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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 4362778" data-attributes="member: 143">Chapter 67DESPERATE MEASURESAllera’s heart froze in her chest as she watched Dar go over the edge with the spawn, lost in a welter of slashing limbs and falling rock.  Sultheros had empowered him with a fly spell at the start of the battle, but the creature had snared him in its jaws, and Allera could not see through the clouds of dust that were raised by its violent passage down the cliff.  She leaned out over the battlement, and might have followed him down the cliff, had not Petronia lunged and grabbed onto her from behind.  “DAR!” she yelled, but she doubted he’d be able to hear her over the ongoing clatter of stones that continued to fall from the damaged cliff face.  So she summoned her magic, flinging it blindly down the cliff, and felt a vast thrill of relief as she sensed the tiny white glow that was Dar’s life force.  He was wounded, but not as badly as she’d feared, and that white flame of her inner perception grew stronger as she poured healing power into it.  Shouts from the defenders nearby drew her attention around, in time to spot the second spawn that was making its way up the cliff on the south face of the hill.  Men and dwarves were shifting to meet the new threat, and she heard Kiron yelling orders as he ran along the ridge, Aldos and Qatarn at his heels.  Above them, she could just see Sultheros and the other wizards floating closer.  She was also aware of the battle going on with the third spawn on the next hill over, but she could not spare any more attention for them right now.  And over everything, pounding in the front of her mind was a glowing nodule of power held ready for release.  She wanted to free it now, but knew that Dar was right, and that this was only the initial phase of the battle.  Assuming any of them survived to greet the Ravager itself. The spawn reached the crest and pulled itself over, snapping off wooden stakes as though they were mere splinters.  Flames ran down one flank where one of the dwarven fire-pots had struck it, and near a dozen arrows peppered its crimson hide.  Selanthas had stepped up atop the low wall that fronted the scorpion emplacement, and was firing as fast as he could reload, each shot striking the spawn.  He was aiming for the vital spots, eyes and nostrils and the softer flesh inside its slitted ears and gaping jaws, but thus far his assault, and the shots of his allies, seemed barely felt by the raging creature.  The scorpion unleashed a bolt at close range that drove into the center of its chest, but the long missile simply shattered on impact, the bent steel head clattering to the ground to be trampled under the creature’s huge claws. As the creature gained the ridge the defenders engaged it directly, thrusting spears and other long weapons into its body.  Again the attacks seemed to do little but distract the creature.  It seized a dwarf in its jaws, cutting off his screams with a noisy crunch of its jaws.  Half of the hapless sapper went down its gullet; the other half was flung aside, landing at the feet of Duke Aerim, who could only watch from his prison, not ten paces away from where the spawn was working its way through the defenders.  More flashes of magical energy flared down from above, driving the creature into even greater paroxysms of rage.  It rose up on its hind legs, snapping at the air, but the wizards had wisely kept their altitude high enough to avoid any reprisals from below.  That immunity was not sovereign; the Camarians knew that the creature could change form, but Amurru had told them that the transformation into a shape capable of flight took upwards of a full minute, during which time the creature would be vulnerable to concentrated assault.  As it was, however, the spawn did not lack for targets upon the ground.  It dug its claws into a stone-lined trench, ripping out a ten-foot swatch of hillside, along with the two legionaries manning it.  Both men perished messily, along with a third who was almost accidentally impaled by a sudden outward thrust of one of the creature’s legs.  All six of its limbs terminated in four curving black claws as sharp as adamantine daggers, and those cut through stone, wood, and steel plate alike indiscriminately.  The remaining defenders quailed before that assault and began to fall back. Then Kiron and his knights reached the line, and threw themselves into the breach.  The monster saw them coming and lunged to meet the young knight-captain, but Kiron dodged those deadly teeth, taking a glancing hit that nearly dislocated his shoulder.  The epic magical blade given to them by Amurru flared into power, a five-foot shaft of ruby brilliant energy hissing from the long golden hilt at the knight’s call.  He threw himself forward before the creature could follow up on its attack, slicing the blade across the bottom of the spawn’s jaw.  Here was finally a weapon against which the spawn’s otherwordly resistances proved to be of no avail.  The red blade carved a deep gouge in the creature’s jaw, and eager blood that was just as bright sprayed out in a fan that hissed as it splattered on the knight’s breastplate. The attacks by Aldos, Qatarn, and Petronia were of little matter, as far as the creature was concerned, for here was a foe that could really hurt it. Unfortunately for Kiron, that worked both ways.  He held his ground, knowing what was coming even as he lifted the brilliant energy sword again, and the full fury of the ravager spawn descended upon him.</blockquote>

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