Black wizards - Douglas Niles [90]
Robyn offered a silent prayer to the goddess and felt the answer of the Earthmother flowing through the wood. There was power and peace in that answer – but there was also rage. Robyn channeled that power into a spell, aided by the staff, and released it as the skeletons stumbled toward her from the darkness.
And the rage of the goddess was fire that erupted from the ground, a wall of flame spreading across the clearing. Robyn saw Genna cast the same spell some distance away. Other walls of fire erupted before her as the druids ignited their first line of defense.
Zombies lurched into and through the flame, sizzling in the intense heat. The monsters stumbled forward and collapsed on the ground, writhing in silent torture as their flesh blackened. Before the fire died, their bodies shriveled into misshapen lumps, stiff as statues carved from charcoal.
The skeletons, too, suffered from the intense heat. Bones splintered as the orange tongues of fire licked them. Bodies broke apart, collapsing into heaps of unrecognizable ash.
The birds that had been harassing the monsters flew up and away as the fire erupted, but Robyn grieved to see that several moved too slowly. Tongues of flame greedily stroked the feathers of owls and hawks. The birds screeched and writhed in agony as the fire dragged them to earth and consumed them.
But some unspoken command was turning the mindless army away from the fire. The zombies slipped to the left, the skeletons to the right, and the undead came on. The walls of fire were limited, not long enough to encircle the grove, and the monsters now came around them.
In the lurid light, the young druid saw a moving mound of earth as the elemental answered Genna's command. It moved to block the skeletons. Huge, fistlike appendages swung from the thing's sides, and it used these like clubs, smashing a dozen of the undead in the first press of attack.
From where Robyn stood, the elemental looked like a rough-skinned giant. It fought quickly, remorselessly. For a moment, the press of the skeletons was shattered – though the undead knew no fear, the elemental was killing them faster than they could advance.
But then a whirling storm of silvery axes emerged from the darkness. The shining blades gleamed with an internal light. The hafts were long, the blades heavy, and they filled the air with a glittering array of razor-sharp attacks. Hundreds of the missiles swirled about the elemental, hacking off chunks of earth. For a second, Robyn wondered at the unnatural way they hung in the air. Magic! The elemental stumbled as one of its legs was severed, and then fell into rubble as the blades tore it to pieces.
Now the zombies had completely passed the wall of fire, and they lurched quickly toward Robyn. They were still being harassed by the birds, and now the wolves and boars raced into the attack. The animals were a pitiful few against the numbers of undead, however, and they were swiftly killed or driven back with grievous wounds.
As the wolves whined and ran, Robyn turned to flee as well, but her foot caught on a root. She sprawled headlong and heard the squishing footsteps of a zombie nearby. Terror seized her, but she managed to cling to her staff as she leaped to her feet and sprinted through the darkness.
She saw Genna and the other druids running with surprising stamina toward the center of the grove. Grunt loped along behind the Great Druid, turning to bellow his rage at the undead who pursued them.
Gasping in horror and fear, Robyn stumbled along behind, wondering how they could hope to stop this nightmare before it reached the Moonwell.
* * * * *
Cyndre stood before the vast mirror as the three mages at the table watched him closely. The master turned to look at them: tall, lean Talraw, the dark-skinned Wertam, and the short, ugly little woman called Kerianow.
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