Darkvision - Bruce R. Cordell [115]
Time to make Eined's death mean something!
He summoned the full power of his arm and walked stride for stride with Kiril and her Cerulean Blade toward the room's center.
* * * * *
Iahn reached an open canister. He crouched behind the stumplike protrusion, hiding from his adversaries, as he studied several pearl-stocked crossbows that hung within. He yanked the nearest from its mount and marveled. As finely fashioned as his other crossbow had been, before he'd lost it during the sea passage, this one was superior. Even more thrilling, the lower section of the unjacketed container held hundreds of bolt clips, each bolt lightly runed with magical vigor. He snatched a clip and worked the crank to load the crossbow. Smooth as silk. If he…
A four-armed, human-sized insectoid with a mantis head hopped into view from around the canister. With its amulet shining malevolently on its chest, it directed a ribbon of darkness at Iahn.
The vengeance taker screamed a syllable of warding, too late, and the ribbon found him. Pain seared his right leg. Iahn sighted along the crossbow at the creature's amulet and pulled the trigger.
When the bolt struck the crystal, bolt and amulet were vaporized. The insectoid squealed and dropped, its legs and too many arms flailing madly before losing animation forever.
The vengeance taker allowed himself a nod of self-congratulation as he loaded another bolt.
* * * * *
Prince Monolith charged into the fray. His great strides propelled him past his slowly advancing smaller allies, through the forestlike maze of storage cylinders. Two mantis-men launched themselves at his legs, but he bowled through them without stopping, despite their speed and crystal-given strength.
The earth lord ran at the emerald-skinned giant. It was the creature most likely to match its strength against his own elemental power. The prince had always wanted to test his strength against a storm…
The giant's eyes sparked, and lightning sprouted from every nearby surface, each bolt skewering Prince Monolith. The electricity seared through his mineral nerves, locking him in place. He strained, threatened with his booming voice, and tried to call upon his power to move through stone, but the electricity held him caged.
The pain crept toward intolerable.
* * * * *
Ususi spoke the words of a protective spell, and her sense of touch dulled as her skin protectively hardened. Monolith obscured her vision of Pandorym for a moment as he charged, but then her view was clear again. As terrifying as the force assembled before them was, her percipience allowed her to see that Pandorym's true strength lay beyond the portal it maintained in Deep Imaskar. Destroying the creature would cut the puppet strings of all the servitors it had transferred there.
She saw Iahn take up a position on top of an unjacketed canister and fire his newfound weapon, one bolt after another. The others also advanced, but she couldn't take time to watch their progress.
The wizard spoke a spell of wind, hoping to disperse or at least disturb Pandorym's cloudlike form, and so disrupt the portal into Deep Imaskar, but the entity held its form.
If she couldn't close the portal, could she block it? Ususi spoke the short, sharp syllables that beckoned a solid magical wall. Before she could finish, a hail of serpentine, night-dark rays emerged from the creatures at the room's hub. Her eyes narrowed with concern as the shafts fell against her hardened skin… then she sighed. Her protective magic was diminished, but it held.
The wizard finished her utterance. She felt nothingness coalesce toward solidity. Though normally invisible, this time she saw her wall take shape in her star-bright gaze. She thrust it into the portal Pandorym hid at its core. The plane of force slapped into place.
Pandorym's vaporous emanation writhed and bucked. The entity didn't like the obstruction. Immediately, she sensed her blockade come under attack. Pandorym sought to eject