A streak of blue-white lightning erupted from Valindra’s scepter and sped for Neverwinter. Its glow reflected on the terrified faces of a pair of archers for just a flicker before it struck in a great explosion, blowing the men off the city wall.
The lich wanted to fly up into the air, to get up over that wall and rain death on those inside. She hated them, viscerally. They were alive and she was not, and how she wanted to count them among the ranks of her undead army.
But then Valindra remembered Arunika’s words, and the promise of emotional control. This was one of the tests she and Arunika had discussed, where the hunger of lichdom and prudent caution crossed swords.
Still she found herself drifting toward the wall.
She remembered Sylora’s orders for her: She would use her army to test defenses and soften up the enemy until Arunika’s new allies could be brought in and exploited.
Still she couldn’t stop herself.
But then she saw some fighting at the base of the wall. Zombies scrambled to get at some unseen foe. The Ashmadai she’d sent ahead to die, stubbornly still alive, was going in as well. Other Ashmadai began shouting about the enemy on the field, naming him as the Netherese champion.
Before Valindra could even tell them to catch and kill the champion, the furious zealots had taken the task upon themselves. They stretched their line far down to Valindra’s left and began approaching, the ends of the line curling ahead to seal off any escape by the infamous Barrabus the Gray.
Valindra turned her attention back to the enemy champion and his battle. The Ashmadai woman was down, many zombies lay scattered around him, and now he saw his coming doom.
He would run for the wall, the lich knew, and perhaps someone there would drop him a rope …
Hardly thinking, Valindra reached out with her scepter and a burst of red lights spun across the field. As the last of the missiles flew away, the lich conjured a storm cloud and began pelting Barrabus and the ground around him with ice.
She watched with a satisfied grin as he pulled his cloak tight and hunched low, futilely racing for the wall.
The Ashmadai warriors closed fast from behind.
But then came shouts from the farthest edge of the line, far to Valindra’s left: “Shadovar! Netheril is come!”
To the Ashmadai, no battle cry could sound more encouraging. As one, they forgot their enemies in Neverwinter and turned instead to meet the newest force on the field.
Valindra glanced that way, then at the crawling enemy she’d pummeled, then to the city walls and the continuing fracas within.
“It is him!” an Ashmadai tiefling warrior cried. He pointed to the far end of the line, to the battle with the Netherese.
A large form towered over one of her minions, his huge sword shining red even in the dark of night.
“The Netherese Lord, my lady!” the nearest Ashmadai reported. “The leader of our enemies!”
“A great victory awaits us!” another cried, and charged at the distant form.
Valindra studied the fight and it took only a few moments to understand they couldn’t win. Most of her zombies were inside the city walls, and her Ashmadai force didn’t nearly match up to this approaching enemy. Even worse, the Netherese lord was out in his full glory, his every swing with his large red-bladed sword cutting those nearest zealots apart. The strength of his blows overwhelmed any defenses, swatting scepters aside and driving through skin and bone with ease, and he left a line of severed bodies in his bloody wake.
The lich hissed and turned her attention one last time to the enemy now moving to the base of the wall, the warrior her minions had named the Netherese champion. At least in this, she would claim victory.
She thrust out her scepter and loosed another lightning serpent. Then Valindra, acting so much more like the living, clever Valindra Shadowmantle, Overwizard of the Hosttower of the Arcane, turned and fled the field.
The energy of the missiles took his breath away and nearly knocked Barrabus from his feet as he scrambled for the city wall. All around him, the Ashmadai closed in, and he knew he needed to either find an easy way to climb the wall, as unlikely as that might be, or have someone up there assist him. Judging from the sounds of battle behind the wall, that seemed even more unlikely.
Then came the storm, balls of ice battering him, the ground growing slick beneath his feet. He held his footing but he could barely walk.
He turned to consider his dilemma, to stand and fight, perhaps.
Sounds of battle to his right brought him hope that Herzgo Alegni had at last entered the field, but before he could savor that hope, Barrabus saw the lightning serpent flying across the field.
He flipped over sideways and landed right back on his feet, his hair dancing wildly, but just dodging the magic’s stinging bite.
