“How many?” Alegni asked.
“A veritable horde of the zombies,” Effron explained. “And Valindra and Sylora Salm and a handful of Ashmadai.”
“Sylora has come to face me?” Alegni grinned wickedly at that thought. “Does she really believe her magic can withstand the power of Herzgo Alegni?”
“I don’t know she knows who Herzgo Alegni is,” said Effron, drawing a scowl from the tiefling.
Alegni reached into his pouch and produced a gauntlet, black and red, and slid it onto his sword hand. This was Claw’s matching piece, designed to dull magic to protect the wielder of the powerful sword from the weapon’s telepathic intrusions. Alegni preferred not to wear it, for it dulled his mental connection with the magical Claw, and he believed that his closeness with his weapon helped to keep him alive, particularly when the dangerous Barrabus was around.
But the gauntlet also worked to minimize external magic, and the sorceress Sylora would be hard-pressed indeed to truly wound Alegni while he wore such an artifact.
The tiefling looked to Barrabus, his face showing his eagerness for battle.
“It’s a ruse,” the battered and bleeding Barrabus said.
Alegni scowled in reply.
Barrabus shook his head. “They want us to come out after them, to be sure,” he said. He called up to the wall, “Do the zombies approach?”
“At the trees!” came the shout back.
“They’re luring us out there,” Barrabus said to Alegni.
“What do we care?” the tiefling replied. “More likely, they’re trying to lure the feeble citizens of Neverwinter, who wouldn’t be able to win if not for their strong walls. Sylora Salm doesn’t understand the power that’s arrayed against her.”
Neither do you, Barrabus thought, but wisely didn’t say.
“Let’s go and slaughter some zealots,” Alegni called, and he started for the gate, Effron beside him. Barrabus and the handful of Shadovar who had accompanied them to Neverwinter followed in close order.
“Go out to the camp,” Alegni bade Effron. “Tell our warriors to come on in full. Swing them wide of Sylora’s position, so she will not escape.”
Effron nodded and melted back into the shadows.
“I do not wish to send my forces outside our walls,” Jelvus Grinch said to Alegni, hustling to catch up to the tiefling.
“No one asked you,” Alegni snapped back at him. “Stay within and cower. I’ll rid you of this menace.”
The men at the gate worked fast at Alegni’s approach, swinging one of the two doors wide, and Alegni and his entourage went through without fanfare.
“They’ll throw their magic at us all the way,” the tiefling leader explained to his forces. “Do not waver, do not falter.”
He’d barely finished speaking when the ground beneath them rolled suddenly and black tentacles sprang forth, grabbing at their ankles and legs.
Alegni swept them aside with his mighty sword. Barrabus took a different tactic and pulled forth his obsidian figurine, tossing it to the ground at his feet. The statue became a steed, a nightmare, and Barrabus wasted no time in vaulting atop the skeletal horse’s back. Knowing that Effron and the others would come in from the south, his right, Barrabus ran the nightmare off to the left in a wide circuit.
Alegni just kept walking, his foot soldiers in his wake. Claw swept aside the tentacles with ease. When eldritch missiles came soaring out of the tree line at him, the tiefling just held up his gauntleted hand and absorbed the magic with no more than a slight sting, as if he’d caught and crushed a bee.
“Come out, Sylora,” he taunted as he approached the tree line.
Instead of Sylora, Barrabus, riding his nightmare, burst out of the trees, bidding him to turn around.
Alegni looked at his slave curiously for just a moment then realized Barrabus had figured something out.
A ruse.
The umber hulks came through the dirt and cobblestones of Neverwinter as easily as if they moved through water. One burst through the floor of a home, its shoulders pressed tightly against the low ceiling.
Both the husband and wife in that home already had their weapons in hand, ready to go out and join in the defense of the town. To their credit, both attacked the umber hulk before it even registered their presence.
A sword banged against the creature’s side, an axe dived into its shoulder, actually cutting through the thick hide just a bit.
For a moment, despite their shock at finding a ten-foot tall, monstrous creature in the middle of their home, the settlers dared believe that the close quarters would work in their favor against the lumbering beast.
But the umber hulk swung its powerful arms, filling the room with its sweeping bulk. It drove the husband and wife aside, tossing them like dry leaves in an autumn wind, and worse, when those mighty arms connected, they broke the house’s stone walls apart.
The ceiling came down, and the collapse didn’t bother the umber hulk at all.
It had the couple scrambling, though, blocks of stone and wooden beams tumbling all around, and in their distraction, the beast caught them and crushed them.
Out into the city it went, where three of its brethren were already causing havoc. Screams echoed from all around as the hardy settlers tried to organize some defense against the hulking beasts. Several men and women did manage to come at one of the umber hulks in a coordinated manner, and managed some stabs and chops at the brute.
But the umber hulk broke apart the nearest building, hurling heavy stones at its adversaries, destroying their coordinated defense. Cleverly, the beast focused its throws, driving one woman out to the side, too far from her comrades.
