Darkwell - Douglas Niles [32]
They came soundlessly, their mouths gaping. Their heads were skeletal but unmistakably the skulls of deer. And the broad, menacing antlers spreading above the head of each confirmed the monster's staglike origins.
But the body was feathered and gaunt, like some huge vulture. And each of them swooped like a hawk, still making no sound. Robyn could now see the sharp, wolfish fangs that filled each hungry maw.
The things came closer, straight at her face, and she swung the staff with all the force her weary body could gather. The stout shaft cracked against the first monster's head, knocking it aside, but the force of the blow nearly knocked Robyn off her feet. Instantly the second of the things struck her.
She brought the staff up and felt the shaft crunch into its feathered body as those awful antlers sliced her face and forced her back against the cliff face. The creature's teeth tore at her breast, and she forced the staff against the thing's throat as blood from a slash on her forehead dripped into her eyes. The creature snapped at her again, but she pushed it away.
The monster had black, soulless eyes, or maybe they were just empty sockets staring from that rotted skull. Robyn could not be sure. The teeth snapped again at her left breast. Suddenly she was acutely conscious of her pounding heart, thumping almost audibly from her exertions.
The beast lunged forward again, and this time she crushed its throat with the force of her resistance, and she understood its lust as it died. It hungered for her heart!
The body fell lifeless at her feet, and she stumbled back in horror as she saw the beast clearly for the first time. The stag-skull, framed by a proud rack of antlers, could have been taken from the body of a deer and transplanted onto the headless corpse of a great eagle, for all its gory looks. But the thing had lived!
And one other, at least, still did. The first monster, the one she had clubbed aside with her staff, suddenly swept upward from the valley. It had taken a long dive, but now it attacked with undiminished fury.
Robyn, through a bloody haze, saw it coming and staggered to the edge of the ledge. She could barely raise her staff, and the creature was soaring toward her with savage momentum. In that instant, she realized the futility of further combat. If she stayed to fight this thing, she would die, for she had no more strength.
In that same instant, she fell back upon her faith and her skill. If her magic failed her now, she would be dead. The monster raced toward her, its wicked antlers spread like a score of lances. But Robyn no longer stood before the attacker. Instead, she dropped to all four of her feet and scuttled toward a crack in the rock. Her tail whisked out of sight as the creature thumped into the rock wall.
Her tiny heart pounded, many times a second, as she turned to stare anxiously from her sheltered niche. She chittered and chirped nervously, unable to restrain her invective.
The monster landed outside and slashed at the crack with its crooked claws. But the furry marmot that was Robyn of Gwynneth drew farther back in the cave and chattered an angry challenge.
* * * * *
The great unicorn trotted across the wasteland, his white head held high. His ivory horn rose in apparent challenge to any minion of horror that might arise before him.
And indeed, Kamerynn would have relished the death of any of the servants of evil who now defiled his home. For weeks, he had lived among the desolation of the vale, slaying the living carrion that served the cleric of the Darkwell.
Once the unicorn had discovered and fought a hideous flying creature, a cross between hawk and stag. The thing was incredibly evil, but it had flown away before Kamerynn could slay it.
Through those weeks, he had wandered around the breadth of Myrloch, watching the great lake die. The desolation had spread quickly, and now he could only feel a hopeless