Dancing back a pace for room, Greenwillow saw that Sunbright already bled in four places, including the side of his head below his topknot. Yet he ignored the wounds and watched his enemy, swiping at them so hard that his sword hissed in the air. But he was already grunting with the effort.
From the corner of her eye, Greenwillow saw Candlemas hammering on Sysquemalyn's chest. Thinking he'd gone mad, she shrilled, "Leave off your stupid feud and fight!"
"I am!" returned the bald mage. "I seek to shatter her mystic bonds!"
Abruptly, the feathered beings fluttered backward. Sunbright's sword, in one last swipe, ticked only an errant white foot, shearing toes. Immediately the barbarian dropped the tip of Harvester to the stone to rest and panted in great gulps of the hot, fetid air. Greenwillow wiped sweat from her face with her wrist, hissing as the salt burned in a long slash. Both warriors watched the leader of the fiends below.
The mighty pit fiend rolled its lips around its tusks as if tasting something foul. With a wave of clawed hands and a huge puff of wind, it blew the erinyes to either side of the cavern. Many, exhausted and wounded, crumpled like dust balls on the jagged stones and plummeted to crunch on dark rock, or plunged, sizzling, into the lava pit.
Then, glaring at its foes with blazing hatred, the archfiend jerked its hands as if snapping a stick.
The world dropped from beneath the humans' feet.
Sunbright had only a vague notion of what happened next.
A grinding, crashing, rumbling roar drowned out all sound. Rocks as big as huts were crushed to powder, splintered and shattered on more stones. The cavern walls lurched sickeningly, and fiends of every sort jumped and scampered to get away. The raven squawked and beat the air to gain height.
Only for a second did Sunbright fall; then a giant, invisible cushion blossomed under his rump and back. It vanished just as abruptly, and he crashed painfully, wracking his elbows and butt and head.
Amidst a roiling cloud of ashes and dust, he saw he'd landed on broken rubble. Cracks big enough to trap and snap his leg ran everywhere. Groggily he realized that the pit fiend had reached out with magic hands and yanked down the promontory they'd fought on. The fractured stone lay beneath them in a mound of boulders and gravel, and from under it leaked yellow blood such as Sunbright had never seen before.
But if he and Greenwillow had fallen half a hundred feet onto rock, how had they survived?
"Rouse, rouse!" barked Candlemas. "There'll be another wave!"
The podgy mage helped a shaken Sysquemalyn to her feet. Her invisible bonds had been broken, Sunbright noted, probably in the shock of the promontory collapsing. And if Candlemas, or Chandler, were on his feet, he must have triggered the spell that had cushioned their fall.
Now they lay at the bottom of the great cavern. Only the pit of boiling lava at its center was deeper, and Sunbright saw a yellow-red jet of it flung higher than the lip, burst, and drop like fiery rain. In the distance, seen through heat waves shimmering over the pit, hunched the pit fiend, shouting and waving and pointing-straight at them.
All around them, the sides of the cavern rose, somehow looking larger from below than from above. And just as populous. The yellow blobs were thicker than fleas. Skeletal warriors toted ancient pitted bronze swords, and spiked imps capered to attack while the surviving erinyes flapped clumsily overhead.
All this Sunbright took in with a glance, though there was much more he couldn't see, either because the hellish red light flickered too wildly, or because the craggy fissures in the cavern walls sucked up any glow while spilling shadows. That Candlemas could conjure at all was encouraging, for it meant-perhaps-that they were not entirely unprotected from magic.
Then the next wave arrived.
Sunbright heard the word "Lemures!" escape Greenwillow. He had time only to pick a platform-a raised rock fairly flat with gaps all around to slow the enemy-then they were fighting anew.
To Sunbright's eye, the lemures were pale yellow and half-melted, like badly dipped tallow candles. Vaguely human-shaped, their faces were naught but big black eyes like glass globes and sagging string-strung mouths. Folds of their skin hung in runnels, and long globs dangled from their outspread arms.
And there were hundreds of them.
The first to spill up the rubble mound Sunbright dispatched with his sword. Or so he thought. Aiming high, he smashed Harvester deep into the skull of a lemure to test its mettle. The sword's heavy nose penetrated deep, popping a black eye to spill gore, knocking the lemure to the ground with a split head. But the wound only spilled a yellow ichorlike pus before it snapped closed…
… and healed.
Quick as thought, Sunbright "killed" another five. He rammed the sword point straight into the mouth of a wretch, twisted to set the hook, and ripped. The lemure sank to blobby knees. A questing hand from the right, the barbarian sheared off at the armpit, so it landed squishily at his feet and flapped like a grounded fish. He slung wide to the right and bowled over another with a half-severed neck, slung left and chopped the leg from another so it toppled on its fellow, rammed again to drive Harvester's point through one head and pierce another crowding in from behind.
But the first lemure he'd killed had heaved itself up to its hands and knees, shrugged off its fallen comrades, and now stood upright again. The yellow pus had run off its skull; Sunbright could still see a white line from the wound. And the lemure was shorter, having used its own body to rebuild. But it attacked anew. So did another that lacked an arm, but was growing a new one.
And more were coming. The cavern was carpeted in yellow as lemures poured from holes in the ground, caves, or thin air, summoned by the howling pit fiend above the lava pit. Erinyes took to the air to avoid the pustular flood, and skeletal warriors and imps clattered out of the way or were trodden under.
Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of lemures deluged Sunbright, and none could be killed. His heart almost failed within him. "Staff of Garagos! We'll never stop these things!"
Surprisingly, a voice sounded by his ear. "Correct! They can regenerate indefinitely! Only a blessed blade can destroy them!"
It was Candlemas, who'd crooked first and fourth fingers to wield some spell from just behind the warrior's protection.
Sunbright stabbed, hacked, stabbed again. "You enchanted my blade! That day, by the river, with magic potion!"
"That was a lie! You needed confidence!"
Sunbright swung hard enough to almost tag Candlemas. "I need to kill you when we get out of here!"
"I'd be glad to die anywhere outside the Nine Hells!" retorted the mage. Then he hollered, "Duck!"
Hollering "Volhm!" the mage slapped his finger-extended hands together.
Sunbright scooched low, but still a clap of thunder almost bowled him into the mass of lemures pressing him. He was blinded as a lightning bolt scorched the air.
Like the breath of a god, a hole appeared in the packed ranks of fiends. Scores of shuffling, dripping lemures were obliterated, blown to fragments and steam by the fearsome bolt. Yellow glop sprayed in the air and fell like hot rain. The ground itself was charred and streaked, and the acidic stink of burned, undead flesh hit the humans and half-elf like a hammer across the nose. Greenwillow and Sunbright gagged, and even the protected mages covered their faces. The air, already thick with yellow smoke, grew foul enough to cut. Stunned, the nearest lemures paused in their attack. But the hordes behind merely tramped on, climbing over their insensate fellows. More pus was crushed from yellow bodies, until it ran in rivers and spilled into the lava pit, where it hissed and steamed and stank abominably.