“You fight well, shifter!” she said. Her sword flicked high, then dove low. Geth anticipated the feint and caught the sword on his own, turning it aside. He and Ashi sprang apart, and she added, “I can see why Ner claimed you at the Gatekeeper circle!”
Geth settled into a defensive posture, sword and gauntlet both up. From the corner of his eye, he could see Dandra skimming toward Vennet and Temmen. Her spear darted out like a shining crystalline serpent, a fast and lethal strike.
Temmen knocked the blow away with one end of his staff, then struck back with the other end, forcing Dandra to parry wildly with the butt of her spear. Vennet slipped easily around both combatants, a wicked grin on his face. “Not a spearman as such,” he called out, “but on short notice, I think an expert in the quarterstaff will do!”
Geth managed to block a flurry of hard blows from Ashi that left his arm stinging. “Singe!” Geth yelled. The wizard was on his feet, but fumbling as he drew his rapier. The fall had knocked the wind out of him. “Singe, we could use a spell!”
“Then stop leading us into places made of wood!” wheezed the wizard. He hauled himself upright and jumped clear of both Ashi and Vennet. He moved his hand in an arcane gesture and spoke a word of magic. Three of the cultists pitched over, their eyes closed in unnatural sleep. The chant of the others faltered and Geth felt the baleful shadow of their prayer fade.
“Storm at dawn!” cursed Vennet in frustration. The half-elf wasn’t, however, looking at the fallen cultist, Geth realized. As he whirled in combat with Ashi, he saw Vennet dodge back and forth for a moment, then heard him curse again. “One will do!” he spat. “Ashi, move!”
“No!” the hunter snarled. The same battle lust that Geth had glimpsed in Ner’s eyes at the Bull Hole flared in Ashi’s. “I claim his death!”
“Neither of you can have it!” gasped Geth. He spun around Ashi and slammed his gauntleted elbow back in a hard blow that sent her reeling away.
And left a clear path between him and Vennet. The Lyrandar captain’s eyes narrowed.
There was no parrying or blocking the gust of wind that blasted out from him. It hit Geth like a moving wall and shoved him back. He caught half a glimpse of mold-slick stairs running down to dark and murky water before the wind battered him right over the edge of the hole in the chamber’s center.
He slammed into the stairs hard and started rolling and sliding on the slimy surface. Instinct opened his hand, releasing his sword before some random jarring bounce could send it plunging into his own body. The bone-jarring, teeth-rattling impacts of his body and limbs on the stairs came too fast to count, but as abruptly as the wild ride had started, it was over-with a tremendous splash, he hit water.
It was brown-green, cloudy, and warm. Geth felt unnamable lumps and ropy strands touch him as he sank and it was all that he could do to overcome the instinct to inhale. He spread his limbs and kicked hard back toward the surface. As soon he broke the surface, he gasped for air-then gagged and choked as something slimy rippled off his face and slithered into his mouth. He spat convulsively. The water stank, foul with all the detritus of the marshes and Zarash’ak combined.
The enormous pillars and piles that supported the platforms of the City of Stilts spread out around him like a drowned forest at twilight. The bottom of the stairs were in front of him, though, a long broken smear on them marking his tumbling fall.
He kicked for them, threw an arm over a sludge-coated step, and hauled himself out of the water as a new wave of chanting rolled down from the cultists above.
The sound of it sent a chill through Geth.
“Grandmother Wolf!” he breathed, staggering to his feet. A sudden bubbling noise snapped his attention back to the water. Its foul surface was boiling as something rose from deep below.
The head that emerged from the water as big across as a large shield and armored, too-the vile slickness of the water shimmered on a mottled carapace like that of some enormous crayfish. Four powerful legs and a thick tale propelled the creature to the surface, while massive arms clacked jagged pincers as long as Geth’s own legs. Tentacles hanging below the enormous creature’s head writhed, questing toward him.
Geth scrambled up the stairs, scooting backward to avoid turning his back on the monstrous beast. His feet and hands slipped on the muck that coated the wood, but he kept going as the creature reared back and hauled its bulk out of the water onto the lowest step. Geth grabbed the step nearest him and held on desperately as the stairs pitched under its weight. A high snarl of fear ripped free of his throat.
Dandra whirled around in time to see Geth plunge down the stairs and out of sight. A moment later, she heard a splash as he hit the water below. Temmen tried to take advantage of her distraction and pressed her hard. She beat back his staff, desperately trying to get away. Over the crack of wood against wood, she heard Singe speak the words of a spell-words that became an abrupt gasp of pain. She slid to Temmen’s side and twisted to look over her shoulder.
Singe was on his knees, clutching at the knife that sprouted from his arm. Ashi lowered the hand that had thrown the knife and took a step toward him. Vennet turned to Dandra, a look of triumph on his face. Temmen moved back in, his staff already falling.
We’re doomed! wailed Tetkashtai. Dah’mir will take us back-
“We’re not doomed!” hissed Dandra through clenched teeth. She swept her spear up to block Temmen’s blow, then spun the weapon, slid her right hand down on the shaft and wrenched back hard with her left, snapping the butt of the spear up and into the man’s groin. He skipped back before it could hit him, but it gave her the opening she needed. “And Vennet,” she spat as she pulled Tetkashtai close and reached into herself, “is not Dah’mir.”
The air rippled around her as she slid her body through the crevices of space. When she had used the power to escape the Bonetree hunters, she had stepped across hundreds of yards at once, pushing herself as far as she possibly could. The long step moved her much shorter distances as well, though.
She was beside Singe before Ashi had moved more than a pace. The wizard cried out in surprise, but Dandra dropped a hand on his shoulder. Her spear snapped up, swinging between the hunter, Vennet, and Temmen, all of them startled.
“Stay back!” she ordered. She glanced down as Singe pulled the knife free and clamped a hand around the wound. “Singe-”
“I’ve taken worse,” he hissed, then flinched as the cultists’ chant rose to a pitch.
Dandra’s breath caught in her throat as something big thrashed down in the water, bubbling and splashing and making a hard clacking noise that sent shudders up Dandra’s spine. The stairs leading through the hole in the floor flexed and moaned under some massive weight and a high-pitched snarl rose on the air.
“Geth!” Dandra moved toward the hole.
Singe grabbed her hand. “That was a summoning spell, Dandra! Get out of here!”
“Not a chance!” she said.
Ashi slid forward slightly. Dandra’s spear darted toward the hunter, but the instant she moved, Vennet and Temmen slid closer as well-and a figure dropped down through the gaping hole in the ceiling that Ashi and Singe had created. It fell right onto Temmen’s back, slamming him to the floor.
As everyone-Dandra, Singe, Ashi, Vennet, and the cultists-stared, an orc rolled away from the dazed man, darted to the head of the stairs and began chanting as well.
“Storm at dawn!” choked Vennet. Ashi spun around and leaped for the orc.
Dandra reacted without thinking. Power throbbed on the air as she drew whitefire up from within herself and gave it a tightly focused form. Pale flame flashed around Ashi and the hunter seemed to crumple in mid-stride, stunned by the intense heat.