Darkwalker on Moonshae - Douglas Niles [139]
Kazgoroth glided soundlessly through the air, descending toward the broad courtyard. The black body blended perfectly with the night, and none of the sentries suspected its presence.
Circling about the keep, the Beast remained a hundred feet in the air. The grotesque nostrils quivered delicately, soon finding what they sought. Now the Beast dove, veering toward the keep and centering its dive toward a narrow window, high in the smooth stone wall.
The druid, Kazgoroth sensed, slept in the room beyond this window. Soon, reflected the Beast with a drooling leer, she would sleep much more deeply. The supple fingers, with their cruel claws, clenched and flexed in eagerness. Tucking its wings at the last moment, the Beast narrowed its body and dove into the window.
Instantly the night exploded in crackling fire, sending sparks of raw pain shooting through the monster. Kazgoroth bounced from the protected window, crashing heavily to the courtyard. Shouts of alarm rang from the guards in the courtyard, but no one saw the black shape near the keep.
A barrier! Rage flared through Kazgoroth as it understood its own carelessness. Shaking its scaly head to clear it, the creature lumbered to its feet and flapped its wings powerfully.
Kazgoroth leaped into the air again, soaring quickly to the height of the druid’s room. This time the Beast hovered outside for a moment, and saw the magical barrier faintly crisscrossing the window. Sneering at its limited scope, he dove against the granite wall of the keep.
An explosion of rock and dust tumbled into the room, with the monster in its midst. Kazgoroth shook itself, rising to its feet in the center of the room, and looked around. The druid, starkly beautiful in her terror, sat up in the bed.
The toothy jaws gaped in a reptilian smile, and the venomous tail flickered toward the maiden’s unarmored breast. From somewhere, she pulled a plain staff across herself, and the Beast cursed the earthen power of the wood.
A force of cold power smashed into the Beast from the side, sending it lurching into, and almost through, the window. With a lightning grab of its muscular arms, Kazgoroth caught itself by the window-frame, and heaved itself across the room, into the squat form of the man it now saw there. The two large bodies crashed into the floor, and the Beast felt the man’s bones snap and splinter.
But the man blazed with a strength that was new to the Beast, after its long centuries of battle with the goddess. The man’s harsh magic was powerful, even if it could not master the hot, fiery might of the Darkwell.
Kazgoroth’s claws snaked into the cleric’s face, leaving long and bloody gashes. But somehow the man raised a potent silver circlet and pressed it toward the Beasts drooling visage. His cold magic surged through the circlet, forcing Kazgoroth back. The man lay where the monster had pushed him, one leg bent unnaturally to the side. Lines of horror and pain stretched his face into a garish mask.
Kazgoroth spun to attack the druid. Robyn had now left her bed and stood, staff held protectively before her, against the wall. She leaned against it, shivering. But her face betrayed no hint of frailty. The Beast focused the energy of his eyes, compelling her to stare into those orbs of fire and death, but she resisted with impossible strength. Death magic flashed from the monster, but the protective shield of the staff dispersed it harmlessly throughout the room.
The broken man lying upon the floor groaned, a piteous wail of pain, and the druid looked at him with obvious concern. For a split second she forgot her opponent, and in that time Kazgoroth crossed the room and snatched the staff from her hands. It blazed against his grip with the white fire of the goddess. The Beast felt the wood draw strength from its body, but it ignored the pain and slammed the potent rod to the floor.
Now the woman recoiled backward, eyes widening as her talisman was torn from her. She shrank