The wall was made only of brick and mortar and was no match for the rage of Pikel Bouldershoulder.
The dwarf battered through into the altar room, sending up a cloud of dust and a shower of bricks.
Pikel stood in the new doorway for a moment, his eyes darting about to take in the scene. Several bricks came straight down, bouncing off his pot helmet with dull clangs, but Pikel seemed not to notice. He was looking for Ivan, his "brudder," and it would take a lot more than a few chunks of stone, however heavy, to deter him.
Then he saw Ivan, far to his left, near the room's original door and backing away from a flaming humanoid creature. Repelled by the intense heat, Ivan's defensive chops were falling short and, fast approaching a comer, Ivan soon would be out of running room.
"Oo oi!" Pikel cried, and he bounded off, pot-covered head and tree trunk leading the way.
Danica started in right behind, but Newander stopped her. She turned and saw a look of sudden revelation on the druid's face, an expression that quickly changed to one of sincere joy.
"You spoke the truth, dear lady," Newander said. "It was not ambivalence, but a sense of order that kept me free of the cursing mist. Now I know how I was spared, why I was spared, and, in truth, it was a power far beyond my own will."
Danica consider the profound changes that had come over the man. No longer did Newander stoop in despair. His back was straight and his visage proud.
"I hear the call of Silvanus himself!" the druid declared. "His own voice, I tell you."
Truly intrigued, Danica would have liked to stay and hear Newander's explanation, but the situation wouldn't allow it. She nodded quickly and pulled away from the druid's grasp, taking only the split second it took her to come through the wall to survey the room and determine her course. Her heart told her to go to Cadderly, still dazed and struggling by the door, but her warrior instincts told her that the best she could do for her beloved, and for all her friends, was to stop the imposing priest who stood by the altar.
She took two running strides at Barjin, dove into a roll just in case he had some spell or dart aimed her way, then came back to her feet and pounded in. She enacted her moves too quickly for Barjin to block, and she got her fist through his defenses, slamming him solidly on the chest.
Danica bounced back, stunned, her hand sore, as if she had struck an iron wall. Barjin hadn't even moved.
Danica kept her wits enough to dodge Barjin's first attack, and to. take note of the contorting, biting movement of the enchanted mace's sculpted head. She circled to the priest's right, away from the altar, wondering if perhaps her daggers would have more effect. By all appearances, the priest wasn't wearing any armor, but Danica trusted her sore hand more than her eyes. She knew that magic could deceive, and she understood already that her tactics against the priest would have to be akin to those she might use against an armored knight.
Barjin waved the Screaming Maiden again easily, attacks designed to keep Danica at bay and to test her reflexes. She realized that again the priest had underestimated her quickness. She stepped in right behind the swing and snapped off two jabs at her opponent's weapon arm.
There, too, the magical vestments repelled the blow.
Her understanding of the extent of the priest's armor growing, Danica realized that she would find few openings for strikes. The priest was covered head to toe and the kind of power Danica expected she would need to get through the enchanted vestments, a blow that required long concentration, would leave her vulnerable to a preemptive hat. She took a different path then, one designed to get that awful mace away from her adversary.
Danica came in low, feigning a strike at Barjin's groin. The priest whipped the Screaming Maiden straight down at the stooping woman, just as Danica had expected.
She brought her forearm up to block the blow. Her next move would have been to reach under with her free hand, grabbing the priest's wrist. Pulling with this hand and pushing with her locked forearm would then tear the mace from Percival grasp. But, while Danica had correctly anticipated Barjin's overhand strike, she had not foreseen the reaction of his vile, sentient, weapon.
The Screaming Maiden twisted, its maw snapping futilely at the out-of-reach blocking forearm. The ugly visage opened its mouth wide and hissed, loosing a cone of frost over Danica.
Danica began her dodge at the instant the chill emanated from the mouth, but the cone encompassed too wide an area for her to get fully out of harm's way. Chilling ice descended on her, so cold that it burned at her skin and so evil, the chill of death, that it found its way deeper, into Danica's heart and bones. Her lungs ached with her next gasp and it was all she could do to break away from the encounter and stagger back toward the broken wall.
