Black wizards - Douglas Niles [41]
A small portion of the swarm broke toward her as she emerged from the water, but she cast a simple spell of protection, making a rapid gesture about herself. The wasps stormed forward angrily, but then buzzed in a circle around her, unable to close through the magical barrier she had raised against them.
Acorn was already looking for her, giggling and staggering along the riverbank. Robyn splashed toward shore, hoping to get out of the water before he reached her.
The feeble-minded wildman paused again, and again Robyn felt that intense concentration that could only mean he was preparing to cast a spell. Crawling onto the river-bank, soaking wet and gasping, she felt very vulnerable.
She grabbed a root to pull herself up, and suddenly it squirmed in her grasp. The end of the root lashed upward, growing eyes and long fangs. She jerked back just before the undoubtedly venomous spell-cast snake struck. The snake's fangs embedded themselves in the soft loam as she snatched her hand away.
More snakes slithered toward her from a tangle that had, before Acorn's spell, contained only dry sticks. She sensed the serpents closing in from all sides. She paused, pulling a tiny sprig of mistletoe from her belt, and chanted a few words very softly as she crushed the plant to dust. She felt the aura surround her, and she knew that she had become completely invisible to the snakes and to all other animals of the natural world. The creatures writhed past, and her stomach knotted as she saw several forked tongues flick forth to seek her.
The madman still saw the young druid before him, but he also saw that the snakes could not find her. His carefully marshalled discipline – that self control that had allowed him to recall powers he had long kept buried – began to crumble under the frustration of the thwarted attacks.
Abruptly, he howled in rage and charged toward Robyn, his fingers outstretched, clutching for her throat. His howl gave way to an equally inarticulate cackle as he reached her.
Robyn saw the man charge, and she seized a stout stick with both hands. Raising it high, she swung it like an axe at the madman. She had never hit anything so hard in her life!
She felt the shock of his broken neck travel through the stick to her wrists and arms. He dropped without a sound, his head drooping grotesquely over his right shoulder.
Robyn's whole body shook. She staggered backward and sat down heavily, feeling sick. Acorn's eyes stared at her from his unnaturally bent head, and she watched them slowly grow dull.
But the power of the goddess had flowed through her, and from her, and her own strength had not been expended. Her shaking stopped, and she walked over to the body.
Acorn was unquestionably dead. His skin was already pale, and his head lay at that absurd angle. Still she knelt and listened for breathing, felt for a pulse. He was dead.
Then she noticed his pouch.
She had forgotten about the tattered wrap and its treasured contents in the time Acorn had been with her. But now she vividly recalled his fear when she had reached for it. Robyn reached for the ragged sack again and pulled the drawstring free. She hefted the thing, which seemed to contain a fist-size rock. Turning it upside down, she shook it.
A black rock fell beside her knee. It was rounded and smooth, oddly shaped. It looked like a carving of a vaguely human heart that some craftsman had rendered from a piece of hard coal. It lay several inches from her, but she felt its warmth even through her leather breeches. The rock was surprisingly large for its weight. Its density was more like soft pine than stone.
She tried to look away from the stone and found that she could not. Reluctantly, yet at the same time feeling a tingling excitement, she reached for it. Her fingers finally reached the smooth ebony surface…
…and her world exploded into black.
* * * * *
Newt meandered through the pines, thoroughly bored. He buzzed around looking for something, anything, to