"Is this what you planned?" Rytlock yelled.
"In the end." Eir nodded. "The lust for power turns on itself."
The swirling storm of blue magic around the Dragonspawn picked up the icebrood and smashed them together. They broke into flying shards of ice and stone, which spiraled around the dragon champion. It was taking a new shape, not as a single entity but as an ice storm. The souls and bodies of its minions were becoming part of the champion. Already, the cyclone of ice and stone whirled fifty feet high and twenty feet wide, and it roared as it consumed even more of the icebrood.
"The Dragonspawn seems to be winning," Rytlock noted. "What's Phase Five?"
"Escape," Eir said grimly. She turned and ran, with Rytlock, Logan, Zojja, and Garm close behind. Eir shouted back to Sandy, "Get us out of here!"
THE NEW CHAMPIONS
The Dragonspawn whirled, a wintry cyclone ripping apart the icebrood. Their ravaged bodies-shards of ice and stone-only added to his spinning form. The vortex shuddered as it grew. Already, the storm reached the ceiling of the ice cavern.
Eir meanwhile reached the ice cliff, with Garm beside her and Logan and Rytlock arriving next. Eir shouted back to Sandy, "Hurry up! We've got to ride you to the top!"
Sandy stretched its legs, pounding up to the cliff. It turned toward Eir, laced gritty fingers together, and held its hands out to her.
She hitched her foot into the golem's hands and launched herself up, intending to reach its shoulders.
Sandy had other ideas, hurling her straight up the cliff face to where Snaff waited.
Rytlock goggled. "It just killed her."
Eir soared upward, reached the top of the cliff, and clawed her way to safety.
"Actually, it just saved her," Logan noted in awe.
Sandy snatched Logan up in one hand and hurled him like a spear. Shouting, Logan spiraled up toward the cliff top. He tried to see where he was going, but everything was a concentric blur. Just when he was losing momentum, topping the arc, Eir snagged him out of the air and dragged him onto the cliff.
Below, Rytlock looked dubiously at the golem. "That's not going to work for me. I weigh more than-"
Sandy grabbed his wrists and ankles and swept him off his feet, so that he hung like a hammock between the golem's hands. Rytlock roared in humiliation as the golem spun around, building up momentum. At last, it flung the charr. Rytlock whirled like a horseshoe, wailing all the while, toward the top of the cliff. When he reached it, though, he was turned the wrong way, his back striking the icy edge.
"Damn."
Down he slipped, plunging toward his deathExcept that Eir grabbed his arm and hauled, and Logan latched onto his armor and pulled as well. They scraped him up the ice edge and dumped him safely atop it.
"Thanks."
"Look out!"
Rytlock rolled away just as a black dire wolf materialized out of the darkness, bounding onto the ice sheet where the charr had lain. On the wolf's back rode a red-faced asuran apprentice.
Eir made a quick visual check. "We're all here except Sandy." She turned to Snaff. "Climb Sandy out!"
But the asura master didn't seem to hear. He was running in place, his eyes gazing into the darkness.
Eir knelt before him and said quietly, "We're all safe. You can climb him out now."
Snaff's head shook briefly, and he kept running.
"We lost," Eir admitted. "That thing'll rip Sandy apart."
Still, the asura ran.
"It'll take his body and use it. It'll take your mind!"
Snaff stopped running.
Rytlock held out his flaming sword and craned over the cliff's end. The fiery light faintly sketched out the figure of Sandy far below, plunging into the huge cyclone of ice. Boulders and hailstones pounded him. At first, they only dented the golem, but then a huge chunk of ice smashed into Sandy's arm, ripping it off.
"Get him out!" Eir implored.
It was too late. The cyclone ripped away more of the golem. Powerstone-laden sands eroded into the vortex. Sandy stood only a heartbeat more before the final crystals were torn away.
Gone.
Snaff went rigid, his eyes wide, gazing into horrors. Then he began to spin as if he held a dance partner. He picked up speed, turning faster and faster.
"It's got him for sure," Rytlock said.
"No," Zojja broke in, watching with wide eyes. "No. He's got it."
And then they saw: The cyclone flexed like a giant arm and shoved up against the ceiling of the cave. The ice moaned. The storm whirled tighter. The ceiling cracked.
The cavern shook.
"He's trying to bring the place down."
Snaff crouched down for a moment, then thrust his arms up again.
The vortex gathered itself like a spring and then launched upward. It smashed into the ice, and a thousand cracks radiated out.
The ceiling slumped.
"We better get out of here," Logan said.
"Not until he's done," Eir replied.
Snaff crouched down and launched himself upward again, and the cyclone did likewise.
It bashed through the ceiling.
Gigantic icebergs hailed down. They smashed through the cyclone, dispersing it, and shattered the icebrood and continued to cascade, filling the chamber..
"He's done," Rytlock said, scooping up Snaff.
"Let's go," Eir agreed, hoisting Zojja.
The companions turned and ran, blown forward by a gale as the cavern collapsed. Hunks of ice pummeled their backs.
Then sparking blue energies swept out around them.
"Ball lightning!" Eir shouted, ducking one sphere.
"Don't let it touch you!" Zojja yelled. "It's the leftover essence discharging!"
More spheres shot out through the chamber and rebounded off the icy walls. Lightning arced from sphere to sphere. The companions ducked and weaved as they ran amid the glowing globes. Stray tracers lashed them or jolted into them, each stinging with the frigid mind of the monster… but his power was fading.
At a run, the invaders launched themselves up the next throat of stone and ran on through the hall where the ice giants had died. The ceiling was cracking apart, spilling sunlight across the broken figures below. The cracks spread down the walls, and great hunks of ice caved inward. Massive blocks pounded down all around them.
Speed was the thing, and Rytlock, Eir, and Logan poured it on. Caithe struggled to keep up, but Garm snatched her up and hurled her onto his back.
A house-size hunk of ice plunged from above them.
The dire wolf's claws skittered on the icy floor as he struggled to outrun the block.
Boom! The slab staved the floor right behind Garm. A black line snaked after him, splitting the ice at his paws.
With a yelp, he dodged away from the opening rift, following Rytlock, Eir, and Logan through the chamber of the ice bats. A few more bounds brought them out of the collapsing cavern and into the spanking sunlight of the glacier. Still, they ran, rushing beyond the avalanche zone until they could stand on scoured bedrock. Only then did they turn to look at what they'd wrought.
Behind them, the lair of the Dragonspawn imploded. The ceiling fell in, and millions of tons of ice buried the horrors that lay below. The roar of it-the earth-shattering roar of it-was like a deafening ovation.
The Dragonspawn was gone.
The Dragonspawn and a thousand of the icebrood were destroyed.
Logan whooped, "How's that for a job well done?"
"It's not done yet," Zojja said, nodding toward Rytlock, who set down Snaff.
"Snaff," Rytlock said, staring into the golemancer's eyes. "Snaff. Snap out of it!"
Snaff reached numbly to the golden laurel that encircled his head and drew it off. The red powerstones in it flashed and then faded to darkness. He blinked at Rytlock. "That hurt."
"Guess it was kind of a rough ride."