The imaskari grasped the Keystone that she still wore around her neck. She brought it to her eye, then began scanning the chamber as if gazing through a looking glass.
Marrec furrowed his brows. “Surely the Mucklestones do not reach so far?”
Ususi said, “They do not, but listen. The Keystone is a tool designed for use with the Mucklestones, true, yet it is also sensitive to all magic associated with portals and transport. Perhaps the magic used by Damanda to escape left a seam in space, as such spells often do, though they always fade quickly. I might be able to locate the seam using the Keystone… and there it is!” the wizard crowed.
“What good is that to us?” wondered Marrec.
‹S› ‹S›-
When they appeared, Marrec and the others did not fall ten feet like Damanda and Bonehammer. Despite utilizing a raw, poorly executed, and fading seam in reality, Ususi had the Keystone. With its power, she grasped the unraveling threads of Damanda’s escape, wove a new portal, and transported the group into an echoing warehouse with nary a bump.
Marrec blinkedslanting shafts of daylight betokened approaching twilight, but it was still brighter than where they had just stood. The cleric slowly turned, scanning the area for Damanda and her hulking henchman. As he looked, he kept one of Ash’s hands firmly in his left hand. In his right hand was Justlance.
Loose brick rubble covered the floor, piled in untidy heaps in some places. Dust covered all. Gaps in one wall revealed a ruined cityscape, tumble-down and covered in forest growth. Ususi had thought that the endpoint of Damanda’s escape lay near the center of Rawlinswood. The mage was correct. They must be somewhere within Dun Tharos, in one of thousands individual ruins that made up what remained of the ancient Nar city.
Where was Damanda?
If she was in truth cursed with vampirism, she wouldn’t enjoy standing there, indirectly illuminated by fading daylight. Perhaps farther back, where the ceiling allowed through less light?
Marrec pointed to the rear of the building, lost in shadow, where a slender stone door stood closed. Gunggari caught his gesture and nodded. Marrec released Ash’s hand. He looked down at the girl and said, “Stay here.” Ash studied the middle distance. With his free hand he unstrapped his shield from his back.
The cleric and the Oslander approached the door. Elowen was not far behind, her blade still shimmering with its exposure to the sun it loved. Ususi hung back.
Without losing time to doubt, Marrec heaved open the stone door. It fell backward, unsecured to the lintel, generating a terrific rolling boom as it struck the ground. Beyond was a tiny chamber without exits, no more than fifteen feet on a side. The light from Justlance’s tip revealed two forms lying upon the ground, side by side, arms crossed across chests, eyes closed.
One reclining figure was Damanda, the other Bonehammer.
Before he could get his sinews to respond or cough out a warning, the eyes of both the sleepers shuttered open.
Damanda jerked upright like the arm of a catapult, without the intervening need to lever herself up as a living creature might. Her arms shot forward as her form moved to vertical, catching Marrec in the chest. That supernatural shove bowled him back through the narrow entry and out into the brick-strewn warehouse. A brick cut him above the eye and another across his forearm.
Marrec gained his feet, cursing his slowness. He heard Gunggari yell, then a clash of arms. Elowen called out the Nentyarch’s name, as she so often did when fighting. Ususi stood to the side of the doorway, not committing to entering, but chanting and waving in the midst of casting a spell.
The cleric charged back into the room. Bonehammer, lurking by the door, caught him on the side with his great weaponMarrec barely caught the blow on his shield, though his arm nearly went numb with the effort. He was forced to step back a pace. Had the vampires fought that hard a few hours ago, Marrec doubted he and his friends would have survived. Something was different. As his shield glinted in a stray beam of sunlight, Marrec realized what it could bethe vampires were trappedthe only place to run was either outside the building into direct sunlight or there into the main warehouse where a stray beam like the one that’d just fallen across his shield would have more serious consequences on vampiric flesh.
He yelled, “Gunny, herd them out this wayinto the sunlight.”
Ususi unleashed a spray of magical bolts that traced wildly arcing trajectories through the air. Many of the bolts found their mark in Damanda’s flesh. The vampire was undeterred in her fight with Gunggari and Elowen, but she spared a smoldering glance for the wizard in the doorway. Ususi screamed, threw her hands before her eyes, and fell back.
Marrec hoped that glance wouldn’t prove to be trouble later. He knew about the domineering gaze of vampires.
Elowen growled, “I’ll keep this one pinnedhelp Marrec with that other, one.” Gunggari danced back, his warclub landing a parting shot to Damanda’s head, which was absorbed with a grunt of pain.
Dymondheart seemed to grab Damanda’s attention more than the dizheri. She didn’t merely absorb Elowen’s swift swingsshe deflected, ducked, and spun to avoid taking a cut.
Gunggari was upon Bonehammer, smashing with an unrestrained fury that momentarily startled the vampire. Marrec saw his chance, ducked under his foe’s guard, and came up on the other side.
“Now!” yelled Marrec, hoping to coordinate his activity with Gunggari’s.
He and the Oslander dashed themselves directly into Bonehammer. Marrec threw his arms about his foe, who promptly turned his head and sank his fangs directly into Marrec’s neck.
A fire blossomed there, and a weakness. The weakness felt something like his loss of contact with Lurue, but more immediate and far, far more lethal.
Though his strength seemed to be flowing from him, with Gunggari’s help he forced the vampire back, step by step, into the larger, ruined chamber.
The angle of the sunlight was becoming extreme. A few minutes more, maybe less, and the sun would be down, but such questions no longer mattered for Bonehammer.
Marrec and Gunggari forced the struggling, biting vampire directly into a reddening shaft of pure sunlight.
“Damanda!” screamed Bonehammer, as he released his bite on Marrec’s neck. -
He began to thrash, so violently and fast that neither man could maintain his hold, but it was no longer necessary to hold him. Bonehammer was speared in place by the shaft of sunlight.
Their foe’s whipping limbs moved so quickly that Marrec could barely discern them. Smoke coiled off the vampire’s skin, and a reddish radiance peeked from Bonehammer’s open mouth, his nostrils, from behind his eyes, and even from his fingernails. The next instant all burned through. The fire that had been ignited inside reached the surface. A flash of all-consuming heat and red light left nothing behind but ash and disintegrating fragments of skull and spine. Even that smoked away a second later.
Marrec sagged. He worried that the vampire’s bite would reveal itself as a debilitating, life-draining wound, but he didn’t fall. There was still Damanda.
“Let’s bring the other one out,” he whispered to Gunggari, though the Oslander was already half way back to the fight where Elowen kept the blightlord at bay.
Marrec spared a glance for Ash. The girl remained standing where they had appeared, looking completely out of place in the darkening ruin. The last shafts of light penetrating the building dimmed still further and were finally extinguished. The sun had set.
Marrec stumbled back to the door, bypassing Ususi along the way. She stood shaking her head back and forth, as if trying to throw off a hallucination. Trouble. He could tell. Damanda…
Back in the sealed antechamber, Elowen had the blightlord backed into a corner. The vampire feared that blade; its sap was suffused with pure sunlight, and Marrec perceived it was also made of wood. He couldn’t imagine a better weapon to use against a vampire.
“Cleave her, Elowenshe can’t heal Dymondheart’s blows. You can slay her outright.”
Between gritted teeth, parrying Damanda’s blows, Elowen said, “What do you think I’m trying to do?”
Gunggari was already in the mix, applying his dizheri with abandon. Marrec heaved himself forward, still feeling weakness flooding every limb. He brought up
Justlance. Perhaps he could pin the elusive blightlord in place…
Damanda screamed as she received a cut from Dymondheart across the stomach. The flesh crackled and
