The Ashmadai gripped his scepter in two hands and swung it as a club, recklessly pushing forward with his attack.
With his hip shuddering with spasms, muscles popping so forcefully he had a hard time standing straight, Barrabus couldn’t exploit that obvious weakness nearly as much as he might have hoped. Absent the injury, he could have picked his strikes clearly. As it was, he took what he could get.
The scepter rushed in from his left and Barrabus faded right, snapping his sword up to block, thrusting his dagger hard again against the Ashmadai’s chest, then even managing to twist out of the scepter’s reach in such a manner that he was able to slash his sword down diagonally across the Ashmadai’s neck. He gained some confidence as he came out of the spinning retreat to find that his enemy was not pursuing, to find the mummy staggering under the weight of that strike.
He started back in for the kill, but something in his gut held him back—just enough so that as he neared, he was ready to defend. Fortunately, the cunning zealot revealed his ruse, coming straight in, uninjured, and launching another series of vicious swings.
Barrabus backed and parried, keeping his distance, inspecting his enemy’s neck closely. He hadn’t marred the wrapping, and the mummy’s grin and sparkling eyes told him that his solid sword strike had actually done no real harm. He scanned downward, to find not a hint of scarring on the Ashmadai’s chest from his last dagger strike, and the first, which had been a perfect strike with all his weight behind it, revealed barely the slightest of scratches on the gray material.
His weapons couldn’t get through.
Barrabus dodged and struck again, sword deftly working around the swinging scepter to crack against the Ashmadai’s knuckles. But the man didn’t flinch; his grip didn’t waver at all, it seemed. And he responded with a backhand and a second violent sidelong slash that he cut short, as if to tease Barrabus by proving that the strike on the hand had done nothing at all, and reversed the swing suddenly into a forward thrust.
Barrabus turned and fled, forcing his wounded hip forward to throw that leg in front of him. He clenched his teeth against the pain—he had no time for pain. Barrabus made good speed as he turned around a thick oak. He thought of stopping there for a sudden strike on his pursuing enemy, but realized such a reversal to be too obvious.
But there was a second oak, blocked from the Ashmadai by the first …
Effron smiled at the Ashmadai female standing directly in front of him just as the arrow dived from the tree. Obviously spying the true-shot arrow, she growled and grinned as well, and stabbed hard.
Effron opened his arms wide, not even trying to block her thrust, and paid no heed to the arrow as it plunged into the back of his insubstantial head. The last magical bolt Effron had thrown took the name of “ghostly” precisely because of its effect on the caster.
The thrusting scepter plunged into nothing substantial, just the misty form of the dematerialized, ethereal warlock, and the female managed just a hint of confusion on her face—just one delicious hint. The arrow, too, passed right through Effron, and right into the woman’s eye. The resulting splash of gore and blood proved conclusively that she was not similarly ghostlike. She fell straight to the ground, landing hard and awkwardly, but Effron knew she hadn’t felt a thing.
Off to the side and in front of him, the other Ashmadai finally managed to pull himself from the ground. The zealot, his hair and eyebrows all burned and smoking, his skin bright red and bubbling in places, turned a hateful glare at the warlock. His breath coming in gasps of outrage, he charged.
Effron spun his wand in the air and threw forth a spinning, shadowy snake that seemed to dissipate to nothingness as it neared the target. Still, the Ashmadai staggered as if he’d been punched in the face. Blood began to run from his shattered nose, and he spat out a tooth as well, but infuriated, he kept coming.
The archer behind Effron cried out again, and this time there was more than simple pain reflected in that scream. This time, it was a scream of horror.
Effron couldn’t help but smile at that, at how easily he’d controlled the battle.
The Ashmadai warrior finally caught up to him, and the warlock moved into a defensive posture. Effron seemed at a great disadvantage, wearing only robes, holding only a flimsy wooden wand, and with one useless arm hanging limply behind his back, but the warlock was not without his magical defenses in the form of his enchanted robes, his ring, his amulet, his cloak, his bracers, and his belt. And Effron didn’t have to worry about scoring any hits against this warrior. The Ashmadai would take care of that all on his own.
