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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 4369568" data-attributes="member: 143">Well, we definitely haven't seen the last of him!I'm only about 6 chapters ahead at the moment, and while I'm approaching the end of the story, there's still one big scene left to write. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />  I am not going to have much time to write next week, but I'm going to try to bank enough posts so that I can continue with the update-every-weekday strategy through the end. * * * * * Chapter 69THE LAST SPAWNThe spawn had already come under attack; the flying wizards had engaged it, but even Dar could see that their magic had been largely depleted.  Magic missiles and lightning bolts from wands flared in the night, and Dar caught sight of Mehlaraine, flying low over it, thrusting down with her pike into the creature’s back.  The spawn paid little heed to any of the attacks, trudging forward with singleminded intensity.  Whatever wounds it had suffered thus far had likely been healed already, either by its innate regenerative power or via its nasty ability to absorb the life energy of the foes it destroyed.  “I’m on it,” he said, but before he could fly off again, Allera grabbed onto his arm.  “You’re seriously hurt,” she said, invoking a heal spell to purge his injuries.  As the healing magic poured into him, she said, “I held onto it; there was nothing else I could do.”  It was clear from the look on her face that it had been difficult; Dar knew that she felt the loss of every dead human, dwarf, and elf around them as a painful wound.  “It will fall upon you,” he told her, and then shot out into the night again, barely clearing the ruined battlements before diving down the face of the hill toward the retreating spawn.  Behind him Kiron was shouting orders, but Dar knew that nothing that the knight did would likely affect the rest of this battle.  An arrow from Selanthas passed him, dropping in an arc that intersected with the black slab of the monster.  But then the creature turned into a dell between two parallel ridges, taking it out of sight of the defenders around Rappan Athuk.    Dar followed it, picking up more speed as he descended.  They had to finish this, and quickly; he had no idea how much time they had left, but doubted that it would be very much.  He lifted Justice, and picked his spot, right in the back of the ravager spawn’s skull. But before he could attack, the night came alive ahead of him. Lightning flashed down into the gorge.  But this was no mere lightning bolt from a wand; the surging currents of an empowered chain lightning filled the space between the ridges with blazes of power.  Even more than fifty feet away, Dar could feel his skin tingling from it.  The spawn felt it more acutely, rising up on its forelegs, uttering a scream of pain and rage. A white lance of power streaked down and struck it in the throat, followed by a second, and then a third.  The archer was a strange creature, a merging of a woman’s body with that of a snake, with broad feathered wings that kept it aloft in a steady beat.  It carried a white longbow that formed arrows of pure energy with each draw.  A short distance away, Dar saw a squat, pudgy black man, riding a flying carpet barely big enough to support him, drift down and point to the walls of the canyon.  A rumbling accompanied a sudden collapse of the cliff walls, as rubble poured down toward the spawn.  The plumes of debris took on shape, and Dar saw that the wizard had summoned a pair of earth elementals, each the size of a small cottage.  But as the light of another white arrow flashed he saw that the outlines of the things were twisted, strange, pseudonatural reflections of the elemental forces that he’d seen and fought numerous times in his storied career.  But the creatures, whatever they were, engaged the spawn with vigor, putting their ponderous weight to advantage as they descended upon it from both sides. The spawn reacted with predictable violence, lashing the elemental with its claws, while it took a massive bite out of its shoulder with its black teeth.  The elemental, for all its pseudonatural resistances, was not able to withstand that amount of damage, and it collapsed in a heap of rubble.  The other elemental smashed its fists into the spawn’s back, but while the impacts were strong enough to collapse a stone wall, the creature merely twisted around to face the second threat.  It tore a claw across the elemental’s belly, sending fist-sized clods of earth flying.  It looked very likely that the second summons would not long outlast the first. But the attack of the pseudonatural elementals had distracted it long enough for the casters above to get in another sequence of attacks.  Dar found himself an observer as another series of magical bolts from Sultheros and his companions tore home, but that was trivial compared to what followed.  Dar now saw the source of the lightning that had landed moments ago, as a robed figure descended from the night skies, her robe dancing wildly around her.  Letellia had replaced her cloth mask, but Dar knew her, even before she lifted the silver staff, and invoked another powerful spell.  This time he saw the blue flashes build from his hands, swirling up and down the length of the staff, growing in intensity until she plunged the end downward.  The bolt slammed down into the spawn’s skull, and Dar could see the echoing glow flickering from its eyes, tendrils of energy flaring out from its teeth as the chain lightning full discharged.  The fighter could smell the odor of roasted flesh, and for a brief moment he felt an odd sympathy for the thing, tormented by enemies that it could not reach. Then he saw the light ahead, moments before a small column of armed men appeared along the trail ahead.  Maricela was at their head, holding up her burning mace, its light glinting off the breastplates and steel spearheads of the legionaries. The spawn saw it too.  As the elemental lunged at it again, it lifted a claw and seized it by the chest.  The elemental had to weigh thousands of pounds, but the spawn dashed it to the ground, its substance collapsing as the black claws tightened on its frame.  The spawn was already surging forward, projecting all of its fury and frustration at this new target, one it could reach, a foe it could tear to pieces, and feed upon.</blockquote>

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