The demon snaked its tail across the doorway, blocking it, and prodded Karrell with one of its swords. “Go ahead,” it hissed with malicious delight. “Try to flee.”
Arvin tried to manifest a distraction, but though a loud droning filled the air, the demon’s eyes remained locked on Karrell. He leaned out from the dais and kicked the demon in the back. A shock of weakness flowed up his leg as his foot struck one of the black tendrils that coiled around the demon’s body. Ignoring the numbness it caused, he shouted at the demon’s back and kicked it a second time. “Hey, scale-face! Behind you!”
Almost absent-mindedly, the demon turned its head and slashed backhanded at him with one of its swords. Arvin flinched as the blade came to a jerking halt a palm’s width from his head, halted by the magic of the gauntlet. A heartbeat later, a whirling circle of blades appeared, this time surrounding the gauntlet and trapping Arvin inside. Cursing, he shrank back from them, his sweaty palms still on the statue. A moment ago, the gauntlet had provided sanctuary. The demon had turned it into a prison.
The momentary distraction, however, gave Karrell the time she needed. The far end of the chapel was suddenly plunged into darkness, hiding her from sight.
The demon frowned then twisted, whipping its tail through the patch of darkness. Arvin heard Karrell gasp—and the tail yanked her back into the light. Caught within the demon’s coils, Karrell fought to free herself, her wounded hand leaving smears of blood on the demon’s scaly tail. The demon lapped at the blood with its long black tongue then smiled. “A yuan-ti?” it said. “You must be the one I’m supposed to kill.” It tail squeezed—and Karrell exhaled in pain. Arvin heard a dull crack that sounded like a rib breaking.
Footsteps sounded in the hallway—more than one person, and running this time—and a woman’s voice was shouting orders: Marasa?
Arvin looked wildly around the chapel. He was weaponless, and the monkey’s fist—the last of his ensorcelled items—was lying on the floor in tatters. If he let go of the gauntlet, he’d be cut down before he took a single step. But Marasa was at last on her way. He and Karrell only needed to survive for a few moments more.
“Helm,” he croaked. “Help us now. Do something.”
The skies outside lightened. Dusk-red sunlight slanted in through the chapel’s stained-glass windows, turning the blue eyes at their centers an eerie purple. The light beamed in, limning the image of Helm’s eye on the chapel floor.
With a hiss, the demon thrust its sword at the nearest window, smashing a hole through the eye. Glass exploded outward. The skies outside darkened again as the sun continued its descent.
As a loose pane of glass fell from the broken window to shatter on the floor, Arvin realized there was a weapon he could use, after all. He reached out with his mind, sending a thread-thin line of glowing silver toward the broken window. With it, he seized one of the panes of glass and threw it at the demon’s face. The demon batted it away with a sword, smashing it into bright blue shards, but Arvin hurled another pane of glass at it, and another, keeping up the distraction.
Four of the baron’s soldiers—three men and a woman—charged into the chapel, swords in hand. The woman shouted a command, and Arvin’s heart sank as he realized it hadn’t been Marasa’s voice he’d heard, after all. The soldiers leaped forward, engaging the demon.
The demon, however, needed only four swords to meet their attack. One of the men went down even before he’d managed to close with it, his throat slashed. With its fifth sword, the demon continued to knock away the panes of glass Arvin hurled at it. That left one more sword. This one it thrust at Karrell; it thunked into the wooden floor beside her head as she desperately twisted aside.
Karrell’s face was purple now and her movements were jerky. The demon—still fighting the soldiers with three of its arms—yanked the sword free and flexed its tail, dragging Karrell across the floor.
The female soldier pressed the demon, shouting Helm’s name. The demon thrust a sword through her stomach, spitting her, then flicked her limp body away. One of the two remaining soldiers turned to run; with a flash of steel, the demon lopped off his head. The other grimly continued to attack but met the same end.
Its opponents dead, the demon glanced down at Karrell, tongue flickering through its hissing smile.
Karrell’s fear-filled eyes sought Arvin’s. He could see that she realized she was about to die. Her lips tried to form a word, but there was no breath left in her body.
Arvin ended his manifestation; the pane of glass he’d been about to throw fell to the floor and shattered. Reaching deep inside himself, he manifested a different power—one whose secondary display filled the air with the scents of saffron and ginger. Then, for a heartbeat, he hesitated. He didn’t want to make the same mistake he’d made with Tanglemane. If the demon died….
