Amber and Blood - Margaret Weis [77]
The green ray, poison, would have no effect on the minotaur, and apparently the blue failed, as well, for the animated corpse did not turn to stone. Jenna prayed to Lunitari that the power of the violet ray would work, for it was supposed to carry the fiend back to his creator.
The minotaur shrieked hideously, stumbled toward her, and then vanished.
Jenna sank down limply onto the bench. The powerful spell had drained her, leaving her weak and trembling.
She hoped to heaven Rhys Mason managed to finish off the gruesome-looking object he was fighting. She could barely sit upright on the bench, much less fling any more magic.
“At your age, you really should know better,” she scolded herself wearily. Then she smiled. “But that was a beautiful spell you cast, my dear. Truly lovely …”
Krell’s spear flew toward him. Rhys leaped high into the air, and the spear whistled harmlessly beneath his feet. Still in midair, Rhys arched his back, flipped over, and landed lightly on his feet in front of the astounded Krell. Rhys shifted his hold on the emmide. Lunging forward, he struck Krell’s bone breastplate with the end of his staff. The force of the blow cracked the breastplate and the collarbone beneath, and sent Krell staggering backward.
Armored by his god in the bones of the dead, Krell had smugly thought himself invulnerable to sword and spear and arrow, and now he’d been hurt by a stick-wielding monk. He was in pain and, like all bullies, he was terrified. He wanted this encounter to end. Using his good arm, Krell broke off another sharp spike. Wielding it like a sword, roaring curses, he charged at Rhys, hoping to frighten the monk and overwhelm him by sheer brute strength.
The emmide flicked out and shattered the bone sword. Twirling the staff in his hands, Rhys began to weave a deadly dance around Krell, attacking him from the front and the sides and the back, striking him on the helm and the breastplate, hitting him on the shoulders and the arms, battering his legs and thighs. The emmide sheared off the bony spikes on the shoulders and broke one of the ram’s horns. Everywhere the emmide touched the bone armor, it cracked and split wide open.
Rhys drove the emmide through the cracks, widening them. Parts of the armor began fall off, and the emmide struck the soft, flabby flesh beneath. Bones cracked, but now they were Krell’s bones, not those of some wretched corpse. Another blow split the helm wide open, and it fell off and rolled about on the floor.
Krell’s face was purple and swollen. Blood streamed from his wounds. In agony, bruised and bloodied, he slumped to the floor on his knees and, kneeling in a sodden bloody heap at Rhys’s feet, Krell blubbered and slobbered.
“I surrender!” he cried, spitting up blood. “Spare me!”
Breathing hard, Rhys stood over the hulking brute quivering at his feet. He could be merciful. He could give Krell his life. Rhys had inflicted the lesson of merciful discipline. But Rhys knew with the clarity of the god’s cold anger that being merciful to Krell would be an indulgence on Rhys’s part, one that would make him feel just and righteous, but which would send forth this monster to murder and torture other victims.
Rhys saw Krell watching him from the corner of his swollen eye. Krell was certain of himself, certain Rhys would be merciful. After all, Rhys was a good man, and good men were weak.
Rhys lifted up the emmide. “We are told that the souls of men leave this realm and travel to the next, learning from mistakes made in this life, gaining in knowledge until we come to the fulfillment of the soul’s journey. I believe that this is true of most men, but not all. I believe there are some like you who are so bound up in evil that your soul has shrunk to almost nothing. You will spend eternity trapped in darkness, gnawing on the remnant of yourself, consuming, yet never consumed.”
Krell stared at him, his eyes wide and terrified.
Rhys struck Krell in the temple with the emmide.
Krell toppled over dead onto the blood-smeared