Newander watched it all through a dull haze. He wisely registered the important facts-Barjin's vestment armor and the mace, in particular-but the druid's thoughts were turned primarily inward now, heeding, he believed, the personal summons of Silvanus, the Oak Father. The sight of this room, of the cursing bottle, had put many things into perspective for Newander. Gone now were his fears that he, unlike his transformed druid companions, was somehow not true to his calling. Gone was his fear that he had only avoided the brunt of the curse because of some inner ambivalence.
Perhaps that had been the case, but it hardly mattered now to the druid. His gaze locked upon the evil priest, the one who had raised the dead, the bringer of perversion, and he heard the commands of nature's god.
He remembered the su-monsters and how dearly he had sensed the approach of ghouls, and Newander knew his purpose. Druids were dedicated to preserving the natural order, the natural harmony, and his faith demanded that the evil priest be stopped, here and now.
Newander let his thoughts slip to the woodland, to the home of druidic power. He felt the beginning twinges in his body- the first time he had ever achieved this level of druidic concentration. Though a bit afraid, he encouraged the engulfing power fully, focusing his own energies to push it along. There was a sensation of distant pain as his bones cracked and reconfigured, a tickle as hair sprouted across his body.
As had Cleo and Arcite, Newander let himself go to his urging, let his body follow his thoughts.
Unlike his companions, though, Newander did not relinquish his thinking to the instincts of the animal. His focus did not change with his body.
He saw the evil priest's eyes widen as he pawed toward the altar, past the recoiling Danica.
Ivan saw Pikel's storming approach, but the flaming zombie never turned to witness the attack. At the last moment, Ivan dodged to the side and Pikel slammed in, his tree trunk connecting squarely on Mullivy's rump. His stubby legs pumping wildly, Pikel brutally drove the zombie into the wall.
Still Pikel's legs did not stop thrashing; he ignored the intense heat and kept the zombie pinned.
Mullivy swung his good arm about wildly, but his back was to the attacker and he could not reach beyond Pikel's pinning club. He wriggled and squirmed, trying to get out the side of the pin.
Every time he made some progress, though, Ivan rushed over and smacked him hard with the axe.
This went on for several moments, then luck turned against the dwarves. Mullivy started out the side; Ivan waded in and hit him. The powerful blow drove deep into Mullivy's arm, but sent a gout of flame flying back in Ivan's direction, instantly igniting the dwarfs beard.
Ivan dove away, slapping at the flames, and Pikel, distracted by his brother's sudden distress, unconsciously loosened his hold.
Mullivy slipped free of his captor and advanced on the rolling Ivan.
Pikel overbalanced and stumbled forward into the wall. He came back up in an instant, but again he saw Ivan in dire need and again the sight sent him on a ferocious charge. This time Pikel held his club perpendicularly in front of him, one hand on either end. Mullivy was just reaching down at Ivan when Pikel tat him. Again the dwarf drove on, pushing the zombie before him. They passed the open door-Pikel thought he saw a bat-winged impish form hovering outside-and barreled headlong into an empty bookcase. The ancient wooden shelves fell apart under their weight, and dwarf, zombie, and kindling crashed down in a fiery heap.
Long and pointy teeth bared, the giant wolverine that Newander had become charged the evil priest.
The druid had a surprise in mind, an attack that the priest's cloth vestments, however strengthened, might not be able to withstand. Just before he reached the mark, Newander spun over suddenly and loosed a cloud of vile musk.
The disgusting spray rolled over Barjin, stinging his eyes, permeating his clothing, and nearly overwhelming him. He fell back as quickly as he could, trying to escape the cloud, gagging and gasping.
Newander's pursuit was furious. He hooked his claws around the backpeddling priest's knees and bore Barjin to the ground. Barjin kicked and scrambled, but the wolverine was too quick and strong to be easily dislodged. Newander bit into Barjin's Hugh, tearing and gnawing. Still the magical vestments repelled the attacks, but they seemed not so invulnerable now. The stinking musk clung to them as would an acid, already wearing at their integrity.
Barjin twisted and screamed. He couldn't see through the bum in his eyes; he couldn't think straight against the sudden-ness of the attack. He felt the gnawing bites grow sharper and knew that he was in trouble. Very soon, the wolverine would be through his vestments and those wicked teeth would be tearing at his exposed thigh.
