast the spear directly into the troll’s back.
The green behemoth screamed, dropping Ususi. The woman scuttled backward on all fours, bloodied but still alive. The troll whirled, searching for its attacker an instant before fixing its hungry gaze on Marrec. It charged, its powerful arms raised high, its claws promising a lethal rain. Marrec spurred his horse, tried to get it to sidestep the charging monster, but his mount reared in a sudden panic, throwing the cleric to the ground. The fall jolted the wind from him.
“Whose plan was this, anyway?” Marrec muttered as he attempted to regain his feet, only to be bowled over by the troll. Its claws sought crevices in his armor but were only partially successful. A thread of pain pulsed on the side of Marrec’s face where one of the troll’s claws scored.
Again, Justlance shimmered back to his hand, giving the troll a moment’s pause. Armed again, his confidence ticked back up a notch. He used the spear’s shaft to quickly lever himself to his feet. The sour, rotten smell of the troll’s breath rolled over him, nearly a presence in and of itself, hardly less lethal than the monster.
Marrec groaned as he felt something touch him from behind through his armor. The blightlord, untended, had gotten another nasty hex off, and he was the target. Whatever it was, it seemed to be growing below his armor second by second. It itched as if a colony of ants were running across his back. He yelped in surprise, or if truth be told, alarm.
A crack of thunder rode the heels of a crazy line of electric light that zagged past Marrec and struck Gameliel a grazing shot. Ususi was on her feet again, but her aim was a little off. The blightlord snarled with pain but dramatically clutched his empty fist, as if squeezing something. In response, pain blistered across Marrec’s body. The pain issued from the spot he’d seconds before felt the itching. As if pain were sprouting roots across his body, the agony grew.
Marrec realized he had been infected with the blightlord’s touch. Some sort of hyper-quick rot or disease, he presumed. He fumbled in his belt pouch and brought out a small vial filled with fizzing blue-white liquid. Though his directly granted spells were nearly spent, he was not without one or two additional resources. Uncorking the vial with his teeth, he gulped down its contents. The divine balm spread through him like cool water, quenching the pain and driving the infection from his body. He gasped out thanks to Lurue.
The troll took advantage of Marrec’s distraction with another claw-tipped swing, forcing him back behind the point of his spear. He risked another glance at the blightlord. Gameliel spent another second clutching the air before realizing the action was futile. Marrec’s brief infection was cleansed.
Gameliel said, “You seem resistant to the lesser rots. Let’s see how you fare against the Corruption of…”
He broke off when he saw the pale green beam of light touch dead center upon his chest. The beam was projected by Ususi, still standing just outside the ring of the bowl.
“Is that…?” was Gameliel’s last utterance.
The blightlord burst asunder. The pool of slime began to boil then wisped away like morning fog. The black halberd he had been clutching in one hand continued to stand of its own accord for a moment then slowly dissipated, like a hole in mud closing over, leaving nothing but empty air.
Residual power snapped and discharged from Ususi’s pointing hand. In her other hand she held an unrolled page of vellum, penned sigils still fading from its surface. She had unleashed a spell penned by the hand of a mighty wizard. Marrec wondered if that hand was Ususi’s?
The wizard winced, shaking her hand free of residual power, and said, “You shouldn’t have disturbed the Mucklestones, blightlord,” then fell back against a stone.
Her effort must have been extremethe spell on the parchment may have been beyond her normal ability to cast. Smoke rose from her garments. The scroll, its potency spent, fluttered to the ground, now completely blank vellum. Ususi managed to retain her feet with the help of the supporting obelisk.
“Lurue’s blessing…” Marrec’s claim of victory was cut off by the troll’s vicious attack. Whatever power Gameliel had used to call the monster, it survived its master’s death.
He deflected one of the creature’s claw-tipped swings with Justlance, running a deep score along the troll’s arm with his spear tip. Even as Marrec watched, the rubbery flesh closed up where he’d torn it. Recollection trickled into his mind: The best way to put a troll down for good was with fire.
Marrec yelled, “Burn it!” and swung the shaft of his spear low along the ground, surprising the troll; it has been expecting another stab. It stumbled over the shaft and fell on its face, a victim of Marrec’s trip.
The unicorn warrior turned tail and retreated, even as the troll pushed itself upright with its preternaturally long arms. Still, he put a little space between himself and the beast, just enough, he hoped.
Seizing her opportunity despite her exhaustion, Ususi skipped another bead of flame down the bowl. The troll attempted to evade, but the pellet bounced once, twice, and at the summit of its third skip, exploded into a sphere of raging flame. The troll was enveloped. When the fire faded into sizzling wisps a heartbeat later, the monster survived only as a flaming remnant that sent up a pillar of black smoke.
The stench wrinkled Marrec’s nose. He grinned nonetheless, but the sound of the dizheri, as it bashed and battered against the flesh of blighted volodnis, was yet audible. Apparently the corrupted forest folk, like the troll, were unconcerned that their master was no more, but only a few remained standing. Gunggari and Elowen then appeared on perimeter of the Mucklestones, fighting their way into the bowl. A final few thrusts with Elowen’s sword, a wild swing with Gunggari’s warclub, and finally some unlooked for assistance by Marrec from behind ended the threat for good.
Nothing stirred in the bowl. Marrec’s blood cooled. He stowed Justlance.
