Puzzled by her strange comment, Dhamon didn’t allow it to distract him. He lashed out, putting his muscles into each swing, scowling to note how little damage he was inflicting.
“Wh-what is that creature?” This from Varek, who finally had finished off his foe. His clothes were in tatters, his arms and face covered with claw marks. He was still hefting the sword Dhamon had given him as he joined the fight against Nura. “What is it?”
“I am Nura Bint-Drax,” the snake-creature hissed. She began weaving hypnotically in an effort to enthrall Varek and Dhamon. “I am the child of the swamp, the daughter of the dragon. I am your every nightmare.”
Dhamon struck at her again, this time without as much force or speed. He was slowing, and his mind was clouding. Magic! He knew that the creature had cast a spell at him. Scales danced in the back of his mind.
“Damned beast!” he cursed. Even the words came out slow. He tried to shake his head furiously, but instead he barely moved it from side to side. “Damn you to the darkest corner of the Abyss!” He watched as her head came down, mouth, and corrosive liquid sizzling out to pool on the ground.
“Fight me!” This came from Varek, who’d worked his way around to the creature’s side. Though clearly spent, he managed to land a blow where Dhamon had already carved a wound.
“You are an insignificant bug,” she hissed to Varek, “not worthy of my attention. Time to end this day’s game.” Her head bobbed and woved and her form shimmered and shrank. There was a popping sound, and the place where Nura had been erupted in a puff of acrid black smoke. Riki’s blade, which had been lodged in the snake, fell uselessly to the ground.
“By the Dark Queen’s heads!” Dhamon swore. His gaze shifted between Riki and Varek, who was crawling toward the half-elf.
“What do we do about those?” Varek gestured toward the pen, where a handful of the mutating creatures still thrashed and battled. The things were a mix of scales and flesh, with misshapen limbs and curling claws, flapping wings, hideous heads, serpentine tails, and tangled hair.
“Maldred.” Dhamon swallowed hard.
Dhamon rushed toward the pen, stepped through the rails, and passed the first two combatants. See to Maldred, he thought. Deal with the creatures quick, then see to Riki. He thrust his sword into the stomach of a doglike creature that was lunging for him, slaying and stepping over it. Another creature moved into Dhamon’s path. This one was a terribly thin abomination who’d had its wings plucked off. Its jaw clacked open and shut, a long forked tongue lolling out. It stretched out to grab at him, and he swiftly put it out of its misery. Finally he reached Maldred.
“Mal…” he said. “Mal, can you understand me?”
The thing towering above him bore some resemblance to Maldred’s ogre form, but it hissed and spat and pawed at the ground like a wild animal.
“Mal!”
The beast’s eyes met Dhamon’s. There was something pleading in them, and they dropped to the sword in his hand.
“No,” Dhamon stated. “I won’t kill you. You’re as dear as any brother.”
The creature howled and reached a claw out to rake Dhamon, but he moved quickly to evade the halfhearted blow.
“You’ve magic, Mal! Use it! Fight this!”
The Maldred-thing slashed at Dhamon again, attempting to get him to defend himself.
“Don’t let Nura—whatever in all the levels of the Abyss she is—win,” Dhamon said, still managing to avoid his friend’s claws. “Use your magic!”
Maldred threw back his head and roared a string of words in Ogrish. His claws dug at the scales on his chest and neck.
“Concentrate!” Dhamon shouted. He remembered how foggy his mind had been when the red mist circled him. “Fight it!”
Maldred continued to rant in Ogrish. His lips shaped arcane phrases that gave birth to a pale yellow glow encircling Maldred’s misshapen form.
“That’s it!” Dhamon encouraged, watching as the scales glimmered darkly and then began to melt.
“Concentrate!”
“Dhamon! Get over here! Now!”
Dhamon drew his attention away from his friend and glanced at Varek, who was motioning wildly to him.
“Riki needs help!” Varek was sitting awkwardly with the half-elf’s head and shoulders resting on his lap.
Dhamon glanced to the far end of the village, where the human servants were nervously gathered, none of them daring to budge.
Another look at Maldred, then he was racing toward the half-elf.
“Dhamon! Help Riki!” Varek’s acid-scarred face was marked by genuine fear. “I think she’s dying, Dhamon. She told me once that you were a battlefield medic. Do something! She’s pregnant, Dhamon. Please do something to save my wife and child, or so help me, I’ll…”
“Don’t make a threat you’re not able to carry out.” The words and Dhamon’s withering glance silenced Varek. Dhamon knelt next to Riki and studied her ashen face. Pregnant? It was enough of a surprise that the half-elf was married to this young man. Was she also pregnant? There was a deep bite mark on her cheek and on her arm, and ugly red lines meandered away from the wounds.
“The hut closest to the well,” Dhamon said, nodding to Varek. “There’s a ceramic pot on a crate inside. It’s filled with herbs. There’s a few sacks on the ground by it. Bring them all. And hurry.”
Dhamon sat, stretching out his legs and gently pulling Rikali away from Varek, who quickly went after the herbs. Dhamon tenderly ran his fingers over the half-elf’s wounds. It was a gentleness he hadn’t exhibited in quite some time, and his hard expression was gone, too, replaced by something that approached compassion.
“Married and with child,” he said to himself. Her loose clothes had well concealed her slightly swelling stomach.
Varek gathered as much as he could carry. He ran back to Dhamon, scowling at a trio of the human servants who were headed in that direction, too.
Dhamon picked through some dried roots in one bag. They were too old, but he managed to find one that had a little sap in it. He rubbed this on the deepest bite wound. Most of the herbs and roots he tossed aside, but there were a few he added to the mixture on Riki’s cheek. A fist-sized sack contained a coarse powder, and he stuck this in his pocket, his fingers brushing the small silver box and the medallion of Kiri-Jolith he’d taken earlier. He set aside another sack that contained a gritty blend of moss and shredded roots.
While he worked on the half-elf, the three human servants came close. The eldest appeared to be their spokesman.
“Mistress Sable will be most angry with you,” the man stated. “She will hunt you. You are all fools, as Nura Bint-Drax said, and you will all most certainly die!”
“Everybody dies!” Varek shot back. “You’re the fools. Serving a dragon and a snake creature. Willingly, it seems! That’s all over now. The spawn are all dead. That snake creature, Nura, is gone. That means you’re free. If I were you, I’d head straight north, you’ll hit the coast in a week or two if you make a good pace, and some ferryman’ll pick you up.”
The three humans argued softly for a few moments, then the spokesman squared his shoulders and fixed Varek with an icy stare.
“We’re staying here,” he said. “Polagnar is our home. Nura Bint-Drax will come back. She’ll bring more spawn. We’ll serve them, and we’ll be fed and protected.”
“Sheep,” Varek muttered. “Pitiful, mindless sheep.”
“She’ll live,” Dhamon said finally, with relief, drawing Varek’s attention away from the three men. Rikali was breathing regularly. “She should come to in a little while.” He pointed to the largest hut.