The invisibility at least should have posed no problem for Aoth, and the war-mage had in fact regained his feet. But, eyes compressed to streaming slits in his blistered, mottled face, the man who could famously see everything didn’t seem to be doing any more damage with his jabbing spear than Gaedynn was with his swords. Apparently the acid spray had had an even more deleterious effect on his sight.

He and Gaedynn fought side by side, in the hallway where the staircase had come down, to prevent any of their unseen foes from slipping around behind them. Aoth growled a word of power, and frost leaped from the head of his spear. It painted the entire space before them white, and the hooded men as well.

Since he didn’t instantly follow up, it seemed that he still couldn’t see their foes, or at least not clearly. But Gaedynn could. He sprang, beat a short blade like his own out of line, and drove the point of his right-hand sword into an opponent’s guts.

He jerked the weapon free, and the Green Hands disappeared. “Again!” he shouted to Aoth.

But no more frost came. Gaedynn glanced around and saw that Aoth’s helmet was dented and askew, and, though he kept the spear shifting and thrusting in one of the basic defensive patterns, he looked unsteady on his feet.

And because of Gaedynn’s aggression, the two of them weren’t even in line anymore. Cutting and stabbing, he tried to retreat.

Then, behind him, Jhesrhi croaked words of command. Water splashed down over his head and everything else in the hallway like hundreds of buckets had overturned at once.

It washed the stinging acidic residue from his skin. It evidently washed it out of Aoth’s eyes too, and roused him from the daze induced by the knock he’d taken on the head. His eyes snapped open wide enough to reveal their blue fire. He stepped, stabbed, and the power in his spear blasted to pieces the man he’d just impaled.

Aoth then turned and hurled darts of green light in Gaedynn’s direction. They stopped short of him, vanishing as they pierced the two invisible foes between the sellswords. Who became visible as they crumpled to the floor.

Aoth pivoted again and hurled three lightningbolts down the hall in quick succession. The flashes dazzled Gaedynn, and the booms hurt his ears.

Afterward, Aoth lowered his spear and turned away from the steaming, twisted corpses he’d just created and the several small fires he’d started. Evidently this particular fight was over.

Gaedynn wiped the blades of his swords, returned them to their scabbards, and retrieved his bow. “That was quite… enthusiastic, there at the end.”

Aoth grunted. “After the Spellplague touched me, I was blind for a while. I suppose it’s the kind of experience that leaves a mark. Is everyone all right?”

“Not too bad,” Jhesrhi said. “I have an elixir to numb the pain and keep us on our feet.” She took a little pewter vial from her belt pouch, unscrewed the stopper, and took the first swallow herself. Gaedynn knew why. She would have found it difficult to drink from the container after someone else put his mouth on it.

As she handed the vial to Gaedynn, Aoth stooped over one of the Green Hands, then cursed. Gaedynn peered at the corpse and felt like doing the same.

Aoth possessed inhumanly keen sight, but even so, this was the first clear, close, unhurried look that he or his comrades had had at one of the killers. And now the unexpected shape of the hood was apparent. Or rather, the shape of the head inside it.

Aoth ripped the cowl away.

“We have to get to Khouryn,” Jhesrhi said.

Medrash’s helpless coughing made it impossible to recite any of his prayers. The pain burning throughout his respiratory system, and the knowledge that he could easily die breathing the poisonous vapor, further impaired his ability to focus his will.

But he would focus it. He had to help his comrades-and besides, the body and its distress were not the ultimate reality. Torm and his glory were.

He reached out to the god, and power like frigid spring water poured into him. He infused it with righteous fury, shaping it into a weapon, then brandished his sword. Flares of white light leaped from the blade to stab at the figures at the bottom of the stairs.

The attack rocked the Green Hands backward. Nearly tripping, Medrash staggered over the fallen Balasar, tried to slip past Khouryn, and again discovered he couldn’t advance any farther. He’d hurt the Green Hands, but not enough to make them lose control of the psychic wall they’d created.

He channeled more power, though it was even harder this time. He fixed his gaze on one of the killers and willed him to climb the stairs and come within reach of his sword.

The Green Hand took one lurching step. Another. Then, however, he gave a harsh, wordless cry, stopped, and retreated to his original position.

Blackness swam at the edges of Medrash’s vision. His legs started to give way, and he had to drop his sword and clutch the banister to keep from falling.

Torm’s glory was limitless, but a mortal’s capacity to draw from it was not. Medrash judged that at best, he could channel power one more time before he collapsed. He groped beyond himself, beyond the physical world into a brighter, purer realm, and the god granted a final gift of strength.

But how to use it, when his previous expenditures of power had accomplished nothing? He gripped Khouryn’s massive shoulder, which jumped repeatedly as the dwarf coughed, and employed the energy to bless him. To strengthen his body and mind alike.

Khouryn stumbled down one riser, almost losing his balance in the process. Then he hefted his axe and charged.

Unfortunately, his lungs were still full of poison, and his continued coughing slowed him and made him clumsy. Though caught by surprise, the Green Hands managed to recoil from his first strikes and ready their short swords.

But they evidently couldn’t do that and maintain the psychic pressure too. For when Medrash, still gripping the handrail, tried to head down the steps, he found that now he could.

He reeled toward one of the Green Hands to keep them both from attacking Khouryn. The murderer turned and lunged. The move was all-out aggression. Because after all, why worry about defense when his target was unarmed and all but spastic with pain and weakness? When the coughing would prevent him from even using his breath weapon?

But at least Medrash wasn’t breathing poison anymore, and he’d spent his whole life training for combat-first with the masters of arms of Clan Daardendrien, then with his paladin mentors. Feeble and awkward though he was, he found the right instant to slip the swordsman’s initial thrust, step beside him, and claw away the side of his throat. Blood sprayed from the severed arteries.

Medrash turned just in time to see Khouryn chop the remaining Green Hand’s leg out from under him, then cleave his ribs before he hit the floor. Clearly he too could hold his own even in adverse circumstances.

The dwarf nodded to Medrash, and he returned the gesture. Then a clatter of hurrying feet on the staircase reminded them the fight wasn’t over. Their other enemies were coming down. Evidently the lingering vapor wasn’t toxic to them.

Worse, after stepping over Balasar, they stopped partway down the steps. Medrash realized that however they’d created the smoke before, they meant to make some more. And he had no idea how he and Khouryn could contend with another dose.

But Balasar, who’d appeared unconscious-or as good as-raised the sword in his shaking hand and sliced the back of a killer’s leg. The murderer dropped, and his companion turned to look at him in surprise. Balasar thrust the sword up at him. The Green Hand flinched back from it, but in so doing lost his balance and tumbled down the steps.