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An imposing figure stepped to the fore of the enemy horde. He was a huge man,
and, though clad in the same smooth black armor as the others, he was the
obvious leader. The heavy stones the clerics dropped had no effect on him.
They flashed crimson as they struck him and exploded into harmless dust.
"Hear me, weaklings of Tyr!" the leader boomed in a deafening voice. "I am
called Slayer, and I bring doom. Save yourselves an agonizing demise. Deliver
unto me the tome called
The Oracle of Strife, and I
promise that your deaths will be swift."
"I guess they want the Hammer of Tyr, too!" Listle whispered.
Kern shook his head. "More likely the riches that are buried with it."
Slayer placed his gauntleted hands on his hips in an arrogant pose. "What is
your answer, clerics of
Tyr?"
"This is our answer!" shouted one of the clerics, the stone-faced Brother
Edmorel. At his command a torch was thrust into a caldron of pitch, and a
sheet of fire poured down on the attackers. Screams of agony rose up as a
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dozen warriors roasted alive inside their armor, but the burning pitch dripped
off Slayer as if it were mere water.
"So be it," the huge man proclaimed. He raised a gauntleted hand, and a
sizzling bolt of sickly green color streaked directly toward Brother Edmorel,
striking the cleric with terrible force. His cry of agony was cut short as he
began to dissolve into green ooze. In a moment there was nothing left of the
cleric but a dark stain on the stone where he had stood his ground. Both Kern
and Listle stared in mute horror.
Slayer muttered a dread incantation. Inky black energy swirled around him,
solidifying into a huge battering ram crowned with an ogre's head. A dozen of
the ebony-armored men propelled the ram toward the gates. The soft wood veneer
cracked, splinters flying in every direc-tion. The hard steel beneath
shuddered but stood strong.
Again and again the battering ram pounded the gates, but the spells of
protection held. The blue nimbus did not even waver. With an angry jerk of his
hand, the man called Slayer banished the battering ram back to the shad-ows
from which it had been conjured.
"There's something strange about him," Listle mut-tered. "I have an idea."
Before Kern could stop her, she stood to hurl a tiny sphere of silver magic at
the man.
Her aim was true. The glowing sphere shattered against Slayer's breastplate
with a sound like breaking glass. He took a step backward in surprise, then
grinned evilly, apparently unharmed.
Kern groaned. "That spell certainly didn't work, Listle."
"Is that so?" she asked archly.
Kern stared in wonder as tendrils of silver magic coiled around Slayer's form.
Suddenly the huge man's visage began to warp and crack. His skin seemed to
melt into a foul puddle at his feet, revealing dark scales. Slowly, black
wings unfurled from Slayer's back; recurved talons sprang from his fingertips.
A cry of fury came from a maw filled with teeth as sharp as knives. Listle's
magic had dis-pelled the illusion that had been Slayer's disguise.
"It is a fiend!" Kern heard someone shout. "An abishai!"
A wave of alarm swept through the clerics. This was no mundane enemy. Only
powerful wizards could summon and control such creatures. The followers of Tyr
gripped their warhammers more tightly. This was not going to be an easy
battle.
The abishai, Slayer, bellowed to the sky. Suddenly nine dark shapes swooped
down from above.
The clerics atop the battlements swarmed for cover as the fiends dove
overhead. The spinagons alighted on the street, each plunging two clawed fists
into the wall. Their arms disappeared up to their shoulders as if they were
thrusting into mud instead of solid rock. Then, their wings beating with
effort, the fiends began to pull. There was a hideous sucking sound as the
stones began to dis-tort and bend. Gradually, with their massively muscled
arms, the spinagons pushed the magically softened stones to either side until
each had created a hole in the wall. As the holes became larger, the fiends
crawled inside, using their wings to spread the stones farther and farther
apart. In moments, each of the fiends had become a living archway supporting a
man-sized opening in the wall.
The unthinkable had happened. The walls had been breached.
"Guard the gaps!" came Anton's bellow from below. Quickly, Listle, Kern, and
the clerics scrambled down the stone stairs to the courtyard. There they
helped the oth-ers confront the ebony warriors now streaming through the nine
holes held open by the spinagons.
Luckily, the enemy could only come through the holes one at a time. Though
clad in forbidding armor and wield-ing swords of dark steel, there was
something clumsy about the attackers. They did not move
with the strength and ease of warriors. Rather, their attacks were furtive and
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