Pathfinder Tales: Lord of Runes by Dave Gross

ember-colored imp.
    The little creep pointed at her and yelled, “You should just lie on the ground and— Umph! ”
    Wormy red tendrils grew out of the imp’s lips, stitching its mouth shut.
    Illyria tilted her head at the boss and said, “ That is the spell that made me choose necromancy.”
    “How frivolous.”
    “You’d understand if you grew up with four sisters.”
    Another couple of devils came in low and fast. I threw my darts. Only one clipped an imp. I dodged that one, but the other jabbed me in the leg. The sting was hot and cold as hell. I broke out my colorful language.
    “Avoid killing them,” said the boss. He ducked another imp and stopped himself from zapping it with a spell.
    “Do we really care about that now?”
    “We do,” said Illyria. She shot a nasty look at a circling imp and cursed. Not the regular kind of curse but the magic kind—the kind that leaves a mark. Her voice went all spooky. “But perhaps Radovan can tear that one to pieces as an example to the others.”
    The imp hovered, staring at her, then at me, all horrified. It fiddled its fingers, unsure what to do. “Maybe this wasn’t such a hot idea.”
    “Boo!” I said.
    The imp flew off, but a bolt of green fell from the sky and clobbered it. The imp and drake hit the ground together, each trying to scramble away from the other’s lashing tail and the poisoned barb at its tip.
    The green drake wasn’t alone. All at once the air was full of wings and claws. Red and black imps scrapped with drakes of all different colors.
    The students backed off, nobody lifting a hand to help us out with a spell. A crowd formed around one of the diabolists. She was taking bets. I yelled one of the regular kind of curses, hoping to hurt her feelings if nothing else.
    The boss threw a magic shield around Illyria and swatted another imp out of the way with the flat of his sword. Arni jumped up to bite at imps, but they’d already figured out he was playing for eats and kept out of reach.
    A little drake hit the ground beside me. Blood and venom oozed from between its purple-red scales. Three imps hopped toward her, tails raised like scorpions as they closed in for the kill.
    Arni bounded over the fallen drake. He snagged an imp by the head and shook once, breaking its neck. The second imp hesitated for half a second, which was all the time I needed to kick his little red ass. He flew a good ten yards before his flapping turned into flying. He jabbered some hellish curse but didn’t waste any time looking back. He was done with this fight.
    The third imp hovered, fingers twitching, getting ready to throw a whammy on Arni. Before it could finish its spell, a big blue drake crashed into the little devil. The imp clawed and squirmed, but somehow the drake had managed to get the imp’s whole head into its mouth. A wet crunch later, the imp’s body fell away. The drake choked and spit out the mangled head. Even Arni looked impressed.
    “It’s Skywing!” shrieked a splotchy black-and-white imp. “Every imp for himself!”
    The blue drake flared his wings and trumpeted. To me the sound was kind of cute, but the imps scattered like they’d heard a cavalry horn.
    The other drakes chased after the imps. The little purple one rolled on the grass, mewing in pain. Arni moved over and nosed the drake, smelling it.
    “Arni, don’t!” I thought he might eat the critter. The blue had the same idea. He flapped over, hissing until he saw the hound was only licking the little one’s wounds.
    The boss fumbled in his satchel. “I have no more healing elixir.”
    “I have something.” Illyria put her hand to the mouth of her bag, and a little jar appeared in her hand. She unscrewed the lid and dabbed a bit of goop on the drake’s wounds. When she was done, she let Arni lick her fingers. The wounds on his flanks evaporated.
    The blue drake strutted over, sniffed the ointment, and touched noses with the purple drake. Purple mewed back at