Bearers of the Black Staff - Terry Brooks [9]
He had shifted somehow while he talked, gone more to the left. Pan could tell this by the change in the direction of his voice. But he hadn’t heard the other move at all, not a single rustle. He studied the swamp again, and then cast another glance over at Prue.
To his horror, he saw that she had left her position and was coming toward him in a stealthy crouch.
“Tell her to stop!” the speaker hissed.
But Prue ignored his hand signals, seeing something now that he couldn’t, which meant that the speaker had done something to give himself away and she was now aware of him.
“Can you fight as well as you track?” the speaker asked hurriedly.
A sword was shoved over Panterra’s shoulder, handle-first. “Take this. You’ll need it if you hope to stay alive. Don’t engage—just fend it off, keep it at bay. I’ll help you if I can, but the girl will need me more.”
“What are we fight—” Pan started to ask.
The rest of his question was cut short by an explosion of movement from two different points at the edges of the swamp, one directly across from him, the other from his far left no more than fifty feet behind Prue. The brush and grasses burst apart, stagnant water geysered skyward into the low-hanging branches of the trees, and two monstrous apparitions came charging out of the gloom. They were down on all fours now, great hulking beasts that were barely visible through the gouts of swamp water and flying bits and pieces of plants and might have been almost anything.
Pan came to his feet, bracing himself. Out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of a gray shadow as it whipped through the grasses behind him, heading for Prue. A man, but so quick and light on his feet that it seemed to the boy he must be an apparition. He reached Prue ahead of the attacking beast, picked her up in one smooth motion, and bolted toward a huge old cedar. A second later he had tossed the girl ten feet into the air, her outstretched arms catching hold of a nest of thick branches from which she then hung desperately.
Pan liked the idea of a big tree, not wishing to climb it so much as to put it between himself and the monster that was now almost on top of him, tearing through the swamp as if it could sense where there was solid footing. Its head was wedge-shaped and armored with thick scales, and its maw was a mass of blackened teeth ready to rend its quarry. Pan fled at once, racing for a second cedar, aware of the closeness of the thing behind him. It moved more quickly than something that big should have been able to, and it was terrifying. Pan got to the tree just ahead of the beast, wheeled around, and struck the creature as its momentum carried it past him.
It was like striking a rock. His blade bounced off without effect, and the force of the blow numbed his arms all the way from his hands to his shoulders. He ducked back around the tree once more, watching the beast skid to a halt amid tufts of flying earth and grass. He needed a better plan than this one, he thought, and he didn’t have one.
Then the stranger was suddenly there once more, flashing out of nowhere to stand between the beast and Pan. He held a black staff with markings that glowed as white as brilliant sunlight. The armored monster never hesitated when it saw the man. It came at him at once, a juggernaut thundering through gloom and tall grasses with singular intent. The man faced it without trying to escape, the staff held vertically before him, its entire length on fire now.
Run! Pan wanted to scream, but the word wouldn’t come.
An instant later white fire erupted from the staff, lancing like a great, long spear into the attacker. It caught the creature just below its armored head, just inside one huge front shoulder. It picked the creature up as if it were a rag doll and threw it backward in a sprawling heap where it lay twitching and smoking.
Panterra stared in disbelief.
The man was moving again, vaulting through the foliage toward the second