Arai drew his sword. "You've just made a very big mistake," he called out to the pair.

Roth grinned. "Have I, now? What are your names?"

"The man behind me is Sir Estil Endsgrief, the greatest knight in the world," Arai said, jerking a thumb over this shoulder. "The woman is Lillandra, the Night Queen, the ruler of Velon. And I am Arai, son of Hetsu, of the Steelmen. I carry the Radiant Blade."

Roth snorted. "And the elf girl? A formidable sorceress, perhaps? One of Tallise's seven avatars?"

"I've given you fair warning," Arai said. "Leave us in peace."

"I think not. We can't have you alerting the others, now, can we?" He nodded to Nessa, who immediately fired another arrow at him. Fortunately it was the last arrow in her quiver, and fortunately she missed, by a fraction of an inch; this time the arrow grazed Arai's scalp. It wasn't a life-threatening injury by any means, but he was bleeding from these near-misses, from his ear and now from his scalp, and the pain from both wounds was bright and sharp. He could only pray that these bandits hadn't poisoned their arrowheads.

Nessa discarded her bow and drew a dagger from the small of her back. It was a long, curved dagger -- an Elentish dagger. Was this woman really from Elent? Was she really the assassin who had killed Princess Nattali and her entourage? He called out to her: "Do you understand my speech?"

She paused. "You speak Elentish. Who sent you?"

In fact Arai was not speaking Elentish -- at least, he didn't think he was -- but Elentish was what Nessa heard coming out of his mouth, apparently; such was the strange and fickle magic of the Stone of Many Tongues.

"Is it true, then?" Arai pressed. "You're the assassin who carried out the Skile Massacre?"

"Who sent you?" she demanded, more forcefully this time. "Princess Yasmin? The Nine Wolves?" She waggled the long dagger at him. "Or was it Queen Alfaze herself? I killed the last one she sent after me, you know. This was her dagger."

"We don't have time for this," Roth said. He touched his zemi, and all at once, he began to transform -- his body shifting and shimmering like a reflection rippling over the surface of a pond. Horns sprouted from his head, his fingers lengthened and became claws, his skin turned scaly and snakelike, and his back was suddenly armored over with a black carapace that looked like a giant tortoise shell. He also increased in size; his new form stood at least nine feet tall.

This monster had no wings, however; it was different from the monster they had seen before. "A Bestial Aggregation," Lillandra said quietly. "I see it now."

"His zemi?"

She nodded. "It allows him to borrow the characteristics of certain animals. He can pick and choose whichever forms he likes best."

"Which animals?"

"It depends on the zemi," she said. "That medallion of his looks like it's made of feathers, snakeskin, crocodile teeth, and turtle shell, at the least."

"Do you think he made it?"

"He's a bandit," she said. "I think he stole it."

"Can you dissolve the spell?"

"I could if he was relying on his own sorcery. But he's using a zemi. I'd have to undo the calculation in the zemi itself, and that can't be done quickly."

There was no more time to talk; both Roth, in this monstrous new form, and Nessa, carrying her dagger, were coming their way. "Stay behind me," Arai said.

But Lillandra ignored him. Instead of retreating, she drew her own sword, Helene, and stood with him, side by side. "I'll fight with you."

"Lillandra--"

And that was all he managed to get out, before the duo attacked. Nessa came flying in first, slashing with her dagger; she was so quick that Arai was only barely able to deflect the first strike, and the second strike came within inches of slashing his throat. He quickly backpedaled, trying to get back into the Rising Tide stance, but the woman was so fast and accurate that it was all he could do to defend himself. She was obviously highly skilled.

But now Roth was attacking as well, stomping towards them, reaching for them with his clawed hands. Shell promptly threw her Witch's Dagger at him, aiming for his eyes, but missed; the dagger sailed past him. She recalled it to her hand, but Roth was bearing down on her now and she was forced to run away from him. By this point Sir Estil had plucked the arrow from his leg, drawn his sword, and staggered forward, but Arai wasn't certain how much use he would be in this fight. The old man could barely stand.

But Arai didn't have time to consider these things; he was too busy fending off Nessa. The woman was a whirlwind, her blade slashing everywhere, and she managed to nick him several times. If she had been using a proper sword, he might have been able to turn her attacks aside, but blocking a long knife with a hand-and-a-half sword like Silus was very difficult. And she wasn't just using the dagger, either; she was throwing elbows, delivering high kicks, ducking low, and trying to trip him up. He tried to collect himself and counter with the Rising Tide, but she was so fast and aggressive that he couldn't find an opening.

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But then, suddenly, Lillandra broke in, swinging her own sword at the blonde woman. Nessa quickly slipped to one side, avoiding it, and delivered a palm-strike to Lillandra's chest, which knocked her back. But Arai was able to take advantage of this little opening, lunging forward with the Crashing Waves. He managed to drive her back, but before he could exploit this opening any further Roth came roaring at him, and he was forced to duck and roll under the monster's raking claws.

Arai swore. He couldn't fight both of them at once. Nessa was as dangerous a fighter as he had ever encountered, and Roth was a supernatural monster twice his size. A single strike from Silus would likely cancel out the magic Roth was using, but he didn't think he could get that close, especially with Nessa running interference. He needed to separate them somehow.