A giant claw caught her and lifted her into the air, crushing her chest then sending her flying, a human missile, right into the next defender in line. That man tried to catch her instead of simply dodging, and went tumbling to the ground with her. Only then did he realize his efforts were all for naught. The woman was already dead, her chest thoroughly crushed.
He pushed her aside and scrambled to his feet, just in time to meet the attack of a second umber hulk.
Their line defeated and depleted, the defenders were washed away.
Barrabus guided his nightmare at a full gallop back through Neverwinter’s gate, carrying Herzgo Alegni behind him. They quickly recognized the threat that had materialized within the walls, and Barrabus sent his mount charging to the nearest area of battle, and the obvious, huge, monstrous centerpiece of that fight.
Following Alegni’s command, Barrabus brought the nightmare right past an umber hulk, just a few feet to the side—enough for Alegni to leap from the mount, fall into a forward roll, and come around to his feet with a mighty sidelong strike of Claw.
The umber hulk, which took the blows of other defenders with hardly a shrug, didn’t even try to block.
But Alegni wasn’t any defender, and Claw wasn’t any ordinary weapon. Alegni’s strike drove hard into the side of the beast, crushing and tearing through skin and bone, and the beast let out a mighty roar of pain, surprise, and rage.
Alegni’s weapon grabbed its victim even more profoundly, the devious magic of Claw biting at the very life force of the umber hulk.
Horrified, the creature thrashed and swung, and Alegni agilely leaped back, taking his sword with him and bringing a moment of relief to the beast. Just a moment, however, for Alegni leaped right back in, thrusting his sword behind a swinging arm, plunging the blade squarely into the umber hulk’s chest. Alegni twisted it around and the sword attacked the beast’s life force with renewed hunger.
In drove Alegni, ignoring the beast’s arms as they swung back at him, accepting the heavy blows while he reached for the umber hulk’s heart.
A moment later, the umber hulk stood transfixed, its arms out wide, its great mandibles clacking together as if trying to form some sounds to explain this unimaginable turn of events. Soon the whole of the great beast trembled and shook violently in its helpless death throes.
Herzgo Alegni went hunting for another victim.
Barrabus the Gray was not suited to fighting umber hulks. He knew that, of course. He depended upon speed and precision, measuring the reactions of his enemies to afford him openings through which he could deliver quick, killing blows.
Umber hulks, however, didn’t bother reacting to the strikes of a sword and dirk. The misdirection of a man like Barrabus wouldn’t turn a monstrous umber hulk.
Still, when he saw one of the monsters wreaking destruction at one square, scattering villagers and tearing apart the buildings, Barrabus found himself charging in at the beast. He rolled off the back of the nightmare as it neared, landing easily and running along behind the magical horse.
That steed charged right into the hulk, slamming the monster hard and knocking it back a stride. The nightmare reared and kicked its fiery hooves into the beast’s face, and the umber hulk clawed and swatted with abandon, finally driving the hellish horse aside.
Just in time to catch a flying Barrabus.
The man leaped up at the beast, stabbing hard with his sword and scoring a hit right between the umber hulk’s snapping mandibles. Barrabus fell short of the monster, as he’d planned, and darted out to the left, stabbing the creature hard in the side with his dirk as he passed.
The umber hulk swung around, batting at him, but never quite catching up to him. Its heavy arm connected on the nearest building, smashing the wall and sending chunks of stone tumbling.
Barrabus avoided them and used the tumult to run back out the other way, where he launched a flurry of strikes against the distracted brute’s back. He hit the umber hulk a dozen times, but could score only minimal damage against the thick hide and sheer bulk of his enemy.
More importantly, though, Barrabus had made the creature furious and it pursued him with a singular purpose. He wouldn’t allow it to catch up to him to join in battle once more, however, for when those settlers nearby saw that one of their comrades had the umber hulk’s full attention, and noted, too, that it was Barrabus, their hero from the previous battle, they found their courage and came on in support.
Like a hive of stinging bees, they nipped and stabbed at the umber hulk, over and over again. Following Barrabus’s lead, and heeding his commands, they stayed ahead of the monster’s increasingly desperate lunges and swings.
On and on it went, and finally, the umber hulk dived down to the ground and burrowed away, digging deep through the cobblestones and into the soft earth below. Barrabus actually went into the hole after it, scoring many more vicious stabs at the retreating monster’s feet and legs.
When finally he simply let the umber hulk burrow away, leaving him in a trench a dozen feet below the city square above, Barrabus blinked many times and wondered what in the Nine Hells he might have been thinking.
As he ascended, he did so to a growing chorus of elation, and indeed, when he exited, he found that some of the folk were cheering him for his actions in the square.
Mostly, however, they cheered for Herzgo Alegni, and despite Barrabus’s hatred for the tiefling, he couldn’t honestly claim that those cheers were misplaced. Not at that moment, at least.
Alegni fought a second umber hulk, his mighty sword hacking at the beast with abandon. Its skin hanging in torn flaps, the umber hulk tried to keep up with the relentless cuts, tried to turn around in pace with the surprisingly quick Alegni.