Chapter 334
THRALLS OF THE OVERMIND
“Shay, keep that bitch busy,” Talen said, grimacing as his blackened skin cracked with his movement. As the scout hastened off to confront Letellia, he turned to face Dar, who was approaching slowly. The fighter too moved somewhat awkwardly, as if he was resisting the Overmind’s touch. Or maybe it was just that the vat of dead brains was not used to controlling human bodies directly. Either way, Talen knew that nothing short of death was going to stop his foe, this time.
“So be it,” he said.
“The Overmind is our foe,” Varo said, seeming to appear out of nowhere as he approached from the left. The cleric was in poor shape, limping slightly and with char covering the clothes on the left side of his body. He drew upon his magic, and healing power flowed into him.
Talen acknowledged him with a nod. “Can you stop him?” he said, indicating the approaching fighter.
“I will try,” Varo said. But he merely stepped forward a few paces, stopping in the path that Dar would have to take to get to Talen. The cleric clutched his divine focus, and calmly drew upon the power of his patron.
Talen glanced at Calla. “If he gets past the priest, do your best to delay him.”
“Yes, master.”
Talen turned and headed once more for the Overmind.
Allera groaned, and lifted her head from the cold stone. The taste of blood was in her mouth; her own blood. Memory came back; Dar had struck her, hard, but not before she’d seen the change in his eyes. He’d fought off the mind flayer’s charm, to protect her, but this was different; the hand that had struck her had not been his to control. She was lucky that she been so close to him; had he had room to swing Valor, she might not have waken at all.
She’d been healed; she recognized the aftereffects of a cure spell as well as she knew her own name. Varo... she saw him now, facing Dar, who was closing the distance between them quickly. The cleric met her eyes briefly, and she saw something there, a silent message that she somehow was able to understand. One word flashed in her mind: duty.
She pulled herself to her feet, and started moving.
Shaylara screamed as a streak of hot fire blasted her side. She threw herself forward, and the second scorching ray passed harmlessly past her. Letellia was tracking her movements, and the third blast caught her on the leg, crinkling the gray, lifeless flesh under her armor. Shay grimaced, but came up into a run, finishing the curving arc she’d taken in her charge toward the enthralled sorceress. Letellia was casting another spell, but Shay was too close, now. Her spear shot out, piercing the woman’s shoulder. But Letellia was still protected by her stoneskin, and the wound, while serious, was not enough to take her down quickly.
Shay was ready for the woman’s next gambit, and when the scorching rays came again, the scout was diving to the side. She avoided the first two blasts, and the last caught her only a glancing blow, searing the flesh of her left ear, and scorching the surrounding skin. And then she was clear, and leaping. Letellia tried to draw back, but Shay was on her before she could escape, dropping her spear as she seized the smaller woman in a neck hold.
“Yield, spell-weaver.” But Letellia did not stop fighting. Shay remembered at the last moment Letellia’s particular talents in escaping holds, and she clasped her hand over the woman’s mouth to keep her from invoking her magic. Letellia was protected with a death ward, and Shay could not drain her life energy through the grapple. But she was far stronger, and Letellia could not break free. Still she fought, scratching at Shay’s arms and head with her nails.
Shay dropped her jaws to the woman’s neck, but Letellia’s stoneskin foiled the vampire’s bite. Shay chuckled, and tightened her grasp on the woman’s neck, cutting off her supply of air. She maintained the hold until the woman went limp in her grasp, unconscious.
Dar barely seemed to notice Varo until he was almost atop the man. Varo did not try to reason with him, bringing up his shield in a defensive stance. Dar swung Valor, and the cleric grunted as the blade smashed against his shield, hard enough to dent the magical steel. The axiomatic sword rebounded and started to come down again, this time aimed at the cleric’s throat. But Varo was faster, reaching in and placing his hand upon the fighter’s chest. Magical energy flared, and Dar staggered as the cleric’s dispel evil spell brought lucidity back to his eyes.
