Mordan saw Brey examining the altar. “Don’t touch that,” he said. “Remember last time?” Before she could respond, Haldin backed into her. He was sprinkling silver dust in a circle around the temple, humming to himself as he did so. Then he opened a flask of holy water, sprinkling it on top of the silver filings. Brey gasped suddenly, and put a hand to her head.
“My apologies, Captain,” said the gnome. “I am just ensuring that our opponent has no advantage here. The positive energies I am raising may be inconvenient for you, but they should not be harmful.” Brey grimaced.
The two Cannith heirs had taken the half-golems forward to explore the area beyond the temple. A sudden sound of clashing steel made the others look around just as Adalrik and Dria hurried back into the room.
“Wights,” said Dria, “about a dozen of them.”
The half-golems retreated back into the temple, their arm-blades weaving a web of steel in front of them. They blocked many of the wights’ attacks, but their armor was battered here and there, and blood oozed from cuts in their exposed flesh. At a command from Adalrik, one of the constructs fell back as its two fellows blocked the doorway.
Brey was the first to act, sending an arrow between the half-golems and into the lead wight. It hissed in pain as the arrow penetrated its shrunken flesh, cracking the vial bound to the shaft and sending holy water deep into the wound. Tarrel and Mordan both flung flasks of holy water over the constructs’ heads, shattering them against the ceiling of the passage and showering the undead beneath.
Haldin sent a crossbow bolt after Brey’s arrow. It struck the wight directly between the eyes, exploding in a ripple of silver-white light; when their vision cleared, the companions saw that the creature had fallen to the floor, its head split almost in half. Another leaped forward to take its place.
Tarrel moved around behind the half-golems, aiming his wand carefully. A bead of red light shot from the wand, streaking toward the back of the pack of wights—until a wight fighting in the front rank inadvertently moved into its way. The bead exploded, shooting fire back into the temple and scorching the two-half-golems as well as Tarrel himself. Beating out several small fires on his clothes, the Brelander stood back with an apologetic shrug.
Slowly, the wights forced the half-golems back through the doorway. Mordan stood ready, running one of the things through the body as it came into the temple; he noticed that it wore the armor and insignia of the Vedykar Lancers, like its comrades. With grim determination, he redoubled his strokes, placing lightning-fast thrusts wherever an opening appeared in the half-golems’ weaving defense.
The wights fought their way clear of the doorway and started to spread out in the room, and Brey unlimbered her bow again. Adalrik sent the third of the half-golems into the fray. Haldin prayed, holding up his blue dragon symbol, but the wights did not waver in their assault.
When the last of the wights had cleared the doorway, Dravuliel appeared behind them. A crackling aura of black energy surrounded him. In one hand he held a massive scythe with a jagged blade of black iron; in the other, a leather-bound tome, from which he read aloud. In response to his words, the wights redoubled their attacks, as if infused with hellish fury.
Brey loosed an arrow at him, but it glanced off his robe as though the garment was made of adamantine. With a cruel smile, he put down the book and uncorked a flask of filthy-looking water. Throwing it in the air, he intoned another spell—and a driving rain of foul, fetid water began to fall inside the temple, almost hiding him from sight. Haldin yelped as the unclean rain struck him, bringing up red welts on his exposed skin as if it were boiling water. Brey loosed another arrow, but the lashing rain spoiled her aim and it flew wide of the mark.
As the gnome struggled to protect himself. Dravuliel held up a hand, and the floor of the room began to shake. Like something from a nightmare, a section of the rocky floor shot into the air, folding itself around the gnome and sealing him inside. It looked like nothing so much as a sarcophagus.
One of the half-golems fell before the slicing blades of the armored wights. Adalrik and Dria dragged it back out of the battle and knelt over it, their lips moving and their hands working frantically. Mordan and Tarrel battled on, though the Brelander was barely holding his own against the creatures. He fought hard with his short sword, but could not back off far enough to use his wand.
