Annarah was winning hers. Power snapped and snarled back and forth between the loremaster and the Master Alchemist, but Rolukhan was proving the stronger. He felt Annarah’s spells weakening beneath Rolukhan’s furious barrage. Perhaps if Annarah had been rested, if she had not spent the last century and a half trapped in the netherworld, she might have been able to overcome Rolukhan.
Kylon sensed her wards crumple further, and the Immortals drove him back step by step.
###
Caina watched the fighting, trying to think of something to do.
No ideas came to her, and she could not fight while carrying the bloodcrystal. If Rolukhan got his hands on the thing, they were finished. Though it looked like they would be dead soon enough, and Rolukhan could claim the crystal at his leisure.
“I calculate,” said Nerina, reloading her crossbow yet again, “a very good chance that we are going to die here.” He bolts did nothing against Rolukhan, so she had instead taken to shooting Immortals. So far she had accounted for five of them.
“How good of a chance?” said Caina.
“About twenty-six in twenty-seven,” said Nerina. “Maybe twenty-four in twenty-five.”
Malcolm grunted. “That sounds about right. At least the others got clear.”
Caina nodded. With luck, Najar and the rest of the slaves could escape the Inferno before Rolukhan regained control of the fortress. She looked around again, trying to think of something, anything that she could do.
“You!” said Malcolm.
Caina whirled and saw a dark shadow hobble towards them, a shadow wearing chain mail and a sand-colored robe…
Azaces.
He had been wounded several times, dark patches marking his robes, dried blood covering a gash in his forehead. Malcolm lifted his hammer, but Nerina did not raise her crossbow. Azaces walked towards them, wobbling a bit. His two-handed scimitar was in its sheath over his shoulder, and in in his right hand he held something by its handle, a cylindrical shape about three feet long.
An amphora.
Specifically, a sealed amphora of Hellfire.
“Don’t do anything,” Caina told the others. “If he drops that we’re dead.”
“He is fighting for them,” said Malcolm.
“No,” said Caina. “No, look at his wounds. Those are scimitar wounds.” Azaces stopped a dozen steps away, the amphora of Hellfire clinking against the stone floor. He took a deep breath, a shudder going through his frame. “For the gods’ sake don’t lean on that amphora.”
Azaces flinched, nodded, and straightened up.
“The horn,” said Caina, her mind racing. Something started to click together in her thoughts. “Rolukhan’s not controlling you any longer, is he?”
Azaces pointed at Annarah. The loremaster struggled against the Master Alchemist, the white light of her spells blazing against the darkness. Caina could sense that Rolukhan was the stronger of the two. Annarah was putting up a ferocious defense, but the Master Alchemist would simply outlast her. If Morgant and Kylon and Nasser reached Rolukhan first, that might change things, but the Immortals were holding out against the undead assault.
“She did it, didn’t she?” said Caina. “When she attacked Rolukhan. It broke his concentration, and he’s not directly controlling the Immortals any longer. The others obey Rolukhan out of fear or habit…but you, you’re not an Immortal any more, are you?”
He nodded again, more vigorously.
“Then who are you?” said Nerina. “If you are not an Immortal, who are you truly?”
He pointed at Nerina, and then at Malcolm, and then at himself.
“What does that mean?” said Malcolm.
“If he had wanted to kill us, husband,” said Nerina, “he need only have thrown that Hellfire over us while our backs were turned.”
Azaces pointed at the amphora, and then at Rolukhan himself.
“A splendid idea,” said Malcolm, “but we have no way of getting it at him. If we throw it from here, we shall burn up some Immortals, and that will be that.”
“A pity we do not have another catapult,” said Nerina. “At this range the shot would be easy to calculate.”
“Or some other method of clearing the Immortals from our path quickly,” said Malcolm.
Quickly…
Caina looked at the bloodcrystal blazing in her fist and felt a chill.
The Subjugant Bloodcrystal brought death to anyone who touched it without proper protection.
So what would happen if she touched the evil thing to an Immortal?
The thought revolted her. The bloodcrystal was a thing of necromancy, of the vilest sorcery. Yet if she had a sword or a crossbow or a ballista, she would have used that without hesitation to kill the Immortals. For that matter, she had used Hellfire to kill Immortals in the past, and Hellfire was a thing of sorcery as well. Besides,