But only for a moment. “I cannot fight it,” Dar said, his body trembling.
“I understand,” Varo said. He reached down and seized Valor; the men’s eyes met, and Dar released his grip on the sword. Varo did not hesitate, hurling the weapon across the chamber.
Dar cried out and seized the cleric, hurling him roughly aside. Varo went down, sliding on the smooth stone. The fighter started toward the pillars, but the willowy, black-clad girl appeared in his path.
“No you don’t, big man,” Calla said. Her jaw had healed enough for the words to be clear, but she still looked ragged.
He walked forward, but the lithe girl blurred as she lunged at him, her lips drawn back to reveal her long ivory fangs. But for all the vampire spawn’s unnatural speed and agility, Dar was faster. He whipped his hand back and unslung his club in a single smooth motion. The heavy weapon smashed hard into the junction where her neck met her left shoulder, and she crumpled to the floor, clawing at the bare stone as she struggled unsuccessfully to rise.
Talen screamed as the blue glow protecting the Overmind threw him back once more. This time he’d gotten close enough to look into the pool, where lumps of corrupt matter floated in a dense slick of black fluid. Even in his unlife state he could sense the potency that blazed off it like the light of a sun. He was not sure how he could hurt a thing like this, a soulless entity that lacked flesh and muscle and bone.
Still, he tried.
He hit the ground and rolled, grimacing as the tendrils of blue energy danced across his back. He could get no further, and the blue glow protected it against magic.
Then he saw Allera step into the ring of pillars. The healer’s face was tight with concentration, and Talen could see beads of sweat mingling with the blood that slicked her face. Her holy aura had faded, and he knew that the full force of the Overmind’s will had to be smashing against her mind.
Talen heard a noise to his left, beyond the pillars, and saw Calla go down. Dar no longer held Valor, but he was clutching that damned big club of his, and it was pretty obvious what his objective was. As he glanced back, he saw that Allera saw it too. She held his eyes with a surprising strength of focus.
“Swear to me, that you will not kill him.”
Talen’s mouth started to twist into a smirk, but there was something in her that gave him pause. He was no longer a knight, or even a man; what meaning did his word have now? But she would not release him, and he realized that the words, while meaningless to him, were necessary for her to go on.
“So be it,” he said, sliding his sword back into its scabbard. He turned to the pillars to face Dar, flexing his fingers within his gauntlets. Behind him, Allera turned and plunged into the blue glow that surrounded the basin of the Overmind. He waited for her to cry out, to see her driven back as he had been, but she vanished into that aura, and did not return.
And then he had to focus on Dar.
“I swore to let you live,” Talen said to him. “But I made no promises that you would not hurt.”
The fighter swung the heavy club as soon as he was within reach. For a moment it looked like the blow would crush Talen’s left arm against his body, but the vampire had been ready for the attack, and he stepped back smoothly, and the club flashed through empty air. Talen slid forward in its wake, and smashed the fighter across the front of his helm, hard enough to snap his head around to the left. Dar stumbled back a step; his helmet had absorbed only a little of the force of Talen’s strike.
“Done already?” Talen asked, chuckling as he stepped forward to finish him off.
Dar came up with surprising speed, driving the head of his club into Talen’s side with enough force to crack the bone. Too late, Talen realized that Dar had been feigning more serious injury to lure him in. The knight tried to grab the weapon, relying on his superior strength to pry it free of Dar’s grasp, but the fighter shifted and smacked the end of the haft hard into Talen’s forehead. Now it was the vampire that staggered back, and he could not defend himself from a third blow that caromed solidly into the center of his breastplate, driving him back into the nearest pillar with enough force to crack the ancient stone. His vision blurred, and for a moment the only thing he could hear was the omnipresent buzzing of the Overmind’s power.
And then his senses cleared, just in time for him to see Dar’s club descending toward his skull.
