Depths of Madness - Erik Scott De Bie [45]
"Poetic, really," said a voice at Twilight's shoulder. She turned to find Davoren watching the battle with more than passing interest. "Playing one foe against another. Amusing to watch so much death, isn't it?"
Twilight kept calm. She wiped Betrayal on her thigh and sheathed it. For now.
"Should we-ah-help?" asked Slip.
"Help who?" put in Liet. "I'm thinking we'd best flee before-"
A massive hand on his shoulder stopped the boy, and Twilight looked up to see Gargan there. The goliath, still holding the unconscious Taslin, did not speak, but his gaze conveyed volumes. His eyes fixed upon Tlork-analyzing, weighing, judging. He had looked at Twilight and Liet in the same way, as though sizing them up for a duel.
"Aye," said Twilight. "The longer we watch, the more we learn about the troll."
Tlork's massive warhammer appeared awkward in his ten-foot skeletal arm, but the troll wielded it with exceptional skill and balance. Each swing of the weapon knocked two or three monsters aside, and his fiendish stinger caught those the hammer missed. When a grimlock came inside his reach, Tlork would simply flatten the eyeless wretch with his elephantlike leg or eviscerate him with a snap of his claws.
Twilight had to wonder. Why had the grimlocks been drawn to the troll, if they could not defeat-nay, couldn't even injure-the creature?
As Twilight studied the foes, the assault made perfect sense. The grimlocks' world was one of sounds and smells. The troll had bellowed loudly enough to rival the purple worm, and his stench was so pungent Twilight could catch it even at her distance, a spear-cast away. Tlork was perceived as a much greater threat than the seven of them.
Six, Twilight corrected herself with an inward wince. She felt empty, as though something had been clawed out of her.
Then Tlork broke through the grimlock horde, shattering a monster's chest with a pulse of the mighty hammer. Those that did not lie dead had already fled in terror before the half-fiend, half-troll monstrosity. The path cleared, Tlork fixed his mad eyes on the six companions, and charged.
"Time to be going!" Liet hissed.
Twilight stayed him. "Wait."
Summoning her will, she wrenched the shadows to her and sent them forth. This was not the dance-it would not consume all her strength. The shadows coalesced and melted into scything blades-a wall of shadowy steel that flashed through the air- sweeping straight for Tlork and the few remaining grimlocks. She heard Liet gasp beside her, and knew it was because her gray eyes had flashed black.
Twilight was used to it. She preferred it to her other powers. The shadows were another aspect of Neveren's legacy, rather than part of her service to a god who hated her.
The fleeing grimlocks who yet lived ignored the shadowy wall of razors-the illusion was only visual, and they had no eyes-emerging unscathed and oblivious. The troll, however, immediately fell to the important business of knocking the blades out of the air and smashing them to splinters against the ground. Not surprisingly, the hammer passed through the swords like the shadows they were.
"Let us see how-" she started.
"Enough of this," Davoren snapped. With a flicker of will, he shot a pair of fiery bolts up at the ceiling. The power burst and sent a web of cracks through the stone.
"Ah," said Slip. "What-?" Twilight shoved the halfling down the tunnel and pulled Liet behind her as she ran. Gargan shot the warlock a glare but followed.
Not a heartbeat later, the ceiling cracked and collapsed, sealing off the tunnel with a shattering crash of stone.
Tlork skidded short of crushing his body against the tons of stone piled up around the tunnel mouth.
Then a chunk of stone tumbled down from the top of the pile and smashed into the troll's face with enough force to snap his