The Paladins - James M. Ward [28]
"Time to show yourselves, cowardly primes," thought
Shaakat. He reached out with his keen senses, found the magical aura surrounding the Tyr followers, and obliterated it with a stroke of his powerful mind. With a sizzling hiss, the four human men and one woman shimmered into view. The warrior males formed a crescent of swinging weapons, mowing down the squealing manes before them, while the female wizard gestured, calling up another spell.
Quickly, the vrock drew back his spindly arm and hurled his javelin with the strength of a giant. It buzzed like a furious wasp as it sliced through the air, and its scales stood up from its surface, making it spin like a streaking top as it homed in on its target. The spear's gleaming point drove into the throng, passing through two manes uninhibited, and bore into the chest of the wizard, knocking her from her feet with a cry of astonishment. "I call on ggatzshriiegk," thought Shaakat and the weapon twirled cruelly in the wizard's body, eliciting a delicious scream of agony from her, before ripping free and sailing back to him.
To Shaakat's delight, a mob of tanar'ri swarmed over the woman as quickly as she fell to the ground! Her arms and legs flailed beneath the sweeping host of scratching, gnawing manes, but she couldn't find her feet. One of the warriors turned and desperately slung his warhammer at the piling fiends, reaching into their midst with his free hand to seize hers, then snatching it back as they snapped greedily at him. He cried out "Aleena!" as he fought through the horde, and a second warrior turned to help, but it was too late.
Both vrocks cackled joyfully in the echo of the warriors' cries of anguish.
"Nooo!" wailed Noph from the ground behind them, his magical charm broken at the sight. "Aleena! You bastards!" he cursed and began to sob. The master fiends laughed harder.
"You wish to fight unseen?" asked Shaakat in the Tyr-lovers' minds as he sent forth utter darkness from his own mind, plunging the entire party of humans into blindness. At the same time, he cocked his arm to hurl his javelin at another one of them. Then he paused.
Amazing! The humans were fighting completely blind and slaughtering the manes while suffering little damage themselves! They shouted to each other and moved into a defensive circle, allowing themselves plenty of room to swing, then entered into a warrior's dance, thrashing the space around them in a graceful series of attacks that crushed and scattered the tanar'ri. One of them-a warrior completely sheathed in shining plates of finely wrought metal-spun about, holding his gleaming hammer at arm's length while he twirled and uttered sickening words of goodness and light-and the darkness fell.
"I want to attack, too!" complained Rejik in his head.
"Just keep that warding circle intact, leatherhead! They're still coming this way!"
Shaakat flung his deadly javelin again, aiming for the one who banished his arcane darkness, but the human anticipated his throw and swung his hammer to meet it. The flat of the paladin's mallet squarely met the point of the spear with a resounding crack, and the fiend's prized weapon splintered into black rubble that flew back to the pyramid and rattled against its surface like a hail storm.
The paladin with hair the color of fire and armor like the scales of a golden fish held up his hammer and cried, "In Tyr's name, be gone!" His voice echoed through the chamber like a titan's, and all around the warriors a dozen manes convulsed and ruptured into black smoke. The stinging residue of slaughtered manes grew dense, and the fighters choked and reeled. Shaakat leaped upon the opportunity.
"Now," thought the vrock to the bar-lgura, who rippled forth from the walls of the chamber and sprang