The greater shaft of sunlight surrounding Elowen changed its focus, sliding smoothly away from the elf and toward the target identified by her pointing blade. Elowen yelled, triumphant “Meet the day unbound!”
Damanda screeched, backpedaling. The Rotting Man raised an eyebrow in apparent interest, nothing more. The shaft of light slid across the intervening blighted creatures without harm, moving more swiftly as it approached Damanda.
The vampire began to run, but the shaft of light caught her, just as Ususi’s second wand-aimed ray struck the elf hunter in the back. In a moment, Elowen was encased in a slab of amber-like crystal, unmoving.
The following beam of sunlight was undimmed and flashed full upon the fleeing blightlord. Damanda’s scream was so horrible that even the Rotting Man’s forces paused a moment to determine the vampire’s fate.
When the shaft winked out a moment later it was established once again what happens when a vampire is subject to sunlight.
It dies.
Marrec, having recently witnessed another vampire’s fiery death in similar fashion, recovered a moment quicker than the hollow-socketed satyr. His erstwhile foe sank to the earth, stupidly clutching a newly created third cavity in its skull, courtesy of the cleric’s spear.
The blighted unicorn turned away from the crystal-encased Elowen and charged Gunggari from the side. The Oslander avoided being disemboweled by the horn but received a nasty wound across his side.
Marrec saw that Ususi was back in control of her faculties. He’d have to trust her to release Elowen from the confinement she’d created. He lunged sidewise, catching the blighted unicorn with the untainted unicorn tip of Justlance. The contact instigated an instant and dramatic response from the blighted creatureits eyes rolled wildly; it reared, neighing, then it collapsed.
The scabrous wolf leaped again at Gunggari, growling and slavering. Again the Oslander beat back the wolf.
Marrec didn’t want to shift too far over to help the Oslanderhe needed to plug up the middle, between the Oslander and the slab of crystal holding Elowen otherwise nothing would protect little Ash who still sheltered at his back.
Ususi finally found her voice, cried out, “I can release the elf,” then began casting anew.
Gunggari’s dizheri finally found purchasethe wolf yelped, rolled, then ran off into the mist. Another creature immediately moved to take its placea twigblight.
Worse, additional blighted creatures threatened to break around the other side of Gunggari, Marrec, and Elowen’s line that protected Ash. Ususi remained in the midst of a spell. Marrec quickly counted all that still stood between himself and the Rotting Man. He estimated only about ten or so enemies. With his connection to Lurue back, he wondered if he couldn’t catch them allor at least mostin a burst of holy power tuned to banish evil.
Ususi finished her last spell. With a tinkling of shattering glass, Elowen shed her crystal containment. The elf shook her head, looking around to see what she had missed.
“Hold, my creatures,” spoke the Rotting Man.
The blighted creatures paused in their onslaught, uncertain of their master’s command. Marrec and Gunggari paused, too, wondering what deal the Talontyr might be willing to offer. The Talontyr was getting nervous, guessed Marrec
“I tire of this game. I begin to think you’ll pierce my defenses, and what? You’ll attack me directly, Talona’s Chosen?” The Rotting Man laughed.
Marrec considered throwing Justlance right then, or perhaps moving just a bit closer in order to bring his gaze to bear, but the Rotting Man continued speaking. “While it might be edifying for you to begin such a contest, it is beneath me. It’s more fitting, really, that you meet your end at the hands of that which you’ve come so far to meet.”
The Rotting Man half turned on his seat, still choosing to sit even in the presence of his enemies. He waved his hand toward the great cyst bulging from the base of the tree behind his throne. He said, “Yes, Talona informed me far ahead of time of the Green Powers’ gift to the world I moved to intercept it. I grew the Thieving Ash to snare the divine energies of the gift as it was born into the world Those energies are contained therein, infused with my own special touch, Talona’s blessing, and the goad of continual pain.”
Marrec whispered, “Thieving Ash?” He looked around at the girl behind him. The child’s eyes focused then on the cyst, as if she expected something wonderful to emergeor something terrible.
The Talontyr, nearly giggling in sudden glee, continued, “Yes, the child there with you is the portion of the Green Powers’ gift that slipped through my fingers. Thank you for delivering it to me. Finally! The entire gift is now mine.”
“Behold, then,” continued the Talontyr, “what has become of the Aspect of Light. Behold Talona’s Step-Daughter!”
The fleshy flaps obscuring the partially burst cavity heaved and ripped. A fantastically large bubble of blood swelled darkly from the fissure, and immediately burst, releasing a wave of liquid in every direction. Shrieking, the blighted creatures surrounding the throne scattered before the scarlet flood, though the Rotting Man laughed as the stinking bile poured over him.
Something still fought to free itself from the cystsomething too large for Marrec to immediately comprehend. It heaved itself free of the cavity, showing first a vast expanse of festering flesh twenty or thirty feet on a side, like the side of a hill come to life. The heaving, pulsing body was supported by four wide legs, elephantine in their simplicity and shape but larger, yet the struggling monstrosity, when it finally extricated itself from its woody chrysalis, was headless. It was a vast mass of gross flesh supported by four massive legs with no front or rear, only body. Except… something protruded from the creature.
A slender horn, convoluted and fluted, but straight and spear-sharp at the end, jutted from the infeeted flesh. The horn was over fifteen feet in length if it was an inch, yet Marrec recognized its likeness from the first. The horn was like a unicorn’s.
“Abomination!” The words tore themselves from Marrec’s throat. The wrongness of the creature, the warped nature of its existence, the plight of the Giftit was all too much for the cleric to bear. He ran forward, past the throne on which the Rotting Man sat. A look of intense concentration suffused the Talontyr’s face, but Marrec barely noted it as he moved closer to the vast bulk.
Gunggari ran forward with Marrec. The Oslander was more nimble than Marrec remembered, jumping and leaping ahead with newfound vigor. Perhaps it was the influence of the Nentyarch’s final vial? Gunggari moved so quickly that he passed the cleric, running up so he was nearly beneath the Daughter. Utilizing his forward charge, Gunggari swung his dizheri around, two-handed, delivering a mighty blow upon the creature’s lower flank. The Daughter’s flesh rippled, and from somewhere, though no orifice was visible, a basso scream erupted.
The Daughter’s single horn slashed through the air with uncanny speed, nearly decapitating Gunggariit would have, were it not for the Oslander’s newfound quickness.
Marrec began incanting a spell, a spell he’d been unable to cast for months, a defensive spell. As soon as he felt its protective embrace enfold him like an old friend long missed, Marrec continued forward. He would try first his newfound connection with Luruehe would try to turn the creature from its present course, perhaps break it from the control of the Rotting Man.
Bringing his spear up, Marrec bellowed, “Lurue commands that you give way, abomination. Turn your face and be destroyed.”
His spear head, its shape that of a stylized unicorn horn, blazed with golden light. Unlike when he had tried this same ability against the vampires, his power did not break. He radiated a surge of holy power, which washed upon and over the Daughter.
The creature’s entire bulk shook, and a deep cry issued again from some unseen maw, but the creature would not be turned from its directive. The horn slashed forward, elongating as it moved, spearing at Marrec with a life-ending thrust. If not for the cleric’s just-cast defensive spell, he’d have been skewered. Still, the shock of the thrust sent him stumbling back.