Indeed, as the warrior tried to strike at Effron, that shadowy snake reappeared as a shadowy strangler around the man’s neck. He gasped and gagged, his eyes bulging both with surprise and from the brutal force of the tightening magical coil.
Stubbornly, the zealot swung again, his scepter banging against Effron’s mangled shoulder. The blow stung the warlock and forced him a step to the side.
But the shadow strangler struck again, and this time the Ashmadai vomited blood. He lifted his scepter to strike again, but it fell from his dying grasp, and he stared at Effron with confusion and hatred, then tumbled over to the side, quite dead.
The strange, mummified warrior charged around the tree, unafraid. He paused just long enough to look ahead, left and right, to try to find his quarry, and when his head turned right, Barrabus came out from behind the tree to his left.
With all his strength, the assassin smashed his sword down atop the back of the warrior’s head, and this time, the zealot did move forward—and it was not a ruse—under the weight of the blow. In went Barrabus for a second strike, and a third and a fourth, and a kidney stab with his dagger.
When his rage played out and the Ashmadai warrior managed to stagger far enough away from him, Barrabus didn’t pursue. In that confusing frenzy, Barrabus had been tapped again by the awful scepter, this time on the left shoulder. Now it, too, began to spasm. His dagger fell from his grasp and the pain jolted him every few heartbeats.
A few strides away, the zealot turned around, grinning, unhurt by Barrabus’s attacks.
Barrabus’s leg clenched in a vicious spasm as he bent to retrieve his dagger, and he nearly tumbled to the ground. It appeared as though he’d completely lost his balance, his sword, too, falling from his grasp.
The Ashmadai came charging in.
But despite the pain, Barrabus was not off-balance and helpless. He reached for his sword, or so it appeared, but came up again with a handful of dirt, which he flung into the eyes of his pursuer.
The zealot groaned and fell back. Barrabus retrieved his sword—his other hand, numbed and writhing with spasms, wouldn’t let him get the dagger back—and turned and fled, running as fast as he could manage, throwing his right foot forward and fighting for all his life not to let that numb limb buckle beneath him.
A barrage of screams demanded Barrabus’s attention, and he winced in revulsion as he noted the Ashmadai archer tumbling down from the tree. The frenetic man clawed and slapped desperately at his own skin as a horde of tiny spiders poured forth, biting their way through from inside the poor man.
“Effron …” Barrabus muttered, and shook his head in disgust.
He came into the clearing just as another black bolt flew from the warlock’s wand into the male warrior, who was on the ground and seemed already dead.
“Effron!” Barrabus called. He heard the mummy Ashmadai closing in behind him. He turned to meet the charge, fighting defensively, not wanting to be touched by the scepter again. “Effron!”
“I killed three already, and you haven’t even finished your one?” the warlock called back, his voice filled with an oh-if-I-must sigh.
Barrabus growled and muttered a stream of curses under his breath. He parried furiously against the spinning and thrusting scepter. Every now and then, he countered with a strike, but he saw little chance of hurting this … creature.
“Effron!” So distracted was he by his anger at the warlock, Barrabus nearly took a hit in the head, and one that would have surely killed him, he realized.
A series of black and purple darts spun and danced in the air past Barrabus, diving into the zealot—and the mummified creature staggered just a bit.
“More!” Barrabus yelled, and he took the opportunity to come forward and crack his sword atop the zealot’s forehead just for good measure.
“Oh, I’m quite depleted,” Effron replied. His voice came from farther away and continued to diminish as he spoke.
A wave of panic nearly swept over Barrabus. The good news was that at last his leg spasms seemed to have ended, though his left arm continued to jolt and jerk wildly.
He needed another diversion, something so he could break away and flee …
Even as he thought of that, the zealot in front of him exploded, or seemed to, with black and purple energy flying forth from every orifice. That energy slammed Barrabus, hurting him far more than it hurt the zealot. But at least the magic had blinded the Ashmadai, albeit briefly, but enough for Barrabus to break off and flee.
The zealot came in pursuit, and Barrabus glanced back just in time to see the contagion Effron had put in the warrior explode yet again, and once more the Ashmadai warrior had to pause and take a moment for his sight to clear.
By that time, Barrabus the Gray had melted into the forest, and few were as adept at hiding as he.
Particularly when his life depended on it.