Depths of Madness - Erik Scott De Bie [109]
"No…" said Twilight. "It-it can't be."
"I'm afraid it can," said Liet in a perverse rasp, "my love." Then his distorted arms extended like putty and clawed at her, one hand glowing with blood, the other with ink. Twilight could not bring herself to dodge.
Gargan ran for the crevasse lip, pushing his legs as he had in races with his clan brothers and sisters. Tlork swung his claws wildly and Gargan's shoulder opened in its wake. He realized his axe was gone, but it was irrelevant. He hit the edge and jumped, his mighty legs pulsing. A weightless heartbeat later, he slammed down on the other side.
His weight and the strength of his jump were too much for the brittle edge, however. The stone broke under his feet, and he began a groaning, inevitable slide into the jagged abyss.
Gargan leaped again and again, dancing across falling stones toward Gestal. The priest wore the face of Liet, but the goliath ignored the implications. He saw only the Foxdaughter, frozen in terror, and the demon priest's impossibly long arms reaching for her. He also saw Slip, seeping pits of black and red where her eyes had once been, crawling feebly away.
The distance between them was slowly increasing, so he couldn't reach them both. But he could save one of them, perhaps. Slip, his friend, or… He might have cried out, but it would do no good, he sensed. He just had to get there in time.
In time, horribly, to watch Gestal jab a red-glowing hand into the elPs breast while his black hand went for her face. She arched and screamed, blood and vomit gushing from her mouth. Horrid as her reaction was, it probably saved her from a worse fate. The black hand only brushed her shoulder instead of her cheek.
The world froze for an instant and reality shifted. Gargan thought he heard a faint mirthful sound, as of a mocking wind. It unnerved him. He had heard tales of travelers wandering leagues in the desert, following just such whispers.
Then the world flowed as normal, and Twilight went white as a corpse. She collapsed to the ground, limp as an empty cloak.
Gargan made no sound, but Gestal sensed him anyway and spun, bringing up his burning claws. The hunter plied his training against giants, with their exceptional reach, and rolled under the deadly claws, still arrowing straight for the limp elf.
Unlike the arms of any real creature, however, Gestal's hands twisted back, still bearing down on the goliath. Gargan thought himself lost.
The priest had miscalculated, though, and the elongated arms jerked to a halt, a finger's breadth from Gargan's foot. Both priest and goliath looked in the same instant, only to find Gestal's distorted arms hooked at the elbows. The priest cursed foully and snapped a word of pure chaos. Gargan felt power flare, but his soul went unscathed. Was this why the sharn had chosen them? Gestal's magic seemed to have little effect on the-goliath.
Gargan dived for his prize: the still form beside the sputtering demonist. He stooped over her and his hands went to her feet. At his touch, the elf made a gurgling, gasping noise. Gestal was in the midst of another spell and the goliath knew his time was short. He had one boot off, then the other, and yanked them on.
Sure enough, they fit him perfectly, as their magic allowed. Another goliath might have thought this witchcraft, but Gargan had seen enough of the world to know good from evil.
He stood over Twilight then, clad in her boots, and hefted her limp form under one arm. In the other hand, he raised the giant sword and turned to face his attacker.
"No escape!" screamed Gestal, and fanned out his hand, from which sprang five darts of blackness-darts that had been his fingers. Somehow, the goliath ducked all but two, which wriggled and tore, locking his muscles and freezing his flesh.
Then the demonist charged him, his remaining fingers glowing green.
The eyeless Slip whimpered.
CHAPTER Twenty-Six
Her eyes flicked open. The tent was silent. The air tasted rough and dry, like bone worn hollow by the wind. And flowers-she smelt something sweet.