A few moments later he disengaged, his face diffident. He pointed into the entrance and silently mouthed, “They know.”
Blast. There went the element of surprise. Instead of a raid, they’d be rushing into an ambush. Better to rethink the plan. Why not ambush them instead?
Marrec called loudly, “Hello in there. Why don’t you come out? Fallon, we know you’re here. Come out, Ash unharmed, and we may not extract the full measure of vengeance that you deserve.”
He heard a voice speaking, inside, very quietly. It sounded like a woman’s voice, but he couldn’t make out her individual words.
Then Fallon’s unmistakable baritone responded, “I don’t think so. We, uhm, I prefer it in here where it’s cooler.”
Marrec responded, “Who is this ‘we’ you speak of? Don’t try to hide it; we tracked more than just you and Ash into this ruin.”
“No one you want to meet. Leave here. We’re not coming out.”
Marrec paused, then looked back toward Ususi, who still remained at the edge of the clearing. He yelled to her, “Wizardwhy don’t you see about flushing our friends out where we can see them? Be careful, though; we don’t want to hurt Ash.”
He saw Ususi rise and step forward. She looked at him, shrugged, and shook her head no. Marrec wondered if, based on the kind of magic he’d seen her throw around in the past, she was unable to whip up a spell quite so discerning. Then the wizard raised one finger, cocking her head. Marrec read that gesture as ‘But…’
Next, she brought two fingers to her face, one to each eye, then extended her hand to point to the side of the structure where Marrec and Elowen crouched. Marrec looked to where she pointed. Solid wall.
Finally, Ususi incanted a spell. When she finished, she pointed to the wall again, a section of which ghosted into empty space. Marrec realized she had created a second entrance. Their element of surprise was back.
“Go,” he hissed to Elowen.
He and the elf rushed into the new opening. Gunggari, ever the bravest of them, dashed in through the main entrance.
It was utterly dark, except for the flickering magical light still clinging to Justlance’s tip; the glow around Dymondheart was too dim to provide light.
Two figures crouched on either side of the main entrance. One was nearly a giant, corpse-white, save for obscene tattoos crawling across his body. He was poised and ready with a great hammer. The other was a thin woman in form-fitting black armor, so tight and articulated that it looked as if it could be a second skin. An aura of tiny, biting insects surrounded her. Mosquitoes? Though not as tall as the man, Marrec somehow knew she was the more potent of the two.
Further back in the shadows stood three more figures. Ash. And that bastard traitor Fallon, holding Ash’s hand in a death grip. Near him stood a bone-slender woman in an obsidian cape. Tomes, scrolls, and wands spilled from her belt. Close cropped hair the color of dying flowers grew on her head.
Everyone in the chamber turned to look at him, caught by surprise by his and Elowen’s self-made access.
Then Gunggari charged in through the main entrance, his dizheri spinning in his hand like a mill wheel. One edge caught the big man, who hissed, falling back a pace. Marrec’s eyes caught the glint of two overly developed canines. The big man was a vampire. He prayed Gunggari could handle one vampire, while he confronted the woman in articulated armor.
Elowen raced across the intervening ground toward the purple-haired caster. Good, keep that one occupied, he silently encouraged the hunter. He and Gunggari had enough on their plates without having to worry about spells from the periphery.
The woman’s armor caught Justlance’s first thrust. She grinned.
Oh, oh, Marrec thought. Two more canines.
“They’re all vampires!” yelled Marrec.
“Great Ones preserve me,” murmured Gunggari. Marrec knew his friend hated night walkers more than anything else, a hate that bordered on fear.
The woman, still chuckling, said, “That’s the least of your worries. I am Damandathe right hand of the Rotting Man.” Marrec knew what that meantin addition to being vampiric, she was also a blightlord. This fight was going to be a lot tougher than he’d anticipated.
If he could overcome his reluctance, Marrec wondered if his ability to turn flesh to stone would have any effect on the unliving tissue of night walkers. Maybe a true gift of Lurue, one he had not depleted in the long decline of his connection with his goddess, might be called.
Bringing his spear up in a guarding position, Marrec bellowed, “Lurue commands that you give way, unholy creatures. Turn your faces and be destroyed!” His spear head, its shape that of a stylized unicorn horn, blazed with golden light for a moment, briefly shining brighter than the magical light that Ususi had cast upon it.
Damanda merely narrowed her eyes and hissed. The large one faltered, vibrating with its desire to resist. Marrec didn’t turn his head to see how the one facing Elowen was responding, but he could feel its resistance, too.
Something wasn’t right. The power of the ritual, which he always imagined as gentle hands on his shoulders, was anemic. If, in truth, Lurue stood behind him bolstering him with her strength, then it was as if she only lightly touched him. Worse, she was backing away, her touch growing ever lighter, until he couldn’t feel it at all.
The resistance peaked; his power broke. None of the vampires turned away. All smiled the wider. The large, hammer-wielding nightwalker croaked, “Your god is weak.” Marrec groaned, giving ground. The vampire was right.
Damanda commanded, “Lex, spell them, will you?”
The purple-haired woman standing near Fallon began to incant. Elowen closed with the incanter, bringing her blade around in an arc sure to separate head from body, but a thaumaturgic field shimmered into visibility, deflecting the blade. Lex finished her spell, and a wave of violet light expanded from her, washing over everyone in the room.
Marrec felt his joints begin to lock up but shook off the effect. He saw that Gunggari also resisted the magical hold. Not so Elowenthe elf hunter stood rooted in place, struggling, but unable to command her body into motion.
Gunggari made to dash to Elowen’s side, but his corpse-white opponent was too near, swinging his great hammer in deadly parabolas, promising death to Gunggari if the Oslander’s attention wavered.
Marrec was pressed by the blightlord Damanda. She moved in, the noise of her insect aura growing maddeningly loud. Recovering more quickly from his failed attempt to turn back the vampires than Damanda expected, he thrust forward with Justlance.
The tip bit deep, momentarily dimming the light in the room, then it was nearly torn from Marrec’s hand as Damanda twisted back. She swiped at him with one handno, it was some sort of clawed or bladed gauntlet composed of darkness itself. The blade caught him along the side, scoring his flesh, but not mortally. Both combatants staggered back a pace. Marrec observed Damanda’s wound begin to knit in a way that his own did not.
The blightlord grinned, her teeth again prominent. She pointed at him. The insect mass swarming around her bulged, sending a filament of biting mosquitoes his way. Marrec expected that the insects, like their master, were vampiric.
The mosquitoes would suck him dry in seconds if he didn’t do something…
He called upon his secret heritage. He found it lurking just behind his eyes like a hound eager to be let out. Marrec complied, focusing his attention on the swarm as if a single entity. For a moment, he felt a connection between himself and the tiny points of hunger, but in the very instant the connection was made, it was transformed and snuffed out. A hail of tiny stones fell as one from the air, shattering into so much dust. Damanda’s insect aura was stripped from her with Marrec’s glance. A pain lanced Marrec’s eyes like before. A weakness suffused him; he knew that his ability to call on his deplorable heritage was depleted for now.
Despite the pain and the blood trickling from the corners of his eyes, Marrec smiled at Damanda.
Not so the blightlord. She yelled, “What’s this? A medusa posing as a human?”
A shadow occluded the doorwayUsusi. She appeared mid-spell and with a flourish, released a cascade of
