"Mas illu !" the young priest cried, and the vampire howled as sparks fell over it.
"That one's yer own!" Ivan cried to his brother, and he rubbed the temporary blindness out of his eyes and went back to his zombie chopping. He paused and dipped his head, grabbing at the dead weight entangled there, and a host of monsters closed in, arms clubbing.
Cadderly started for Pikel, but saw that Ivan, with his encumbering load, was in more trouble. He rushed to join Ivan, smacked away those zombies he could reach, then took hold of the corpse and finally pulled it free of the dwarfs antlers.
Cadderly overbalanced as it fell loose, then found he was sailing backward even faster as a zombie punched him in the chest. He hit the stone floor hard, fejt the breath blasted from his lungs, and his precious wand flew free of his grasp. By the time he regained his sensibilities, a zombie had its strong hands clasped firmly about his throat.
The vampire was agile, but none could roll better than a round-shouldered dwarf. Pikel enjoyed the ride, throwing his weight into every turn with enthusiastic abandon. Finally the living ball slammed a wine rack, and the old structure buckled, showering Pikel and the vampire with splintered wood and shards of breaking bottles.
Pikel took the worst of that, the breaking rack doing no more damage to the vampire that Ivan's axe had done. Pikel, cut in a dozen places, one eye closed by a sliver, found himself in tight quarters suddenly, the vampire against him, holding him tight in its impossibly strong arms, its sharp fangs digging at his throat.
"Oooo!" the dwarf growled, and he tried to pull free, tried to wriggle one arm out, that he might hit his adversary.
It was no use; the vampire was too strong.
Cadderly thought to invoke Deneir's name, thought to present his holy symbol, thought to grab his walking stick and slam the zombie on the side of the head. He thought all of it and more at once, his mind whirling as the monster, its bloated face devoid of emotion,.held the needed breath from his lungs.
Suddenly that bloated face rushed at Cadderly, slammed him hard, drawing blood from his lips. At first he thought the zombie had launched a new attack, then, as the thing steadily lifted from him, its grasp on his neck relaxed, the young priest understood.
"Durned things keep getting stuck," Ivan grumbled, hoisting his axe higher and bringing the impaled zombie with it He brought the blade close and tried to pry the zombie loose.
"Behind you!" Cadderly called.
Too late. Another of the monsters pounded Ivan hard on the shoulder.
Ivan looked at Cadderly and shook his head. "Will ye wait a minute?" he screamed into the zombie's face, and the monster promptly punched him again, raising a welt on his cheek.
Ivan's heavy boot stomped on the zombie's foot The dwarf launched himself forward with all his weight, the sudden movement dislodging the last zombie from his axe. The two foes staggered backward, but the zombie somehow held its footing.
Ivan's hand whipped around, bringing the handle of the axe behind the zombie's shoulder, then back in front of its face. The dwarfs other hand went in a similar movement, grabbing the other end of the handle, just below the axe's huge head. With his hands behind the zombie's back and the handle crossing in front of it, tight across its shoulders and throat, Ivan had the thing off balance. It continued to club at the dwarfs back, but it was in too tight to be effective.
"I telled ye to wait," Ivan explained casually, and the muscles on his powerful arms corded and bulged as he pressed backward and down, folding the monster in half the wrong way.
Cadderly didn't see the powerful move. He was up and moving again. He searched for his wand, but saw no sign of it in the tangle and the darkness. He starred for
Pikel, but ran into a wall of zombies. Taking a circular route that moved him deeper into the cellar, Cadderly's attention was grabbed by something off to the side: three coffins, two open and one closed.
The young priest saw something else there, a blackness, a manifestation of evil. Huddled, shadowy images danced atop that closed coffin. Cadderly recognized the aura sight for what it was. As he had come to decipher the song of Deneir, the general weal of people he encountered was often revealed to him by shadowy images emanating from them. Normally Cadderly had to concentrate to see such things, had to call upon his god, but here the source of evil was too great for the shadows to be concealed.
