They were no longer watching the line of marching Dark Helms. Instead, they were seeing a small knot of Helms marching up to the wizard, carrying a securely bound bundle between them. It was dripping blood, and there seemed to be frantic struggling going on, inside those bonds.
The wizard gestured that the bundle be lowered to the ground, and the lashings around it cut apart.
The bundle was duly lowered, and two Dark Helms went to their knees on either side of it, daggers in hand. The others all drew their swords and held them so the points hovered above the thickest central part of the bundle. The wizard watched, smiling. And Velduke Deldragon aimed his sword with slow and silent care.
The bonds parted, springing back. Freed lorn wings flapped and writhed, there was a frantic wriggling, an arm darted out of the opening bundle with a dagger flashing in its hand, Dark Helms shouted commands-and Deldragon's sword spat fire across the room straight into the wizard's face, hurling him backwards.
The mage's shoulder touched the purple fire of the gate for a moment and simply vanished.
Face staring in disbelieving pain, the wizard shrieked and frantically flung himself away from the gate; he ended up greeting the floor, face-first. Dark Helms by the dozens turned to glare at the source of the flame, and the velduke triggered his blade again, waving it back and forth to lash many of those menacingly staring Helms with flame.
Fire rushing and flickering around their helms, Dark Helms surged across the room at Rod and Taeauna and Deldragon, and beyond them, a thin female figure sprinted across the room as swiftly as an arrow in flight, and smashed right into a lorn that was flapping its way free of the bundle.
A dagger flashed twice, quickly, and the lorn sagged.
The figure leaned past it to slash at the golden-haired wizard as he scrambled to his feet to try to get out of reach, but brief threads of lightning crackled from the mage to the dagger blade, driving the woman with the knife back in obvious pain. Between them, the dying lorn fell to the floor.
At the same moment, the bundle heaved up into a large, fat, reeling man shedding two dead, limp lorn. He reached out for the wizard with his dagger.
The wizard stepped hastily back, shouting, "Take him! Take him and put his hands on the globes!"
Dark Helms turned their heads to the mage who pointed impatiently at the fat man. "Take him!" Then his pointing arm swept up to indicate the nigh-skeletal man hanging like an empty sack from the two spheres that were floating in the humming purple fire of the gate-arch. "And put his hands there! On those!" The wizard's pointing finger stabbed at the air impatiently, indicating the globes. "Hurry!"
Over the helms of the Dark Helm warriors advancing cautiously toward them, Rod, Taeauna, and Deldragon could see the Helms closest to the wizard hesitate for a moment, and then close in on the fat man.
"No swords!" the wizard shouted at them. "I want him unharmed. The man who cuts him, dies!"
The Helms lurched to untidy stops, swords flashing and singing as they were hastily sheathed. The fat man used that time to rush at the wizard, who backed away and tried to duck behind some Dark Helms. As the Helms vainly tried to grapple with the fat man and avoid hosting deep thrusts of his dagger, with much shoving and groaning and reeling, the wizard crouched and tried to cast a spell.
Deldragon unleashed his sword again, but the mage ducked lower and the flames meant for him raged around the shoulders of two cursing, writhing Dark Helms instead.
Taeauna, Rod, and the velduke were on their feet now, awaiting the menacing line of Dark Helms closing in on them, barely able to see the wizard and the fat man over looming armored shoulders. They saw Rosera darting past them both.
Then the Dark Helms were upon them, and there was no time to watch anything, anymore. Swords rang as the velduke and Taeauna parried and struck aside three blades each, in a whirlwind of steel that Rod winced at the very thought of, as he backed away from the Dark Helms stalking after him, and then started to back in behind his companions as he realized his retreat was baring Taeauna's side to any Helm who cared to stick a sword in it.
Deldragon snatched out his dagger in his other hand, and tried to parry with it so he could aim his sword again and unleash more sword-fire. Before he could, they heard the wizard shout in rage and pain. A spell like a wall of writhing lightnings crashed into the backsides of the Dark Helms facing Rod, Taeauna, and the velduke, and they roared and writhed wildly in agony and scattered, staggering weakly.
Taeauna was upon them like a flash, her slender sword thrusting up under the edge of one helm and then another, dead men slumping in her wake as their blood spattered the floor in front of them and they sank down to join it. Rod's stomach heaved, and he trotted desperately away from a Dark Helm intent on disembowelment, but he caught a glimpse of what had made the wizard strike at his own warriors.
The Rosera woman had caught his wrist in some sort of thin black cord-well, damn! She'd lassooed him, just like in the movies! — and dragged it around to spoil his aim. He was trying to tug free now, shrieking curses at her and fending off her dagger with his own; he didn't dare try to slice the cord because he needed his metal fang to parry hers.
Right beside the golden-haired wizard, a Dark Helm toppled over as the fat man tore a bloody dagger out of his throat, still wrestling with other Dark Helms, and from across the room, more Dark Helms were rushing to the wizard's aid.
The Rosera woman screamed a curse of her own as she was forced to turn and deal with them, the wizard whirled triumphantly away from her to slice her cord away from his wrist, the fat man bellowed in triumph as another pair of Dark Helms went down before him, and…
Rod was suddenly falling, his boots slipping helplessly in something wet and sticky. Much nearer Helms were looming up over him, swords reaching down-
And Taeauna crashed into those warriors from one side, hurling herself against them to make them lurch and jostle, their swords waving everywhere except at Rod.
Deldragon fired his sword again, sending fire howling just over Taeauna's wingless back. Rod saw the stump of one of her severed wings blacken and start to sizzle, as the sword-fire streamed around it, and the wizard screamed as that fire found his newly freed hand and blasted it, fingers smashed limp and blackened.
Then the Dark Helms closed in over Rod again, and were toppling over on him with wet sobs, Taeauna's blade darting back out of their throats dark and wet and glistening, blood spraying all over Rod as they came down, huge and dark and-
WHAM. Heavy!
Rod groaned and twisted as the armored hulks slammed into him and bounced him hard up off the stone floor and down again. All his wind had been driven out of him, he couldn't-
Couldn't-
Something boomed, the floor shuddered under Rod, and he was bouncing again, wincing and gasping for breath enough to moan, fighting to…
The dead men atop him were suddenly gone, plucked and torn away. All over the room Rod could hear a strange thudding: body after body being driven against stone, or against other bodies already against that stone…
Panting, shoulders settling against the trembling, calming floor, he could see the room around him again now.
The golden-haired wizard stood alone, staring down at his mangled hand. There was no one left around him at all except the ragged flesh-and-bones thing hanging from the gate. He must have managed some magic that hurled people away from him, probably to keep the big man or the Rosera woman from knifing him.
Behind him, the gate was noticeably darker, the hum of its flames lower and quieter. As Rod stared at it, it flickered.