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[Lazybones]

Chapter 75


Unable to break free of the demon’s iron grip, and definitely preferring to avoid immersion in the cauldron, Gral tried a desperate gambit. He couldn’t even see the demon, as it was holding him facing up, so his options were increasingly limited.

The dwarf still held tenuously to his staff, and as the demon thrust him forward, clearly intending to deposit him directly into the hot liquid, he thrust with it at the lip of the huge iron pot. The thunderwave he released reverberated painfully from the cauldron with a bone-shaking ringing, but that alone was not enough to shake the demon’s grip. Nor was it enough to rupture the cauldron, which was fashioned out of thick iron, several inches thick, and which weighed thousands upon thousands of pounds. The magic that fueled it was not affected by Gral’s discharge.

What the thunderwave did, however, was to shake the cauldron with the force of a titan’s kick. The near lip dropped, just a few inches, as the entire construction resettled upon its foundation. But more significantly, the liquid inside sloshed heavily away and then back, spilling on its return a good thirty or forty gallons of the noxious stuff out over the lip and onto whatever was directly in front of it.

More specifically, onto the demon’s face.

The barlgura was a tough customer, but even its abyssal hide couldn’t fully absorb the sudden deluge of burning heat deposited upon it. It screamed horribly, flinging Gral aside as it drew back, trying uselessly to protect itself from damage that had already been done. It staggered back, steam rising from it and from the floor where most of the gunk had splashed. While it kept its footing, it was far from happy at that moment.

It became even less happy a moment later, as Gral, who lay splayed upon the floor where he’d landed a few paces away, tapped his staff to the floor. A rime of white frost spread out from the point of impact, freezing the steaming liquid where it touched, forming a slick that extended out under the stamping demon’s feet. The barlgura abruptly lost its fight with balance as the smooth ice stole its footing, and it fell heavily onto its back.

Mara rolled out from under the descending path of the skeleton’s big hoof, which smashed into the ground as hard as its club had before. Her respite was only momentary, however, as its empty skull swung to follow her, its club coming up again to deliver a crippling strike. The fighter tried to get up, to crawl away, anything to put distance between her and the thing, but her battered limbs simply refused to follow her orders, and she saw that there was no way she’d get out of the monster’s insane reach.

A loud cry drew her attention to behind the creature, where Carzen Zelos rushed forward, a demon still clambering at his side, trying to claw past his shield. Mara saw the skeleton shift slightly, and she yelled a warning. “Look out!” The man from Fallcrest saw it too, and raised his shield, but the skeleton’s blow was far too powerful to deflect. The impact drove the shield into Carzen’s body, and reversed his momentum, knocking him over onto his back.

The demon gleefully leapt onto him, tearing and biting.

Mara was on her feet, Carzen’s sacrifice restoring a jolt of sudden energy to her body. The skeleton’s club came around toward her, but she was already inside its reach, and she lashed out with her sword, driving it through the joint of the creature’s left knee, smashing the cap bone into shards and dust. She kept running, forcing the thing to turn after her. The bones of its leg ground together, and for a moment she thought it would continue unaffected by the damage she’d wrought upon it, but then the big leg bones slipped apart, and the monstrosity tumbled over, landing in a boneshattering heap upon the floor. Bits and pieces of it went flying, and while the bulk of it remained more or less intact, the animating force that had given it life seemed to have fled, for it did not try again to rise.

Dodging through the debris of settling bones and dust, Mara hurried to help Carzen.

Vhael reached the stairs, and rushed up them, his blood pounding in his ears. As he gained the summit, however, and looked out over the chamber’s upper tier, he paused, wary.

Several more of the huge iron cauldrons bubbled upon their platforms on this level, filling the air with a noxious stink and a wafting haze. To his right as he reached the top of the stairs he could see the captives, two halflings, imprisoned within a globe of shifting green radiance that seemed to rise up out of another rune circle inscribed upon the floor.

But Vhael’s focus was drawn directly forward, where a monster knelt before a ritual altar.

It was a gnoll, or at least that was Vhael’s first impression. It was bent almost double before the altar, holding open a parchment scroll covered from end to end with spidery script. As Vhael reached the top of the stairs it shifted, lifting its head slowly, as though with a great effort. Its eyes were like bright red coals, and the dragonborn saw that what it had thought was a helmet was in fact a pair of curving horns that jutted from the front of its skull. As if the horns and eyes were not enough evidence of its ancestry, as it shifted a pair of bat-like wings unfolded from across its back, spreading menacingly behind it.

“So. They have sent a dragon-man to challenge me,” the creature hissed, its voice sibilant and corrupt.

“I am here to put an end to you,” Vhael said simply. He lifted his sword and started forward, but the demonic gnoll made a motion, and a sick green glow that echoed the radiance shining from the rune circle erupted all around the dragonborn. Vhael felt the foul taint of that power seeping into him, felt it take physical hold of him, lifting him off the ground until he hovered in the air before the evil adept.

“Your power is nothing before the might of great Yeenoghu, dragon-man,” the gnoll said, rising from his stance before the altar. As he stood, he took up a mace of black metal, its flanges crafted into the shape of spiked skulls. He kept hold of the scroll in his other hand, and continued to utter syllables of the ritual, even as he stepped forward to confront Vhael. The dragonborn struggled against the infernal magic of the gnoll warlock, but could not break free.

“When your soul arrives at the foot of my master, you may tell him that Maldrick will soon send many more to him,” the gnoll cackled. He lifted the mace-rod, and tongues of black fire surged out of the orifices of the carved skulls.