Pools of Darkness - James M Brown [88]
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In his ecstasy, Marcus barely noticed the woman astride a magnificent horse riding toward him in the sky. The female and her mount were both bathed in a faint, violet glow. "Who dares come to spoil my victory?"
"I dare!" Shal screamed, "You stole my city and you have assaulted my people. Today, you die!"
She raised her arm, and a sparkling purple bolt of energy arced from her hand to strike Marcus.
It bounced away harmlessly.
"Tarnelth, whocsom, pellarz!" Marcus's voice boomed.
Gale-force winds buffeted Shal and her magical horse. Her hair and cloak whipped about, but the battering winds caused no real harm. The beast snorted, yet easily controlled its flight.
A flick of Shal's wrist created a dark purple mist under the nightmare's hooves. The swirling, turbulent vapor looked oily and deadly even to the Red Wizard. Marcus turned the nightmare and flew higher, thinking he would escape the mist. But the vapors followed as if they had a mind of their own.
A red fireball and a lightning bolt surged out of his hands toward Shal, whizzing past harmlessly.
The sorceress was shocked at his ability to cast two spells at once, but didn't show her surprise to the enemy. She told herself to investigate that talent later.
Through the winds that still buffeted her, Shal cast disintegration magic at the nightmare. The powerful spell turned the corrupt creature to dust. Marcus hadn't bothered to protect his mount against such spells. He began to sink into the purple mist beneath him.
A quick wave of his hand stopped his fall, and the wizard now hovered on wings of flame. He grimaced and shrieked the words of a new spell. Behind Shal, an inky spectral form took shape.
Expecting the worst, the sorceress took her best shot and cast her most powerful spell.
"I'm blind!" Marcus screamed in fear. "Gallen tor supto!"
Marcus vanished. In his panic, he had teleported himself back to the red tower.
The deadly purple fog dissipated harmlessly.
What had been a desperate moment for Phlan was turning in its favor. Shal had temporarily defeated Marcus, leaving the monsters, tree-minions, and hired soldiers without a leader. Brittle was busy following his own course of action.
The minions of Moander, once perfect warriors, were now snapping like dry kindling. Although tireless and deadly, they lacked intelligence. When ordered to scale the wall, they had succeeded with some effort. The entire army now stood between the outer and inner walls-walls coated with black, sticky oil. Now those same walls were set ablaze by the defenders of Phlan. The intense heat dried and cracked the protective ooze coating the trees, withered leaves, and ignited branches. As the mindless minions stood between the two walls, branches and trunks ignited, charred, and toppled.
A deafening clatter and rattling arose. Three hundred and one skeletons swinging huge axes in their bony hands rushed to the attack. The skeletons gave no thought to the fungus or poisons of the tree-monsters. They ignored the searing heat of the flaming walls; the stone-hard bones of their skeletal frames felt nothing. Every warrior chopped at the minions of Moander while the abominable tree-creatures mindlessly waited for orders that should have come, but never did.
Marcus had abandoned his troops, leaving them to die on the field. High in the red tower, the wizard's rantings, still magically enhanced, were punctuated only by the insults he hurled at the pit fiend. He ordered the fiend to restore his vision. The tower shook to its foundation, rattling the city of Phlan far below.
15
Encroaching Evil
"That's the whole story. I found the pool hidden in a dark chamber in the red tower, and some horrid, evil entity spoke to me. I haven't been that terrified in ten years. I didn't think anything was capable of detecting me while under that spell. Now I won't rest until I learn what that gods-forsaken horror was."
The companions