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.Liet tumbled to the floor, grappling with the horror.Weapons darting, the others formed a tight circle around the staggering Davoren and the coughing Asson.Gargan caused the most havoc to the wights, his battle-axe sending a creature whithering with every swing or two.Taslin continued to blast holy power to shatter the undead foes or drive them back.Davoren righted himself, his eyes blazing.Then he threw a deafening blast of crimson power that drove one of the monsters staggering back, burned by otherworldly fire in the shape of snarling devils."Help Twilight and Liet!" shouted Asson.The old mage could do little but shine the light of his staff wherever the creatures seemed thickest and direct the defense there."Leave them!" Davoren shouted."Worry for yourself, whitebeard!" He cast out a forked blast of eldritch power, sending two of the gaunt monsters staggering back.The power sizzled outward to more wights, burning their flesh as well.Thanks for the support, Twilight mused.Without looking, she waited until a wight leaped for herfrom behind, then snapped her blade up, spearing it through the throat.The blow was hardly enough to destroy an undead creature, but the beast paused.Twilight used the opportunity to roll between its legs to aid the struggling Liet.The youth had lost his sword in the wight's rush and now bent his strength against the creature, merely to keep its claws from his face.Pus and yellowish ooze dripped from a dagger embedded in its eye, but it failed to distract the wight.As they wrestled, it hissed and slavered over Liet, snapping its fangs at his nose.Twilight leaped to the youth's defense, putting her rapier clean through the wight's head.The wight turned its attention, and its claws, to the elf.Though the last thing Twilight wanted was to draw an attack, it gave Liet the instant's pause he needed to scrabble out from under the wight.Liet climbed to his feet as Twilight danced away, her blade whipping back and forth to ward off the wight's claws.A strike caught her hand, ripping open her thick leather gauntlet, and she felt its cold power stealing away a bit of her vitality.Yet another reason not to let the wights strike her—their touch of the grave.Had Liet not known the protection of Taslin's spell, the wight would have slain him within heartbeats.As it lunged, Twilight managed to parry the creature to the left and then riposte, carving a hole in its face.As the wight scrabbled away, screaming in fury and frustration, Twilight snatched the opportunity to glance at the others.The tight circle of adventurers made up the center of a hive of clawing wights.Stacked two or three deep, the horrid creatures gouged and slashed from every angle, swarming the living beings with a violence born of incomprehensible hatred.Gargan's axe and Taslin's magic provided stout defense, but the goliath's swings came a little slower each time as the wights stole away his life little by little.Though his stoic face would never show it, Gargan was growing weary.In the end, only Davoren kept the wights at bay, each of his blasts striking two or three monsters, pushing them back.And the warlock showed no signs of tiring.As long as the otherscould keep the circle around him, he could keep blasting.Not counting the creature that Twilight dueled, only three of the wights stayed out of the battle.Two of them spat words of magic, and the other lay probing at its torn throat from Twilight's attack.The casters had focused on the circle of adventurers, but with so many fellows in the way, the two mage-wights turned on Twilight and Liet."Just my luck," Twilight muttered as she leaped back to avoid sweeping claws."Thanks be to the Maid." Her riposte ran the creature through.The monster clawed at her, not hesitating at the pain, but Twilight expected this.Instead of dodging back, she dived around the wight, dragging the sword with all her momentum and strength.The rapier was not made for cutting, but its magically hot blade could certainly stir up the inside of the creature.With a sickly plop, the wight's rotten lungs and heart came out with the sword, and its entrails slithered out onto the floor.Though none of the wights died from blows that would have felled a man, Twilight hoped this one would have trouble fighting in so many pieces.When she pulled free, splashed with putrid blood, Twilight locked eyes with a casting wight.She had no hope of dodging more mystical darts.But then Liet was there, shouting to distract the wight, thrusting his recovered sword in the way.Surprisingly, the creature flinched and recoiled, abandoning its spell.Never one to pass up an opportunity, Twilight danced into the shadows.Darkness flickered across her pale eyes.In a heartbeat, she vanished, only to appear behind the mage-wight.She ran her rapier through its jaws.Let it cast without a mouth, she decided.The adventurers had almost turned the tide.They could not have destroyed so many wights by strength alone, but Taslin's priestly powers, exhausted as they almost were, had taken their toll, and Davoren's fire laid the wights to waste
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