The Screaming Maiden reached out empathically to Barjin, calmed him and let him see through its eyes. Barjin stopped Percival struggling and followed the mace's lead. Newander burrowed in, but the Screaming Maiden bit back.
Barjin bit the wolverine perhaps a dozen times; each strike put more blood and more fur into the hungry mace's gaping mouth. The burrowing stopped, but Barjin kept pounding.
"Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow!" Pikel grunted, rolling out of the burning pile. His clothes had caught in several places; his beard no longer appeared green, but the thick-skinned dwarf had taken no real damage in his tumble with the flaming zombie, and he rolled about the floor, suffocating the last stubborn embers.
Ivan started toward his brother but changed direction suddenly, seeing that Mullivy, too, had begun to rise. Ivan had seen enough of that one. He crept over, using the crackle of the fire to cover Percival footsteps, and took up a position just to the side of the rising zombie.
Mullivy was no longer burning. Barjin's protection spell kept the flames from his rotting flesh, and now all the oill and clothing, the fuel for his fires, had been consumed. He came up still focused on Pikel, taking no notice of the dwarf winding up just behind his shoulder.
Ivan quickly put a finger across each side of his double-bladed axe, testing to see which edge was the sharper. He shrugged then-both seemed equally capable-and whipped the blade across at his own eye level. It sliced just above the zombie's shoulder, as Ivan had planned, and hit the creature squarely on the side of the neck. More than the weakened flesh of a zombie's thin neck would be needed to slow the blow of an enraged Ivan Bouldershoulder.
Ivan smiled with grim satisfaction as the zombie tumbled to the side, its head spinning through the air far from its body.
"Oo!" remarked an appreciative and admiring Pikel.
"Had it coming," Ivan snorted back, sharing a smile with toe brother he had thought dead.
Their mirth was short-lived. Mullivy's corpse stood up between them, deaf and blind but flailing wildly with both arms. One connected on toe side of Pikel's head, knocking off Percival pot helmet.
"Oo!" Pikel squeaked again, and he slipped one step to toe side and smacked toe headless zombie with his club. He leaned and glanced at Ivan and both brothers understood toe proper tactics.
They worked in unison, two dwarves who knew each other's moves as well as his own. They surrounded toe zombie, one on either side, and moved synchronously in circles. Ivan prodded Mullivy's shoulder, then jumped back. The zombie shifted and waved its arms futilely at toe empty air.
Pikel, behind the monster, waded in with a heavy blow.
Mullivy spun to get at the newest attacker, and Ivan came in behind, launching an overhead chop into the zombie's shoulder with enough force to take off one arm.
It went on for a long while, though both dwarves actually would have preferred to make this fun last a bit longer. Finally, though, Mullivy's dismembered corpse fell to toe floor and did not try to rise.
Still dazed and disoriented, Cadderly witnessed the horrors at the altar from across the room. He knew that Newander was probably dead, and he knew, too, that the evil priest would advance next toward Danica.
He saw Percival love, climbing up from the floor, trembling violently from the chilling frost and gasping and squinting on toe edges of Newander's musk cloud.
Blood stained one of Barjin's legs, and he limped noticeably as he struggled away from toe still wolverine's stubborn clutch, but the priest's expression showed only rage, and he waved his mace with sure and easy swings.
"Newander," Cadderly called hopelessly, desperately, wanting someone to intervene and stop this madness. He knew that the druid, his head and back a bloody pulp, would never answer.
Danica moved next, drawing her crystalline daggers and launching them in rapid succession. The first bit the priest in toe shoulder, drawing just a tiny line of blood. The second had even less success. It managed to cut through toe priest's conical cap, but the angle of toe hat deflected it above Barjin's head, where it hung weirdly and harmlessly.
Barjin rubbed his eyes, stepped over toe druid, and bore down on Danica. She fell into a low, defensive posture as though she would spring into him, but then dove straight backward.
Cadderly understood Danica's reaction; she feared another blast from that awful mace. And even as Cadderly watched, the priest brought the weapon in line.
