Lady of Poison_ The Priests - Bruce R. Cordell [102]
Damanda spoke, tiny sparks flashing across the gap of her opened mouth, "Lex! Stop gawking; kill the one you've immobilized."
Marrec tried to get to Lex, the vampire mage standing next to Elowen, but Damanda, still smoking, was on him again. Gunggari grunted with a similar exertion, beating back his foe. They were both pinned.
In a fluid single motion, Lex extruded spindly white hands, claw tipped, from the folds of her black cloak, and grabbed Elowen as if to embrace her. Lex opened her mouth wide, creating a gap larger than any mere human could accomplish, and brought her head toward Elowen's unprotected neck.
The vampire shuddered, pausing. "Huh," grunted Lex, releasing her hold on Elowen. She bent her head to look down at her chest. From it protruded the broken end of a wooden branch, darkly slick with pooling blood.
Fallon stood behind Lex. It was he who had thrust the branch through the vampire's chest.
Marrec blinked-Fallon saved Elowen's life.
Already shriveling and smoking, Lex turned and slashed Fallon with her razor sharp claws. In a spray of blood, both went down, Lex crumbling and Fallon grasping at his neck.
Marrec's gaze, Ususi's unexpected assault, Fallon's betrayal, and Lex's destruction was enough for the blightlord. She pulled a rolled parchment from her belt with one hand while reaching out to tap her last remaining follower with the other. She began uttering the arcane words inscribed upon the parchment in short, clipped breaths.
Marrec threw Justlance. The spear screamed through the empty air that a moment earlier contained its intended target. Damanda was gone, likely back to the court of the Rotting Man.
On the ground where he'd fallen, Fallon struggled, gasping. Marrec and Gunggari rushed across the chamber, Marrec to Ash's side, Gunggari to kneel next to Fallon. Ususi stepped tentatively into the chamber, looking around suspiciously. Elowen, still standing stiffly, groaned and tried to move her arms. She managed to do so, if somewhat clumsily. The compulsion was apparently lifting.
"Are you ok, girl?" Marrec asked Ash, inspecting her for bruise, blemish, or other sign of poor treatment. Ash was unmarked. He hugged her close.
Gunggari inspected Fallon's bleeding neck wound. He said, "Marrec, his wounds are beyond simple tending, and the Nentyarch's satchel is empty of healing balms."
Marrec knew that Gunggari, in speaking of his satchel, was actually asking if Marrec retained any healing grace. Marrec met his friend's eyes, shaking his head. The cleric remembered seeing named vials in the satchel, one of which contained his own name, but none had contained Fallon's name. Disengaging from Ash, he bent, too, at Fallon's side.
Fallon looked up at Marrec, whispered, "I should never have taken the girl. I am sorry…" He stopped, coughing blood.
The unicorn warrior said, "It was a brave thing you did, just now. In the end, you chose right."
Fallon, breathing shallowly, smiled then said, "I know."
He breathed his last, a smile frozen on his unmoving lips.
Marrec gently closed the elfs staring eyes. "May Lurue grant you redemption."
Damanda and Bonehammer fell from a height of over ten feet. Damanda corrected, landing on her feet with perfect grace, though Bonehammer stumbled and fell heavily onto a pile of crumbled brick.
She had panicked. She had used her emergency escape scroll, as unreliable as it was, when things turned sour. Luck was with them. Despite the scroll having been scribed by Lex years earlier, and Damanda's only passing facility with the arts of wizardry, both she and Bonehammer made the uncertain transit and in' full possession of their limbs.
Shafts of afternoon light bored into the chamber from two high punctures in the ceiling. Luckily, neither of them had appeared beneath those rough apertures. Damanda had picked the bastion of retreat the very moment Lex had penned the scroll, of course.