Come Endless Darkness by Gary Gygax Page B

yield what I ask, and I might have some mercy when you beg." Actually, Grave stone had no desire for an easy surrender now. His bloodlust was rising, and he relished the coming sport. He bided his time, for he could hear Dohojar rustling about, and he knew that the captain's comrade would soon join him in the aft cabin.
    As if on cue Barrel called out, "Dohojar, to me! We are attacked!" The shout went unheard by most of the men on board, for they were already rushing forward to help Blinky. But the Changa heard it well enough and immediately came to his friend's aid on the run.
    For Dohojar, one look at the scene before him was sufficient. "Very bad!" he cried aloud, even as he began to conjure the most potent spell he had at his command.
    "That's not the half of it, lad!" Barrel answered as he desperately sought some way to bring harm to the insubstantial figure. "The blaster just isn't there!" he added by way of advising his shipmate what they were up against.
    Just then Habber, first lieutenant to the sailing master, burst into the cabin with a sword in one hand and an axe in the other. In his rush he bumped into Dohojar and caromed off the Changa's back, nearly knocking both of them down in the process. "Uff! Shit!" he cried, catching himself and trying to stand on guard against whatever attacker was at hand.
    The spell he had been trying to work was spoiled in the collision, so Dohojar changed tactics instantaneously, forgetting the loss because there was no help for it. "Quick, Habber-Lieutenant," he said as he pointed toward the far corner of the ill-lighted cabin. "Throw your axe where the shadows are thick there!" The confused sailor complied even though it was an order that seemed to make no sense. Habber cocked his arm and sent the weapon spinning across the short space in one quick motion.
    A sharp gasp of pain came from the place, and then a shout of rage. The figure of the false pilot disappeared from the center of the cabin, and the man was suddenly visible crouching in the corner of the place. One of Gravestone's long arms could be seen through a tear in his baggy-sleeved robe, the place where Habber's axe had sliced cloth and cut flesh in its flight. The gaunt face of Gravestone was awful to behold as he stood hunched and shaking with rage in the low-ceilinged space. "I'll play with you no longer!" he screeched.
    Barrel tried to get an attack in then, moving toward Gravestone with his cutlass held before him. Again Habber brought trouble by being too precipitous. He rushed the enemy at the same time, a movement that caused him and the burly sailing master to collide briefly. That was all the advantage Gravestone needed. He brought a sound from down deep in his narrow chest and allowed its abomination to clamber up his throat and gush from his mouth. The terrible sound was wrapped in the vilest of evil and had fell power. As the word was spewed forth, the air thickened, and dark streaks of energy leaped and coalesced. Habber toppled soundlessly, stone dead, while both Barrel and Dohojar were thrown back as if struck by a great hand.
    "Now, maggots, you are mine!" Gravestone stepped deliberately toward the two stunned men with gleeful triumph plainly evident on his ancient face. The visage he showed now was his actual one — very old and totally evil. It was filled with demoniacal emotion, the joy of anticipating what was to come. Suddenly his expression changed to surprise.
    "Not so easy, old pole of wickedness!" Dohojar exclaimed as he saw the darts of energy he had summoned up strike home, burning the leathery skin of the evil mage's face where they touched. With greater fury than before, Gravestone spun and reached for the Changa, his fingers like talons. Extremities that looked like tentacles shot from those clawed hands and wrapped in a deadly embrace around Dohojar's neck. His agonized writhing was proof enough of their effect, even without the hissing of his flesh where the tentacles' acidic secretion