the blow and blood gushed from both nostrils. But she held her footing.
Barrabus ducked her grasp and rolled under her arm. She stumbled forward, and sliding beside her, Barrabus captured her in a head lock. He knew how to kill quickly with such a choke, and knew how to shorten it to incapacitate.
The woman struggled for just a few heartbeats before she fell limp in his grasp. He meant to let her fall unconscious to the ground in front of him, but another zombie came in at him, so he threw her at it. He dived out the other way, into a roll, and retrieved his sword.
He came up and reversed his momentum, charging right back in, slashing at the zombie once as it extricated itself from the Ashmadai.
Barrabus’s dagger still stuck deep into its eye, the other zombie came at him, too, ignorant of his flashing sword and flailing wildly.
Then flailing without hands.
Then without an arm.
Then its head flew free, spinning up into the air.
Barrabus caught the head as it fell, by his own dagger hilt still deep in the eye, and a flick of his wrist sent the gruesome thing spinning away.
He had both of his weapons again and the immediate threats had been eradicated, but Barrabus knew he was in trouble.
Across the field came the more formidable foes, a host of Ashmadai, and the lich he’d seen beside Sylora Salm herself, the lich he knew to be beyond his power.
He glanced back at the city wall and the distant gate. From inside, the sounds of battle echoed loudly. The defenders had hardly put this first assault down.
Barrabus the Gray had nowhere to run.
A streak of blue-white lightning erupted from Valindra’s scepter and sped for Neverwinter. Its glow reflected on the terrified faces of a pair of archers for just a flicker before it struck in a great explosion, blowing the men off the city wall.
The lich wanted to fly up into the air, to get up over that wall and rain death on those inside. She hated them, viscerally. They were alive and she was not, and how she wanted to count them among the ranks of her undead army.
But then Valindra remembered Arunika’s words, and the promise of emotional control. This was one of the tests she and Arunika had discussed, where the hunger of lichdom and prudent caution crossed swords.
Still she found herself drifting toward the wall.
She remembered Sylora’s orders for her: She would use her army to test defenses and soften up the enemy until Arunika’s new allies could be brought in and exploited.
Still she couldn’t stop herself.
But then she saw some fighting at the base of the wall. Zombies scrambled to get at some unseen foe. The Ashmadai she’d sent ahead to die, stubbornly still alive, was going in as well. Other Ashmadai began shouting about the enemy on the field, naming him as the Netherese champion.
Before Valindra could even tell them to catch and kill the champion, the furious zealots had taken the task upon themselves. They stretched their line far down to Valindra’s left and began approaching, the ends of the line curling ahead to seal off any escape by the infamous Barrabus the Gray.
Valindra turned her attention back to the enemy champion and his battle. The Ashmadai woman was down, many zombies lay scattered around him, and now he saw his coming doom.
He would run for the wall, the lich knew, and perhaps someone there would drop him a rope …
Hardly thinking, Valindra reached out with her scepter and a burst of red lights spun across the field. As the last of the missiles flew away, the lich conjured a storm cloud and began pelting Barrabus and the ground around him with ice.
She watched with a satisfied grin as he pulled his cloak tight and hunched low, futilely racing for the wall.
The Ashmadai warriors closed fast from behind.
But then came shouts from the farthest edge of the line, far to Valindra’s left: “Shadovar! Netheril is come!”
To the Ashmadai, no battle cry could sound more encouraging. As one, they forgot their enemies in Neverwinter and turned instead to meet the newest force on the field.
Valindra glanced that way, then at the crawling enemy she’d pummeled, then to the city walls and the continuing fracas within.
“It is him!” an Ashmadai tiefling warrior cried. He pointed to the far end of the line, to the battle with the Netherese.
A large form towered over one of her minions, his huge sword shining red even