Nothing happened. Brey and the zombie were still deadlocked, and the others were trying to push them back out of the doorway. Haldin tried a different incantation, with the same lack of result. He turned to Tarrel and shrugged.
Mordan stood beside the doorway, waiting for a chance to strike. The weight of the zombies pushing from behind eventually told, and Brey was forced back inch by inch, still locked in a grapple. Mordan struck the creature from the side, sliding his blade between its ribs. It faltered, and he struck again, dropping it to the ground. Brey looked at him with a nod, understanding in her blazing eyes, and pulled another zombie through the doorway, pinning its arms to present the Karrn with a helpless victim. Two more thrusts of his rapier, and the zombie fell on top of the body of its comrade.
Tarrel was reading from another scroll. As he completed the spell, Haldin blinked and shook his head as if to clear it. Holding up his sapphire dragon once more, he repeated the incantation that had failed earlier—and this time, half of the zombies turned and fled. There was momentary confusion as they hampered their comrades that were still trying to reach the doorway, and Mordan took advantage of the deadlock to fell two more of the creatures.
“Get out of the way!” yelled Tarrel, raising his wand. Brey and Mordan sprang back to each side of the doorway, just as a bead of red light from the wand shot through it. The fireball exploded in the midst of the zombies, destroying several and setting the rest on fire.
For a moment the doorway was clear, and Mordan hurled himself through it. His rapier felled a burning zombie as he rolled to his feet, and he looked around for the undead spellcaster. The elf had already started to retreat, but Mordan was faster; two lightning-fast thrusts and he fell to the ground, still.
Brey was next through the doorway, followed by Tarrel and Haldin. Dria d’Cannith brought up the rear, unarmed and looking around nervously. The remaining zombies were quickly dispatched, and the gnome bent briefly over one of them, slicing the flesh of its arm with a dagger to expose the bones beneath.
“Fascinating,” he mused. “They actually look like iron.” As he watched, the dull gray color faded, leaving natural-looking bone. “At least it’s a fairly short-lived spell,” he said.
“Look out!” Tarrel’s shout of warning came too late. A beam of crackling black energy struck the gnome, and he fell to the ground, pale and shaking. The half-elf launched a fireball at a robed figure standing in a doorway, but the figure flew into the air, dodging the blast easily and landing at the other side of the chamber. Its mocking laughter filled the air.
“It’s him!” yelled Tarrel, running across to where Haldin was slowly picking himself up from the floor. Mordan hurled a flask of holy water at Dravuliel, but the elf stepped aside almost lazily, ignoring the splash as the vessel shattered at his feet.
Brey flew at the necromancer with an incoherent cry of hatred. Holding up a hand, he spat a phrase in the ancient elven tongue of Aerenal. The vampire woman seemed to fold up in midair and came crashing to the ground before him. She struggled to regain her feet, but he made an imperious gesture and she cowered as if in fear.
The others could do nothing but watch. Tarrel raised his wand but could not risk a fireball without harming Brey as well as the elf. Mordan judged the distance between himself and Dravuliel, and realized that he couldn’t reach her in time to intervene. Haldin was fumbling shakily with his crossbow but still seemed to be in distress from the dark energy that had struck him. Dria cowered behind a crate of black stones, her homunculus silently hugging her neck.
Brey’s face contorted with effort as she tried to regain her feet. The elf looked down at her with an expression of amused contempt.
“My,” he said, “haven’t you grown stronger! I expected to master your will, as I did with your maker Wultram.”
“You …” Brey struggled to form words, but only disjointed, strangled sounds came from her mouth.
“I see you found your rangers,” Dravuliel said. “I suspected you’d come back for them one day, so I saved them for you. Quite a successful test, don’t you think?” Brey’s eyes blazed a deeper red, but she could not rise to her feet.
Mordan felt a nudge in his ribs and looked down to see Tarrel crouched at his feet, a crate hiding him from the necromancer’s view. He gestured to the Karrn’s enchanted rapier, then to himself, then the elf, and finally drew a finger across his throat. He seemed to have a plan. Moving slowly to avoid attracting attention, Mordan handed the sword over. Tarrel touched the crystal wand to his chest, and disappeared.
Haldin raised his crossbow and took aim, but Dravuliel saw him and gestured with one hand, softly pronouncing a complex syllable. The bolt rattled off empty air without touching him. Reaching down, he dragged Brey to her feet, holding her body in front of his. Her eyes were frantic, but she couldn’t even struggle.
“Naughty,” he admonished the gnome. He raised a hand in Haldin’s direction. “Saighydh,” he said, and five bolts of energy darted from his fingers, striking the gnome in the chest. Mordan moved to help him but stopped when the elf pointed at him.
“Oh, no.” said Dravuliel. “You stay where you are.” He swept the chamber with a glance, apparently looking for the rest of the companions. In that instant, Tarrel appeared behind him, driving Mordan’s enchanted rapier deep into his back.
With a cry of surprise and anger, Dravuliel threw Brey to the ground and turned to strike Tarrel a back-handed blow across the face. Dark energy blazed around his fist, and the half-elf crumpled to the ground.
Mordan threw himself into the cover of a stack of crates. He drew his dagger and edged carefully toward the elf. He saw from the corner of his eye that Dria d’Cannith was still crouching behind a crate, but was fiddling with one of the shields dropped by the zombies. Her homunculus was nowhere to be seen. He hoped she had a better plan than Tarrel.
Bleeding heavily from five holes in his chest, Haldin flattened himself behind the corpse of the zombie he had been examining when the necromancer first struck. He had one hand on his dragon statuette, and his lips moved in silent prayer. He was still pale, and his hands trembled.
Employing the same trick he had used in Falko’s warehouse—in another life, it seemed—Mordan scooped up a handful of cast-iron miniature skulls from a crate and flung them as hard as he could. They landed far away with a rattle, and while the necromancer’s attention was distracted Mordan rolled from the cover of one pile of boxes to another.
Dravuliel began to speak, but no sooner was his mouth open than an ear-splitting shriek rent the air behind him. As he turned, the flying homunculus streaked away. Dria stood from her hiding-place, holding an iron rib from the discarded shield. She had engraved it with arcane symbols, and a blazing bolt of energy shot from the end of the makeshift rod, striking the necromancer square in the chest. He rocked back on his heels, and Mordan was on him before he could recover, stabbing the dagger at his eyes. When the elf raised an arm to shield his face, Mordan struck him hard in the ribs with the stump of his left arm, releasing wounding negative energy of his dragonmark. Holy water had not affected the necromancer; he only hoped that meant that he was not undead.
Dravuliel shrieked as the negative energy burned into his body—a high, thin shriek of rage. Dark fire blazed around his fist again, but before he could strike Mordan, the Karrn found himself seized by one shoulder and flung backward across the room. He struck the ground hard, rolling to dissipate the energy of the fall, and when he looked up he saw that Brey had recovered from whatever influence the necromancer had wielded over her. The slim and fragile elf bent in her arms, no match for her unnatural strength and bestial rage. Picking him up like a rag doll, she threw him to the ground with bone-crushing force, leaping after him with her fangs bared.