It didn t matter. Chathi died again, burning in an instant when the rod in her hand exploded. Mirror plunged his insubstantial sword into Szass Tam s ravaged skeletal form, and they both blazed bright, but when the light faded, the ghost was gone, and the lich lord remained. Szass Tam turned, tore Bareris s head from his shoulders and then advanced on Aoth.
Nor was he the only one. His staff glimmering with magic, Malark glided in on the sellsword s flank. Alasklerbanbastos and Tchazzar loomed above Aoth s other foes, each dragon whipping his head forward and opening his jaws wide as he spewed his breath weapon.
Aoth cried out and staggered, dropping his guard. Grontaix raced forward, her huge hands extended to seize him.
Aoth waited until she was nearly on top of him. Then, pleased that his trick had worked, he dodged, charged his spear with power, and thrust at her knee as she pounded by.
He could do it because, while it was by no means pleasant to watch people he d cared about die all over again, or to see a selection of old enemies attacking him all at once, his truesight made the illusory nature of the phantasms immediately and absolutely apparent. Thus they couldn t disorient or even hurt him as they might have another. But pretending they had was a good way to lure Grontaix in close.
Aoth s spear point tore flesh and scraped bone. The fomorian screamed and staggered, but didn t fall. Instead, she stumbled around to face him again. He rattled off an incantation that put him at the hub of a spinning wheel of blades. Floating at chest level, the defense threatened any foe who ventured into striking distance. But in all likelihood, it would only slash the giant s extremities, not her vital organs.
Too late he saw that Grontaix didn t mean to rush him again. Not yet, anyway. Instead, she invoked magic of her own. She thrust out her fist at him like she was miming a punch, and green and yellow light swirled from the cat s-eye ring on her middle finger to make a kaleidoscopic pattern in the air.
Aoth was no longer looking at illusions that he could recognize for what they were and ignore thereafter. The light was only light, but it was supremely beautiful; its power to fascinate augmented by both the atmosphere of the Feywild and his own preternaturally acute vision. He strained to look away, break free, but there was a treacherous part of him that didn t really want to.
Recognizing that she had him under her spell, Grontaix leered, gripped a little sculpted pear tree, and, with astonishing strength, twisted it and ripped it up from the floor. Aoth saw that the makeshift club would make it easier for her to strike at him without coming in contact with his spinning blades, that the hammering length of black stone would shatter his bones and pulp his flesh, and still, he couldn t quite bring himself to move. With blood running from her wounded knee, his foe limped forward.
Suddenly Zyl darted past Aoth and up the fomorian s bloody leg. He paused for an instant to bite and scratch at the gash the spear had opened, then scurried onward. He vanished under the hem of her gown.
Grontaix roared and pounded with her fist at the moving lump under the fabric. Somehow, she missed, and only managed to thump herself. Zyl scrambled from her front to her back, where she d have trouble reaching, and where, Aoth assumed, he clung gnawing at her flesh.
Still roaring, the fomorian heaved the stone tree over her head and thrust it repeatedly downward like a huge, unwieldy back scratcher. Shaken loose, silver pears fell clanking and rolled clattering across the floor.
Meanwhile, a cyclops at the periphery of Aoth s vision swung his sword at the flying mace of golden light that was assailing him in turn. By keeping the giant occupied, the conjured weapon freed up Cera to try to help Aoth. With her voice shrill but still as controlled as spellcasting required she rattled off a prayer.
It set him free. Suddenly, though the floating, shifting pattern was still beautiful, its hold on him ended. For an instant, he felt a belated horror at having been so helpless, but he shook it off.
By that time, the scraping stone branches had ripped Grontaix s gown from her body. The garment hung from the tree like a tattered flag on a pole. She rammed her weapon downward yet again, and it finally brushed Zyl from his perch and dashed him to the floor. She lurched around, exposing the hump that, crisscrossed with welts, cuts, and bite marks, looked like someone had flogged her, and glared down at the rat. He thrashed like he was in the throes of a seizure. She swung the tree over her head.
Aoth cast a fan-shaped flare of flame from his spear, and it splashed across her crooked, bloody back. She howled and staggered.
I m still here, Ugly! he bellowed.
Finish with me before you start killing rats!
She turned back around like he wanted her to. The force of her glare was like a hammer slamming into his face. He staggered and cried out, and, as fast as her wounded leg would allow, she rushed him.
By the time Aoth had recovered his balance, the stone tree was whirling at him in a horizontal arc. He leaped back, and it missed his body but caught the end of his spear. The force of the blow tore the weapon from his grasp and stabbed pain up his arm. He suspected it was nearly broken or dislocated.
Aoth snatched out the short, heavy sword he carried as a backup. He wasn t as adept with it, nor had he painstakingly infused it with as many enchantments as he had the longer weapon, but it would have to do.
He would have to get close to the fomorian and stay there, so the blade could reach her. She would have a more awkward time of it attacking him from the shorter distance. He scrambled toward her just as she followed up with a backhand swing.
Aoth strained to spring forward even faster and just made it inside the giant s reach. Her arms were above him, and the branches of the stone tree scraped, banged, and snapped, sweeping across the patch of floor at his back. The wheel of blades sliced a deep gash across Grontaix s unwounded leg before the magic blinked out of existence. With a final stride, Aoth closed the distance, charged his sword with destructive force, and slashed a second cut above the other.
The sword bit deep, but the giantess still wouldn t fall down. Though the wound must have hurt her, she repeatedly tried to stamp on Aoth, and to stab the top of the stone tree down on his head. She alternated those tactics with an attempt to scramble far enough away so that his sword couldn t reach her, while at the same time sweeping him away by swinging her makeshift weapon. He dodged, pursuing doggedly whenever she tried to open up the distance, and cutting at her whenever she gave him a chance.
Meanwhile, something started pounding on the other side of one of the arches that Jhesrhi had sealed with her wizardry. So far, Aoth and his comrades had held their own, but it seemed unlikely that even the elementalist s mastery of earth and stone could keep the rest of the giants out for long.
Which meant they had to end the fight quickly. Aoth had to, for he d taken the critical task upon himself. Everyone else was essentially just keeping the cyclopes from swarming on him.
Grontaix tried another retreat, and pursuing more slowly, trying to look fatigued it shouldn t be difficult he let her open up the distance. She screamed and whirled the stone tree the silver pears all fallen away, many of the branches snapped off short in another sweeping horizontal stroke.
Aoth didn t try to dodge. He d let her open up the distance precisely so she could attempt another of those arcing blows they took longer to travel to the target. With luck, they even afforded the time for a spell. He rattled off words of power as the stone tree spun at him, and he slashed in its direction with his sword.
A shaft of green light blazed from the blade and struck the onrushing makeshift weapon. The whole tree glowed emerald for an instant and then simply disappeared.