And then the first of his pursuers came in at him. One slipped to his back before he even got close. Another held her footing and slid toward him on the slick grass. She held out her scepter to parry Barrabus’s swinging sword.
Barrabus neatly sidestepped and the sword went high above her. In the same movement, he reached his dagger hand through the opening at the crook of the woman’s left elbow. She tried to bring her scepter into position for an offensive strike. But as her hand went behind her, he brought it up hard and swung it back over. He turned sidelong to the woman and over she went, unable to resist the throw.
She landed on her feet and even managed to turn enough in mid-air so that she almost faced him. But it did her little good. Barrabus’s dagger arm stabbed out, driving the blade deep into her chest.
At the same time, Barrabus aimed his sword down at the second attacker. The sword slipped into the Ashmadai’s gut, angled to slice through his diaphragm and into his lungs.
Barrabus didn’t pause long enough to consider whether he’d finished either of those opponents. He leaped away in another sidelong somersault, his black cloak flying wide to obscure his form. He landed on slick grass. He leaped again in the same direction then a third time in rapid succession, until finally, he found solid footing.
Another pair of Ashmadai rushed at him, jabbing their weapons, just as the woman he’d stabbed climbed back to her feet and came at him. With a disgusted look, Barrabus brought his sword down and around in front of him, and on the upswing, tossed it into the air so that his hand could grasp and activate his belt buckle dagger.
He flicked his wrist, launching the knife, and caught his sword so fluidly that neither of the two battling him even realized that he’d tossed the sword free of his hand, let alone thrown a knife.
Until the blade stuck deep into the woman’s throat. She crumbled to her knees but kept crawling, praying to her beloved arch-devil with every movement.
Barrabus, heavily engaged with the other pair, didn’t find her zealotry admirable or amusing. Just stupid.
He worked his new opponents into just the right angle. When the crawling zealot reached him, he simply shifted his foot and half-turned, dropping a heavy sword chop on the back of her head.
She fell to the ground as surely as if a large rock had fallen on her from on high, and Barrabus went back to stabbing and parrying and slashing at the other two.
The woman groaned, pulled herself back to all fours, and started crawling again.
One of the zealots battling Barrabus cried out in ecstasy, “Asmodeus!”
He should have concentrated on Barrabus instead, for his distraction gave the agile assassin all the opening he needed. He darted in between the pair, turned, and shoved out, sending the fool stumbling to the side and right over the crawling woman’s back.
He brought his arms back in close, one elbow driving back to hit the other opponent under the ribs, lifting him up on his toes. Barrabus dropped to one knee as the man lurched forward. He brought his dagger hand up over the man’s head, driving him down.
Barrabus hopped back to his feet and stabbed his sword into the hollow of the man’s throat. Behind the crawling woman, the other Ashmadai tried to spring up, but Barrabus’s dagger flew toward him and stuck in his chest, sending him back to the ground, gasping.
The woman stubbornly came at him again. On her knees, head lifted to face the assassin, she cried out, “Asmode—!”
Before she could finish the word, Barrabus decapitated her. Her head spun long into the empty air. It landed facing Barrabus and showed no look of horror there, just defiance.
He rushed past, kicking her kneeling, headless corpse to the ground, and finished off the other attackers. As he bent to retrieve his dagger from the Ashmadai’s chest, he spit on the man’s body.
He sensed others near him, so he leaped around, landing at the ready.
It was not a group of Ashmadai standing in front of him, but a trio of Shadovar.
“Well done, Barrabus the Gray,” one of them remarked. “Master Alegni requests that you return to the city at once, as we will win the field.”
Barrabus glanced across at the Netherese lord.
He trotted to the wall, pausing to collect his belt buckle dagger from the corpse of the decapitated woman, then veered over to scoop up the first Ashmadai he’d defeated this night, the woman still very much alive.
He set her over his shoulder and ran to the base of the wall, calling up for a rope.
When he climbed a few moments later, he took the captured Ashmadai with him. He wasn’t sure why, exactly, except that he knew he didn’t want to leave Herzgo Alegni such a trophy.