One thing became apparent. In a battle of magic, even without High Sorcery, Tarrin would win. Jegojah was not a magic-user in the pure sense of the word. He had only limited abilities, and Tarrin had seen most of them. He could not improvise, make up new spells, use magic in a creative manner as Tarrin could. He could only apply those things that he could do to the situation, and make the best of them. But the thought of picking Jegojah apart from afar with magic offended his sense of vengeance. He wanted to be in the Doomwalker's face, wanted to look it in the eyes. Revenge was not something exacted from a distance. Tarrin could easily raise an Elemental to do battle with the Doomwalker, or split the earth and cast him down into the crevice, or pick it up with Air and send it flying to the moons, but he didn't want to do those things. He wanted to beat Jegojah down like a dog with his own two paws. He had been very content to fight without magic until the Doomwalker resorted to it first.
But the Doomwalker had other ideas. The lightning not finding the mark, Jegojah resorted to its most powerful attack. Tarrin felt it in the ground even as it unleashed it, that sesmic shockwave that shook the earth. The ground trembled and rumbled as the rubble pile began to vibrate like the string of a lute, then blocks and masonry went flying as the shockwave struck the pile. Tarrin was quickly inundated in flying rocks, and the shifting stones beneath his feet parted and caused him to sink down into the debris as if it were quicksand. Rocks jabbed and pounded at him, their shifting pinched and cut into him, and it was a thoroughly unpleasant experience as he found himself getting buried beneath the rubble he had thought would be his advantage. The pile continued to shift, and he clearly felt his tail snap under the strain of being pinched between two large rocks. The pain made him suck in air sharply and start thrashing against the shifting rubble.
Now things were not good. Tarrin wriggled out of the rubble as he heard the Doomwalker cackling evilly. He had not forgotten about that power, but he had never expected it to be that strong. It hadn't shown that kind of strength before. He'd been saving that up, obviously.
"Jegojah is not as easy as that!" the Doomwalker taunted up at him as Tarrin crept about the top of the newly shifted rockpile. The stones had done him considerable harm, and though they had been shaped by artificial means, the many years had removed that taint of working, turning them again into weapons of nature. That made all the bruises, nicks, cuts, and his broken tail true injuries, that would not regenerate. He had to retreat, if only for a moment, give himself time to heal the damage with magic.
Turning, Tarrin dashed up the rock pile, then vaulted over to the arena seats that were still standing. He raced along those stands, ducking when a bolt of lighting lashed in from the arena floor, and then ducked into one of the passages leading to the alleyways where he had traps. He heard the metalshod boots of Jegogah coming up from behing him almost as soon as he entered the passageway.
Charging out into one of the choked alleyways, he heard the Doomwalker racing up behind him. He turned a corner and moved into the stretch that held one of his nasty traps, the falling block. He slowed down to close the gap with the Doomwalker, getting that critical distance, setting up what he had worked through in his mind many times before. He got to the proper pace, checked the little landmarks he had assigned for this trap, and then when he crossed the line just past the set of double windows on the left building, he slashed the supports holding up that huge block some forty spans over his head. It immediately began to plummet from the rooftops, and Tarrin raced under its expanding shadow easily. He took but three steps more, and it slammed home. The squealing of armor and the sudden surprised shout from the Doomwalker told him that it had hit its mark. He skidded to a halt and looked back, and saw that the Doomwalker was pinned under the massive stone block only by an ankle. He was disappointed that the block didn't do much damage, but it gave Tarrin critical time to get some distance from the Doomwalker. He scamped up the buildings, literally jumping from the side of one building to another, criss-crossing his way up to the rooftops. There he knelt and immediately bent to the task of healing the damage done to him.
This was one of the things that he realized made Weavespinners so very hard to kill. Weavespinners could use magic on themselves, and that included healing. Tarrin sent the healing flows, Earth, Water, and Divine, into himself, then set them to attack the many minor cuts, bruises, and the broken tail that he had suffered in the shifting rocks. He felt the icy blast roll through him, making him suck in his breath, and immediately felt a curious weariness. He could heal himself, he discovered, but it cost him a great deal more in energy than it would have cost had he healed someone else, or received healing from another. Sorcerer's Healing took something from both the healer and the one being healed. Since he was both, he had to pay both of those tolls in strength, and they were considerably more when taken together than when they were taken seperately. Tarrin knew that if he wanted to use any other magic of any moderate power, he couldn't heal himself again.
But it had done its job. Tarrin looked down into the alleyway and found Jegojah gone, which was what he had expected. The thing could merge into the rock of the alley, it would be easy for it to escape from under the stone.
The building under him began to shudder! Tarrin realized that Jegojah was attacking the building itself, and the power of its ability to shake the earth would bring the building down! He scrambled across the rooftop, then lept to another rooftop relatively close by. Just in time, from the sound of it, for a horrendous cracking sound heralded the tumultuous collapse of the building upon which he had been standing, sending an ear-splitting roar into the air and kicking up a huge cloud of dust.
Staying out in the city was now a death sentence. The Doomwalker's surprisingly powerful ability to shake the earth would make the buildings nothing but a series of deathtraps for Tarrin. The only safe thing he could do was go back to the arena, where the open floor of it would take away any overhead objects the Doomwalker could drop on his head. He jumped from rooftop to rooftop, faster than the Doomwalker could draw a bead on him, but it didn't stop it from trying. It collapsed three buildings in methodical fashion, then got smart and tried to bring down the building to which Tarrin was trying to jump. The continuous roar of the shifting rubble had masked the Doomwalker's clever attack on his path, but Tarrin managed to reach the building, cross its roof, and make the twenty span jump to a large building immediately beside the old arena before the rooftop collapsed. It was a scary sensation to feel the roof sagging beneath his feet, but he had very little choice in the matter. Out in the city, he absolutely could not engage the Doomwalker on the ground. It would simply drop everything available on his head.
Tarrin climbed down the side of the building quickly and ran back into the arena, and he heard at least one metal shod boot coming up from behind him. He ran down the stands and dropped back into the arena's sand-covered floor, then turned and brandished his staff as the Doomwalker walked right out of the arena wall. Its left boot was gone, but its skeletal foot was undamaged. The armor had taken the brunt of the crushing blow.
"Jegojah makes an offer," it said in a grim tone. "Magic, it will bring this place down, yes, and Jegojah does not wish to destroy this place. If ye agree not to use magic, so Jegojah will abide by that as well. Skill against skill, it shall decide who is better, yes?"