He barely noticed the weight of the old hammer as he swung it blindly at the charging dreamer, It connected solidly with the thing’s jaw, jarring his arm and breaking the old wooden handle, but it did its job well. Bits of tooth; spattered into the mud, and foul blood sprayed his chest and face.
The dreamer loosed a piercing whine as it shuddered and fell sideways, wavering on its front claws. Uthalion cried out in pain, clutching his ears. His pulse pounded in his ears, and he was sure they would bleed, leaving him in an endless silence. As he used the wall to stand, teeth clamped down on his leg and pulled, hurling him across the room.
The quiet in his head shifted like molasses, and he felt as if he were underwater. He crashed against the bottom of the basement stairs, and the small candle fell, rolling in the mud, its wick just above the surface. Pain flared in his left leg, and he gathered his right one beneath him to dive for his sword. His knee buckled, but he caught himself on the banister and turned to face the beast as it rounded on him. Its jaws yawned wide, and he felt a swift wind brush his cheeks before the force of the unheard roar crushed into his chest.
His boots left the ground, and he sprawled onto the stairs, their old wood breaking as he crashed through them.
Splinters bit into his skin, and dust blinded him as he fell. He managed a single breath before finding the ground, gagging on a mouthful of dust even as he clattered to the floor. The fall shoved the air from his lungs. His arms fell out to his sides, brushing against cold metal and cobwebs. Even in his daze of pain he wondered if blood still stained the abandoned sword he pulled free. Opening his eyes, he squinted through the dust at the flashing, glassy eyes overhead, the outstretched claws, and descending fangs of the dreamer.
Metal and rust scraped as he weakly raised the old blade, braced the pommel, and cursed as the dreamer fell on him. The impact twisted his arm, but the sword held strong, driven through the dreamer’s chest under the beast’s weight. Uthalion gasped for air and lay still as the thing trembled and coughed, its breath strangely sweet, like flowers, in contrast to its stinking blood. Though its long, mewling whine barely registered in his ears, it tore painfully through his skull, a melodic dirge of death in a single, suffering note. A limp claw scratched feebly at his armor a moment before falling still, its pitiful cry of death finished.
Groaning, Uthalion rolled out from under the beast and heaved for breath. The handle of the old sword fell from his hand, its blade broken off at the hilt. He tapped a fingernail on the metal, resting while he listened for the sound and hoping his hearing might return to something approaching normal. When the tiny click of the sound became a more recognizable ping, he sat up slowly and surveyed his would-be tomb before turning his dazed attention to the fallen dreamer.
In the pale light of the dying candle its face almost appeared humanor perhaps even elvensave for the glassy, fishlike eves and massive fanira. He shivered at the sicht. of it. and tried to stand, gingerly placing weight on his injured leg and grunting in pained relief. It wasn’t broken and could wait for more thorough inspection until he could free himself of the basement. Taking up his sword and fishing a short-handled axe from beneath the dreamer, he considered the climb to the door and, for the second time in six years, focused on escaping the basement.
After the last time he’d made a promise to return.
He had no intention of doing so again.
Ghaelya’s lungs burned for air as Sefir held her tight in smooth, blue-tinged tentacles. Her vision had blurred, reducing the chaos of the fight around her to dim, quick shapes that crashed throughout the house amid the occasional flare of lightning and ensuing thunder. All she could deduce was that Vaasurri was still alive, though he had no way of reaching her or Sefir. In one flickering moment of helplessness she screamed in anger, flexing every muscle, straining every thought to drown out the constant soothing? whisper of Sefir’s powerful voice.
“You are stronger than your sister,” he said as her strength) waned. “Though I think perhaps she is the wiser twin. I can see why the pair of you have been chosen.”
His warm, sickly-sweet breath blew hot on the nape of her neck, the heat’ spreading. across her shoulders like a; rash, itching and boiling her blood. She felt her skin quickly \ drying, moisture from her swim in the basement evaporating, little curls of sudden steam rising in the cool spring air. A light aroma of lavender wafted through the window as flames gathered in her spirit, her sister’s scent stoking ‘ the fires that began to burn in her eyes.
The room wavered briefly, a smoldering mirage that steeled her against the beguiling power in Sefir’s voice. Weakly, she i raised her sword, just high enough to grasp the blade in her opposite hand. She squeezed tight, wincing slightly as the weapon cut her flesh, but grinning as flames burst from the wound, searing the tentacles wrapped around her.
The endless barrage of whispers became a chorus of pained screams pounding on the back of her skull. The grip around her tightened for a moment, then the room seemed to grow small. Her stomach flipped as she hurtled through the room, only the opposite corner waiting to roughly catch her. The wall cracked when she hit, leaving splinters in her back and side as she fell. Sliding to the floor she coughed, tasting blood in her mouth, and floundered to gather her legs beneath her.
Sefir trembled and fell to one knee, the thin tentacles writhing around him. Several of them had been neatly burned by her fiery blood. The element had filled her again, its flames tinting her skin red and focusing her every thought on her sister. She edged closer to the common room doorway, intent on helping Vaasurri and escaping the abandoned town, but the bloody singer’s screams slowly died to pained whimpers, and he rose again, a fang-filled snarl on his face.
“Your flames will die, little one,” he said, standing to his full height, his scarred head a hands-breadth from the ceiling. His tentacles spread wide, and the toothy round suckers lining them opened and closed hungrily like a thousand tiny eyes. “The fire in your sister died as well.”
“No,” she muttered, raising her sword and forgetting the conflict in the next room, shaking her head in denial of the singer’s words.
Before she could contemplate plunging the blade over and over into Sefir’s body until she found some vital bit of flesh, inflicted some injury he could not recover from, she saw a swift blur in the corner of her eye. A whisper of shadow hurtled toward the singer with flashing steel and murderous intent. Briefly she saw the Dale face of Brindani as he collided with Sefir in a tangle of limbs, fleshy tentacles, and clashing swords. The pair strained on the edge of the basement steps in a duel of wills, before they plummeted into the darkness and splashing water.
Ghaelya hesitated, her blade still trained on the spot where Sefir had stood, her eyes fixed on the darkened basement door. Sparks still smoldered where she had cut her hand, and she considered Tessaeril and a purpose greater than simple revenge. She turned toward the common room, catching the glittering eye of an embattled dreamer, and rushed into the room, a gusting flame rippling through her body toward the pyre of battle and escape from Caidris.
Brindani tumbled end over end, a seeming infinity of stairs pounding into his back. Tentacles writhed around him, wrapped around his arms, and slapped wetly against Ms face, all amid the horrid roaring of a fiendish voice that echoed in his ears like a smithy’s hammer. Flashes of blue light illuminated the nightmarish fall, creating monstrous shadows all around that he knew, without a doubt, were all too real. Though patches of numbed flesh announced the imminent arrival of painful bruises, he was somehow assured by a faint and singing melody that gave him strength and the willto keep fighting.