Depths of Madness - Erik Scott De Bie [108]
Then, reeling, Gestal burst into laughter. He could have been doubled over in mirth. "Daltyrex," he said. He clucked his tongue as though chiding a child.
The earring did not translate, but he could have spoken the a spell for all she knew. Would the earring translate such a thing?
Spurred on by outrage, Twilight's wriggling mind finally slipped the spell's shackles. She leaped to shaking feet. She took a running step, only to be thrown to the floor when the world shuddered at Gestal's cry. A great tremor ripped through the cavern, tearing it asunder. Stalactites rained and moonlight from the desert above streamed down from a broken ceiling fifty feet up. The stars hid behind a cloud of dust. Gestal's mad laughter boomed across the screaming stone.
Twilight grit her teeth. How could he cast so quickly? Spells seemed to flow through him at random, all without pause, all deadly.
The quake dug a wide furrow between the combatants and the demonist. Twilight realized she could not jump it, even with the boots. As Slip collapsed into a moaning heap, the demonist smirked in the depths of his cowl and began another spell.
Twilight bit her lip. She couldn't give in to fear. She had to end this, and end it quickly. She shook off the last of her pain, extended Betrayal, and ran.
"Gargan!" she screamed as she barreled toward his back.
Gargan glanced and nodded. He hacked at the troll, driving it back, and whirled even as she jumped, tossing his axe in the air. His trailing hand caught Twilight's arm and heaved her over the crevasse. Her leap became a flying lunge. Then he spun back to the troll and caught his axe as it fell, just in time to block the troll's hammer with both weapons, the force driving him back toward the pit.
As she flew toward the shivering, chanting demonist, Twilight screamed with as much wrath and hatred as she could muster. All the tears that she'd shed for fallen comrades, her heartache at not knowing if Liet lived, and her crushing fear rose out of her in a roar.
Gestal turned and threw back his hood.
At the scream, Gargan rolled between the troll's mismatched legs and glanced after the elf. Gestal had drawn a blade-a cleaverlike dagger-and he used it to parry her lunge aside. She landed, staggered, and dropped her rapier.
"No," she said. She looked as though she were choking. "It can't be!"
Gargan knew the time had come to run. Using instincts and reflexes honed against giants, the goliath eluded Tlork's claws and dodged the crushing hammer by a hand's breadth. With a mighty roar, the goliath dropped his axe and swung his huge sword down in two hands. The acid-laden edge slashed Tlork's thin arm in two, and the great hammer did not rise.
The troll staggered, but the goliath turned. His chance had come for a deathblow, but he ran for the chasm instead, hoping he would make it to Foxdaughter in time.
Twilight struck the waiting cleaver, but it would not budge. The blades screamed and she tumbled over the demonist's head, landing flat on her back. She tried to rise, but her legs failed her. Betrayal clattered to the stone and slid against the wall.
"What's the matter?" he asked, his voice husky. "Do you not recognize me?"
Gestal dropped his blade and threw off his cloak, revealing his bare arms and chest. Grotesque scars crisscrossed the black, scaly flesh over his biceps and forearms, stopping at his shoulders and hands. As she watched, rapt, blackness rippled across his body, painting the bronzed flesh with inky corruption. In a heartbeat, it spread to all parts of him, half shrouding his face in putrid sores. Clean on one side, oozing on the other, it was as though he had two faces.
As the scaly, festering skin covered his left cheek, a scorching brand depicting a two-headed snake wrapped around a serrated blade lit upon his right face-a face that remained