Vasen turned, kicked Sayeed flat, put his foot on the man’s abdomen, and tried once more to pull his blade free. Still it would not come loose. He cursed and left it.
Slipping out of the straps of his shield, he rushed toward Gerak, shouting the name of Amaunator as he ran, putting the power of his faith into his shield. The devil whirled as Vasen neared, and Gerak took the opportunity to stab it in the hindquarters. The creature snarled and loosed a handful of flaming spines that pierced Gerak’s face and chest, sent him stumbling back against the wall, shouting with pain and frantically trying to pluck the flaming projectiles from his flesh.
Vasen held the shield with both hand, the metal and wood warm in his grasp. The devil leaped at him, jaws wide, and Vasen slammed the edge of the shield down on its neck before it reached him. The blow drove the devil flat into the earth, cracking bones, and the power infusing the shield poured out into the creature. It screamed, spasmed, and died. Vasen grabbed the now-dim shield and hurled it to Gerak.
“Take it!” he said. “You know how to use it?”
“I was a soldier,” Gerak said, catching the shield. He was bleeding from his face. “What’re you doing?”
“Going after the other one.”
Gerak looked past Vasen, over his shoulder. “We haven’t even gotten the first one.”
Vasen turned to see Sayeed-inexplicably, impossibly-back on his feet. Vasen’s blade stuck out his chest and back like a pennon. Sayeed stared at them, grinned, and slowly extracted Vasen’s weapon in a gout of blood. The moment the weapon cleared his skin, the bleeding stopped.
“Gods,” Gerak said.
“I have to go help the Oracle,” Vasen called to his friends.
“Go,” Gerak said.
“Go,” Orsin said, pummeling a nearly dead spined devil with fists that dripped with dark energy. “We’ll follow.”
That was all Vasen needed. He sprinted for the double doors. As he did, he heard a hiss and thunk as Gerak put an arrow into Sayeed. The big man roared and fell to his knees.
Vasen leaped onto the portico and barreled into the side door. It burst open and he cut left, sliding to a stop and cursing.
A wall of fire blocked the hallway from floor to ceiling, the flames licking hungrily at everything within reach. Vasen felt the hair of his beard and eyebrows melt. He scrambled backward, blinking in the heat. The thin man must have conjured the wall of flames to prevent pursuit. Vasen did not hesitate. He covered his face with his hands and charged through the flames. Skin blistered and hair burned, but his armor protected him against the worst of it. Ignoring the pain of his charred skin, he stripped off his burning cloak and beat out the flames on his trousers and tunic.
The skin of his face felt raw, blistered. He would have channeled the light of his faith into healing energy, but he was without a focus-no holy symbol at this throat, no shield emblazoned with Amaunator’s rose, no sword with his god’s symbol cast into the hilt.
He drew a dagger and ran through the abbey’s halls, speeding past the meditation cells, the storerooms, the library and study rooms, the stairway that led to the lower level.
He knew the thin man was heading toward the Saint’s Shrine in the eastern tower. Vasen could cut through the central worship hall and cut him off before he got to the eastern stairs.
He shouldered his way through the double doors that led into the main worship hall, running too fast to hear the noise until he’d entered.
Chapter Eleven
Drawn by the sound of the combat, devils swarmed into the courtyard, a roiling wave of spines, teeth, claws, and savagery.
“Shield me,” Gerak said to Orsin, who’d moved to Gerak’s side. The deva used Vasen’s shield to protect them both as best he could.
Gerak fired rapidly, answering volleys of flaming spines with shot after shot from his bow. He shot Sayeed a few more times, too, keeping the big man on his knees, although he stubbornly refused to die.
Soon Vasen’s shield was quivering with dozens of flaming spikes, while six spined devils and the seemingly unkillable giant had arrows sticking from their hides. The wounded fiends pelted wide around the courtyard, perhaps intending to come at them from both sides at once. Meanwhile, the huge man pulled Gerak’s arrows from his chest, rose, and strode toward them.
“Gods,” Gerak said. “Bastard won’t stay down.”
“We need to go!” Orsin said.
Sayeed shouted and charged.
Gerak double-nocked his bow draw and took aim at Sayeed. “Let’s see how you like two.”
He let fly and both arrows hit Sayeed squarely in the side. The impact knocked him down and he spun to the ground, shouting with rage. He sat up immediately, growling as he pulled the arrows clear of flesh and bone.
Two devils charged at Orsin and Gerak from either side. Orsin’s staff hummed as he spun it overhead. Orsin ducked under a devil’s leap and it slammed headlong into the stone wall. Bones crunched and the creature squealed. Orsin stomped on its head as he swung his staff at a second one leaping for Gerak. He hit it squarely in the side, and the impact sent it sprawling into the earth. Gerak put two arrows in its side and it rose on wobbly legs, snarled once, then collapsed.
Another hail of flaming spines hissed into the area, peppering their flesh. At least three caught Orsin and two hit Gerak in his chest. Gerak pulled them out before they burned his cloak, searing his fingers in the process.
“Aye,” Gerak said. “We need to go.”
“That way,” Orsin said, nodding at the arch behind them, the one through which they’d entered the courtyard. Orsin reached into his belt pouch for something as they ran. A volley of flaming spikes whistled after them. At least one of them hit Gerak’s side and stuck there, but Orsin pulled it out as they sprinted.
“Keep going,” Orsin said. “Keep going.”
The deva held a glass flask filled with a dark fluid. Flaming spikes flew all around them. The growls and tread of the devils sounded loud in their ears. Sayeed shouted challenges as he, too, gave chase.
Orsin threw the flask on the ground in front of them and smashed it with his staff as they ran by. A cloud of darkness exploded outward from it, so deep and inky that Gerak could not see his hand before his nose. A hand closed on his arm and pulled him along.
“It will only slow them!” the deva said. “Keep moving!”
Twenty paces later he and Orsin burst through the edge of the magical darkness.
“There,” Orsin said, nodding at the abbey. They exited the courtyard and were coming around to the other side of the structure.
“Where? What?” Gerak said. He saw no door, and there were no windows at ground level large enough to accommodate anyone larger than a halfling.
“Get on my back,” Orsin ordered, and took station before him.
“What?”
“Do it!”
Behind them, Sayeed burst from the darkness and ran toward them, his long, lumbering strides fearfully fast. The devils would be coming, too.
Gerak climbed onto Orsin’s back, feeling slightly ridiculous. The deva adjusted his weight slightly and started to run. Gerak gawped at the man’s strength. As they approached the side of the abbey, Gerak realized what Orsin intended.
“You can’t mean to-”
A hail of flaming spines landed all around them.
The shadows around Orsin deepened and he picked up his pace. As they neared the portico, the deva’s muscles tensed, the shadows around him flared, and he leaped into the air. He landed atop the portico with Gerak barely hanging on. Never breaking stride, the deva took two more running steps and leaped for a second-story window. He didn’t make it, but he didn’t have to. They crashed into the side of the abbey, both of them grunting at the impact, but Orsin gripped the sill and held on.
“Climb over me!” he shouted. “Quickly!”
More spines filled the air, thumped into the walls, a few struck Gerak and he cried out. Orsin did, too.