Darkwell - Douglas Niles [144]
Instead, it floated easily in his hand, ready to respond to Tristan's own will.
Tristan looked up at the body of his foe, towering fully five times his own height. His highest blow could strike no farther than the giant's thigh, but the sword of his ancestor seemed to raise the young king's own stature, reinforcing his arm and his will. Yet how could human will match the might of this awesome and terrible god?
The giant form suddenly lunged, striking with a fist the size of a haystack. Instinctively Tristan raised his blade, knowing he would be crushed beneath that terrible blow should it strike him.
The god's fist met the Sword of Cymrych Hugh with a sound like a thunderclap. The king reeled back from the force of the blow, dazed by the blast of sound, but he still stood! And Bhaal, too, staggered back, shaking his massive head in shock and confusion.
Once again the giant form advanced. Tristan raised the sword high over his head, poised to parry another blow. A surge of hope flowed through him.
Robyn threw her hands over her ears as the thunder crashed beside her once more. She pressed her face flat against the soft mud as if she could burrow away from her fright. Ever so gradually she drove back the paralysis of fear that gripped her. Finally she twisted around to face the sky, and then her head spun dizzily as she sat up again.
Robyn's vision focused, and she saw, not the god battling the king, but the three undead Sisters of Synnoria advancing toward Colleen, who still lay prostrate in the mud. The ghastly forms, whose rotted flesh and strawlike tendrils of hair mocked the beauty of their victim, were almost upon her.
Robyn was unaware of the golden medallion, glowing with the pure light of divine power, as she started toward the three death knights. The nearest reached for Colleen's hair, sprawled like golden straw in the mud, as Robyn approached. Unconsciously guided by some deep and potent instinct, her hand went to the medallion. She felt the warmth of the talisman flow through her body, carrying words to her mouth.
"Go! I banish thee, in the name of Chauntea!"
She held the medallion high before her, and the golden light spilled like the rays of the midsummer sun, shining over the ghastly, rotten faces of the undead. It struck their eyes as a potent lance of virtue, searing their dead nerves and forcing them back.
The three dead knights raised their clawlike hands out before them, but they shrank away from the medallion and the woman who carried it. Robyn slowed to a walk, concentrating on the force of the medallion, using it to turn the undead from their intended victim. For each step she advanced, the death knights shrank back farther, until at last she reached Colleen's side.
Some distant part of Robyn's mind watched in amazement as she called upon the power of a new god. She knew that she had performed an act sacred to clerics of the new gods, for no druid could exert such a power over death itself! Genna herself had told her this.
Her mind balked at the implications as another thunderclap shook the clearing. She turned to see Tristan stagger beneath yet another blow from Bhaal's fist. The giant threw back his head and bellowed his own pain, for this time his blow had cost him a deep gash in his finger.
Robyn helped Colleen to her feet as the undead knights continued to back away from her. The young sister leaned weakly against her shoulder, trembling, and Robyn began to half-lead, half-carry her away from the black water.
* * * * *
Chauntea blossomed to her full height and sang a song of hope and promise. Her plane, Elysium, the realm of ultimate good, resounded with the chorus, and power at last flowed freely from the goddess to her newest devotee. For Robyn had opened the floodgates of devotion with her use of the Rose-in-Sun Medallion. Chauntea's love flowed like a benign enchantment into the body of the young woman, once a druid but now forevermore a cleric.
Chauntea felt the warmth of Robyn's