again after the third hit, but as it fell to the floor, a tumbling dwarven missile, Pikel Boulder-shoulder, went right over it, leaving the ground between Cadderly and Histra wide open.
Cadderly heard Ivan up on the stairs, engaged with some enemy. He glanced that way momentarily, then looked back to find that Histra had closed the ground, standing just a couple of feet before him, smiling that terrible, fanged smile.
Cadderly hit her solidly in the chest with the spindle-disks as she brazenly walked in, but the weapon only knocked her back a step, and she smiled again, even more widely, showing that it had not hurt her.
"Dear Cadderly," she purred. "You have no defense against me." Cadderly, like Pikel before him, looked down to the disks as if he had been deceived.
"Would you not prefer the fate I offer you?" Histra said teasingly. She seemed such a grotesque caricature to Cadderly, a mocking insult to the alluring, sensual woman she had once been. As a priestess of Sune, the Goddess of Love, Histra had primped and perfumed, had kept her curvy body in perfect physical condition, and had kept a light in her eyes that promised the purest of pleasure to any man she deemed worthy.
But now the skin of her face sagged, as did her cleavage, showing between the tatters of what had once been a beautiful crimson gown. And no perfume could overcome the burned stench that surrounded the maimed vampiress. Even worse, by Cadderly's estimation, was the look in her eyes, once a promise of pleasure, now the diabolical fires of unholiness, of evil incarnate.
"I offer you life," the ugly vampiress purred. "A better deal, for Rufo will offer only death."
Cadderly bolstered himself in the face of that awful image, and in the mere mention of Kierkan Rufo, using both to reinforce his faith, using both as a symbol, a clear reminder, of the fall to temptation. Up came his holy symbol, the light tube behind it, and never had the young priest presented the light of Deneir with so much of his heart in it.
Rufo had resisted Cadderly's symbol earlier, but Histra was not the master here, was still far from the full powers of vampirism. She stopped her advance immediately and began trembling.
"By the power of Deneir!" Cadderly cried, advancing a step, holding the symbol high and angling it down so that its flaring weight drove Histra to her knees.
"Well, we ain't going out that way!" A bruised and bloody Ivan cried as he half ran, half tumbled out of the stairway.
Cadderly growled and pushed the light lower, and His-tra groveled and whimpered. Then the young priest looked to the stairs, to the host of zombies that were shuffling down behind Ivan. He looked across the hall, to Pikel, who was thankfully up again and running in circles - no, dancing, Cadderly realized. For some reason that Cadderly could not understand, Pikel was dancing around his club, gesturing with his stubby hands, his mouth moving more than Cadderly had ever seen it move.
Ivan took up the fight again at the entrance to the stairs, his mighty, wickedly sharp axe taking limbs off reaching, stubborn zombies with every swing. "There's a hunnerd o' the damned things!" the dwarf bellowed.
Something faster and more sinister than the zombies stepped through their ranks to stand before the dwarf. Ivan's axe met it head-on, and right in the chest, but as the blade connected, the vampire, not flinching, caught it by the handle and pushed it harmlessly aside.
"Hunnerd and one," the dwarf corrected dryly.
Cadderly growled and forced the symbol of his god right down on Histra's forehead, acrid smoke belching from the wound. The vampiress tried to reach up and fight off the attack, but there was no strength in her trembling arms.
"I deny you, and I damn you!" Cadderly growled, pressing with all his strength. Again, Histra was caught by the fact that she had not yet mastered her new state of undeath, that she could not quickly and easily transform into a bat or some other creature of the night, or melt into vapors and flow away.
"Hold him back!" Cadderly, knowing he had Histra defenseless, cried to Ivan. He started to call to Pikel, but just grunted, seeing that the dwarf was still weirdly dancing, worried that the dwarfs sensibilities had Seen knocked clear of his green-bearded head.
Ivan growled and launched a furious attack on the vampire, hitting the thing several times. But the monster, and its