Cadderly watched Danica move back beside the altar, steadily backpedaling from the advancing priest. All of Cadderly's pain, so overwhelming just a moment ago, suddenly seemed insignificant next to Danica's troubles. He shook the dizziness away, denied the weakness in his limbs, and forced himself to his knees, drawing his crossbow and fitting another dart.
He nearly swooned from the permeating cold and bit his hip right through in fighting against it, understanding the price of failure. He leveled the crossbow Barjin's way, had the evil priest in line, and knew that those vestments would not stop the enchanted dart.
He hesitated. A voice screamed in protest inside Cadderly's head, a distant echo of the vow he had made when he had first decided to construct the bow and darts. "Not as a weapon!" he growled under his breath, but as the bow began to slip toward the floor, Cadderly looked back at Danica, growled in defiance and tightened his grip. Struggling with his conscience through every inch, he stubbornly brought the crossbow up level again.
Cadderly nearly cried out a moment later, believing his hesitation might have cost Danica dearly.
Barjin launched a series of mighty blows at the young woman, who somehow managed to stagger out of the biting mace's grasp.
Cadderly saw an out.
"Feel the cold," he heard Barjin snarl, distantly, as though he were viewing it all through a crystal ball. The priest held the cruel mace out in front of him, its mouth opened wide.
Danica, agile despite her wounds, desperately leaped to the side.
"No!" Cadderly cried, and his dart found its way right between the evil weapon's fangs.
There was a sharp crack, and Barjin barely managed to keep his grip on the jolted mace. For an interminable moment, nothing at all seemed to happen, but Cadderly could tell from the priest's shocked expression that something was indeed going on within Barjin's prized weapon.
Without warning, the top of the Screaming Maiden's head blew off. Barjin still held the broken weapon by the handle; he seemed as if he could not let go. Multicolored sparks flared as the magical energy burst forth unbridled, showering the entire center region of the room.
"Oo!" Pikel and Ivan squealed together.
The sparks caught on Barjin's vestments, burning little holes. The priest screamed in agony as a spark slipped through the cap's view hole and sizzled into his eye.
Danica fell away, diving and rolling and shielding her own eyes with a raised arm.
The spark shower went on unabated. Blue sparks erupted right into Barjin's head, catching the side of his conical hood as he desperately lurched. Red sparks flew out in a sudden circular explosion, spinning and rising and then falling over Danica, Barjin, and the evil altar. A small fireball popped straight up from the broken mace, exploding into the ceiling. Lighted specks of dust descended, only to be devoured by the continuing shower.
Across the room, Cadderly squinted and wondered if he had inadvertently set something into motion that would destroy them all.
Then it ended. The base of the Screaming Maiden dropped to the floor and sputtered to a smoldering death.
Off came Barjin's conical hood, and then off, too, came the fast-burning vestments. They fell apart, destroyed by both the wolverine musk and the sparks, as Barjin clawed at them, Frantically trying to get the hot embers away from his skin. He cursed and spat at his own foolishness for putting the spell of fire protection on his zombie instead of on himself.
The priest's eyes darted wildly. Cadderly was still kneeling.
To his side, the triumphant dwarves stood over the gruesome remains of the zombie. Then his gaze settled on Danica, apparently unarmed and unarmored, who seemed the easiest target. Wiping the musk and sparks from her face, she wasn't even looking at him.
Barjin had made many mistakes in his life, but none were more complete than his assumption that Danica would be an easy catch. He reached out for her, meaning to hook her around the neck with his strong arm and bring her in, choking, against his chest.
His arm had almost reached her shoulder when Danica reacted. She spun fully and used her momentum to drive her finger hard against Barjin's shoulder.
"I already tried that!" Cadderly warned, but he fell silent, and Barjin's arm fell dead.
The priest looked down in amazement at his numbed right arm. He started to strike out with his left, but Danica was simply too quick for him. She caught his punch in midswing, hooked her fingers over his hand, and jerked his thumb back so forcefully that, with a crack of bones that sounded as loudly as one of Pikel's tree trunk hits, Barjin's thumbnail touched his wrist.
