He yanked his sword free of her flesh, and she doubled over clutching at the gash. Making sure he didn't look up and meet Xingax's gaze again, he dashed for the doorway. The catwalk banged as the giant zombie lumbered after him.
The huge corpse had longer legs than he did. Aware that he was running short of spells, he nonetheless sang a charm to quicken his stride. It might be the only hope he had of keeping ahead of his pursuers.
Of course, it likely wouldn't be long before he blundered into some of Xingax's allies, at which point the fetus-thing would yell for them to stop him. Then, with new foes in front of him and his current ones pounding up behind, it would make no difference how fast he could run.
He halted, lifted his head, and shouted. The blast of sound jolted and splintered the section of catwalk immediately in front of the huge zombie. Its next heavy stride stamped a hole in the weakened planks, and then it crashed through altogether, carrying its rider along with it.
The two creatures slammed down hard in a clattering shower of broken wood. Bareris didn't expect the fall to destroy the zombie outright, but he dared to hope he'd damaged it and maybe slain the feeble-looking Xingax.
The zombie tried to rise and the whelp slipped from its shoulders. Evidently he couldn't hold on anymore. The undead giant fell back on top of him when one of its legs buckled beneath it.
Bareris could scarcely believe how well the trick had worked. How lucky he'd been. He sprinted on, found a staircase, climbed to the catwalks, and headed for the portal. He'd just promised Tammith he wouldn't leave her here, but the plain truth was now he had to get away or die, quite possibly when she murdered him herself. He vowed to himself that he'd return and next time rescue her. Somehow. Somehow.
His guts churned, his vision blurred, and a pang of headache jabbed through his skull. Something was making him ill. He cast about for the source of his distress and saw nothing.
He recalled his orc informant warning him that a person needed protection merely to come into proximity with Xingax. Could that possibly be what ailed him? If so, where was the whelp? A sudden blast of cold coated the right side of his body with frost and chilled him to the core. He'd seen battle mages conjure such attacks. Shaking, he looked for cover and found none within reach. He turned to see where the magic had originated.
Visible now, Xingax floated in empty air a few yards away from the catwalk. Obviously, the fall hadn't killed him, and he didn't actually need the zombie to carry him around. He certainly hadn't had any difficulty catching up to Bareris.
Stricken as he was, the bard almost looked into the abomination's eyes before recalling he mustn't. At the last possible instant, he averted his gaze.
Not that it was likely to matter. He'd drained his reserves of magic nearly dry, and his twisted little infant's mouth leering, Xingax was hovering out of reach of his blade. From that position, the fetus-creature could throw spell after spell without fear of effective reprisal.
Bareris could only think of one ploy to attempt, and it was nowhere near as clever as breaking the catwalk had been. In fact, it was as old as any trick in the world, but it would have to serve. He allowed himself to collapse onto the walkway and lay motionless thereafter.
A wary foe might suspect he was merely feigning death or unconsciousness and continue smiting him at range. If Xingax took that tactic, he was finished.
But maybe the abomination wouldn't be that cautious. He seemed smugly confident of his own powers and likewise devoted to his work. He might be reluctant to kill Bareris here and now and settle for reanimating him as a zombie when it could still be possible to turn him into a more powerful undead.
I'm helpless, Bareris thought. Sick. Frozen. Dead. Just come closer and you'll see.
As if heeding his silent entreaties, Xingax floated over to hang directly over him. One larger and set higher than the other, his dark eyes squinted.
Striving to deny sickness and injury their grip of him, bellowing a war cry to infuse himself with vigor and resolve, Bareris sprang to his feet. Still doing his best to avoid looking into Xingax's eyes, he cut open the creature's chest.
Xingax gave an ear-splitting screech like the cry of the baby he so resembled. Bareris slashed away a flap of flesh from one of the creature's cheeks.
The fetus-thing started to fly away from the catwalk. Bareris lunged and caught the dangling length of cold, slimy umbilicus. It threatened to slide out of his fingers, but he clamped down tight, twisted it around his wrist, and held Xingax in place as if the latter were a dog straining at a leash.
He kept on cutting and thrusting. Xingax hurled another blaze of chill from his small, decaying hands, but Bareris discerned his intent, twisted aside and evaded the worst of it then retaliated by lopping off one of the outthrust extremities at the wrist. His next cut sliced the smaller of the creature's eyes.
The whelp screamed and vanished, leaving a segment of gray rotting birth cord behind in Bareris's fingers. His final wail echoed.
Fearful that his foe had simply become invisible once more, Bareris pivoted and slashed at the air all around him. His blade failed to find a target, and in another moment, he realized he felt better. Xingax truly had departed, evidently translating himself instantaneously through space and taking his aura of sickness along with him.
Unfortunately, that didn't fix the chill burns on Bareris's skin. With luck, his healing songs would keep the injured patches from turning into genuine frostbite and gangrene, but he didn't have the magic or time to spare to attempt it now. He cast away the section of umbilicus, brushed rime from his garments, and strode in the direction of the portal, until he heard a commotion up ahead.
Then he realized that Xingax, surmising his foe would make for the magical gate, had transported himself there when he fled, where he'd no doubt arranged for some of his minions to guard the portal with special care while the rest scoured the catacombs for the man who'd maimed him.
Bareris struggled to suppress a surge of panic, telling himself there had to be another way out of here, wherever here was. He just had to find it.
He threw away his cloak. At a distance, the brown mantle was probably more conspicuous than the bloody rent in his robe. He hid his sword and sword belt beneath the voluminous crimson garment. Then he hurried away from the sound of the searchers and toward a portion of the maze of vaults and tunnels he had yet to explore.
Eventually he spotted a subtle change in the ambient illumination up ahead. He rounded a corner and saw a trapezoidal opening with a ray of wan light shining through. Puzzling as it seemed, given his near-certainty that he was underground, the wizards' lair possessed a window after all.
He lowered himself from the catwalk by his hands, dropped, stuck his head out the opening, and then he understood. The vaults were adjacent to a wide cylindrical shaft plunging deep into bedrock. He'd heard stories of an ancient people who'd excavated well-like fortresses in the Sunrise Mountains. Apparently they'd dug out at least one city as well, constructed on a grander scale, and he was standing in it. The morning sun hadn't yet risen high enough to shine straight down into the central vacancy, but even so, the light reflecting down from the gray clouds revealed other windows, as well as doorways connecting to chiseled balconies and staircases.
Intending to locate one of those doors, he turned, then heard his pursuers once more. They were manifestly closing in. Before, the noise they'd made had simply been a drone. Now he could make out some of the words that one orc was growling to another.