Cloak of Shadows - Ed Greenwood [125]
And then fire snatched it from her fingers, and shadows howled around her wrist. She grabbed for it in vain and saw it spinning away from her, globed in shadows, to hang near the ceiling.
Light was growing all around them now as Olorn stepped out from behind a cask and waved his hand. Belkram and Itharr froze in midcurse, immobile. Sharantyr grabbed at her belt dagger, but shadows were sliding around her wrists and ankles, thrusting them inexorably apart.
Olorn laughed again and strolled toward her. Behind him, many Malaugrym were entering the room, cruel excitement in their faces.
"I've stood more than enough insolence from mortal wenches in the past," he said to Shar, "and you're just one more. I had breeding plans for you, but you're not good enough to sully myself with." His right hand wriggled then, becoming a tentacle-a long, thin, dark tentacle with eel-like jaws. "So instead," he announced brightly, "I've decided to make a meal of you!" The tentacle rose, like a swaying cobra, then bent and came straight across the room at her, gliding horizontally through the air.
Shar was spread-eagled on thin air by then, floating off the floor in the grip of shadows that had become as hard as iron. Her face was closest to the tentacle, and as it approached her, snakelike, she felt shadows tugging at her lips and the corners of her mouth.
She fought against the steely strength of the shadows, teeth clenched, but the tentacle slid lazily closer and her jaws were being forced apart. No!
A long moment passed, the eager Malaugrym audience silently watching her struggle. She fought in vain. In the end, her mouth was open wide and held that way, jaw quivering with the strain.
The tentacle slid between her teeth, probing ahead with a tip to hold her tongue down. Then it expanded, filling her mouth with its foulness… and began to get warmer.
"A little roast tongue to start with," Olorn said jovially, and the Malaugrym laughed in cruel chorus. As the pain began to build, Sharantyr discovered that she could still breathe-but she could no longer scream.
21
Shadows Cloak, but Make a Better
Shroud
The Castle of Shadows, Kythorn 20
Tears of helpless rage welled up in Sharantyr's throat, and she struggled frantically against the shadow-bonds that manacled her. They shifted a little… and a little more. She could move!
Then she saw that the Malaugrym were laughing at her, enjoying her futile midair squirmings and swayings, and Olorn was sending another tentacle her way with taunting slowness.
"What part of her shall we play with now?" he asked the other Shadowmasters. The tentacle twitched as an eager chorus of suggestions rang out. Sharantyr closed her eyes. She'd never dreamed that dying could be this bad, or this slow. By the sounds of it, midair surgery could go on for days, if they kept her – parts of her – alive with their spells. Mystra and Tymora hear me, she prayed fervently, if you can't deliver me from this, at least make it quick!
And then the tentacle in her mouth quivered – no, shuddered – and she heard Olorn scream. Her eyes snapped open in sudden wild hope.
A blue blade was glowing in the air, flashing in ghostly hands, flashing through Olorn again and again, transfixing him. Blue flames licked around his body as he struggled to change shape. His tentacle abruptly receded from Shar's mouth but failed to escape the blade that was chopping him apart.
Pieces of the Malaugrym, great writhing lumps, rained down onto the floor in flames. The room was full of wriggling shapes as the Malaugrym shouted and shifted shape and hurled spells at the ghostly swordswoman – Sylune, her hair flying free behind her as she flew about the room, hacking and slashing. The flashing blue blade turned back all the spells sent against her… back upon those who'd sent them.
Olorn must have died, because