The Wizardwar - Elaine Cunningham [110]
Keeping low, Tzigone ran over to Basel's side, dodging the bolts directed at him. Together they dove through a portal in the seemingly solid wall and rolled through to the garden side.
"Nice trick with the wand," she said. "With that timing, you should have been a bard."
Basel nodded absently and glanced up at the thinning shield. "We don't want to be in the open once that shield goes. Where the Nine bloody Hells is the militia?"
A distant percussion, the rustle of many feet running in rhythmic formation, brought a sigh of relief from the wizard, but before he could speak, the soft yellow light of the protection spell began to flow downward, like melting treacle sliding over an invisible dome.
Basel took a wand from his belt and pressed it into her hand. "Farrah's family wants vengeance. Make them earn it."
Before Tzigone could protest, the wizard enfolded her in a quick embrace.
She felt a touch nearly as deft as her own, and the cool pressure of a delicate chain around her neck. When Basel released her, a silver talisman glimmered over her heart, and her world began to blur and shimmer. For a moment Tzigone's world looked like two illusions cast into a single place. She could see the garden, and also the highest and most secure room in the wizard's tower.
She struggled against the spell like an insect caught in sap, desperate to stay where she was, to fight at Basel's side. But suddenly the world snapped back into focus, and she stood at the window of the tower armory in guard position, wand raised high and clenched in her fist like a ready knife.
Mason whirled toward her, relief and guilt struggling for possession of his countenance. "Lord Basel?"
"In the garden," she said grimly, and brought the wand down in a stabbing motion.
A dark line poured from the wand, quickly broadening as it went and changing into a swarm of fire ants. The winged horrors spun down toward one of the attackers, in moments they engulfed the wizard, who rolled shrieking amid the stinging cloud. His agony was brief. Death followed swiftly, and the fire ants scattered into the night.
Again Tzigone stabbed, and the wand spat another swarm at a wizard who was employing a spell of levitation to breach the wall. The fire ants surrounded him in midair. In response to his agonized screams, one of his kin hurled a small green bolt at the dying man. The magic struck the roiling black cloud, and the shrieking ended in a burst of magical energy. Green droplets fell to the garden, along with a faintly rattling hail of fried insects. Oddly enough, the spell of levitation survived. The corpse floated above his kin like a grim banner.
The wand yielded two more killing swarms. Tzigone tossed aside the spent weapon and looked around at the arsenal. Mundane weapons of wood and steel stood ready, and many conical, faintly glowing vials lined several shelves. A wooden rack held battle wands, lined up neatly as the swords. There was even a small ballista, mounted on wheels so it could be moved to any of the several windows.
"Load that," she snapped, pointing toward the giant crossbow.
Mason quickly put a bolt into place and cranked it back. She took one of the vials, fell quickly and deeply into a brief trance to check its nature and use, then gave a curt nod. She yanked the cork out with her teeth and fitted the vial over the bolt's point, securing it with a twist. The vials had been cunningly fashioned to fit over the points of the giant arrows.
Tzigone stepped behind the ballista and leveled it at a point just beyond the wall. Several Noor wizards converged there, their hands moving in unison as they mingled their magic in some great spell. She took a deep breath, held it, and pulled the ballista trigger.
The giant bolt hissed free and plunged down toward the spell-casting wizards. It shattered on the ground nearby, sending a tremor through the tower and a flash of orange-red light over the wizards.
Suddenly the light separated