Black wizards - Douglas Niles [162]
Cyndre's scream rose from the fissure like the cry of a demon, chopped short as the opening slowly closed.
Suddenly, Robyn had an idea. She lay with her face pressed against the earth, uncertain if the inspiration was her own or had emerged from the ground itself. Quickly, she sat up and pulled the runestick from her pouch. The fissure had almost closed, but a split in the earth still gaped nearby. She threw the runestick and held her breath as she saw it fall into the hole. Then the fissure snapped shut.
Slowly, Robyn climbed to her feet. She walked gingerly toward the place where the earth had opened, but there was no sign of the fissure in the grassy turf. Cyndre, Alexei, and the thicket of plants that had trapped the sorcerer were gone.
Then she felt a deeper, more frightening rumble – a fundamental distress in the body of the goddess. Awed and frightened, she dropped to her knees and prayed.
Across the battlefield, the frenzy of the combatants died away as the ground shook. Fighters near the sheer cliffs were thrown to their deaths like drops of water shaken from the back of a dog. Everywhere, ogres, humans, dwarves, and sahuagin fell to their hands and knees, hugging the ground for support. Only the undead, mindlessly attacking, stayed upright – and the rumbling earth sent the entire mass of them tumbling down the slope.
The sea raged against the cliffs below the battle. Gray mountains of water rose to smash the rock, tearing it away. And still the waves rose higher, lashed against the land by an unseen force. The ground convulsed again, and a great slab of cliff broke away, carrying a hundred sahuagin back to the sea. Another tremor shook the neck of land where the prince had held the line. Slabs of earth broke away from both sides of the bridge, cutting its width in half and carrying dozens of screaming ogres, guardsmen, and duergar to their deaths.
"Back!" cried Tristan, sensing the imminent danger. Daryth and Pawldo sprang away from the line of bodies that marked their battle, dragging the prince with them. Canthus, too, leaped back from the collapsing ground. In seconds, the men of Doncastle fled toward the safety of the promontory, tripping and stumbling in their effort to run across the shaking ground.
As the mountainous waves crashed against both sides of the neck, the land bridge collapsed, leaving the Ffolk of Tristan's force atop a small island that had been a peninsula just moments before. The gray water roared through the gap, still striking at the shore of the mainland.
The Prince of Corwell stood in awe, ignoring the pitching ground. The only sound was the deep, supernatural rumbling of the earth and sea. Even the duergar had ceased their howling.
The rumbling grew more pronounced, and Tristan watched as the enemy troops began to sidle away from the cliff, at first hesitantly, but then furiously. Ogres, dark dwarves, humans, and sahuagin all turned in panic and fled.
But they were too slow.
The sea water pounded relentlessly against the base of the cliff, and suddenly great chunks of the rock face began to fall away. With a rumble that drove the prince to his knees, the rocky knoll collapsed into the sea. Tons of earth, rock, and bodies fell headlong into the churning surf. And still the earthquake pounded the land.
The sahuagin clung to the trembling rocks only briefly, slipping and scrambling down the bluff. Many scaly bodies broke upon the jagged rocks, but many others sprang into the air and hit the water in smooth dives. The fish-men that survived the fall swam frantically away from the crashing cliff, seeking the safety of the deep sea.
Next, the land beneath the ogres gave way. The huge creatures clawed and scratched to reach solid ground, but more and more of the cliff gave way, dragging the entire ogre brigade to its doom. Ogre bodies plummeted into space, bouncing and spinning lazily through the air