Aoth pivoted again and hurled three lightningbolts down the hall in quick succession. The flashes dazzled Gaedynn, and the booms hurt his ears.
Afterward, Aoth lowered his spear and turned away from the steaming, twisted corpses he’d just created and the several small fires he’d started. Evidently this particular fight was over.
Gaedynn wiped the blades of his swords, returned them to their scabbards, and retrieved his bow. “That was quite… enthusiastic, there at the end.”
Aoth grunted. “After the Spellplague touched me, I was blind for a while. I suppose it’s the kind of experience that leaves a mark. Is everyone all right?”
“Not too bad,” Jhesrhi said. “I have an elixir to numb the pain and keep us on our feet.” She took a little pewter vial from her belt pouch, unscrewed the stopper, and took the first swallow herself. Gaedynn knew why. She would have found it difficult to drink from the container after someone else put his mouth on it.
As she handed the vial to Gaedynn, Aoth stooped over one of the Green Hands, then cursed. Gaedynn peered at the corpse and felt like doing the same.
Aoth possessed inhumanly keen sight, but even so, this was the first clear, close, unhurried look that he or his comrades had had at one of the killers. And now the unexpected shape of the hood was apparent. Or rather, the shape of the head inside it.
Aoth ripped the cowl away.
“We have to get to Khouryn,” Jhesrhi said.
Medrash’s helpless coughing made it impossible to recite any of his prayers. The pain burning throughout his respiratory system, and the knowledge that he could easily die breathing the poisonous vapor, further impaired his ability to focus his will.
But he would focus it. He had to help his comrades-and besides, the body and its distress were not the ultimate reality. Torm and his glory were.
He reached out to the god, and power like frigid spring water poured into him. He infused it with righteous fury, shaping it into a weapon, then brandished his sword. Flares of white light leaped from the blade to stab at the figures at the bottom of the stairs.
The attack rocked the Green Hands backward. Nearly tripping, Medrash staggered over the fallen Balasar, tried to slip past Khouryn, and again discovered he couldn’t advance any farther. He’d hurt the Green Hands, but not enough to make them lose control of the psychic wall they’d created.
He channeled more power, though it was even harder this time. He fixed his gaze on one of the killers and willed him to climb the stairs and come within reach of his sword.
The Green Hand took one lurching step. Another. Then, however, he gave a harsh, wordless cry, stopped, and retreated to his original position.
Blackness swam at the edges of Medrash’s vision. His legs started to give way, and he had to drop his sword and clutch the banister to keep from falling.
Torm’s glory was limitless, but a mortal’s capacity to draw from it was not. Medrash judged that at best, he could channel power one more time before he collapsed. He groped beyond himself, beyond the physical world into a brighter, purer realm, and the god granted a final gift of strength.
But how to use it, when his previous expenditures of power had accomplished nothing? He gripped Khouryn’s massive shoulder, which jumped repeatedly as the dwarf coughed, and employed the energy to bless him. To strengthen his body and mind alike.
Khouryn stumbled down one riser, almost losing his balance in the process. Then he hefted his axe and charged.
Unfortunately, his lungs were still full of poison, and his continued coughing slowed him and made him clumsy. Though caught by surprise, the Green Hands managed to recoil from his first strikes and ready their short swords.
But they evidently couldn’t do that and maintain the psychic pressure too. For when Medrash, still gripping the handrail, tried to head down the steps, he found that now he could.
He reeled toward one of the Green Hands to keep them both from attacking Khouryn. The murderer turned and lunged. The move was all-out aggression. Because after all, why worry about defense when his target was unarmed and all but spastic with pain and weakness? When the coughing would prevent him from even using his breath weapon?
But at least Medrash wasn’t breathing poison anymore, and he’d spent his whole life training for combat-first with the masters of arms of Clan Daardendrien, then with his paladin mentors. Feeble and awkward though he was, he found the right instant to slip the swordsman’s initial thrust, step beside him, and claw away the side of his throat. Blood sprayed from the severed arteries.
Medrash turned just in time to see Khouryn chop the remaining Green Hand’s leg out from under him, then cleave his ribs before he hit the floor. Clearly he too could hold his own even in adverse circumstances.
The dwarf nodded to Medrash, and he returned the gesture. Then a clatter of hurrying feet on the staircase reminded them the fight wasn’t over. Their other enemies were coming down. Evidently the lingering vapor wasn’t toxic to them.
Worse, after stepping over Balasar, they stopped partway down the steps. Medrash realized that however they’d created the smoke before, they meant to make some more. And he had no idea how he and Khouryn could contend with another dose.
But Balasar, who’d appeared unconscious-or as good as-raised the sword in his shaking hand and sliced the back of a killer’s leg. The murderer dropped, and his companion turned to look at him in surprise. Balasar thrust the sword up at him. The Green Hand flinched back from it, but in so doing lost his balance and tumbled down the steps.
With what was surely the last of his strength, Balasar repeatedly stabbed the man he’d hamstrung. Khouryn sucked in a deep breath, made a hiccupping sound as he kept himself from coughing it right out again, and charged back into the fumes-where he smashed the skull of the remaining Green Hand.
Medrash hoped that by now perhaps he’d taken enough breaths of relatively clean air to do something comparable. He’d better have, for he was sure Balasar couldn’t wait. He ran up the stairs, grabbed his clan brother’s arm-he hadn’t yet regained sufficient strength to lift him-and dragged him down and out of the cloud.
Then they all flopped down on the floor, coughed, and watched for other threats, although at first it was questionable whether they could do much about any that might appear. Gradually, though, the ache in Medrash’s chest subsided, and his strength started trickling back.
“You banged my head on every one of those steps,” Balasar wheezed.
“Sorry,” Medrash said. “Next time I’ll leave you swimming in poison.”
Three thunderclaps, or something that sounded like them, boomed somewhere overhead.
“I know that sound,” Khouryn said. “Aoth or Jhesrhi conjured lightning.”
Medrash looked at the staircase. The cloud was dissipating. “We should find out why. And I think I can cast a blessing to strengthen us so we’re fit to help them if they need it.”
“Good,” said Khouryn. “Do that. But before we move on…” He rose, reached for the hood on one of the corpses, and hesitated. Medrash peered at the body and realized what about it had surprised him.
Khouryn pulled off the hood to reveal the dragonborn head underneath. “By the Watchful Eye!” he growled, astonished. He unmasked another Green Hand. That one was a dragonborn as well.
The dwarf turned to his companions. “What does this mean?”
Medrash shook his head. “We have no idea. Let’s worry about it after we find our comrades.” He gripped his amulet and recited a prayer.
An exhilarating coolness tingled through his body and soothed the hot rawness in his throat and chest. He lifted the medallion and it shed a soft white light over his companions. A tautness went out of their faces as the healing eased them too.