Resurrection

Claws tore through Pharaun's piwafwi, ripped the skin of his mid-section. Blood leaked from the wound, but Pharaun managed to mouth the final word of his spell while simultaneously slamming the mirror against the flesh of the nycaloth holding him. Green energy flared, and the nycaloth's roar was cut abruptly short as the magic took effect.

The creature's entire body turned to clear glass.

It started to fall, along with its illusionary doubles, dragging Pharaun with it.

Pharaun wriggled free of its stiff grasp and watched with satisfaction as the transformed creature shattered on the rocky ground below. The other two nycaloths and their illusionary duplicates circled back at him, roaring.

Pharaun turned and flew away from them, speeding around a series of burning drow souls,

gathering for another spell.

He spared a glance to his right, over at the ultroloth. Already, a shimmering globe of magical energy surrounded the yugoloth wizard, and the creature was in the midst of casting yet another spell. Pharaun knew the globe would make the ultroloth invulnerable to a whole host of

Pharaun's less powerful spells.

Pharaun pulled up hard and wheeled to his right. The clumsy nycaloths flew past him,

cursing.

Hoping to disrupt the ultroloth's casting, Pharaun pulled a crystal cone from his piwafwi and hurried through an incantation.

The ultroloth finished first and pointed his open palm at Pharaun.

Almost all of the protective spells on Pharaun's person winked out at the same time, dispelled by the yugoloth's counterspell.

Pharaun cursed. The ultroloth must have been powerful to have so disposed of Pharaun's protective magic.

Pharaun put his vulnerability out of his mind and finished his own spell. He flew at the ultroloth, pronounced the final word, put the cone to his lips, and blew.

An expanding blast of ice and freezing air erupted outward and engulfed the ultroloth. The creature spun backward, coated in a sheath of freezing cold.

Pharaun could see that his spell had harmed the ultroloth, but far from mortally.

He rotated a circle in the air, looking back for the nycaloths.

He saw them nowhere. Either they had abandoned the field or they had turned invisible.

He accelerated upward, anticipating an axe blow with every breath, and at the same time triggered his ability to see invisible creatures. The power took effect just in time for him to see the nycaloths swooping in from either side, axes high.

He veered aside but too slow. An axe sank deeply into his shoulder. The other would have split his skull but he managed to duck under it at the last moment, so it only tore his scalp.

Wings beat in his face. The nycaloths grabbed at his piwafwi, clawed at his flesh. Their weight dragged him downward. He used the ring of flying to resist their pull, but he was slowly drifting down.

Below, hundreds of mezzoloths waited.

Bleeding, mildly dazed, Pharaun voiced the single word to one of his more powerful spells.

The incantation used sound as a weapon, and Pharaun thought it unlikely that the yugoloths would have protected themselves against sonic energy.

When the magic took effect, he felt it gather in his throat. He let it build, then exhaled it in a high-pitched scream that resounded over the battlefield. The magic of the scream tore into and through the nycaloths, killing them both, and continued downward in an invisible wave until it smashed into the waiting mezzoloths and killed fully half of them where they stood.

He righted himself in the air, bleeding profusely from the wounds inflicted by the nycaloths'

claws, and turned to face the ultroloth. Souls burned in the air between them, writhing in pain.

Pharaun, burned and torn, sympathized.

Chapter Twenty

Inthracis shook off the last lingering effects of the drow wizard's cone of cold. His ears still rang from the wizard's banshee wail, but he had been too far away for the magic to affect him otherwise. His nycaloths had not been as fortunate.

Things were not going as Inthracis had hoped. The klurichir and swarm of spiders were churning through the regiment. His troops were fighting well, but the huge demon and spider swarm were more than he had anticipated. The dead littered the battlefield. He could have summoned his own additional aid, of course, but nothing to match either the klurichir or the swarm.

He had to keep the klurichir and swarm occupied, at least until he could kill the priestesses.

He pulled a thin rod of basalt from his thigh sheath and summoned its power.

A pulse of black energy went out and down from him and rippled across the battlefield.

Where it passed, slain mezzoloths and nycaloths clawed and shambled their way to their feet,

even those just killed by the drow wizard. The undead yugoloths would not be as effective combatants as his living troops, but they would be of help against the swarm of arachnids and perhaps even the klurichir.

He sent his mental projection across the field, commanding the newly risen undead: Attack the klurichir and spider swarm until they are destroyed.

The dead moved to obey, joining their living comrades in the desperate melee. Satisfied,

Inthracis considered his options.

Vhaeraun wanted him to kill the three priestesses. He saw only two. They were battling each other on the path leading down from the mountain. He decided that he would see them dead quickly or not at all. Vhaeraun would be satisfied or he would not. Inthracis had seen enough.

To every surviving nycaloth in the Black Horn Regiment, he projected, Two of the three priestesses are on the ledge leading down from the Pass of the Soulreaver. Teleport there, kill them, and retreat from the field.

That done, Inthracis's thoughts returned to the drow wizard. He called to mind the words to one of his more powerful necromantic spells.

Quenthel lashed out with her whip at Danifae. The battle-captive dodged aside but too slow.

The serpents tore into the flesh of her arm and injected their venom. The poison had little effect-

the battle captive must have been protected against poison-but Quenthel took satisfaction in the bloodshed. So too did the whip serpents, who laughed and hissed.

Danifae gritted her teeth and charged, swinging her morningstar for Quenthel's head.

Quenthel took a step back, parried the blow with her shield, and answered with her whip. The serpents bounced off of Danifae's mail. Danifae spread her grip on the morningstar and drove the haft under Quenthel's shield and into her abdomen.

The blow stole Quenthel's breath, and she backed off. Danifae bounded forward-

And screamed in pain.

A blade erupted from the right side of her chest, spraying Quenthel with blood. Danifae's shocked eyes opened as wide as coins and stared down at the arm's span of steel jutting from her chest.

Standing behind Danifae, her invisibility spell terminated by her attack, stood a drow female.

Hate so contorted her face that it took Quenthel a moment to recognize her.

It was Halisstra Melarn.

The traitor priestess put her mouth to Danifae's ear and whispered, "Good-bye, battle-

captive."

Pharaun knew he was vulnerable-his protective spells had been countered-but he could do little about it. And the wounds from the nycaloths continued to leak blood, much more than

Pharaun would have expected for the relatively minor wounds. He could do little about that too,

and the blood loss was causing him to grow weaker. He could not afford a prolonged spell duel.

He and the ultroloth circled at a distance, eyeing each other. The slaughter went on below.

The bellows of the klurichir rang through the air. The seething of the swarm sounded like the waves of the Darksea.