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 smoked as if the light of the sun itself had touched her.
“We’ve got her,” said Gunggari.
Damanda shrieked and spun, put her head down, and ran directly into the wall behind her. The ancient masonry, already unstable, gave way before the vampire’s supernatural strength. Hardly checking her speed, Damanda burst through a hole of her own making, bricks, mortar, and larger stone blocks falling around her. Damanda had made her own exit.
Through the breach in the wall, all could see the ruined street of Dun Tharos. Elowen and Gunggari raced each other to see who would be first after the vampire; Elowen won. Marrec brought up the rear, noticeably slower than his two friends.
The forest-infested ruin of Dun Tharos was silent in the gathering night. There was no sign of the blightlord.
Marrec screamed in frustration. Then, thinking Damanda might be playing them for idiots, he rushed back into the smaller antechamber, then on into the warehouse. Ash remained, as did Ususi, who had apparently recovered from her shock.
She asked Marrec, “What happened?”
The cleric continued forward until he stood again at Ash’s side. Then he said, “The blightlord escaped, again, but we destroyed her last servant.” He pointed with his spear where the final fragments of Bonehammer lay.
“Are you ok? I saw her try to lock gazes with you.”
“I’m fine,” answered the wizard. “Just took me a few moments to clear my head.”
Elowen and Gunggari returned.
Elowen said, “We are near to the center of Dun Tharos. I can nearly see the great trees that surround the Nentyarch’s old seat. Great trees, filled with life and energy, each one so tall and grand that you wondered how such a thing could exist…” The elf seemed overcome for a moment with memory.
Gunggari said, “If we are so hear, we should press forward, before the escaping blightlord can warn her master, and he can mount an answering defense.”
“The time has come, eh?” Marrec questioned his friend, strangely reluctant now that it had come to it.
His weakness persisted. His thoughts were muddied, and even Justlance seemed heavy in his hand. He didn’t want to come up against what would likely be his greatest test in such a condition, but there was no choice. He would endeavor to ignore his state. It was the final push.
The cleric took Ash’s hand again, intending to ask her if she was ready, though he knew she wouldn’t respond.
Ash surprised him by squeezing back, as if truly feeling the pressure of his grip. She looked at him, truly met his eye for just one amazing moment. In those eyes, Marrec found rest and the promise of renewed strength. He gasped, but already Ash’s grip had slackened to its usual flaccid strength.
Once more, Ash had shown forth her secret, inner power. The strength promised in her eyes grew and blossomed in the cleric’s flesh. Marrec felt hale and whole of body and mind. Moreover, for a fleeting moment, it felt as if his nascent connection with Lurue herself might return. The momentary bonding weakened immediately then winked out, but it left a lingering feeling of hope, and his renewed vigor didn’t hurt.
“Yes, the time has come to face the Rotting Man, even here in his place of power,” Marrec told Gunggari, but loudly enough to address everyone. “With Ash at our side, I believe we have a chance.”
“One moment, though,” cautioned Gunggari. He looked over to Ususi. “What of her? She met the vampire’s gaze. She could be under the blightlord’s influence.”
“Don’t be an idiot,” barked Ususi.
“It’s not idiotic to enumerate our weaknesses prior to battle.”
Ususi responded, “No simple glance by a blightlord can suborn my mind; I am stronger willed than that. She merely caught me off guardhad I been any less strong, yes, she might have had me. What you perceived as weakness was in fact my fighting off her insidious instructions. I’m happy to note that I was successful.”
Gunggari studied the mage, no expression crossing his face. Marrec knew the Oslander well enough to interpret the look. Gunggari didn’t trust Ususi’s words.
Marrec shrugged. Before Lurue’s absence, he had access to spells that might have cleansed any taint potentially remaining from the vampire’s gaze. He said aloud, “She seems fine.”
That earned him a quick smile from Ususi. Of course, he mentally vowed to keep an eye on the mage, too.
“It is time to beard th’e Rotting Man in his lair,” said Marrec. “Everyone ready?”