Azure bonds - Kate Novak [169]
"Akabar!" Nameless shouted. "Throw the wand into the disk!"
Dragonbait whirled about anxiously. It made the best tactical sense to remove the wand from their enemies' reach, but would it ultimately prove their undoing? What effect would it have on Alias?
Akabar swooped low to evade the lancing bolts of the staff of power. One caught him in the leg, and he almost lost concentration and flight. He reached his goal, however, pulling up at the last moment and flinging the wand into the silver and red disk.
Three screams went up at once. Phalse shouted and barreled toward the disk. Olive stood blocking his path, but he leaped over her and tumbled into the vertical pool. He was swallowed without a ripple.
Zrie Prakis screamed and in screaming fell apart. With the wand thrust into another plane of being, he could not tap the energy bound up in it that kept him from death. He crumbled to dust. But in the moment before his spirit fled from the bones that Cassana had "cherished," the lich cried out, "Die, Cassana!" His hideous laughter was carried away on the breeze.
His staff of power fell to the ground. Dragonbait felt a sharp pain in his chest, just as he had when Moander had died. Without checking, he knew that a sigil had disappeared. He glanced at Alias, who was wielding a sword two-handed, but if she felt Zrie Prakis's mark burn away from her arm, she did not let it disrupt her combat.
Lastly, Cassana shrieked, for much of her own magic was locked up in that wand. She, too, began to decay-her shoulders stooped, her skin became more torn and ragged, so that she looked dressed in the tatters of her own dead flesh. The sorceress's chest wound began spurting blood.
Akabar swooped down and plucked the staff of power from the battlefield. Some of the Fire Knives, uncertain whether or not the mage could wield it, began to move toward the perimeter of the circle. Dragonbait stood guarding the rear, as Olive and Alias backed toward him. The saurial paladin now bid Hill Cleaver to swallow any magic cast.
And not a moment too soon. The hag form of Cassana pointed toward the saurial paladin and muttered. A bolt of zigzag lightning shot from her finger, only to dissipate into a harmless shower of sparks.
"Kill them!" the sorceress shrieked to the remaining assassins, as she struggled to her feet.
The Fire Knives regrouped and began driving the party back. Akabar could only use the staff of power to strike their foes. Alias had lost her weapon, and Olive stumbled as she moved. In the chaos and frenzy of the sword fight, no more of the assassins had chosen to poison their blades. That was fortunate for the adventurers; Alias was bleeding from half a dozen cuts, and Olive was clutching at a jagged wound running down her side. Dragonbait risked taking his attention from parrying a sword thrust long enough to look for Nameless. The graying man dove into the silver pool. Like Phalse, he disappeared without a trace.
The saurial felled an assassin closing on their left flank and chirped to gain the swordswoman's attention. When Alias met his eyes, he jerked his head toward the silver pool She jerked her head back indicating he must go first. He growled. If he went first, Cassana could again use her magic to attack them, but he couldn't explain this to Alias. He jerked his head indicating again that she must go before him, but she shook her head seconds before she launched a kick at an assassin's chin with her boot.
Minutes ago, she had no will power of her own, he thought with grim amusement. Why does she pick now to be so stubborn? He caught her attention with another chirp before he spun Hill Cleaver about and tossed it to her.
Alias caught the weapon, reclasped her hands about the grip, and spun to decapitate an assassin who had lunged forward when her attention was focused on the saurial. Dragonbait snatched up the halfling and loped to the planar disk.
The silver pool had already shrunk to half its original size. The swirls had become solid rings and the portal now-resembled the bull's eye sigil of Phalse's