Depths of Madness - Erik Scott De Bie [43]
Unsettling strength, that.
Then Twilight remembered their surroundings. The grimlocks were dead, but the worm yet lived. "Away!" Twilight shouted up to Asson. Taslin, Gargan, Liet, and Slip dashed toward the exit. The old man threw another lightning bolt at the worm and swooped toward the tunnel.
Taslin hung back, gazing up at the old wizard with fear on her face. Twilight caught her arm and pulled her around. "We have to go. Now."
The priestess" struggled, but Twilight insisted. "He can fly-we can only run," she said. "Let him wait until the last-he has the best chance to escape of any of us."
From the furious, confused look Taslin burned into her face, Twlight gathered the priestess objected to Twilight's reasoning. Taslin shrugged her off and rushed at the worm, sword in hand.
"Taslin!" Twilight snapped, but it was too late.
Gargan was faster, however. He bounded in front of Twilight and caught up Taslin, slinging her over his shoulder like a sack of grain. The priestess screamed and beat at his back, but the goliath did not reply to her cries.
Together, they fled toward the others.
The shadowdancer let out a sigh of relief, just as Davoren's words rang out. "Fall, damn you!" the warlock shouted. Then, half a beat later, "Fall!"
Twilight heard something in his words that made her blood run cold-or perhaps it was something she felt-some bit of magic, a touch of compulsion.
Asson picked just that moment to plummet from the air. The wizard didn't even flail as his spell failed and his body slammed into the ground with shattering force.
Within a heartbeat, the hissing purple worm snaked forward and crushed the old wizard beneath its coils.
CHAPTER Ten
Taslin's heart shattered. It all happened so fast. One moment, Asson had been flitting about, unscathed, borne on the wings of magic. Alive. In the next instant, he became little more than reddish paste spread along the ground under the worm. He couldn't have dodged-couldn't have escaped.
Silence reigned in the cavern for a split second. Then the priestess let out a shriek. Having been dropped by the goliath, she threw Twilight sprawling and dashed toward the worm.
"Taslin!" Twilight shouted, but Taslin didn't listen. What would that child know of this?
Golden hair blazing around her, the priestess bore down on the purple worm like a wrathful goddess, her sword low at her side in a two-handed grip. It hissed along the stone. As if it sensed her coming, the monster hissed and snaked down, opening its acid-slavering jaws wide. Taslin ran, full out, directly for them.
Then the priestess did what no sane warrior would do: she leaped into its mouth.
And as she went, she slashed up and thrust through its upper palate. The keen elven steel bit a hand-length deep into the burning pink flesh. The worm jerked back, stung. Taslin almost lost her balance and fell, but she held to the sword and rose as the worm did, inside its mouth. Though acid ate at her boots and she could scarcely breathe amid the fumes, Taslin bent at the knees, centering her weight.
"Corellon!" she cried, and drove up with all her strength even as it bit down.
The elven blade gave a screeching wail as it drove through the creature's flesh.
The monster screamed and slammed its head blindly against the ceiling of the cavern and managed to dislodge Taslin, who tumbled free. She did not know how high she was, but she didn't care. One of the monster's fangs tore a gouge down her arm, but the priestess hadn't the breath to scream. Likely, it was for the best-her lungs would have filled with noxious fumes, enough to kill her.
The creature gave one last screech of pain and toppled, with ground splitting thunder, to earth. Taslin followed, wheeling like a leaf in the wind.
"For you, Asson," she whispered as she tumbled toward death.
Twilight's mouth opened as the purple monster screamed and rasped, whipping back and forth like a headless