James Wyatt - Oath of Vigilance

No hint of his earlier anger tainted the drow’s voice, and Shara felt her own fading. So he doesn’t like being contradicted, she thought. Or he just doesn’t like being wrong-who does?

As she walked, Shara’s foot slipped out from under her on the stair, and she hit the stone hard, with a clatter of armor. As she tried desperately to get hold of something solid, she slid down a dozen more stairs, each one raising a new racket as her sword and pack jangled against her armor and the stone beneath her. Her helmet slammed against the stairs several times as well, sending shocks through her skull. By the time she caught herself, her ears were ringing from the noise.

She looked up and saw Quarhaun bending over her, offering a hand to help her to her feet. She tried to grab his hand, but her hand didn’t find it where her eyes told her it was. She held up a finger and tried to make her head stop swimming.

“Don’t move!” Uldane whispered suddenly, a step or two above her.

Shara peered into the darkness below her, but her eyes still weren’t cooperating. “What is it?” she whispered.

“There’s something moving down there,” Uldane said. “Something big.”

Travic barely dodged the stone knight’s sword. As the animated statue pulled its weapon back, Travic slipped behind Roghar and shot a ray of divine light from his hand to erupt in the statue’s face.

“That’s one of the things that takes longer as I get older,” he said.

Roghar laughed as Tempest hurled a blast of eldritch fire over his shoulder. “Good thing you’re not that old yet,” he said. He raised his shield as the stone knight’s sword sliced down at him, blocking the blow. He staggered under the force of it, and his shield arm tingled furiously. “Oh, that would have hurt.”

His own sword clattered against the knight’s stone armor, to little effect. The statue’s perfectly sculpted eyes bored into him, unmoving and unblinking. It reminded him of the stone guardian he and Tempest had encountered in the Labyrinth beneath Thunderspire Mountain-except that Tempest hadn’t been herself at the time. During that fight, Erak had stabbed Tempest in the gut, letting the demonic possessor spill out with her blood. And their companion Falon, a cleric of noble ancestry, had discovered that he could command the stone guardian.

“Stop!” he ordered the knight, in his most authoritative voice.

In answer, the stone knight thrust its sword forward, right at his heart. Dodging to the left and parrying the blade to the right, he managed to avoid the stab, but it was too close.

“So, I take it you weren’t created to obey the orders of Bahamut’s paladins,” he said. “How about clerics of Erathis? Tiefling warlocks? Either of you two want to try giving a command?”

“Kill!” shouted a growling voice somewhere behind him. “Smash the intruders!”

“Not what I had in mind,” Roghar muttered. He landed a solid blow on the statue, hard enough to knock a few large chips of stone loose and drive it a few steps back. He used the opportunity to glance over his shoulder.

A group of bedraggled looking humans huddled in the hall, taking shelter behind what must have been their champion-a huge, mangy gnoll whose foul hide was marred by several burned, hairless patches. The gnoll held a heavy spear with a brutally serrated head, somewhere between a whaler’s harpoon and a butcher’s cleaver. The humans, though they were dressed like beggars, clutched an array of makeshift weapons and seemed determined to fight-at least for as long as they had the protection of the gnoll.

The gnoll charged Tempest.

And Tempest was still staring at the stone knight, probably overwhelmed by the same memories that it had stirred up in Roghar.

“Tempest, behind you!” he shouted. “Travic-”

The stone knight’s sword slammed across his chest and pounded him against the wall, knocking the breath from his lungs. Roghar’s armor kept the blade from cutting him in two, but the metal crumpled beneath the force of the blow and bit into his flesh.

A soft white light washed over him as Travic murmured a prayer. Air flowed back into his lungs and the pain in his chest lost its edge, and he looked up just in time to see the gnoll’s spear turned aside an instant before it cut into Tempest’s spine. Tempest whirled around and uttered a terrifying wail that battered the gnoll and the humans behind it back the way they’d come, giving her room to move.

“Now for you,” Roghar said to the stone knight. “Bahamut, bless my blade!” Power coursed through him, ran down his arm, and poured into his sword as he struck the statue with all his strength. His blow connected with a crack of thunder that knocked the statue off its feet and sent it crashing to the ground.

“Marcan?” Travic called behind him. “What are you doing here?”

“Mind control it is, then,” Roghar muttered to himself. He rushed forward as the animated statue tried to get to its feet, smiting it again with as much power as he could draw from his faith and his fear.

“You should leave this place, Travic,” an unfamiliar voice said. “We have left that life behind us.”

“Is Gaele here as well?” Travic asked.

“Heed me, priest. You should not be here.”

A growl that could only be the gnoll punctuated Marcan’s words, and Travic cried out in pain.

Roghar risked another glance over his shoulder. Travic was staggering back from the gnoll, and blood sprayed from the tip of the gnoll’s spear as it pulled free of the priest’s shoulder. That’s not good, he thought. The humans, emboldened by the gnoll’s successful attack, crowded forward to get in on the action. He didn’t have time to worry about Travic. The stone knight was on its feet again, though it seemed a bit unsteady.

“Had enough?” Roghar asked the statue, making a few tentative jabs with his sword.

In answer, the knight slammed its sword into Roghar’s shield again. A jolt of pain shot up his arm, then his arm went numb. He could barely hold his shield any more, let alone move it into position to block the knight’s next blow. He tried to step back out of the knight’s reach, but he bumped into Tempest and the tip of the stone sword bit through the armor plates at his shoulder.

“I need more space!” Tempest shouted, her voice high with fear and frustration.

Roghar nodded. Using his sword hand to help raise his shield in front of him, he ducked his head and rushed forward, inside the knight’s reach. His shield slammed into the stone knight’s chest, sending a fresh wave of pain through his arm but pushing the statue back a few steps, giving Tempest the room she needed.

As the animated statue fought to catch its balance, Roghar stretched his jaws wide and exhaled a blast of fire that covered the stone knight. The flames had little effect on the stone itself, but it concentrated and lingered on the places where Roghar’s sword had already made gouges and chips in its surface. Fighting a magical construct like the statue involved more than wearing down its physical substance-it was a creature of magic and will bound to a material form. The divine power that flowed through his sword, the raw elemental energy of his draconic breath, and his own powerful will would cause as much damage to the statue as the steel of his blade, maybe more.

Indeed, the fire seemed to sap the statue’s strength. It staggered back another couple of steps and sagged to one knee. Roghar pressed the attack, drawing his arm back for a mighty blow.

With his shield arm still numb, he left himself completely open to a counterattack, and the statue, even weakened and off-balance, was quick enough to take advantage of it. Springing up from its crouch, it rammed its shoulder into Roghar’s chest, knocking the breath out of him again and sending him flying back to land at Tempest’s feet.