“Tempest, back up!” he shouted over the roar of her eldritch flames.
She didn’t respond. The firestorm around her grew larger and hotter, forcing her opponents and Roghar back several steps. Smoke started to curl up from Travic’s robes.
Roghar let out a wordless shout and reached through the flames to grab Tempest’s shoulder, yanking her backward. Flames lashed out at his arm, and Tempest whirled on him, ready to throw a handful of hellfire at what she perceived as a threat behind her.
“Tempest!” Roghar shouted again, lifting his shield to ward off the blast.
The blast never came, and the fury of the firestorm diminished a bit. He glanced over the top of his shield to see Tempest, eyes wide with shock, fear, and the dawning realization of what she’d almost done. Still using his shield to ward himself from her flames, he pushed past her to Travic’s side.
The gnoll stood over Travic’s body, its heavy spear clutched in both hands, its grin daring Roghar to come closer.
“I’ll take that dare,” Roghar muttered.
His first swing cut the brutal blade from the head of the spear, and his second cut a wide gash across the gnoll’s throat. Before it could fall, Roghar planted a kick in the center of the gnoll’s chest and sent it sprawling back into the clump of humans behind it.
As they staggered back from the corpse of their champion, Roghar dropped to one knee and rested his palm on Travic’s chest. Fierce joy surged through him, Bahamut’s delight in a battle well fought, and he felt Travic draw a ragged breath as healing power flowed through his body.
Roghar bared his teeth as he looked back up at the ragged humans. They stared at him in undisguised terror, then broke and ran back the way they’d come, making no effort to cover their retreat.
Roghar’s roar of triumph pursued them, echoing down the hall.
CHAPTER TEN
The hounds of the fey hunt crashed into Albanon’s thorn barrier as the smaller demons spilled out of the Whitethorn Spire. The first rider to reach the barrier stood in his stirrups, then disappeared, reappearing with a soft popping sound just outside of Albanon’s reach. Albanon’s mouth dropped open as he recognized Immeral, the eladrin they had met in Moonstair.
Albanon gripped his staff and braced himself for an attack, preparing an arcane shield he could throw up in case the eladrin’s spear or a demon’s claws came too close. In his surprise, readying that spell was all he could manage-all his thoughts of searing foes with fire or lightning had scattered like dry leaves in a storm wind.
Nodding a salute to Albanon, Immeral lowered his spear and charged the large demon. The other riders appeared behind him with a series of pops and engaged the smaller demons, slashing around them with long, slender swords.
They weren’t after us? Albanon thought, suddenly feeling very foolish.
He gestured to dismiss the thorn barriers where the hounds were still thrashing their way through, and the hounds surged forward, leaping at the demons with teeth bared. Albanon stared dumbly as a fierce battle erupted on all sides around him.
“Are you going to stand there like a statue while the priest dies?” Splendid chirped in his ear. The pseudodragon pushed off his shoulder and took flight, circling his head as she continued to speak. “Not that I would be terribly surprised. Or disappointed, come to think of it.”
The pseudodragon’s words jolted Albanon out of his stupor. Kri, still sagging with exhaustion, was surrounded by the smaller demons, which stood almost as tall as he was. They were built much like dwarves, and some part of Albanon’s mind wondered idly if these creatures had been dwarves that had been subjected to Vestapalk’s transformation. Kri looked as though he could barely lift his heavy mace, let alone swing it effectively, and the demons surrounding him were making the most of his exhaustion. Like wolves encircling a tired stag, they darted in from behind to slash with their four clawed arms while the demons in front of him concentrated on dodging and blocking the weak blows of his mace.
It took only an instant’s concentration for Albanon to work the same fey magic that had brought Immeral and the other hunters past his thorn barrier. He took a single step that carried him six long strides to Kri’s side. Demons growled in surprise all around him, but he stilled his mounting panic with a slow breath and extended his senses to feel the magic flowing all around him. As Kri had said, the magic was everywhere, and he found it easy to pinpoint the location of each demon, like an interruption in the flow, a snarl in the weave. With a short string of arcane syllables, he unleashed the merest fraction of the latent power in the weave of magic, causing the air around him to explode with fire. Searing flames engulfed each of the demons within five yards, but left Kri and the eladrin hunters untouched.
The injured demons raised a terrible keening cry of pain and shuffled back from Albanon. In that moment of respite, he put a hand on Kri’s shoulder.
“Gather your strength, my friend,” he said. “The fight’s not over yet.”
“I have no strength left,” Kri said.
“Call on Ioun’s strength, then. I can’t lose you now.”
A few of the demons fell still on the ground, flames smoldering on their bodies, and the others pulled together on one side of the fray, pinning Albanon and Kri between them and those that were locked in battle with the eladrin hunters. They crept forward cautiously, as if waiting for the next burst of fire to erupt around them.
“That’s right,” Albanon said. “You should be scared.”
He drew in his will as he lifted his staff above his head, then slammed the end of the staff down on the ground as hard as he could. The ground shook with the arcane power surging through it, and thunder pealed in front of him. The clump of demons was blasted back and scattered. When the rumbling ground settled, they all lay dead, leaving Kri and Albanon safely out of reach of any of the remaining demons.
Albanon turned to check on Kri. The old priest was clutching the stylized eye symbol of Ioun he wore around his neck, his eyes closed in fervent prayer. He looked a little stronger than he did before, but he was obviously not fully recovered. He drew a deep, shuddering breath and his eyes fluttered open.
“What’s wrong?” Albanon asked.
“It’s hard,” Kri said, shaking his head.
“Drawing on your magic?”
“No, the magic is fine. It’s harder to feel Ioun’s presence, though.”
“Can you fight?”
“I think so.”
The eladrin hunters and their hounds had surrounded the large demon, though a few of the smaller ones remained on their feet, mostly locked in deadly grapples with the hounds. A few hounds lay dying or dead, and as Albanon turned to look, the large demon struck a solid blow on one of the hunters, knocking him to the ground.
Albanon pointed the end of his staff at the towering demon, and a line of lightning joined him to the demon with a loud crack. Smaller bolts of lightning extended from the demon to strike two of the smaller demons nearby. Beside him, Kri stretched out both hands and bathed the demon and the downed man in brilliant white light. The demon writhed in pain from the twin assaults as the smaller demons collapsed. Immeral shot a smile over his shoulder at Albanon.
“That’s it!” Immeral cried. “It doesn’t have much fight left in it!”
The demon’s writhing stopped abruptly, and it fixed its small, gleaming eyes on Albanon. Its mouth opened and a voice came out-or two voices, rather. One was a bellowing roar befitting the body it issued from, and the other was powerful but strangely distant and alien … and familiar.
“So you appear again to disrupt this one’s plans,” the voice said.
Vestapalk! Albanon took an involuntary couple of steps back.
“Know this,” the voice continued. “You strive in vain against this one. The Plaguedeep is planted, and its touch spreads to all the worlds. You are far too late to stop what has already begun.”