Khouryn spun around and saw his first ash giants.
Technically speaking. About twice as tall as the dragonborn, with gray, hairless flesh, cadaverous faces, and deep-set black eyes, they appeared to be an offshoot of the race known as stone giants in other parts of Faerun. It was hard to credit that so many big creatures-six at least-had hidden themselves so well and sneaked so near before being detected. But their natural coloration no doubt helped, and they’d smeared their bodies with ash to camouflage themselves even better. And the limited visibility aided them too.
Balasar half roared, half hissed a battle cry and rushed the nearest. Sword glowing, encircled by floating phosphorescent runes, Medrash charged just a stride behind him. Their clan brothers spread out to flank other foes.
Khouryn doubted that either the adept or the archer had advanced to fight hand-to-hand, so he held back and tried to spot them. He located the bowman first, peeking out from behind a boulder and, by the looks of him, waiting for a clear shot at Medrash.
Khouryn charged. A giant sweeping a greatclub back and forth drove three dragonborn into his path, and he veered around them.
The archer didn’t notice him coming until he’d nearly closed the distance. But then the hulking creature turned, drew his arrow back to his shoulder, and let it fly.
Khouryn covered up with his shield. It was well made and enchanted as well, and even an oversized arrow streaking from an enormously powerful bow failed to penetrate it. But the impact jolted it back against his body.
He couldn’t let the shock make him falter. The giant was already reaching for another of the arrows stuck in the ground. Khouryn hefted his spear and threw it.
It wasn’t meant to be used that way. It was too long and heavy. But he was strong even for a dwarf, and he’d practiced when none of his men were around to watch and decide that if an officer thought casting one’s spear away was a sensible tactic, they should consider using it too.
The giant tried to dodge, but the spear still pierced his thigh. Blood flowed, looking redder than red on his gray skin in that gray place.
The archer yanked the weapon out. That made the wound bleed more copiously, but it would keep him from tripping over the spear as he moved around. Meanwhile, Khouryn dropped his shield, pulled the urgrosh from his back, and pounded on.
The ash giant resumed reaching for an arrow. Then he registered just how close Khouryn had gotten and snatched up the greatclub leaning against the boulder instead.
The club was a length of wood as tall as a man, with sharp chunks of flint jutting from the top. The giant swung it in a low arc. Khouryn hopped backward, and the end of the weapon whizzed by a finger length in front of him.
It was time to rush in close, where the larger combatant’s reach became a handicap and the smaller one found it easier to strike. But unfortunately, the archer seemed to understand that as well as Khouryn did, and the wound in his leg wasn’t doing much to impair his mobility. He retreated, and that gave him the time and room to shift the greatclub back into a threatening position. Khouryn had to stop short to keep from running onto the jagged flint sticking out of the top.
The giant advanced and attacked with short, vicious strikes that kept the club between Khouryn and himself. As Khouryn gave ground, he waited for the archer to overcommit, to open his guard or throw himself off balance. It didn’t happen.
To the Abyss with it, then. Khouryn stopped retreating and so invited an attack. The greatclub whipped at his head. He ducked beneath the blow, jumped back up, pivoted, and chopped at the weapon at the end of its stroke, in that precious instant before the giant could put it in motion again.
The axe blade cut the rock-studded crown off the club. It also broke the giant’s grip on what remained, and he fumbled to regain a firm hold on it.
Now! Khouryn charged up to the giant’s legs and cut repeatedly. Blood gushed, and the archer fell forward.
He wasn’t done, though. He tried to heave himself around, presumably to jab at his foe with the stub of his broken weapon or simply seize him in his enormous gray hands.
But Khouryn found a vital spot before the ash giant located him. He reversed the urgrosh, stepped in, and thrust the spike between two ribs. It punched deep enough to reach the heart. The giant made a croaking sound, shuddered, and then slumped motionless.
Panting, wiping giant blood off his face, Khouryn turned to see how the rest of the battle was going.
Not too badly, he decided. A few of the dragonborn had fallen, but two of the giants’ frontline fighters had too. At the moment, the adept looked like the most serious problem. Either he’d emerged from hiding on his own, or Medrash and Balasar had finished their first opponent and flushed him out. Then they’d charged him.
They hadn’t reached him though, because he’d turned the solid ground beneath them into loose ash and cinders, and they were floundering in it like it was quicksand. Meanwhile, the adept stood with his arm stretched out to the remaining spire. Moving slowly for now, but accelerating as it started to come out of its turn, the column was looping around to make a run at the two dragonborn.
Fortunately, the adept was fairly close. Khouryn charged.
The giant heard or glimpsed him coming. He turned, growled words of power, and lashed his arm like he was throwing a stone.
In reality, he was throwing several. Appearing in midair, the conjured barrage hurtled at Khouryn, who threw up an arm to shield his face.
Some rocks missed. One bounced off his helmet with a clank. Two others cracked against his mail, stinging him but doing no actual harm. He ran on.
The shaman backpedaled and slashed his hand through the opening zigzag pass of another spell. But he was so focused on self-defense that he lost control of the spire. As Khouryn understood it, the peculiar landforms rarely fell over when they wandered around on their own, but that wasn’t the case here. The pillar was moving as the giant wanted it to move, and deprived of his psychic guidance, it toppled.
Happily, it wasn’t yet close enough to land on Medrash and Balasar as it crashed to pieces, and a moment later they succeeded in dragging themselves out of the soft ash. Both were now covered in the stuff, and the filth made an odd contrast to the pearly radiance of Medrash’s sword and the glyphs of light still hovering around his body.
The two dragonborn and Khouryn advanced on the adept. We’ve got this, Khouryn thought. It’s been a hard fight, but we’re going to win.
Backing away, the shaman reached inside his horsehair tunic and brought out a gray, gleaming egg-shaped object. He raised it over his head and chanted. Power groaned through the air. But that was all that happened, and Balasar laughed a short, derisive laugh.
As if in response, something bellowed. Khouryn looked over his shoulder.
Big gray creatures were bursting out of the pocket of ash the shaman had created, and the piles and drifts the fallen spires left behind. The things were as big as ogres, and lizardlike, but something about their shapes made Khouryn think of bears as well. Diseased bears, for sores and pustules dotted their scaly hides.
One of the lizard things charged Balasar. Khouryn took a stride toward his friend, then saw from the corner of his eye that a second creature was racing at him. He pivoted to face it.
It lunged, jaws open wide to reveal a mouth full of blisters and slime. It snapped, he sidestepped, and its fangs clashed shut on empty air.
But drops of its slaver spattered his exposed skin and, smoking and popping, burned him. Snarling at the pain, grateful that none of the viscous stuff had landed in his eyes, he cut at the creature’s head.