With an ominous sucking sound, the spinagons detached themselves from the wall. Now that the gaps were no longer needed, they were free to join the battle. Slayer hissed foully to two of the fiends, and the pair began threading their way through the melee-directly toward Kern.
"They intend to capture the Hammerseeker!" Kern heard someone cry.
The fiends brought out a net lined with heavy lead weights, and Kern tried to lunge out of the way, hoping he would be able to move fast enough to escape entanglement.
Then the fiends stopped abruptly, staring in confusion. So did the young warrior. Suddenly there were a half-dozen Kerns standing in the courtyard, each identical to the other, all looking equally dumbfounded. The fiends hesitated, not certain which was the real Hammerseeker. When they finally cast the net over one, the image vanished in a puff of smoke.
Kern didn't waste the second chance.
"Scatter!" he shouted to his mirror images. He dashed through the throng as five replicates of him did likewise. Luckily, the fiends chased after one of the fakes. Kern breathed a sigh of relief, casting a look of gratitude in Listle's direction. The elven mage was deep in concentration, preparing another spell.
"Fall back!" Anton's baritone boomed out over the courtyard. "To the temple!"
Fending off blows as he went, Kern retreated up the steps of the temple and into the columned portico. Sir Rialad was the last one inside the protective aura Tarl and several other clerics had cast to guard the entrance. A score of ebony-clad warriors dashed toward the temple, but when they reached the steps, they were instantly immolated by crackling fire. In moments, nothing was left of them but charred husks.
Slayer hurled a ball of jet-black magic against the aura. The dark magic was dissipated harmlessly, but the blue glow dimmed alarmingly for a moment. When it shone forth again, it was not as bright as before.
"I'm afraid the protections won't hold for long," Tarl said grimly. "That fiend must be a powerful sorcerer."
"Then we'll have to rely on our hammers," Sir Rialad said bravely. "We cannot let it capture The Oracle of Strife."
Another dusky sphere struck the shimmering ward that guarded the entrance. The aura wavered, then disintegrated in a shower of azure sparks. With cries of blood-lust, the armored warriors surged up the temple's steps, their black swords clashing in a deadly cacophony with the hammers of the clerics of Tyr.
Kern saw the abishai, Slayer, wade through the fray. As it drew closer to the temple the fiend brought out a golden ring and slipped it over a clawed finger. Suddenly the abishai blinked out of sight. Kern drew in a hissing breath. How could they fight an enemy they couldn't see?
The nine spinagons joined the fray, and the battle took a dire turn. The clerics of the temple were fighters of courage and skill, but the otherworldly fiends had tipped the odds.
Kern watched in horror as Sister Briatha, the cleric who had blessed him before the battle, died screaming, impaled on the recurved talons of one of the spinagons. The monster shook off the woman's limp form, advancing on Kern, who barely fended off its cruel swipes with the whistling arc of his hammer. The clerics around him were in similar predicaments. Either the warriors or fiends alone they might have been able to handle, but both… Kern didn't allow himself to finish the gloomy thought. He gritted his teeth, sweat pouring from his brow, as he swung his hammer again and again.
"I think it's time to do something about those fiends," Listle said to nobody in particular. She called the words of a spell to mind, then murmured an arcane incantation. Suddenly a tiny, brilliant point of light appeared in her hand. She lifted her palm, and the sparkle of magical light fluttered through the air like a bumblebee toward its target. It was such an innocuous sight that the spinagon did not even notice it until the light buzzed around the fiend's head and flew inside its pointed ear.
Suddenly, the spinagon's eyes went wide. It let out a terrible, gurgling scream, and lashed out with its claws, striking at some unseen enemy.
Listle allowed herself a smile of satisfaction at the deadly spell she had cast. Though the battle was entirely in the fiend's imagination, the consequences would be very real and quite fatal.
In its frenzy, the fiend did not see the ebony warriors- its own allies-who died screaming under its clawed feet. Soon another of the fiends began to shriek in terror, lashing out wildly with its talons. The others soon followed suit. In seconds, all nine spinagons were whirling about the courtyard, slicing onyx-armored warriors to ribbons with their blind flailings.
Listle stared in surprise. She hadn't expected her spell to affect all of them! She was no expert on the art of summoning-illusion was her preferred school of magic-but she remembered that a group of fiends called into the world through a single spell were inextricably linked. She hadn't realized how deep that nexus ran. Not that she felt like complaining.
The fiends turned on each other, and in less than a minute all of them were dead. They'd torn each other to pieces trying to combat foes that didn't really exist.
"And some people think illusionists aren't worth anything in battle," Listle said with a sniff.
The remaining black-armored warriors were quickly dispatched by the clerics. Disheartened by the grisly spectacle of the dying fiends and by the apparent desertion of their leader, Slayer, the last warriors did not put up much of a fight.
But the threat was not over.
"A foe in the temple!" came a shout from within. Recognizing the voice as Tarl's, Kern and Listle rushed into the temple behind Anton and Rialad. Inside, they found the blind cleric guarding the table that held the magically warded Oracle of Strife and swinging his hammer at a foe only he could see. Two clerics lay dead before him, victims of the invisible enemy.
"Show yourself, coward!" Tarl growled. "Your enchantments won't hide you from me."
Suddenly a shadow form materialized before the white-haired cleric. It was the huge abishai, Slayer.
"Out of my way, weakling cleric of Tyr," the fiend snarled. "The Oracle is mine."
"On my honor, you are wrong on that count," Sir Rialad cried, leaping forward. With a snarl, Slayer conjured a crimson ball of flame, hurling it at the brave paladin. It burst against Rialad's breastplate, covering him with searing fire. Howling as his flesh began to singe and wither, Sir Rialad sank to his knees.
Kern moved to counterattack, but a fierce look from Slayer stopped him in his tracks.
"One step closer, and this fool cleric is the next to go up in flames." The fiend was pointing a gleaming talon at Tarl. The white-haired cleric abruptly froze, unable to move, magically bound by chains no one could see.
Kern halted, unsure what to do.
"The Oracle is mine," Slayer hissed, reaching out for the tome.
"By Tyr, you will not have it!" a hoarse voice croaked.
Sir Rialad, his flesh dark and cracked, lurched forward and fell onto the table, clutching The Oracle of Strife to his still-burning chest. Crimson fire licked at the ancient parchment, then flared, consuming book and paladin together in a gout of flame.
Slayer screamed in outrage and spun around, only to be blocked by Kern's hammer. The paladin-aspirant stood protectively in front of his father.
"You've lost, fiend," Kern growled, amazed at the steel he heard in his own voice.