Lady of Poison_ The Priests - Bruce R. Cordell [101]
Bringing his spear up in a guarding position, Marrec bellowed, "Lurue commands that you give way, unholy creatures. Turn your faces and be destroyed!" His spear head, its shape that of a stylized unicorn horn, blazed with golden light for a moment, briefly shining brighter than the magical light that Ususi had cast upon it.
Damanda merely narrowed her eyes and hissed. The large one faltered, vibrating with its desire to resist. Marrec didn't turn his head to see how the one facing Elowen was responding, but he could feel its resistance, too.
Something wasn't right. The power of the ritual, which he always imagined as gentle hands on his shoulders, was anemic. If, in truth, Lurue stood behind him bolstering him with her strength, then it was as if she only lightly touched him. Worse, she was backing away, her touch growing ever lighter, until he couldn't feel it at all.
The resistance peaked; his power broke. None of the vampires turned away. All smiled the wider. The large, hammer-wielding nightwalker croaked, "Your god is weak." Marrec groaned, giving ground. The vampire was right.
Damanda commanded, "Lex, spell them, will you?"
The purple-haired woman standing near Fallon began to incant. Elowen closed with the incanter, bringing her blade around in an arc sure to separate head from body, but a thaumaturgic field shimmered into visibility, deflecting the blade. Lex finished her spell, and a wave of violet light expanded from her, washing over everyone in the room.
Marrec felt his joints begin to lock up but shook off the effect. He saw that Gunggari also resisted the magical hold. Not so Elowen-the elf hunter stood rooted in place, struggling, but unable to command her body into motion.
Gunggari made to dash to Elowen's side, but his corpse-white opponent was too near, swinging his great hammer in deadly parabolas, promising death to Gunggari if the Oslander's attention wavered.
Marrec was pressed by the blightlord Damanda. She moved in, the noise of her insect aura growing maddeningly loud. Recovering more quickly from his failed attempt to turn back the vampires than Damanda expected, he thrust forward with Justlance.
The tip bit deep, momentarily dimming the light in the room, then it was nearly torn from Marrec's hand as Damanda twisted back. She swiped at him with one hand-no, it was some sort of clawed or bladed gauntlet composed of darkness itself. The blade caught him along the side, scoring his flesh, but not mortally. Both combatants staggered back a pace. Marrec observed Damanda's wound begin to knit in a way that his own did not.
The blightlord grinned, her teeth again prominent. She pointed at him. The insect mass swarming around her bulged, sending a filament of biting mosquitoes his way. Marrec expected that the insects, like their master, were vampiric.
The mosquitoes would suck him dry in seconds if he didn't do something…
He called upon his secret heritage. He found it lurking just behind his eyes like a hound eager to be let out. Marrec complied, focusing his attention on the swarm as if a single entity. For a moment, he felt a connection between himself and the tiny points of hunger, but in the very instant the connection was made, it was transformed and snuffed out. A hail of tiny stones fell as one from the air, shattering into so much dust. Damanda's insect aura was stripped from her with Marrec's glance. A pain lanced Marrec's eyes like before. A weakness suffused him; he knew that his ability to call on his deplorable heritage was depleted for now.
Despite the pain and the blood trickling from the corners of his eyes, Marrec smiled at Damanda.
Not so the blightlord. She yelled, "What's this? A medusa posing as a human?"
A shadow occluded the doorway-Ususi. She appeared mid-spell and with a flourish, released a