as the monster advanced.
Pikel glanced back over his shoulder - and a sword slipped over his lowered club to slash his upper arm.
"Ow," he groaned, and he turned back just in time to see another sword slip in the other way, gashing his other arm.
"Ow."
The dwarf darted forward in a feigned charge, and his enemies fell back, then he swung around, transferring the momentum of his spin into his wide-flying chib. The ogre roared as its hip bone cracked loudly, and it lurched to the side.
Shayleigh's next arrow dove into its chest; Vander's heavy sword gashed into its side.
It fell headlong over Pikel as he muttered, "Uh-oh," and dove forward, trying desperately to get away. A man behind Pikel, fully intent on the dwarf, did not react quickly enough and was squashed under six hundred pounds of ogre flesh.
Pikel, laid out straight, scrambled and clawed his way from under the prostrate torso, past the ogre's hips^nd right out between its legs.
Other enemies had run over the creature's back and were waiting for, and stabbing at, the dwarf as he reappeared. He squeaked, "Ow! Ow!" repeatedly, taking stinging hit after stinging hit, trying to get his balance and turn about, that he might fend off the wave of weapons.
An arrow cut the air above him, and he used the distraction and the shield of a falling body to roll all the way out from under the fallen ogre. Three scrambling steps put him beside Shayleigh, the elf now holding her sword low before her, standing unsteadily.
Together," she mumbled to Pikel, but as she spoke, a club twirled through the air and smashed her in the face, and she fell heavily to the stone.
More clubs and daggers came flying the dwarf's way. Pikel's waving club blocked a few; he looked down curiously to regard a dagger's hilt quivering from his shoulder, looked curiously to his arm that had suddenly fallen limp to his side.
Pikel tried to backtrack, stumbled and fell over Shayleigh, and had not the strength to get back up.
The side of her face against the stone, only one eye opened, Shayleigh noted the measured approach of the enemy horde, though her fleeting consciousness could not comprehend the grim consequences. The elf saw only blackness as a heavy boot slammed to the stone right before her face, its heel only an inch away from her bleeding nose.
Trump Card
Cadderly ran from the alchemy shop, pulling the ruined door closed behind him. A moment later the young priest was sprawled out on the floor, and that ironbound door was no more than a pile of burning kindling against the corridor's opposite wall. Cadderly hadn't expected the mixture to react so quickly! He put his feet under him and started running, managing to hold his balance as a second blast rocked the area, this one blowing apart the door opposite the alchemy shop and cracking the walls along the corridor.
Cadderly rounded a corner, glancing back as a fireball engulfed the area. He could only hope that the second door he had ruined was not another portal to the lower planes, could only hope that some evil, horrid denizens would not come leaping through into the corridor behind him.
He ran past another door, then skidded as he crossed by yet another, this one made of iron, not wood, and hanging open.
"What have you done?" came an angry cry from inside.
I have forced you to face me, Cadderly answered silently, a satisfied look stealing the trepidation from his face. He moved slowly to the iron door, pushing it all the way open.
Cages and glass cases of various sizes lined the huge room's walls, and a tumult of growls and squawks greeted the young priest The wizard stood across the way, in front of another door and between the four largest cages. Three of these were empty - for the manticore, the chimera, and the hydra? Cadderly wondered - but the fourth held a creature that would grow into a fearsome beast indeed. A young dragon, its scales glossy black, narrowed its reptilian eyes evilly as it regarded Cadderly.
Cadderly noted the slight trembling of the wizard's shoulders, could tell that the exhausted man's magical energies had been greatly taxed. And the young priest's pillar of flame had hurt Aballister, for the side of the wizard's neck was red and blistered, and his fine blue robe hung in tatters.
Another explosion rocked the extradimensional complex.
Aballister gnashed his teeth and shook his head. He tried to speak, but his words