Her sister's soul!
Xian, mad as any asylum inmate, passed the gates of the graveyard with a silent swiftness.
Tattered prayers rushed through her monster's mind. Xian couldn't remember the words, not any more. The divine calling had passed from her, ripped away along with her soul. Her god turned his back on her, when she reached her lowest point.
She could be the Slayer if she wished, take bestial form and kill friend and foe alike. But she knew enough to resist that, even while she was mad.
Imoen crept behind her, silent and soulless. Xian waited too long to rescue her sister, and this was the result.
A vampire sentry whirled up before them. Newly turned, probably. Xian's warhammer rushed through the air and into dead flesh. Then a hail of crossbow bolts flew into it. Blessed by deities, dipped in garlic and salt, barbed to penetrate deeply.
The Shadow Thieves had come to finish Bodhi once and for all.
Xian stepped over the vampire's body. The servant wasn't relevant any more.
More men and women rose from their graves. They had all been human once, not long ago. They stunk of a desperate last-ditch effort, and embalming fluids. Xian would have pleaded for divine strength to shine against them, but she only had her hammer. Imoen slashed a vampire open, with an oiled whisper of her shortsword. They drove past gravestones. The Shadow Thief archers loosed their crossbow bolts into the living dead, again and again.
Xian's warhammer sunk wetly into a vampire's eye. The attacking wedge had separated her from Imoen. She didn't mind. She'd kill until she got to Bodhi.
But her rampage couldn't be forever sustained. The newly turned vampires closed in, and though they were weak they were many. One pounced on Xian from behind, pinning her arms to her side. She struggled—her skin was slippery and covered with blood—and couldn't escape. In her rage she would turn Slayer, and kill them all.
The grip went slack. The vampire's head rolled on the ground. Khalid came forward, sword in hand, his face spattered in blood and ashen below it.
Khalid came with her out of Irenicus' dungeons, leaving his wife Jaheira dead behind them. He mourned her death, which clung to him like a void. Death found all of Xian's and Imoen's companions, except him.
He was at Xian's side now, for reasons she didn't understand. He yelled words she didn't hear, probably a plea of caution. She'd lost her shield somewhere, but she knew Khalid would guard her back. They moved onward, to Bodhi's tomb.
Xian screamed a warcry, and her mad companions gave her their magic spells. Dradeel worked silver illusions from her, all of them fighting as one. Aphril called lightning from the heavens of some other world. Tiax, maddest of all, called for Cyric to give him power over undead.
The vampire herself!
Bodhi stepped out of the shadows, wreathed in black. By her side was her pet vampire mage. Xian only had eyes for the monster bearing Imoen's soul, the wretched laughing monster who trapped them in Spellhold and killed their companions.
She barely noticed Khalid near her. He shielded her reckless charge from other attacks, saving her life, but revenge against Bodhi filled Xian's mind.
Bodhi drew her sword. She met Xian's attack with inhuman strength, and she laughed wildly. It was similar to the laughter when she threw them in the mad maze, and there was a note in it that sung out as Imoen's. Fresh blood bloomed in Bodhi's cheeks, glowing in the light of Dradeel's spell. The vampire with a stolen soul was horrifyingly alive.
Khalid was by Xian's side, warmth in a sea of cold undead. She would always remember that.
"You know I love a game," the vampire taunted, her voice sweet and clear. She didn't need to breathe. "Lost a few already, haven't you?"
Aerie. Dynaheir. Mazzy Fentan. The deaths at Bodhi's door enraged Xian. She swung her warhammer in a whirling arc that didn't hit anything, and the vampire merely slipped past her.
"What about the one you love?" Bodhi asked. "What about the one in your heart?"
"You'll give Imoen's soul back!" Xian cried. Imoen's magic without her soul was wild and deadly. Now, Xian's sister let go, and a white-hot fireball destroyed the vampires around her. But Khalid cried out also, and for a moment Xian's concentration shattered as she remembered him.
Bodhi swiftly turned, raised her sword with one hand, and punched Xian in the stomach with the other. Xian fell, winded even through her armour. Bodhi didn't follow with another blow.
"You will die soon," she called in her high playful voice, "you and little Imoen, with no souls. But before that, I'll take your lover."
But I've never had a lover! Xian thought, her mind a fevered rush. Gorion murdered, iron crises, psychotic mages torturing her, vampires destroying her friends in mad mazes. No time for anything but survival. Khalid fought his way toward her, raising his sword to protect her.
Then Bodhi's pet mage sketched unfamiliar symbols with her hands. The runes unfolded into silver shapes, and narrowed into a tunnel above Khalid. Xian stretched out a hand, running to him to take the brunt of the blow herself.
Help me save him! she screamed in her head, before she remembered that Jaheira and Dynaheir and everyone were dead.
No one helped.
Khalid disappeared, gone in a flash. Disintegration? Mazing? Bodhi herself was gone, so was the mage. Xian yelled her battlecry and flung herself at the doors of the tomb. If they'd taken Khalid from her, they would pay in blood tonight!
Then the doors opened once more.
This time, the vampires were not pitiful new-raised human thralls. Xian faced an undead beholder, levitating in the doorway of the tomb. And it was not alone.
Bodhi was not so unprepared for this attack, after all.
The illithids and beholders came from the tomb, vampires enthralled to Bodhi's will, firing devastating beams and reaching out with slimy tentacles to destroy their enemies. Svirthneblin and duergar surged between them, bearing crossbows and looking for the best place to stab and enemy from behind. Undead drow from the Underdark and surface elves once part of Suldanessellar's army, working together at last, drawing bows in unison and picking off targets with deadly speed.
Like Xian and her companions, Bodhi came through the Underdark and outside into elven territory. And also like them, she'd learnt from her experiences. She made an army from the creatures she found there.
Xian would never have lived if not for flame from Imoen, and a choking dark smoke that hid her from sight. Her companions wove magic around her, hiding her in the crossfire. But of Khalid there was nothing, and she could not beat her way into the tomb.
She stood on smoking remains. Blood and smoke filled her nostrils, and she could see that the dead bodies around her were mostly Shadow Thieves. It was dawn, and it was only because it was dawn that the vampires had not killed them all.
A survivor, a broken-legged Gaelan Bayle, hobbled to her and slapped her across the face.
"Ye fool. We've lost the day. The city, even. I have one message for ye, and that's our bargain's closed. The Shadow Thieves won't work with ye again. Enjoy yer death."
Imoen was alive, though her face was blackened with smoke and she walked carefully. Dradeel, Aphril, and Tiax had come through, protected by their magics. The three mad asylum inmates lived.
Khalid was gone. Khalid was gone. Xian could think of nothing else.
Bodhi!
She'd never known how much she needed him until now.
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