Chapter 271
“I’m starting to get a little tired of this thing!” Beorna yelled, holding up her arm to protect her face as the driving hailstones of the ice storm pounded her, glancing off of the solid adamantine plates of her armor. All of them were blasted by cold and the hard impacts of the stones; even Mole’s speed and agility were of no use, as the hailstones seemed to be everywhere at once.
Zenna staggered backward as a hailstone clipped her on the shoulder; her innate resistance to cold protected her from some of the power of the devil’s spell, but that proved of little help against the physical impacts. She looked up to see Dannel standing his ground a few paces away, trying to ignore the hits that drove painfully into him, sending arrows up through the storm at the devil. A screech from above told of a hit; in the brief interlude since the devil had teleported away Zenna had aligned his arrows, and now his shots had a more telling impact. But the devil’s black shield protected it from most of their attacks, and even those that got through that outer barrier had to content with its unnaturally thick hide.
“We have to disrupt its magic!” Shensen shouted. Zenna had had the same thought, but she knew her own abilities—and limitations—too well to hope that her powers could foil the potent magic of the fiend.
Still, she had to try, and she wasn’t alone; her companions likewise unleashed their most powerful spells and other attacks upon the creature. Beorna spoke a word of dismissal; the clarion tone of that spell momentarily sang through the chamber with bright energy, but the devil resisted it, and the spell dissipated without effect. Similarly Zenna’s dispel faltered without effect, and while Shensen’s effort a moment later had a slightly greater impact, its unholy aura fading, the magic that kept it aloft continued to function, and a few moments later the devil simply restored its protective shield, gesturing almost contemptuously at them as it worked its magic anew.
Arun had unlimbered his large but infrequently used bow, and was fitting an arrow to the string when Zenna shouted, “Arun! Use Dannel’s arrows!” The dwarf nodded, recognizing her intent, and joined the elf, who continued his barrage, his magical quiver producing the aligned arrows in a steady stream upon demand. Zenna was about to cast a haste spell, but seeing how badly Dannel was hurt, she instead stepped up to him and unleashed a powerful healing spell into his nearly-frozen body.
Her aid came not a moment too soon, for the devil, hurt now by several of the arrows from Dannel’s persistent barrage, chittered out an inarticulate statement of rage and lowered its spear toward them, diving toward the floor. For an instant Zenna thought that the devil intended to simply impale Dannel with the force of its descent, but then, cleverly, it arrested its dive a good nine or ten feet above them. She recognized instantly its strategy; that distance was just outside of the effective reach of the dwarven warriors, while its own long limbs and spear would allow it to strike effortlessly in return. And in proof its first thrust tore deeply into Dannel’s shoulder. Without Zenna’s healing he would have been crippled or killed by that strike, and even as it was he staggered back in pain, half-frozen blood trickling out from the wound, his nimble motions slowed by the devil’s numbing chill.
Zenna looked up into the fiend’s glowing eyes, and felt a cold terror surge over her. An aura of fear radiated out from it, engulfing those closest to it. For a moment, it felt as though sheer panic would overwhelm her senses...
But only for a moment. Even without her own formidable mental discipline to consider, she and the others had a lifeline in their midst, a bulwark that fortified them all against the devil’s fear. Arun radiated a sense of calm, of courage that reinforced them against the fear. The dwarf drew back his bow and fired, and while the missile glanced harmlessly from the devil’s unholy aura, just the sheer act of resistance seemed to bolster them all, and drive them to press their attacks.
Hodge, thankfully out of the radius of the fear aura, had winched a bolt into place in his heavy crossbow, and now he fired as well. His shot, however, was no more effective.
Beorna unleashed a ray of searing light at the devil, but cursed as the beam of energy struck the unholy aura and dissipated.
“Keep at it!” Zenna urged, casting her haste spell now, canceling the power that had numbed Dannel, and enhancing the speed of her friends. The devil’s long, slender tail struck out at her with sudden speed, but she had not neglected her own defenses. The devil’s attack impacted the layered protections of two magical shields, one arcane, the other divine, and was turned by the barest of margins.
But its attack upon her was just a feint, as it turned the full force of its efforts on Arun. The spear darted down once, twice, and yet again, driving through the dwarf’s armor with the first powerful thrust, knocking the bow roughly from his hands as the second clipped his arm and tore through his greave. Arun staggered, but it was not yet done, keening as it suddenly flipped in mid-air, its alien head snapping down to deliver a powerful bite that might have decapitated him, had it not been for the protection of his mithral helm. Even with that moderate protection, though, he was hurt bad, and he fell back, reaching for his shield and sword.
“Hands off him!” Beorna shouted at the demon. Calling upon Helm’s power once more, the templar enlarged, her body seeming to swell with divine fury as she lifted her sword in challenge.
A moment later, the air above the gelugon flickered in a shimmer of light and air. The companions tensed, fearing some new deviltry, but as the distortion took on form, an amorphous, nearly invisible vortex of moving air, it drove down into the devil from behind, slamming at it with powerful slams of concentrated air. The elemental did not harm it seriously, but the devil was caught off-balance, and was driven down almost to the floor, within reach of the companions’ weapons.
Mole had been waiting for just such an opportunity. With the devil’s attention more than a bit distracted, she ran in and leapt at its back, hoping to land a sneak attack. Unfortunately her tiny weapon was little able to penetrate its thick hide, and she landed in a soft roll, darting back to await another chance.
Thus far, the gelugon seemed nearly invincible, taking everything that the companions could throw at it, its innate resistances and the dark mantle of power with which it had cloaked itself absorbing their best efforts. But slowly, it was taking hurts, injuries from blessed weapons that even its phenomenal regenerative powers could not restore. But while it was possessed of a fierce diabolical intelligence, the devil had been driven half-insane by centuries of confinement to this place, trapped by the eldritch arts of the spellweavers who had passed centuries ago, leaving their guardian to languish in solitude. Only once before in recent memory had its prison been disturbed, and that time its foes had retreated and bypassed it, mocking it in its captivity. Now, faced with enemies who shone with goodness, carrying hated weapons of light, an overwhelming surge of anger filled it, and it unleashed the full force of its hatred upon them, seeking vengeance upon the only convenient outlet it had had in five hundred years.
An arrow stabbed into its shoulder, breaking through the red haze of its fury with pain. The archer was that damned elf, and almost without thinking the devil pointed and unleashed another cone of cold that engulfed him. The elf was fast, but when the force of the blast dissipated, he was satisfyingly on his back, covered in a rime of white frost.
Unfortunately for the fiend, the attack had only taken down one of its foes, and it was still within their reach. The elemental continued to pound on it from above, mostly ineffectually, although its assault made it almost impossible for the devil to regain altitude. Zenna rushed to Dannel’s side, while Arun slashed at it with his sword, managing to add another gash in its right leg to its overall tally of injuries.
Hodge lifted his axe and came at it from the side, but as he entered the radius of its fear aura he stumbled back, his eyes widening in sudden horror. Unable to resist that dark power even with the countering effects of Arun’s aura of courage, the dwarf fighter dropped his weapon and ran, screaming.
But then, Beorna came forward.
Her sword, blazing with holy light, was a good seven feet long now, enlarged with the rest of her by her earlier invocation. She used her extended reach to good advantage, driving the weapon down in a powerful two-handed arc that the devil saw coming too late. The edge of the sword intersected with its neck, and with a final truncated screech the gelugon’s head went flying, the dark energy surrounding it vanishing with a jarring suddenness as its body crashed down lifelessly to the ground.