Riven whirled a half-circle to face Azriim. The slaad bounded forward and let fly with a flurry of claw strikes. Parrying wildly, Riven gave ground, countering where he could. The slaad pressed, caught Riven in the chest with a claw, then a shoulder, and nicked his throat. Riven finally managed a more aggressive counterattack. He ducked beneath a claw strike and drove his saber half its length into Azriim's chest.
The slaad expectorated a spray of blood. Before Riven could finish him, Azriim bounded backward, hissing with pain as the saber withdrew from his flesh. Riven pursued but Azriim leaped upward and the leap never ended. The slaad went airborne, hovering near the ceiling, spattering the floor with his blood. Riven's slash hit only air.
Like Dolgan, Azriim's wounds, too, were closing before Riven's eyes.
Riven knew his situation was dire. The slaadi were faster than before, stronger, and they regenerated wounds that should have killed them. Riven was breathing hard and bleeding from a handful of painful wounds.
"You see it now, don't you?" Azriim taunted. "This isn't your temple. You're in your tomb."
Riven donned his sneer and answered, "What I see is you and your boy unable to close the deal." He put his fingers to the gashes on his face and they came away bloody. He looked at them, spat on the floor. "And if this is the best you have, neither of you are walking out of this room."
Azriim grinned. "I always liked you. It's unfortunate that I have to kill you,"
Dolgan roared a challenge.
Riven resolved to take at least one of the bastards with him before he died. He readied himself….
The darkness on the far end of the room behind Azriim deepened and Riven could not contain a grin.
"It's about godsdamned time," he said.
Cale had finally arrived.
Answering Dolgan's roar with a shout of his own, Riven charged the slaad.
Cale, Magadon, and Jak materialized in a large chamber in the tower they had seen through the leech, near a stairway leading upward. Doors dotted the walls of the chamber, and the whole room glowed a soft silver. Even through his boots, Cale could feel the magical power moving through the structure.
Azriim floated in the air in the center of the chamber with his back to the newcomers. Riven and Dolgan fought across the chamber. The assassin's blades whirled, darted, slashed. The big slaad held his ground and answered, lashing out with his claws.
Magadon drew an arrow to his ear, caused its tip to glow red with mental energy, and let it fly at Azriim.
The shaft sank to the fletching in the slaad's back. Azriim screamed, clutched at the tip protruding from his chest, and turned around. The scream distracted Dolgan and the big slaad also turned. Riven made him pay for his inattention.
The assassin drove a saber into the big slaad's throat, pulled the blade free, and swung a decapitating strike with his other saber. Somehow the big slaad kept his feet and ducked under Riven's slash. Blood poured from the hole in his throat. He held up one clawed hand and a small glowing ball appeared in his palm. Without a moment's hesitation, he threw it to the ground at his feet and it exploded into a ball of fire. Slaad and assassin flew backward from the point of the blast.
Cale, Magadon, and Jak raised their arms to shield themselves from the heat.
"The Tap," Cale reminded Jak, then drew Weaveshear and ran to Riven.
"You again, priest," Azriim said from near the ceiling. "My, but you are stubborn."
Cale risked a look up and saw the slaad pull Magadon's mentally-enhanced arrow through his body and let it fall to the floor. Magadon fired several ordinary arrows but they deflected off the slaad's hide.
"Enough of that," Azriim said, and launched a fireball from his palm at Magadon and Jak. The ball exploded in their midst, engulfing both of them in flames. When the flames dissipated, neither showed so much as a scorch mark on their clothes. Jak's wards had shielded them both from incineration.
Cale reached Riven's side and pulled him to his feet. Burns covered the assassin's face and hands. His good eye was seared shut.
"They've transformed," Riven said through his burned lips. "More powerful now."
Cale nodded and hurriedly incanted his most powerful spell of healing. Mask's power flowed through him to Riven and the assassin's burns vanished entirely.
Riven smiled his thanks, hefted his blades.
Ten paces away, Dolgan laughed. "That hurts," he said, and lifted himself to all fours.
Cale ignored him.
"I'm here for the Tap," he said to Riven. "We kill it first, then we kill them. Where's the Sojourner?"
Riven shook his head. "He said he would not see the slaadi again. He's not in the tower."
Cale nodded, relieved despite himself. Still, he thought he knew where he would find the Sojourner when the time came.
Behind them, Dolgan found his feet, still laughing. His flesh was healing the burns even as he stood.
"I've got it, Cale," Jak shouted to his back. "It's here. In an upper floor."
Cale and Riven sprinted across the room. Above them, Azriim incanted a series of arcane words and a pulse of black energy spread from the slaad in a visible ring across the entire room. It could not be avoided.
When it hit Cale, he felt a preternatural cold seize him, but a ward that Jak had cast flared and chimed. Cale recognized it as a death ward. The spell might have killed him but for Jak's protective spell.
The slaadi had indeed transformed into something more powerful.
Similar chimes and flares sounded from the wards on Magadon and Jak. Unprotected, Riven gasped and stumbled. Cale shrouded him in shadows and kept him moving.
"Are you all right?" he asked Riven.
Riven waved and nodded. They reached Jak and Magadon near the stairs.
"Up," he ordered. "Keep the divination active, little man. The Sojourner is not here so we move fast."
He turned around to look at the slaadi. Azriim's spell appeared to have done no harm to Dolgan. Azriim floated down to the floor to stand beside the bigger slaad.
"Come back," Azriim taunted. "Things are only now getting interesting."
Cale ignored the taunt and ushered his friends up the stairs. He delayed a moment behind them and incanted a spell that summoned a wall of stone at the base of the stairs. The magic of the spell caused the edges of the wall to meld with the stone of the tower, blocking access.
It would only delay the slaadi, he knew.
"We should stand and fight," Riven said, seemingly recovered from the death spell.
"We will," Cale said. "But the Tap is first. The only way to stop the Sojourner is to kill it. This is bigger than our personal grudges."
"That's right," Jak said.
"Nothing is bigger than the personal, Cale," Riven said, but did not argue further.
Cale stared at him a moment, turned to Jak. "Which way, little man?"
"Follow me," Jak said.
The slaadi appeared behind them at the bottom of the stairs, bronze rods in hand. They had teleported through the wall.
"Go," Cale said to them.
Azriim and Dolgan rushed up the stairs, taking three steps at a stride. They raised their hands as they raced upward and balls of energy streaked out of them.
Cale stood in the path of the fireballs, held Weaveshear before him, and intercepted both before they exploded. Shadows poured from the weapon.
"Move," Cale called again over his shoulder, and his friends went. Cale pointed Weaveshear down the stairs and released the pent-up energy directly into the slaadi. The magic slammed into the creatures' chests, knocked both of them back down the stairs, and engulfed them in fire.
Both roared, leaped to their feet, and bounded back up the stairs. Their clothing was aflame and smoke poured from both of them.
Cale turned and sprinted after his friends. With his shadow-enhanced speed, he caught up with them quickly. They crossed another broad, bare chamber and found themselves at the foot of another set of stairs.