The elf woman drew in a quick breath of fetid, foul air and felt for the scroll pouch. There was still one wizard here, and she had to try casting the spell. She kept her eyes on Cavadrec as she frantically patted her belt pouches. Where was the blasted thing?
The wight lost interest when she didn't rise to its challenge, and turned to block a long sword blow from Soveliss with the black, skull-topped staff.
The scroll was gone. Mialee felt sick. She collapsed, dropped her head between her knees, and pressed her palms against her temples. Everyone was doomed.
"Coming throooooooooooough!" echoed a familiar voice down the tunnel, and Devis slammed into Mialee head-first. They rolled into a tangle of arms and legs behind the bellowing Zalyn-goddess.
Cavadrec laughed as the pair struggled to disentangle themselves and stand.
"How very romantic," he cackled. "Linelle, what have you been teaching these children?"
Linelle? Mialee blinked, and then realized he was talking to Zalyn. Linelle must have been her name when Cava was alive.
Behind the wight, Mialee saw Soveliss creep forward and raise the Mor-Hakar. Without looking, Cavadrec twirled his black staff and slammed the end into Soveliss's gut. The elf grasped his belly with an "oof!" and dropped to his knees. His long sword clattered to the ground, and the hand holding the Mor-Hakar slapped against the floor as Soveliss caught himself from toppling forward. The ranger's open palm pressed the hilt of the short sword into the stone while he clutched at his abdomen with the other, struggling to draw breath.
Mialee and Devis helped each other stand. Mialee felt the wetness on the bard's right side and realized he was bleeding badly. She fumbled for her last potion and failed to find that, either.
She licked her hps and knew where the potion had gone. "Devis, you idiot," she whispered urgently as Zalyn and Cavadrec squared off. "Why didn't you take the potion yourself? You're going to bleed to death!"
The elf woman felt the bard lean against her, and his face was pale and bloodless.
"You first," Devis said deliriously and showed her his blood-soaked hands. "Couldn't lose…yrrrr," he managed.
The bard's eyes rolled back and he dropped heavily against her, unconscious. She lowered him gently to the floor and pulled his head into her lap as green-gold energy started filling the room with a warm glow. The shrine of the death god, smoldering with Cavadrec's interrupted invocation, blazed higher in the rush of oxygen and fresh air that the swelling power of the forest god provided.
The brazier on the terrible shrine of Nerull flared and went dark. A grinning goblet made from an ancient, elf skull stared back at Mialee. She felt a surge as the goddess that walked as a cleric finished her invocation, severing the wight's connection to Nerull. The wight screamed and staggered, thrown off balance. Now, if the arcane scroll were read, it would be over. She watched Soveliss cough up black, bloody phlegm, struggling to his feet with the Mor-Hakar gripped in one gloved fist and blind hatred flashing in his eyes.
If they could just read the scroll, the wight would be vulnerable, or as close as they could hope to make it. Mialee would accept the risk in a heartbeat. If only she hadn't somehow lost the precious scroll tube. She wrapped her arms around Devis, propped up but unconscious, and sighed miserably.
A loud crack resounded in the chamber. Cavadrec brought the heavy end of his black staff across Ehlonna/Zalyn's jaw and sent her little body flying through the air. Mialee saw the elder of Silatham, and with her, the Mother of Elves, slam with a sickening crunch into the stone, then fall chillingly still.
With dreadful certainty, Mialee saw that the goddess-cleric had been fooled by a very simple deception. The staff that bore the icon of the god of death was not at all an unholy tool of the Reaper. The black staff was a powerful magic weapon infused with arcane energy. "A wand disguised as a prayer book" was how wizards and sorcerers described such deceptive artifacts.
Mialee cried out involuntarily as the staff cracked again, knocking Soveliss back, but the nimble ranger stayed on his feet, the Mor-Hakar a menacing sliver in his hand.
Mialee buried her face in Devis's hair and gazed down his body. Too bad, she thought madly, so much will be lost.
Her eyes fell on the ornately engraved tube tucked into an open pouch on the bard's belt. The scroll! She reached forward, yanked out the tube and leaped to her feet. She heard Devis's head thunk against the stone and he barked a cry of pain as he was jolted awake. He'd thank her later, if they were still alive. She thumbed the stopper off the end of the scroll tube and unrolled the yellowed parchment.
Mialee heard another crack and a pair of thumps, and saw Soveliss on his knees. He still held the Mor-Hakar. She frantically read over the lengthy scroll-damn Favrid's wordiness!-as the wight stepped toward the staggered ranger. Cavadrec raised the ebony staff like a club, preparing to deliver a blow that would crush Soveliss's skull.
Mialee began reciting the words on the scroll.
Devis leaped in front of her with a mad yell, driven by some reserve of strength she could hardly believe remained in his nearly bloodless body. She continued reading aloud and felt the sparkle of magic surround her and fill the air.
As she continued reading, her gentle voice rose to a hoarse shout.
She thought Devis was moving to help Soveliss, but to her shock, the bard ran right past the ranger and grasped the grinning goblet set before the extinguished shrine of Nerull. His hand curled with smoke. Mialee smelled burning leather and flesh. The chalice must be anathema to anything that was not soiled by the Reaper's foul touch. Despite what must have been terrible pain, the bard raised the chalice in the air and turned.
"Hey, Bright Eyes!" he bellowed madly. "You can kill the ranger or save your cocktail. What'll it be?"
Devis tipped the skull-cup, and a drop of something thick and red dripped to the floor, where it sizzled as it touched the stone.
The wight froze, then turned slowly to regard the ranger. "I choose both," Cavadrec snarled, holding his staff in one hand and reaching out with the other.
Mialee saw the glow of a spell stretch from the wight's talons and wrap around the chalice. Devis grasped the cup with both hands and struggled against the pull of Cavadrec's magic grip, but only skidded across the floor on the heels of his boots.
Mialee finished reading the scroll. A blast of blue lightning exploded from the paper's surface. She clutched the parchment with white knuckles and absorbed the barrage with her eyes squeezed shut. She was reasonably certain this wasn't one of the spell's intended effects. She must have mispronounced something, perhaps a single word. As blue energy crackled painfully from nerve to nerve throughout her body, she forced her eyes open to see what, if anything, she had wrought. The magic arcing through her body made everything appear to move as if in syrup.
The chalice tumbled end over end, splattering blackish-red gore all over Devis, who was whirling his arms in a hopeless attempt to keep from tumbling over backward. He dropped hard onto his backside with a shout of pain.
Cavadrec screamed and crouched to pounce for the precious artifact. The ranger was forgotten. The ebony staff no longer gleamed with black light, but was only a simple shaft of gnarled wood. The wight hissed and dropped the staff, brandishing hooked claws. He swiped the air in a screaming rage, forcing Soveliss back. Finally, the wight landed a blow on the ranger, who slammed against the temple wall, staggering and dazed.
Cavadrec loomed over the ranger. He backhanded the man across the jaw, knocking Soveliss's head against the wall, but somehow the elf avoided the next blow and slipped away sideways. The wight would be back on him in seconds.