Crown of Fire - Ed Greenwood [41]
"Forgive my manner, lad. I don't mean most of it-much. Your lady can tell you how it was in the company. We were swordmates together-and, mind you, she survived it, then. Ferostil was nastier than ever I was, and Rymel more the prankster, too. If mere words are enough to hurt you, lad, grow some armor speedily: it doesn't get any easier on the ears as you get older."
"My thanks, Delg," Narm said shortly, "but I'd be happier if you could tell me what that is."
"What, lad?" Delg's axe glinted in the moonlight.
"That thing, there!" Narm said fiercely, pointing. Far away across tumbled arches and broken rubble, something dark and winged seemed to both fly and to flow over the stone beneath it, like some sort of giant black snake. A snake with batlike wings, eyes like glimmering rubies, and a cruel snout. It was coming toward them, not hurrying, as though dinner seldom escaped it.
"Shandril!" Narm said commandingly. "Hold still, and I'II cast my light spell." He lowered his voice, and added, "It's my last-to feed your spellfire… Ready?"
Shandril nodded, and Narm hurried through the gestures of casting the spell as the dwarf advanced to stand as foreguard, hefting his axe. "Battle again, is it?" he muttered. "Then let it come! Clanggedin be with me and guide my axe."
Narm's casting ended as the winged thing rose up into the air before them, passing over Delg's reaching axe. No magical radiance appeared beneath Narm's hands, which rested on Shandril's neck. She had willed the light into her, drawing the tingling energy in through the bare skin of her neck. Flames danced briefly in her eyes as she waved him away, then looked up to face the winged horror directly.
It loomed above her. Dark and terrible, its leathery wings beat in eerie silence, its bony jaws spread wide, its red glowing eyes met hers. "Turn back," Shandril said,.and we will not harm you. Turn back!"
Above the glowing crystal ball, a light feminine voice chuckled. 'They do talk a lot, these fools.
Always threatening and declaiming grandly-when they're not pleading, that is."
"True, Mairara," came an older female voice in answer. "Yet I fear this servant creature will fail us as all the others have done."
Gathlarue set her goblet down on the tabletop and stared into the crystal ball that had risen to float just above it. In its curved depths they both beheld the scene in the ruins. Both stared so intently into the globe that neither noticed as one leg of their table grew a silent, bearded smile for an instant, ere a quiet wisp of a shadow rose from it and slipped away.
In deadly silence, the dark horror folded its wings and plunged down on Shandril. Narm cried out and drew his dagger, and Delg's axe rose as he raced in to swing at the flank of the descending menace. But there was a sudden flash and rolling roar of flame.
While backing toward a fallen stone wall, Shandril had hurled fire into the beast's open mouth.
The man and the dwarf both staggered hastily back from the rush of flame as the monster, covered with it, perished in writhing tatters of smoking flesh. It gave off a horrible smell. With mixed awe and satisfaction, Narm and Delg watched for a moment while it shriveled and burned. Then they heard a queer choking sound from behind the ruined wall.
In three bounds Narm was around the corner, heart in his mouth. His wife knelt on the stones. Shandril shook her head, waving him feebly away. She was being thoroughly and wretchedly sick. "The smell," she gasped. " Gods, how vile!"
"Vile, indeed," said a new voice from beyond her. "Were I younger and less, hem-stout of stomach, I'd be doing that too. Which should serve ye as a warning, girl, not to be hurling flames about at just everything that moves. Ye'll burn up something ye value, one o' these days. Phew? Come away, come away, all of ye-that thing smells as if it did nothing but roll in dung and eat dead things."
"Who," DeIg and Narm demanded together. "are you?" The stout, dark figure beyond Shandril drew something from its belt-a