James Wyatt - Oath of Vigilance

Uldane’s laugh betrayed his position, already almost a quarter of the way around the edge of the chamber. But the demon didn’t reveal itself.

“Everyone get ready to hit it as soon as it shows itself,” Shara said. “Hit it hard.”

Keeping her center of gravity low, she stalked toward the middle of the room. The mist swirled around her feet and rose in clouds around her as she moved, and her feet splashed in shallow pools of water.

“It shouldn’t be so easy to hide in here,” she said. She stopped walking and listened. The lizardfolk were quieter than she was, but their feet made noise in the water as well, and the mist revealed the signs of their passage. But no such signs betrayed the movement of the demon, which meant it was either standing still or-

She looked up, and saw the demon slinking along the ceiling almost directly overhead.

“Up! Up!” she shouted. “It’s on the ceiling!”

With a yowl that chilled her blood, the demon dropped down onto her, twisting as it fell so its ruby-tipped claws led the way down. Shara lifted her shield and crouched down, and as the demon hit she blocked its claws and drove her sword deep into its shoulder. Its yowl turned into a hideous, screeching scream as it crashed to the floor on its side, scrambling to get its feet beneath it again.

The two nearest lizardfolk were on it before it could stand, bludgeoning its head and its hips with blows from their maces. She heard the crunch of bone and saw some of the crystal growths on its hind parts shatter, then the lizardfolk who had struck the crystal shouted and drew back in pain. The shattered crystal had pierced the warrior’s scaled hide, and he looked down at the wounds with wide, terror-filled eyes.

The demon found its feet and crouched to pounce. Shara’s blade cut the creature’s flank, then the demon leaped over the terrified lizardfolk and vanished in a rising cloud of mist.

“Quarhaun!” Shara called. “Bring Kssansk to look at this!”

The injured lizardfolk had dropped both mace and shield and started clawing at his own wounds as if trying to dig out the shards of crystal that had buried themselves in his flesh. Shara thought of the way Vestapalk’s infusion had taken hold in Albanon and Quarhaun, starting to change them both into demons like these.

Again she was reminded of the dragon’s commandment to his minions. “Spread the abyssal plague!” he had cried. She shuddered as the lizardfolk threw his head back and screamed.

Kssansk came and laid a hand on the frantic warrior, whose convulsive movements stopped at once, the scream squelched in his throat. Shara scanned the chamber for any sign of the demon’s return, checking the ceiling as well as the billowing mist. This time, eddies in the mist signaled the demon’s movement to her left, approaching the warriors on the far end of the lizardfolk line.

“This way!” she shouted, breaking into a run.

The demon was fast. It emerged from the mist and crashed into one of the lizardfolk, much as it had when Shara first entered the room. The lizardfolk, though, kept its feet and managed to get a solid blow on the creature’s shoulder as it darted past.

The demon never stopped moving. After colliding with the warrior and his club, the creature leaped onto the wall and ran another ten yards before dropping back down into the mist. Shara stopped, frustrated.

“It’s too fast,” she said. “We could spend the next hour running back and forth across the room, and it’ll just keep attacking one of us at a time.”

“We need to group up,” Quarhaun said. He shouted something in Draconic, and the lizardfolk responded immediately, pulling back to where Shara stood.

Kssansk led the injured warrior, the last to join the ragged circle. The wounds were still visible and the warrior’s eyes had a glassy look, but he held his weapon and shield ready.

“How is he?” Shara asked.

“He’s ready to fight,” Quarhaun said.

“Will you ask Kssansk how he is?”

Quarhaun shrugged and relayed the question to the lizardfolk shaman, who answered with a long string of gurgles and hisses.

“He’ll make it,” Quarhaun translated.

“What else did he say?”

“I’m not an interpreter,” the drow snarled. “I said he’ll make it, he’s ready to fight. What more do you need to know?”

“Shara!” Uldane’s voice, full of terror, came from off to the right, not far from where Shara had last spotted the demon.

“Damn it, Uldane!” Shara shouted. “Join the circle!”

The halfling gave a short cry of pain, then Shara saw the demon leap up out of the mist again. It clung to the wall this time, craning its serpentine head around to watch the floor.

Shara saw the mist billow, then Uldane emerged from it, his face streaked with blood. He ran toward the circle as fast as his feet could carry him, then the demon hurled itself down from the wall to land right on the halfling.

A bolt of purplish lightning shot over Shara’s shoulder to strike the demon, knocking it away from Uldane. Shara ran, calling for the lizardfolk to follow. Quarhaun echoed her instructions in Draconic and the warriors surrounded her, forming a tight clump around her as she moved to stand over Uldane. She reached a hand down to help the halfling to his feet. He managed to get up, but he was badly hurt.

The demon had vanished into the mist once more, though great clouds billowed around where Quarhaun’s eldritch lightning had sent it sprawling. A reddish light filtered through the mist, as if the creature’s crystal protrusions had started glowing. Then a voice whispered from the mist, and Shara’s heart froze.

“This one is sorry not to be present. There would be pleasure in robbing the red-haired warrior of more of those she cares about.”

“Vestapalk!” Shara cried. “Show your face and get ready to meet your doom!”

“This one is no longer called Vestapalk,” the dragon’s voice said. “And though there is pain in saying it, this one is not present to tear the halfling apart and bite the drow’s head from his body.”

“It’s speaking through the demon,” Quarhaun whispered in her ear. “Some kind of telepathic link.”

“This one is the Voidharrow and the plague. Wherever the Voidharrow is, there are the eyes and the ears and the voice of this one also.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Shara said, striding forward. “But I’m about to poke out your eyes and cut off your ears to shut you up.”

She took three steps into the billowing mist, then stopped as she realized, with a jolt of fear, that the mist right in front of her face was formed of tiny red crystals suspended in the air. The Voidharrow and the plague, she thought. That’s not a plague I want to catch.

Behind her, Uldane cried out again, and she whirled around. The demon was right behind her, right in the midst of the lizardfolk warriors-and right on top of Quarhaun, its horrid face looking directly at her as it sank its claws into the drow’s body.

Roghar, wait,” Travic said.

Roghar was poised to charge down the hall after the fleeing humans, but Travic’s words brought him up short. He turned to look back at his companions, and the battle fury ebbed from his heart.

Travic still lay on the ground, barely strong enough to lift his head. Tempest sagged against the wall, breathing hard, her eyes looking around wildly as if following the movements of spirits only she could see.

“We’re in no condition to keep fighting,” Travic said.

“Of course,” Roghar said. “I acted without thinking.”

“Again,” the priest said with a smile. “You need to learn to curb your youthful exuberance.”