Chapter 7-9

Zakhin'Dakh didn't fully understand the danger of the amulet... but he knew his friends thought it was bad, and that was enough for him. As soon as his first target was dead, he took off again, trying to catch another of the Javni'Tolkhrah. Unfortunately, those that were still alive were mostly the fastest among them, and it looked like he wouldn't reach any of them before they got where they were going.

Gritting his teeth, Almonihah forced himself to move, to aim, to fire. The angle and distance were only getting worse for hitting his targets, but there was no way he'd catch up to them. But he had to stop them, of that he felt certain. So he stood and fired, ignoring the shouting on the wall behind him.

Most of his arrows missed or caused only minor wounds, but one managed to cut part of one of the beasts' wings, slowing it. Zakhin'Dakh saw this and angled his flight slightly, managing to catch up to it. So focused was it on its goal that the huge griffon caught it completely off-guard, which made it easy prey for his talons.

But four more Madness-Touched still flew on. They turned slightly and dove, angling towards a building near the courthouse... and then there was a huge explosion of fire. One more of the monstrosities dropped from the air, but the other three continued their dive.

Archivist Maritha watched them with fear clear on her face. She was no trained battle-mage—she'd learned the classic fire spell as much out of tradition as anything else, with no expectation of ever using it. And now... well, she had only prepared for casting one. She heard Garkhen clanking out of the building behind her, but she doubted in his condition he'd be able to do anything.

Garkhen gritted his teeth as he called on Bahamut. He knew he was still drained from his past efforts, but there was no longer a choice. He threw up a ward... in midair.

The first Javni'Tolkhrah slammed headfirst into an invisible wall, and Garkhen groaned, falling to his knees as the effort to maintain the spell-prayer drained what little energy he'd managed to recover. He dropped the ward, and the Javni'Tolkhrah dropped also, clearly killed by the force of its impact, but three more followed it.

Almonihah swore under his breath as he ran. He'd already lost sight of them, and he didn't know what had happened with that explosion. Probably the mage had some magic, but the lack of more explosions didn't seem like a good sign to him. 

As the Javni'Tolkhrah descended, Garkhen tried to force himself back to his feet, to summon forth the energy for another spell-prayer... anything, but he could not. Next to him, Maritha was desperately chanting one last spell, though he knew not what it was. It was all he could do to force his head up, so that he might at least gaze upon his foes as they fell upon him.

Maritha finished her chanting, and held up her hands. For a moment nothing happened, but then a chair flew out of the open door behind them. Then another, and another, followed by a table and various other pieces of furniture. They flew into the air and started beating on the descending Javni'Tolkhrah. While it didn't stop them, it did slow them down, as they tried to evade the assorted objects trying to strike them.

Then came the clatter of armor as a trio of soldiers came around the corner. Hastily they ran over to the pair, readying their pikes awkwardly to face the diving monsters.

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I forget how long combats take to write sometimes. Particularly when I'm not writing a lot at once.