Cadderly knew Pikel needed him, but he knew, too, that he had found Kierkan Rufo.
Pikel didn't like the feeling at all. The dwarf was a creature of natural order, who prized nature above all, and this foul, perverted thing was violating him, sinking its filthy fangs into the personal temple that was nature's gift to the dwarf.
He screamed and thrashed, to no avail. He felt his blood being drawn out, but could do nothing to stop it.
Pikel tried another tactic. Instead of pressing out with his arms, he tightened them to his sides, hoping the vampire would loosen its grip.
The monster's eyes widened in shock, and it began to tremble violently. Pikel understood when he felt the water, the "doo-dad" water being forced from his water-skin, soaking the front of his baldric and breeches.
The vampire broke the hold and leaped back, crashing into the part of the wine rack that had not collapsed, sending bottles flying. Smoke wafted from its chest, and Pikel saw that his squirting waterskin had drilled a neat hole there, right into the vampire's heart.
On came the raging dwarf, pounding with his club, crushing the perversion into the floor. He turned, sensing that zombies were converging from behind, but the undead wall parted as Ivan burrowed through to his brother's side once more.
Cadderly's remaining light source dimmed as he approached the coffins, his eyes set firmly on the dancing shadows, on the box that held Kierkan Rufo. He felt a warmth in his pocket then, which confused him for just a moment
Cadderly stopped suddenly and lashed out to the side with his walking stick, smashing several bottles. A shriek and a flap of wings told him he had guessed right.
"I see you, Druzil," the young priest muttered. "Never will I lose sight of you!"
. The imp became visible, crouched on the lip of one of the opened boxes.
"You desecrated the library!" Cadderly accused.
Druzil hissed at him. "There is no place here for you, foolish priest. Your god has left!"
In answer, Cadderly thrust forth his holy symbol and, for a moment, the light flared, stinging Druzil's sensitive eyes. These two had battled before, on several occasions, and each time Cadderly had proven stronger.
So it would be again, the young priest determined, but this time, Druzil, that most malicious imp, would not escape his wrath. Cadderly pulled forth the amulet, the link between him and the imp, and sent a telepathic wave at Druzil, calling loudly the name of Deneir. The image manifested itself in both combatants' thoughts as a sparking ball of light, floating toward Druzil from Cadderly.
Druzil retorted with the discordant names of every denizen of the lower planes he could think of, forming a ball of blackness that floated out to engulf the light of Cadderly's god.
The two wills battled halfway between the combatants. First Druzil's blackness dominated, but sparks of light gradually began to flash through.
Suddenly the black cloud shattered and the sparking ball rolled over the imp.
Druzil shrieked in agony; his mind was nearly torn asunder, and he fled, half-crazed, looking for a corner, a place of shadows, a place far from the terrible, bared power of Cadderly.
Cadderly thought to pursue, to be rid of troublesome Druzil once and for all, but then the lid of the coffin flew away and a deeper darkness wafted out. Kierkan Rufo sat up and stared at Cadderly.
This was the way it had to be, they both knew.
Behind Cadderly, Ivan and Pikel continued to rain carnage on the unthinking minions, but neither the young priest nor Rufo noticed. Cadderly's focus was straight ahead, straight on the monster who had destroyed the library, who had taken Danica from him.
"You killed her," Cadderly said evenly, fighting hard to keep the tremor out of his voice.
"She killed herself," Rufo countered, needing no explanation as to whom Cadderly was speaking of.
"You killed her!"
"No!" Rufo countered. "You killed her! You, Cadderly, fool priest, and your ideas of love!"
Cadderly fell back on his heels, trying to sort through Rufo's cryptic words. Danica had died of her own accord? She had given up her life to escape Rufo, because she could not love Rufo, and could not accept his offers?
A tear gathered in Cadderly's gray eye. Bittersweet, it was, a mixture of pain at the loss and pride in Danica's strength.