“Agreed,” said Jack. Narm, Kurzen, and the rest followed with brief nods or “ayes.”
The Warlord looked to Kilarnan and Halamar. “Spells first,” she said. “Strike together when you are ready.”
The mages briefly conferred, then began summoning their magic. Jack poised himself to make a sprint for the mythal stone as the rest of the party readied their weapons. Then Kilarnan unleashed a spell of chained lightning at the drow warriors standing on one side of the plaza, while Halamar conjured a huge ball of fire that burst in a great explosion on the other side. Dozens of drow fell beneath the leaping blue arcs of lightning cascading from one warrior to the next or shrieked and flailed in the roaring flames of Halamar’s spell. Instantly Jelan leaped out of hiding and led the way as she charged across the plaza, roaring a battle cry; Monagh and Wulfrad followed only a step behind her, throwing themselves against their foes. Even as the adventurers hammered into the battered ranks of the dark elves, Kilarnan and Halamar were working new spells, while drow mages retaliated with bolts of ice and blasts of lightning back at the adventurers.
Jack waited a few moments to get a sense of how the fighting might shape up, then drew the drowish rapier at his belt and darted out into the plaza with Narm, Kurzen, and Arlith close behind him. Narm and Arlith were swept up into the furious melee, peeling away to meet drow warriors moving to intercept them, but Jack and Kurzen dodged through the press and reached the mythal stone. Jack pointed Kurzen at Jaeren and turned on Jezzryd. “Cut them down!” he cried.
The sorcerers glanced at Jack and went back to their work. Jack simply stepped forward and thrust his rapier straight at Jezzryd’s heart-but an inch before the steel point pierced the sorcerer’s robes, a green field flashed into visibility around Jezzryd’s body, stopping the point as surely as if Jack had stabbed a stone wall. An electric jolt like a buzzing of angry wasps ran up the hilt and through Jack’s arm, so sharp and intense that he dropped his blade with a cry of pain. Ten feet away, Kurzen fared no better-the warhammer he leveled at Jaeren’s skull rebounded with such force that he staggered and fell, swearing.
“Your efforts are futile, Lord Wildhame,” Jezzryd remarked. “But you may continue them if you wish.”
Kurzen picked himself up and tried to bodily tackle Jaeren, but he rebounded as before. “Damn it all,” he growled. “Jack, what do we do?”
Jack stared, helpless. He could feel the mounting power of the mythal. The sorcerers could scour all life from the plaza with a mere thought if they decided to. In pure desperation he shouted, “Guard me!” and stepped forward to brush his fingertips against the mythal stone, reaching out with his arcane senses and opening himself to the intangible flow of mystic energies that seethed around the wild mythal.
The torrent was powerful enough to stagger him where he stood, but he kept his feet and fixed his mind on sending the device into dormancy again. To his amazement the raging column of magic visibly dimmed and weakened … but then Jaeren and Jezzryd, standing on the opposite sides of the stone, detected his interference and redoubled their own efforts to feed the stone’s churning power. “You have outlived your usefulness, Ravenwild!” Jaeren snarled. “Continue this interference at peril of your life!”
“I believe I will take my chances,” Jack replied. He tried to shape a force-missile spell to blast the drow sorcerer, but the instant he diverted his attention from the struggle for control of the mythal’s power Jaeren shaped the torrent into a blazing emerald flame that nearly incinerated him on the spot. Only a desperate mental lunge for the unseen strands of power saved Jack; he retaliated with the same attack, but Jezzryd interposed an impenetrable barrier, protecting his brother. The mythal’s power was a knife, lethal and beautiful, poised directly between them-and like three warriors struggling over a single blade, whichever one of them lost his focus or will first would die.
In the corner of his eye Jack observed the battle raging around the mythal plaza. A drow warrior ran through the tattooed fighter Monagh from behind, slaying him as he battled two other dark elves. The guard-sergeant Sinafae leveled her crossbow at Jack, but Kurzen barreled into the dark elf and knocked her down. Sinafae slashed Kurzen across the midsection with the short sword in her other hand, but the dwarf’s armor held, and he smashed her shoulder and breastbone with his hammer. Narm tore into drow warriors with a berserker’s fury, leaping and darting like a cornered tiger.
In the center of the plaza, Myrkyssa Jelan faced Dresimil Chumavh. “I have seen that no spell can harm you,” Dresimil snarled at the Warlord, “but Lolth strengthens my hand, human. Let us see whether you are immune to my mace.” An aura of pale white fire seemed to surround the drow marquise, empowering her with the Spider Queen’s blessing; the silver scepter in her hands flew and struck like a switch of willow, but each blow shattered flagstones or pulverized blocks in the walls. It was all Jelan could do to avoid Dresimil’s attacks.
Jaeren and Jezzryd’s grasp on the wild mythal grew ever stronger, and Jack felt his hold beginning to slip. Jezzryd shielded his brother, guarding for both of them, while Jaeren bent his full attention to Jack’s destruction. One opponent Jack might have been able to stand against; after all, it was his mythal. But two working together were rapidly overwhelming him.
“Excellent, my brother!” Jaeren shouted within the coruscating sheets of raw magic. “Feed me more strength, so that I may finish this impudent human!” Jezzryd heard his twin and responded, pouring his strength into the mythal. Jack’s knees buckled and he sagged to the floor, fighting for nothing more than sheer survival.
Behind him, Dresimil cornered Myrkyssa. “And you were supposed to be impossible to defeat,” she laughed, and drew back for one blow of overwhelming strength. The silver mace rose high into the air, and then came down-but instead of attempting to parry the blow that could not be stopped, Jelan dropped her katana, reached up with her hands to seize Dresimil’s hands on the grip of the mace, and allowed herself to fall under the blow. With all her strength she pulled down on the mace, adding her strength to Dresimil’s Lolth-granted might, and allowed the drow noblewoman to overbalance. Dresimil struck the cold flagstones face-first, landing on her head and shoulders as she flipped over Jelan. Dresimil struggled to right herself, but Jelan was quicker. She seized the katana on the floor beside her, gripped it at hilt and mid-blade, and punched ten inches of its chisel-like point through the mail covering Dresimil’s chest.
Myrkyssa Jelan rolled to her feet and stood. “And you supposed that magic made you invulnerable,” she said. “Give your dark goddess my regards.” She looked for another foe, just as one of Dresimil’s bodyguards nearly killed her with a sword-slash across the ribs. Jelan cried out and staggered back, a hand clapped across her wound, but before the dark elf could finish her, a small crossbow quarrel appeared in his left cheek, and he sagged to the ground unconscious. Arlith bared her teeth in a fierce grin from her place at the edge of the plaza and drew back her string for another shot.
Emerald fire crackled around Jack, mere inches from consuming him. He felt his strength beginning to give out … but Myrkyssa’s ploy suggested a desperate gambit. Rather than directly resisting Jaeren’s power, he abruptly shifted the nature of his defense, throwing his effort into deflecting Jaeren’s attack toward the mythal itself and recklessly drawing as much power as he could to aid the effort. The mythal’s magic was caught, absorbed, and magnified to be returned an instant later. With each heartbeat the magical conflagration doubled and redoubled in strength.