Leaping to his feet, he tried to entrap Nessa within the Net of Steel, but she bounded out of the way, and suddenly Roth was on him again, snapping at him with his huge jaws. The man-monster then swung his whole body around, whipping his tail out and knocking Arai off his feet. He lay there for a moment, stunned.

Nessa would have pounced on him and finished him off at the moment, if not for Sir Estil. The knight, lurching forward on his bad leg, caught her dagger on his gauntlet and pushed her away, then picked Arai up by the scruff of his neck and hauled him up to his feet. "You take the monster," he said. "I'll handle the woman."

"She's fast," Arai warned. "And your leg..."

"I'm wearing armor," he said. "I have little to fear from her dagger. And you're the only one who can destroy the magics of that sorcerer."

That made a sort of sense, Arai supposed. And there wasn't time to discuss it further, anyway; the battle was already back on. Nessa juggled her dagger a few times and then threw herself at Arai, her blonde braid whipping about, but Sir Estil stepped in front of him, driving the assassin back. Arai quickly moved to his left, trying to engage with Roth, who immediately obliged him, snapping his jaws and slashing the air with his claws. Arai -- ducking, dodging, and rolling all around -- tried to find an opening, but the monster was so huge, and had such a long reach, that he couldn't get a single retaliatory strike in.

Shell was behind him; the elf girl was still trying to hit Roth with her Witch's Dagger. She finally managed to strike him in the chest, but it was a bad throw and it hit him hilt-first, doing no damage at all, and when she tried to throw it at him again he turned sideways and blocked the knife with his turtle shell, causing it to clatter harmlessly to the ground. Shell made a frustrated noise and recalled the dagger to her hand before quickly scrambling away.

Lillandra, meanwhile, had recovered from Nessa's palm-strike and was now looking to help Arai, shouting and waving her arms at Roth to try to get his attention and, perhaps, make an opening for Arai. Roth was not interested in her, however; he was focused on Arai. Once again, he whirled around, swinging his thick, serpentine tail, which sent Arai flying; he landed on his side and only barely managed to avoid being disemboweled when Roth came slashing in with the birdlike talons of his feet.

Out of the corner of his eye, Arai saw that Lillandra had now joined Sir Estil; the two of them were fighting Nessa together.

He got to his feet and considered his situation. If he could just get close enough to touch the monster with Silus...

But Roth had him backed up against the face of the cliff now; not only did he have nowhere left to run, he had very little room to maneuver. Shell was still throwing her dagger, but couldn't seem to strike anywhere vital. Damn it.

He heard a muffled cry, coming from the direction of Sir Estil and the women, but he ignored it; he couldn't afford to take his eyes off Roth.

The bandit-sorcerer loomed over him. Arai half-expected him to say something, to mock him perhaps, but he didn't; Roth's long, crocodile snout and lolling tongue probably made it impossible for him to speak. Arai tightened his grip on Silus, waiting for another attack -- an attack which he could not possibly avoid.

He looked to his left...and by chance, he saw Shell standing about a dozen feet away, looking back at him. She was holding up two fingers...and both of those fingers were flickering with candle-flame. She nodded at him.

What did she intend to do? "Shell!" he shouted. "Get back!" She was standing much too close to the monster.

But she didn't back off; instead she took a step forward. Her face scrunched up in concentration, she fixed her eyes on the two little flames burning at her fingertips.

"Shell!" Arai shouted again.

"Now!" she suddenly cried. And she pointed her two fingers at Roth, spitting flames right in his face. The flames washed over the monster like a hot rain, evaporating almost instantly and probably not causing him any real harm at all, but it made for an excellent distraction, and Arai wasn't about to let it go to waste. He leapt forward, ducked under Roth's claws -- the monster was swinging wildly -- and cut him in the leg with Silus. The bandit screamed when the sword touched him, and he immediately pitched forward, collapsing into the dirt; Arai had to jump out of the way to avoid being crushed by his falling body.

Roth began to writhe as soon as he hit the ground, his body changing in all sorts of grotesque ways. His horns fell off, then grew again; stunted wings sprouted from his back, before skeletonizing and disintegrating; his scaly skin became wrinkled and leathery, and then sloughed off, revealing human skin underneath. The transformations continued, and through it all, Roth made a terrible, birdlike squawking noise.

Disgusted, Arai kicked him over onto his back and touched his sword to the zemi Roth wore around his neck, cancelling out its magic completely. The transformations abruptly stopped, and he became human once again, but Roth, evidently enduring some kind of extreme mental or physical pain, curled up into the fetal position and continued making that horrible bird-noise.

He glanced at Shell. "Nice work."

But Shell wasn't looking at him -- she was looking beyond him. He followed her eyes, and saw that Sir Estil's battle with Nessa seemed to have ended as well; the blonde-haired assassin was lying on the ground, seemingly unconscious.

But Lillandra was also lying on the ground, and Sir Estil was hovering over her.

Arai felt his heart catch in his throat. Had something happened to Lillandra? He raced over to her.

Sir Estil looked up at him, his face grave. "She's been stabbed," he said.