The beast, maddened with pain, spun in the square before the arena. The monster's hips brushed against the exposed brick core of the pit walls. The masonry fragmented and stained the creature's upper legs a dark ochre, matching its dusty claws. The beast slowed as its dead, trailing tail robbed it of speed, dragging through the rubble and catching on exposed beams before the monster's power tore it free. Kamahl continued his assault, more magically forged knives spinning on their trajectories toward the dragon. City guard corpses were still impaled on the creature's thorny armor, and the barbarian's attack thudded into the cooling bodies. The monster's thorny armor and the dead began to burn as the mystic metal vanished in gouts of flame. Kamahl knew the impromptu funeral pyres were the only ceremony the guardsmen were likely to receive in Cabal City.
The dragon recovered, finishing its turn and roaring at the barbarian, its teeth red with the blood of those already slain. Kamahl drew his sword, waiting for the beast's charge.
A new flare of magic lit up the street, surprising beast and barbarian. The combatants froze in the glare, the monster blinded and the city guards diving for cover. Kamahl stretched out his mind, trying to trace the origin of the power rippling through the ground. He felt for the stability and strength that he knew from his home mountains, but from the depths an alien magic seemed to poison the very street he stood on.
Pools of light expanded out of the ground, their blue radiance growing stronger and attacking Kamahl's eyes. Frothy ponds formed, stilled, and dimmed, and creatures erupted into the upper world.
Giant crabs surged from the holes, spreading out in a red tide. Their massive frames broke through the welter of brush. Claws tore out the dragon growth by the roots, revealing the cobblestones that had vanished under the beast's attack. The snapping of small tree trunks sounded across the battlefield as the crustaceans cleared a beachhead, their pincers shredding those obstacles they could not simply uproot by sheer strength.
The dragon blinked at the sudden activity, frozen in surprise. Then a building front, damaged by the battle, cascaded into the street and broke its trance. The monster breathed out a cloud of green mist, beginning a new bout of berserk growth. The potent breath swept up the street, settling over the scuttling crabs then reaching the barbarian. Kamahl closed his eyes and concentrated. Small flames leaped up from his clothes and gear, then grew until his entire body was encased in the pale flame. The sound of the fire was echoed in the hiss and crackle of new growth sprouting everywhere in the street. Cobblestones cracked as trees and bushes forced their way to the surface. The flames leaped from Kamahl's clothes to the ground and new tendrils of growth withered. The warrior started forward, the fire of his will burning a path through the resurgent vegetation. The flames lit the mist, and he moved as if in a fog.
The barbarian used his sword now, his fiery armor thinning, leaving him more exposed to the mist. The energy clung to his sword and each swing of his weapon cast a scything whip of power ahead to clear his path. The blade opened the way to the crabs' clearing.
The pools were still lighting the fading mist with their radiance. Kamahl felt immediate antipathy to the light. Its color pierced the eye, and his weapon's flame curled back behind him, expending his irrational hate into the vegetation at his back. The dragon was coming into view, and he could not afford distractions now.
The sea walkers showed no reactions to the barbarian's emergence from the new jungle, continuing to cut back growth. The dragon breathed again, its concentrated wrath billowing over the clearing. Many of the crustaceans were covered with growing plants, but they continued working, their claws now trimming grass and bushes from their fellow workers as well as the clearing's edge. A new surge of mer forces began to crowd the clearing. The crabs moved on, their claws now raised and threatening.
Kamahl cut his way along the perimeter of the encampment. The warrior surmounted a mound of rubble enabling him to look over the crab's clearing. New creatures dragged themselves from the pools, and the crustaceans charged the dragon. The giant reptile reared up, four legs waved in the air as it spun, its tail skimming through the crabs. The sea fighters were thrown up against a building front, their shells fracturing with a series of crackling sounds. The dragon's dead tail still had mass, and the reptile used it like a club, slamming it into the structure's facade. Rubble cascaded down over the broken shells.
The giant monster moved into the arena's square, the street's buildings blocking the barbarian's view. Kamahl now had to skirt the new forces creeping out of the pools. Small humanoids with huge heads crawled out onto the surface gingerly, their whiskers trailing on the ground. The barbarian recognized the amphibians. The tresias were sometimes found in highland caves. The street was filling with these new arrivals, and Kamahl swore as they blocked the way. The blind creatures' great claws scraped over the rubble and slashed mounds of mown grass into mulch. The barbarian was nearing the square, and his lashing flame blade scythed away the undergrowth. The dragon screamed and came back into view. It stomped a crab into jelly, and pounds of meat squirted out between the animal's clawed toes. It began to move up the street.
The amphibians' oversized heads rose up, orienting on the giant monster. A surreal and hypnotic radiance pulsed out toward the common enemy-faint in the sunlight and dust of battle but commanding all the same. Kamahl caught only a brief glimpse, and it mesmerized him. The battle faded away as his mind lost itself in a play of color. His training strained to break the silken mental bonds, to reassert his mastery. The barbarian's struggles cleared his mind, and as his sight came back, he found himself turned around, facing down the street, away from the dragon and toward the tresias. He shifted his eyes away, avoiding the hypnotic trap that tried to ensnare him once more. From the corner of his eye he could see more crabs coming forth, these falling upon the rubble and vegetation to expand the beachhead.
As the hypnotic power of the tresias seemed to dim, a new wave of reinforcements crawled from the depths below. Kamahl shuffled to the side in atavistic reaction as the new marine fighters rolled and oozed over the landscape. The cephalid soldiers hauled themselves by their tentacles out of the pool. Bags of flesh, they left a trail of slime as they slithered over the cobblestones.
Though they lay like dead jellyfish cast up on the beach by a storm, each grasped a weapon. Spear guns and tridents dug at the dirt as the invaders rested for a few precious seconds then resumed their drive on the still-bemused monster. The hypnotic tresias light vanished as each amphibian collapsed, hanging their heads and starting to crawl back on their fragile limbs toward the pools to the underworld. The cephalids and crabs parted as their blind compatriots returned, their manner showing the same disquiet with their allies that the barbarian felt.
Kamahl scaled the side of a building, his bruised hands leaving a tacky film of blood as he swarmed up the side. The sea forces had cleared a path, but he would not trust their company. By the time he reached the third story, the dragon sounded again, fury in its voice as it overcame the amphibians' spell. The barbarian chinned himself to the rooftop and turned to run toward the giant monster, finally free of the undergrowth and mer warriors below.
The cephalids attacked the dragon, propping their projectors on rubble and bodies from the battle. The shafts flew wildly, and Kamahl congratulated himself on seeking higher ground. Incompetence and inexperience could kill as quickly as malice. A few bolts from spear guns snapped into reptilian flesh though most landed on rubble and cobblestones. The projectiles discharged showers of sparks, and the barbarian detected the same energies that fed lightning storms. The mountain warrior conjured an axe of flame and threw it with all the force at his command. The conjured weapon spun through the air and slammed into the shoulder of the convulsing dragon. A charred circle expanded as the magic destroyed the thorny armor to show the hide beneath.