Azure bonds - Kate Novak [168]
Cold, bony fingers closed around Dragonbait's throat from behind, and an icy chill flowed into his veins and crept through his body. Prakis laughed hoarsely as his paralyzing touch began draining the saurial paladin's strength. On a human, the lich's grip might have been impossible to break, but taking a saurial from behind was not so easy. Dragonbait threaded his tail between himself and the lich and used it as a lever to pry Prakis away from him. The lich staggered back a few paces, then lowered his staff's tip at the saurial and muttered something.
Prakis burst into a pillar of fire.
That was hardly the reaction Dragonbait had expected. He whirled around to see who might have aided him. Standing atop the stone was a graying, clean-shaven man in ragged garb. He pulled a small vial from his cloak and flung it at Phalse, who was trying to take Alias from behind. Phalse saw the missile and dodged. A Fire Knife behind him was not so lucky and became a human pyre.
Dragonbait recognized the man. He had been the one who had demanded the saurial protect Alias in exchange for his freedom. Dragonbait had seen him only once since then, in Alias's dream in Shadow Gap-Nameless. Now he fought openly on their side. The saurial took the briefest moment to study Nameless with his shen sight, but all he detected was a gray mountain against a gray sky. Neither evil, nor good, but very, very proud.
Prakis laughed with the horrible mechanical vocal sounds of the undead and walked out of the pyre that Nameless's potion had lighted around him. The lich's clothes were ash, and his remaining skin a blackened ruin, crumbling from the bones. Yet the pinpricks of light still danced in his eyes, and he still carried his staff.
Alias had felled two more assassins, but they had tightened their ring around her. She was closed in on all sides. One blade was deflected by the tightly knit chain shirt, but another came perilously close to her head, clipping some of her hair.
A bolt of lightning struck at Alias's feet, knocking her to the ground. Action froze on the battlefield. Blackened Prakis grinned through fire-stained teeth, swaying his staff of power back and forth, aiming it at Dragonbait, then Ruskettle, then Nameless, making it quite clear that any sudden moves would result in instant destruction. The remaining assassins stood guard around the fallen swordswoman.
A red light shot up from one of the remaining stone plinths. Cassana stood atop the pillar, one hand clutching her wand, the other gripping shut the skin of her chest, as a modest woman would hold closed the front of a torn gown. Dragonbait twitched, debating whether he could lunge for Hill Cleaver and put an end to the mages' threats before they fried him to a cinder.
"Let this be ended," the sorceress shouted from her perch. "Nameless, your little play is over. Phalse, take a sword and slay the saurial and Nameless. I will keep Puppet occupied." She raised the wand over her head. Dragonbait could feel a sympathetic ache as Cassana used the blue wand to rack Alias's body with pain.
A shadow rose behind Cassana, snatching the wand and kicking the sorceress off the stone. Cassana screamed a curse as she fell and landed hard on her side. Zrie Prakis whirled with his staff, trying to set his sights on his mistress's attacker. Akabar's flying form appeared for a moment above the stone pillar, the wand grasped tightly in his hand, then he dodged back and forth in an erratic pattern. Long lances of energy spat from the tip of Prakis's staff, exploding just behind the mage in huge fireballs, but Akabar stayed just ahead of their swelling blossoms of flame.
Dragonbait finally managed to grab his sword, but with Akabar in flight he couldn't risk using Hill Cleaver to dispel magic in the area. Instead, he used the sword to bite deeply into the lich, pulling ribs from the burned chest. Prakis's fighting ability was still unaffected, though. He backhanded Dragonbait with a swipe of his wickedly