That was enough for the gnolls. Seeing one of their own casting spells told them all they needed to know. They backed farther away from the combat, looking to Dreeve for guidance. The gnoll leader seemed too surprised to act.
Hoping to catch the impostor off-guard, Cale lunged forward, blade low. Preternaturally quick, the shapeshifter danced backward, knocked Cale's long sword out of position with her axe, and punched Cale in the nose. Warm blood washed down his face. Eyes watering, he stumbled backward, keeping his long sword in a defensive position as best he could.
The creature might have finished him then, but Riven bounded forward and stabbed the false gnoll through the side with both sabers, halfway to the hilts.
"Let's see you heal that," the assassin hissed.
The impostor's legs buckled, and she growled in pain, but still she managed to smash the base of her axe haft into Riven's jaw. Blood flew from the assassin's mouth. He staggered backward and fell, leaving both blades buried in his enemy's flesh.
The shapeshifter roared, jerked Riven's blades free, and began to change form.
Gez's body contorted and twisted, growing broader, more muscular. Fur shrank and vanished into leathery green skin. The head expanded while the muzzle shortened, finally exploding into a huge mouth filled with teeth. Clawed fingers and splayed feet sprouted from the elongated arms and thick legs.
That was too much for the gnolls, who had been watching the combat from a distance. As one, the pack barked its terror and began to flee back the way they had come. Even Dreeve ran.
Moments later, more shouting and the sound of metal ringing on metal sounded from the woods in the direction the gnolls had fled.
Cale and Riven, both bleeding, shared a look. What new foe was this?
They had no way to know. Cale gripped his holy symbol tightly.
The creature didn't appear surprised by the combat happening in the woods behind her. She looked at Cale with dark eyes.
"You wished to see me, Erevis Cale," she said. "See me now."
With that, she leaped at him, quick as a viper, and knocked him to the ground. Her weight pushed the air from Cale's lungs and cracked several ribs. He tried to bring his long sword to bear but she pinned his arm in a vise grip. Her other claw raked his throat—only the stiff leather collar of his armor kept him alive. He punched at her with his offhand.
With an almost casual bite, she snapped off Cale's hand just above the wrist and devoured it whole.
Pain exploded in his brain. He screamed in agony, and thumped at her with a stump spraying blood. She tore at his chest, his arm, his throat.
From behind, Cale heard Jak exclaim in a rage, "Bitch!"
And the halfling was upon her, trying to get her off of Cale. He stabbed with his dagger and his short sword. Twice, three times he punctured her skin.
Cale was losing consciousness. He couldn't breathe. Blood poured from his arm with each beat of his heart. Through eyes gone blurry, he watched her rake Jak across his face. The power of the blow sent the halfling sprawling to the ground.
Cale tried to speak but nothing came out.
Riven was there, shouting something, his sabers whirring. He must have retrieved them. Still she remained on top of Cale, holding Jak and the assassin at bay with claw and tooth. Cale, helpless and dying, could do nothing.
It occurred to him then: she had devoured his holy symbol. He had failed his friends—was Riven his friend?—and his god. His vision began to go dark. He gasped for breath. He tried to shift his chest free of her weight but was too weak.
Then, somehow, Jak was on her back, straddling her the way he might a horse. He was shouting, his face flushed and contorted with rage. Tears poured down his face.
As though from a great distance, Cale heard him screaming, "Die! Die!" and with each word, he stabbed her—in the side, in the throat, in the back. Again and again.
The creature roared, showing Cale a mouthful of teeth, and reared up.
Strangely, when she got off of Cale, he felt no relief. His chest still felt as though a hundredweight sat atop it. He knew then that he would die. A rib had pierced a lung. He was breathing through blood.
The creature drove Riven back, plucked Jak off of her back by the scruff of his neck, and brought him around to her face. One, twice, she cuffed him about the face. He went limp, and she opened wide her mouth.
A sabre blade burst from her chest, spraying blood. She looked at it in surprise, dropped Jak, and whirled—
—to receive a cross cut from Riven's other sabre, clean through her throat. Her head flew from her body and her huge frame crashed to the ground, missing Cale by a handspan.
The assassin wasted no time. He spared Cale only a glance before he went to Jak and kneeled at his side. He tapped the halfling's cheeks.
"Fleet! Godsdamnit, Fleet!"
Jak's eyes fluttered open. Riven pulled him roughly to his feet and dragged him over to Cale. Cale tried to speak but couldn't manage it.
"He's dying, Fleet," Riven said. "Heal him. Now."
The assassin looked over his shoulder at the forest. The combat there had ceased. Or at least Cale could no longer hear it.
Jak nodded but his eyes welled. He kneeled, put his hands on Cale, and whispered a prayer to Brandobaris. Cale's pain eased some, but his forearm continued to bleed. His lungs still barely functioned.
Jak looked him in the eyes and mouthed the words, I'm sorry.
Cale understood. Jak had used his spells to counter the creature's spells. He had no more healing to give.
"Another, Fleet!" Riven demanded. "Another!"
Jak shook his head and muttered, "I don't have another. It's not enough." His voice broke when he said that last.
Cale tried to smile but could not. He was fading.
Voices from behind.
Jak jumped to his feet with a snarl, blades in his fists. Riven too whirled around. Cale couldn't see but he could hear:
"... tracking you for days. You missed me in Starmantle so you hire curs? They were running as though the Hells had been emptied behind them. What are—"
"Magadon," Riven said. "Come here!"
Magadon. It took a moment for the name to register. Riven's guide from Starmantle.
Magadon stepped forward and appeared in Cale's sight. Clad in woodsman's garb—weathered green cloak, calf high leather boots, broad belt and wide-brimmed hat—he looked every bit a guide. He wore a bow over his shoulder and held a long sword in his fist. He looked to the corpse of the creature beside Cale and his eyes went wide.
"Slaadi," he said.
Riven grabbed him by the shoulder and made him look at Cale.
"Forget that," the assassin said. "Help him."
Shaking his head sadly, Magadon said, "He's done for, Drasek."
In a blink, Riven had a blade at Magadon's throat.
"Not so," Riven hissed. With his other blade, he pointed back across the clearing to someone that Cale couldn't see. "Hold your ground or he dies, then you. Fleet."
Jak, though obviously confused, interposed himself between Riven and Magadon's comrade, blade bare.
Magadon must not be alone, Cale dimly realized. It occurred to him then that Magadon and his comrade must have been the riders who had tracked Dreeve's pack from Starmantle.
"It's all right, Nestor," Magadon said over his shoulder.
"Godsdamned right," Riven hissed. "Now do it. I've seen you do it before."
Looking down at Cale, Magadon said, "He's too far gone."
"You better hope not. Do it!"
Cale saw the struggle on Magadon's young, cleanshaven face. The man couldn't have seen more than thirty winters.
"You don't know what you're asking," he said at last.
"Yes, I do," Riven said, and he pressed his blade into Magadon's flesh.
The guide stared at Riven's eye, found nothing, and slowly lowered himself beside Cale. Riven's blade stayed at his throat the while.