But then it was Praehotec who was screaming, terrible, awful wails of agony, for as the demon’s foot entered the sheet of golden light, it was consumed, torn and ripped away.
Brind’Amour’s hands, glowing a fierce blue to match his own robes, came up to meet the duke’s charge. He caught Paragor’s hands in his own and could feel the disease emanating from them, a withering, rotting touch. Brind’Amour countered the only way he knew how, by reciting chants of healing, chants of ice that would paralyze Paragor’s invisible flies of sickness.
Paragor twisted and growled, pressing on with all his might. And Brind’Amour matched him, twisted and turned in accord with each of the duke’s movements. Then Paragor yanked one hand away suddenly, breaking the hold, and slapped at Brind’Amour’s face.
The old wizard intercepted with a blocking arm, accepting the slap, and his forearm, where his unprotected skin was touched by the evil duke, wrinkled and withered, pulling apart into an open sore. Brind’Amour responded by slamming his own palm into Paragor’s nose, and where the blue touched Paragor’s skin, it left an icy, crystalline whiteness, the duke’s nose and one cheek freezing solid.
Gulping for breath, the evil duke grabbed Brind’Amour’s hand with his own and the struggle continued. Paragor tried to pull Brind’Amour to the side, but to the duke’s surprise, the old wizard accepted the tug, even threw his own weight behind it, sending both of them tumbling down the hall, away from Luthien and Praehotec.
Luthien gawked at the spectacle, as Praehotec, unable to stop the momentum, sank more and more of its foot, then its ankle, into the light.
No, Luthien realized then, not light. Not a sheet of singular light, as he had first thought, but a swirling mass of tiny lights, like little sharp-edged diamonds, spinning about so fast as to appear to be a single field of light.
How they ate at the demon flesh, cutting and gobbling it into nothingness!
Everything turned red then, suddenly, as Praehotec loosed another of its powerful eye bolts, and an instant later, Luthien felt the demon’s blood and gore washing over him. He twisted and squirmed and looked up to find Brind’Amour’s protective barrier gone, along with half of Praehotec’s leg. The demon’s acidic lifeblood gushed forth, splattering the wall and floor and Luthien.
He took up his sword and rolled out from under the wounded demon, came up to his knees just as Oliver, rapier held before him, came gliding past with Estabrooke, the Dark Knight’s great sword glowing a fierce and flaming white.
Luthien tried to rise and join them, but found that he hadn’t the strength, and then Katerin was beside him, bracing his shoulders, hugging him close. She kissed him on the cheek—and he saw that she had taken a cudgel from one of the dead guards.
“I must go,” she whispered, and she scrambled up and ran off, not toward Oliver, Estabrooke, and the demon, but the other way.
Luthien looked back to see Brind’Amour and Paragor rolling and thrashing, alternately crying out. The sight brought the young Bedwyr further out of his stupor; he could control his muscles once more, but how they ached! Still, Luthien knew that he could not sit there, knew that the fight was not yet won.
“Ick!” Oliver said, skidding to a stop before he hit the puddle of demon gore.
Praehotec, leaning against the wall, didn’t seem to notice the halfling. It looked right over Oliver’s head to the shining sword and the armored man, this cavalier, this noble warrior, a relic of a past and more holy age. The demon recognized what this man was, the most hated of all humankind.
“Paladin,” Praehotec snarled, drool falling freely to the floor. Out came the great leathery wings as the beast huffed itself up to its most impressive stance, straight and as tall as the corridor would allow, despite its half-devoured leg.
Oliver was impressed by the fiend’s display, but Estabrooke, crying to God and singing joyfully, charged right in and brought his sword down in a great sweeping strike. The halfling watched his courage, knew the demon’s word, and understood what this man they had met on the fields of Eradoch truly was. “Douzeper,” the halfling muttered.
Estabrooke sheared off Praehotec’s raised arm.
The demon’s other arm came around, battering the man; twin beams became one before Praehotec’s eyes, flashing out, searing through the knight’s armor, aimed at his heart. The stump of the demon’s other arm became a weapon as Praehotec whipped it back and forth, sending a spray of acidic blood into the slits of Estabrooke’s helm.
Still Estabrooke sang, through the blindness and the pain, and he slashed again, gouging a wing, digging into the side of the demon’s chest with tremendous force.
Praehotec, balanced on just one foot, rocked to the side and nearly tumbled. But the beast came back furiously, with a tremendous, hooking blow that rang like a gong when it connected with the side of Estabrooke’s helm and sent the cavalier flying away, to crumple in the corner near to the battered door.
Finally, the wizards broke their entanglement, each scrambling to his feet, dazed and sorely stung. Several lesions showed on Brind’Amour’s skin and the sleeves of his beautiful robes were in tatters. Paragor looked no better, one leg stiff and frozen, icy blotches on his face and arms. The duke shivered and shuddered, but whether it was from the cold or simple rage, Brind’Amour could not tell.
Both were chanting, gathering their energies. Brind’Amour let Paragor lead, and when the duke loosed his power in the form of a bright yellow bolt, Brind’Amour countered with a stroke of the richest blue.
Neither bolt stopped, or even slowed, the other, and both wizards accepted the brutal hits, energy that struck about their heads and shoulders and cascaded down, grounding out at their feet, jolting them both.
“Damn you!” Paragor snarled. He seemed as if he would fall; so did Brind’Amour, the older wizard amazed at how strong this duke truly was.
But Paragor was nearing the end of his powers by then, and so was Brind’Amour, and it was not magic, not even a magical weapon, that ended the battle.
Katerin O’Hale crept up behind the wizard-duke and slammed the cyclopian cudgel down onto the center of his head, right between the hair “wings.” Paragor’s neck contracted and his skull caved in. He gave a short hop, but this time he held his footing only for a split second before falling dead to the floor.
There was no rest, no reprieve, for Praehotec. Before the demon could turn around, Oliver’s rapier dug a neat hole between the ribs of its uninjured side, and more devastating still was the fury of Luthien Bedwyr.
Luthien did not know that word Praehotec had uttered—“paladin”—but he knew the truth of Estabrooke, knew that the man was not just any warrior, but a holy warrior, grounded in principles and in his belief in God. To see him fall wounded Luthien profoundly, reminded him of the evil that had spread over all the land, of the sacrilege in the great cathedrals, where tax rolls were called, of the enslavement of the dwarfs and the elves. Now that fury was loosed in full, defeating any thoughts of fear. Luthien slashed away relentlessly with Blind-Striker, battering the demon about the shoulders and neck, pounding Praehotec down onto the sheared leg, which would not support the beast’s great weight.
Praehotec tumbled to the ground, but Luthien did not relent, striking with all his strength and all his heart. And then, amazingly, Estabrooke was beside him, that shining sword tearing horrible wounds in the demon.
Again Praehotec’s rage was aimed at the cavalier. The demon kicked out with its good foot and at the same time opened wide its maw and vomited, engulfing Estabrooke with a torrent of fire.
The knight fell away, and this time did not rise.
Luthien’s next strike, as soon as the fires dissipated, went into the demon’s open maw, drove through the back of Praehotec’s serpent mouth, and into the beast’s brain. Praehotec convulsed violently, sending Luthien scrambling away, and then the battered beast melted away and dissolved into the floor, leaving a mass of gooey green ichor.