They came in running, fearlessly, ravenous, mostly from the west, but already flanking north and south. The companions stood to face them, most of all Ambergris, who didn’t hoist her huge mace, but stepped forward and presented instead her holy symbol.
“By Dumathoin’s grace, be gone!” she roared, her voice clear and melodic, full of resonance and godly power, which manifested itself in a supernatural glow, a light shining from the dwarf herself.
The press of creatures immediately before Ambergris threw up their spindly arms and clawed hands defensively, a horrid communal shriek filling the air. Some fell to the ground, thrashing, and others, many others, fled, turning back the way they had come, running with all speed from the bared power of the dwarf cleric.
“Redemption!” Afafrenfere congratulated at the dwarf’s side, but that was all he had time to say, for though Ambergris had improved the odds, the numbers still dramatically favored the enemy.
A ghoul leaped in, clawing with its left hand, and the monk stepped forward with his left foot and threw his forearm against the ghoul’s forearm in a solid block, taking care to avoid the filthy, paralyzing claws. Predictably, the ghoul tried to bite at that blocking arm, but Afafrenfere was already into his heavy right crossing punch. He caught the ghoul on the side of its jaw, shattering the bones and snapping the undead monster’s head around viciously.
The monk disengaged his arm quickly and fell back, throwing all of his weight to his trailing right leg and lifting his left and kicking out, catching the ghoul in the throat as it turned back at him, and driving it away.
At the same time, Afafrenfere snapped off a series of overhand and underhand slaps with his right arm, rolling fast to pick off the clawing swipes of a second ghoul. He ducked low and kicked out, cracking the ghoul’s knee, shattering the bones, but undead creatures felt no pain and the ghoul leaped upon him.
Afafrenfere braced and caught the monster, then stood up straight, hoisting the ghoul above his head and launching it back at the next nearest monster. As it flew out, however, the ghoul hooked its claws on the monk’s upper arm, tearing Afafrenfere’s skin as it went. The monk gave the slight wound no heed, already spinning and kicking at the next incoming enemy.
But he soon enough felt the numbness spreading along his arm, the infection of ghoul touch, and the images before him began to swim and float around as he felt the strength leaving his legs.
Across from the monk, Dahlia was better armed against such monsters. She had Kozah’s Needle assembled as a staff once more, and prodded it and swept it around to keep the enemies at bay. She worked toward Entreri as she did, and he to her, and they quickly found a rhythm, with Dahlia using the long weapon and tactical bursts of its magical lightning to create a perimeter free of clawing beasts.
Entreri stayed low and unobtrusive, giving the elf warrior full reign to guide the fight. Her heritage, her elf blood, would protect her from the ghoul paralysis, at least, where his own would not. He focused on the flanks, and whenever one of the monsters slipped past a swing of Dahlia’s staff, it was met full force by the assassin’s sword and dagger, weaving and darting, striking home. But Entreri, too, took great care here, and reminded himself of the nature of his enemies, particularly when his shorter blade found a mark.
Entreri could not let the dagger drink, as it always desired, for the life-force it would bring forth from the undead would hardly nourish him.
Well-versed in the matter of undead creatures, Effron the warlock recognized immediately that this was no simple ghoul hunting pack. Such roving bands were common around the marshes, but too many had come forth, and with wights among them.
And with something more sinister and powerful behind them, he understood, lurking out there in the darkness, waiting for the moment to come forth in all its sinister power.
The tiefling warlock held back his most powerful spells in the early rounds of battle, throwing forth necromantic flames to sting and slow any approaches wherever his companions’ defenses seemed weakest.
Soon enough, he found himself furiously casting, one fiery assault after another, black sweeps of flame reaching out almost continuously at the encroaching horde.
Ambergris had given them a chance, he understood, for if she had not been so powerful in her divine turning, if she had not shattered the center of the undead line with the word of her god, then the five, all fighting furiously now, would surely have been overwhelmed.
As it was, they were barely holding their own, and that standstill became tenuous indeed when Brother Afafrenfere slumped down to the muck, losing his battle against the ghoulish paralysis.
Drizzt came out from behind a tree in a sudden charge.
A ghoul leaped out in front of him, tongue darting wildly, claws raking, but Drizzt had noted it, and the other two, and before the wretched thing got near to hitting him, his scimitars fast descended.
Its head split cleanly in half, the ghoul fell away.
Drizzt bowled through it, threw himself down into a forward roll across the muddy ground and came up in a full sprint, his speed enhanced by his magical anklets, his scimitars working left and right ferociously as he barreled between the other two ghouls, leaving them twisting and torn in his wake.
The armored wight hoisted its greatsword to meet the charge, and worked it deftly to slow the drow’s momentum. This was no simple animated corpse, but the raised remains of one who had been a formidable warrior in life, obviously.
Drizzt didn’t appreciate that in the early encounter, and had to throw himself backward and to the ground to avoid a sudden heavy sweep of that four-foot blade, the air humming with its passage barely a finger’s breadth from his face.
He kept his feet firmly planted as his back touched down to the ground, and every muscle in his frame tightened that he could lift himself right up. He even managed a stab with his left-hand blade before leaping back to avoid the sweeping backhand of the greatsword.
The wight advanced in a rush behind that blade.
Drizzt started out to the right, retreated a step and bent backward, then threw himself back to the left behind the next swing. Then he darted ahead, moving past the turning wight, and struck again, and a third time, as he rushed past.
But the wight was fast in pursuit, pressing Drizzt. It felt no pain. A living opponent would be clutching at its side, where ichor and maggots now poured forth from the deep gouge of Icingdeath.
Drizzt set himself again, anticipating the warrior wight’s next attack, and as the greatsword started moving, so too did Drizzt.
But the muddy ground slipped out under his weight and he stumbled.
Their defensive formation shuddered and seemed to fall apart as the ghoul poison reached deep into Brother Afafrenfere.
He swooned. He would have fallen to the ground all together, but a strong dwarf hand grabbed his shoulder, Ambergris yanking him upright with one arm, sweeping Skullbreaker out before her with the other to keep her own enemies at bay. As if that wasn’t enough to keep the dwarf occupied, she chanted at the same time.
Still, the dwarf’s heroic efforts would not be enough, Effron realized. He waved his hand, sending a swirling line of purplish-black flames past Afafrenfere to burn and drive back the hungry ghouls.
The warlock reached more deeply and powerfully into his repertoire for his next spell, and black tentacles pushed out of the muddy ground and began snapping at the ghouls all along that side of the formation, grabbing and squeezing and burning.
He had to move fast, he knew, for the tentacles would slow them for only a short period of time.
They could not win. Not with the greater undead monstrosities out there in the darkness.
Even as that troubling thought flitted through the warlock’s mind, he noticed a ghoul rise up once more, brought back to an animated state again after Dahlia had apparently destroyed it with her lightning.
A skull lord!
A skull lord lurked nearby, Effron knew, and it would raise its army repeatedly, until attrition slowed the blades and ghoulish poison broke their ranks. He had to find that particular monster and defeat it, and quickly.
But where?