Stardeep_ The Dungeons - Bruce R. Cordell [20]
Gage grimaced and scrabbled to bring order to the tumultuous flow of his thoughts. The damned blade was in his head, changing his perspective, his outlook, his very sense of self. The sword's violation was… wasn't right. Even with his mind muddled, he was pretty sure Angul's mental violation wasn't the sort of thing normally ascribed to a good-aligned sword.
I am the arbiter of what is right, and that which is not.
Sathra retreated from his advance, gesticulating, creating a tracery of dark lines in the air. A spell was being birthed, she its dark midwife. Her men moved to buy het the time she required to finish its weave. He hacked with Angul, hacked again. One man sat suddenly, missing an arm. Another was felled like a tree. Another's head he stove in with the blunt side of the Blade Cerulean.
He parried a fourth's knife thrust, but the fifth clubbed his head. Light flared, then dimmed. No pain followed, no blood. Gage plunged the sword into the club wielder's chest. The man cried out in surprise, but Gage was already withdrawing Angul and swinging for the last fellow, who raised a sword.
The crossbowmen were swearing and fumbling to reload in mortal terror. They released another volley of bolts, more or less in unison. A few bolts tagged him, but he didn't pause to assess the damage.
Sathra's chanting took on a desperate note. Only one defender remained between her and Gage. Or more accurately, between her and Angul.
But that final defender parried two of Gage's thrusts with a maul of gray stone. The man's beard was snarled with small stone trinkets and charms. His head was shaved, and the tattoos scribed there marked him as a barbarian from the plains of Rashemen. Gage had heard tales of the tribesmen of that wild borderland. This was no ordinary thug.
"You're my meat," cried the barbarian. "I am Stolsin, the Grinder of Ttibes!" As he spoke, he brought the maul down with force enough to render Gage's flesh to jelly. It would have ended there had not Angul jerked him clear.
Stolsin lifted his heavy maul into the ait with no visible strain. The muscles twining his forearm were as thick and corded as ttee roots. He screamed, "I've destroyed walking dead on the outskirts of Thay!" He moved, catching even Angul off guard, and struck Gage's left shouldet. Pain flared before the burning sword could erase it.
"I've dared the cold drake's icy lair on the glacier of-"
Gage lunged and pushed the Blade Cerulean's point into the man's abdomen. The barbarian gasped and fell. Gage guessed Stolsin, Grinder of Tribes, wished he'd parried more and boasted less.
But the batbarian's braggadocio had bought time for his crimelord. Sathra ceased chanting and finger waving. The fruit of her spell took its final form: a black-scaled, obsidian-toothed, shadow-clawed thing. A demon of the inky void. Cold air blasted Gage and he took a step back despite Angul's grip on his mind.
"Meet Demoriel," crowed Sathra, brandishing a fist still steaming with shadowstuff. She looked to the crossbowmen and said, "Finish him. Help the demon!" She turned and dashed toward the exit.
Gage wanted to run, too. But like a dog distracted by the scent of fresh spoor, Angul focused all its attention on the newcomer demon.
If it couldn't sizzle away Gage's remaining glove, if it couldn't slice Sathra into thin twins, it could, by the Cetulean Sign, bite deeply into this denizen of the Abyss. The blade's surety of purpose threatened to completely drown Gage's awareness of himself.
With an unfamiliar part of his mind, the thief wondered what the Cerulean Sign might be.
The crossbowmen howled, whethet in fear or triumph, Gage couldn't guess, but they followed Sathra's command and continued to harass him with a hail of iron. The Blade Cerulean twitched and danced in his hand, deflecting those bolts it deemed fatal. Despite its tightly focused mind, the blade was rational enough to keep its wielder alive. But a few bolts slipped through.
Then Demoriel pounced. A writhing atrocity, it croaked forth a verse in a