Danica wasn't finished. With a slight twist, she cupped her fingers around Barjin's, curling her fingertips over the top of the priest's hand. Looking Barjin straight in the eye, Danica squeezed, her grip forcing Barjin's top knuckles back in on themselves and sending waves of excruciating pain rolling up his arm. He tried to resist, mentally telling his arm to pull away, but Danica's assault blocked out his determined call; the unrelenting pain prevented him from taking any actions against her, or any actions at all. Even if his other arm had not been "killed," he could not have responded.
He gurgled indecipherably; all the world became a blur.
Danica sneered and pulled down on the trapped hand, driving Barjin to his knees. She tightened her free hand into a ball and lined up Barjin's face.
"Danica ..." breathed a horrified Cadderly.
"Here, now, don't we get a piece of him?" came a gruff call from the side. "He's the one who killed me brother."
Pikel turned incredulously on Ivan. "Oh?"
"Well, he tried to kill me brother," Ivan corrected, grinning from ear to ear.
Danica uncurled her fist. Her anger was lost in sadness and concern as she looked at Cadderly. The pitiful image stopped her cold. Cadderly was still kneeling, staring at Danica, his hands outstretched in a silent plea and his gray eyes unconsciously judging her.
Danica twisted Barjin's arm around, cupped her other arm under his shoulder and sent him rolling toward the dwarves.
Ivan scooped him up roughly and half-rolled and half-bounced him to Pikel, crying, "Ye killed me brother!"
"Me brudder!" Pikel echoed, spinning the dizzy priest about and launching him back at Ivan.
Ivan caught him and sent him bounding back.
Cadderly realized that the dwarfs game could easily get out of hand. Both were injured, and angry, and with the cursing bottle spewing smoke so very close, their pain and rage could bring them to new heights of violence.
"Do not kill him!" Cadderly screamed at them. Pikel looked at him incredulously and Ivan caught Barjin, slammed the priest to the ground, and held him by the hair.
"Not kill him?" Ivan asked. "What're ye thinking to do with this one?"
"Do not kill him!" Cadderly demanded again. He suspected that he'd need more than the protests of his own conscience to convince the agitated dwarves, so he played a pragmatic game. "We need to question him, to learn if he has allies and where they might be."
"Yeah!" roared Ivan. "What about it?" He jerked Barjin's head back so violently that Cadderly thought the dwarf had broken the man's neck.
"Not now, Ivan," Cadderly explained. "Later, in the library, where we will find maps and writings to aid us in our interrogation."
"Ye're a lucky one, ye are," Ivan said, putting his considerable nose right against Barjin's, pushing the priest's smaller proboscis flat against his cheek. "I'd get ye talking, don't ye doubt!"
Indeed Barjin didn't doubt Ivan's words, but he hardly felt lucky, especially when Ivan hoisted him back up and bounced him over to Pikel once again.
Cadderly walked over and draped his arm across Danica's shoulders. She stood quietly, looking down at the druid who had sacrificed everything for their cause. Newander's bones continued to crackle, as his body tried to revert to its natural form in death. He got about halfway there. His calm and wise face once more became recognizable, and most of Ue wolverine hair disappeared, but then the transition stopped. Death had stolen the magic, the energy.
"He was a good friend," Cadderly whispered, but he thought his words incredibly lame. Words could not carry the sense of grief that he felt, both for the druid and for the many others who had perished under the curse-the curse that he had loosed.
That thought inevitably led Cadderly's gaze to the altar and the bottle, still pouring smoke, oblivious to the defeat of its guiding priest.
"It is for me to do," Cadderly surmised, hoping he was right. He took the stopper from the altar and gingerly reached out, his mind rushing through a hundred different scenarios of what would happen if he were unable to close the bottle.
He was not. He placed the stopper over the bottle and patted it down, ending the smoky stream.
Cadderly felt a bump on his shoulder and thought that Danica had put her head on him for support.
He turned to acknowledge her apparent relief, but she limply fell past him, face down to the floor.
Back by the door, the others went down, too. Barjin tumbled heavily over Ivan, and for a moment, not a thing moved. Only Barjin got back up, snarling and cursing.
"You," he said accusingly at Cadderly. The evil priest grabbed Ivan's axe in his one working arm and headed Cadderly's way.
