All Shadows Fled - Ed Greenwood [111]
Irendue shook her head, weeping wildly. The sword point danced and glittered wildly in front of his-face until he growled, "I suppose one of my eyes would do as well, but I hardly think taking off my ears will suffice."
His familiar sarcasm steadied her. Irendue slid the steel between his teeth. Resting it there, she asked quietly, "Turnold, are you sure?"
"Of clorse hlyime shlure," he managed to say around the tip. "Do it!"
Irendue swallowed, blew him a kiss, closed her eyes-and thrust the blade forward.
"Gods greet ye, Turnold," she said huskily, giving him the formal farewell. Her stomach heaved, and she almost flung the blade away in her haste to tear it free. When she opened her eyes again, she tried not to look at the limp thing that had been Turnold, but his blood was blazing up around him in flames of orange and red, and the web of white fires was dim, fading as she watched!
Irendue let out a tremulous breath and looked at Lareth. "Can-Can you pull free?" she asked him, and watched his face tighten as he struggled. Cold fire flickered around his trembling limbs, but after a long, silent battle he gave up, sagging forward. His teeth were chattering in fear as he raised a gray face to her and said, "D-Do it."
She did. It was easier the second time… and as the apprentices' bodies slumped, the web of fire faded silently away, gone as if it had never been. Its passing was marked by the hollow clatter of Mortoth's bones bouncing on the floor.
With dull eyes, Irendue stared at his grinning skull. She went to her knees among the dead men, and the dust that had been the skin of her master eddied around her. The bloody sword was cold and heavy in her hands as the world dissolved in tears again…
The voice, when it came, was menacingly quiet. "What have you done?"
Irendue lifted her head and the sword together, glaring up through tangled hair at the other shapeshifter. He wore the form of a handsome, sandy-haired man with a mustache… but his eyes glittered dark and deadly, like those of a hawk.
"Freed us," Irendue gave him her fiercely whispered answer. "Freed us all."
"You shall die for this," Lorgyn said softly.
"I know," the woman replied calmly, embracing the sword as if it was a babe in her arms. "Kill me, then, and have done… monster."
Lorgyn showed his teeth in a smile. "Ah, no," he said in almost friendly tones. "Death need not be so fast and easy as all that. I shall use your sorcery to help me raise another gate… and your body to power it. Of course, that body need not be whole…"
Still wearing that terrible grin, he advanced on her.
Elven Court woods, Flamerule 30
"Die!" Belkram roared in fury, forgetting all thoughts of stealth and nearby wizards as he thrust his blade repeatedly into the shapeshifter's hairy, many-taloned bulk. If only it were still silver, he thought fiercely as he drove his steel home once more and struck something hard within, making the Malaugrym quiver.
It snarled and shrank away, and Belkram lunged after it, catching sight of Sharantyr's blade flashing on its far flank. The lady ranger's blade glistened as it rose and fell with a green-hued, translucent slime that must be the monster's blood.
"Right," Belkram snarled, "let's see all of your blood, beast! All of it!"
His blade thrust down to its hilt into the shifting bulk before him, and the Malaugrym recoiled, drawing flailing tentacles back into itself in struggling spasms of pain.
As it receded, it left Itharr behind, writhing weakly on the ground, his lifeblood drenching the moss and dead leaves around him. The Harper's mouth worked, and his eyes were blood-red; Belkram knew his friend was sorely wounded.
Delude yourself not, Belkram told himself sourly, he's dying.
Frantically he chopped and slashed at the shapeshifter, hearing Sharantyr's sobbing as she did the same thing. Her hair swirling around her, and she leapt high to throw all her weight behind her blade.
Something blazed with sudden fire behind her. A rolling wave offeree, like a wave