Depths of Madness - Erik Scott De Bie [70]
As Twilight swung, her single rope slapped across dozens of seeking tendrils, tangling them all. The creature twisted and shook, thrown off balance and distracted.
Gargan spun and flung out a massive hand to catch the vial. In one smooth motion, he leaped away from the golem's tendrils and shattered the vial against his black blade, which suddenly gleamed with silvery-white radiance. At almost the same instant, Slip arrived at Gargan's side and touched his hip, completing her spell. The goliath s body showed no change, but his aura of strength grew.
Twilight dodged back and forth, twisting this way and that, avoiding the slapping ropes at all cost. She blocked ineffectually-the ropes simply whipped around her parries, regardless of how wide she held the blade. Here and there, her billowy blouse became stained with red, or open gashes appeared along her leather breeches.
Only reflex kept Twilight from being pummeled into a crimson stain on the stone. Even so, she screamed as the golem whipped her, desperate dodges or no.
"Strike it, Gargan!" Twilight shouted. "Stri-"
At that instant, a rope whipped under her high parry and struck her across the cheek. Twilight's head snapped back and she spun to the ground. She heard her head strike the stone with a loud crack, and darkness took her.
Liet almost cried out when Twilight went down, but he was too busy panting, trying to drag his sword back and forth. He ran to her side, slashing at the tendrils again and again, but to no avail. The ropes were too hard. Then they knocked him flailing.
Unhindered, the rope golem flowed along the ceiling, soundless. It drew itself along the ropes that held it aloft and loomed over Twilight. If it had been a living thing, the golem would have hissed hungrily.
Liet knew Gargan could not have understood Twilight's words, but from his actions, he understood her plan intuitively and acted accordingly.
With a pulse of powerful legs and arms, the goliath hurled his huge sword, slathered with the alchemical concoction, into the air, where it spitted the hangman golem's chest. The creature reeled, though it made no sound.
Gargan wasn't done. He followed the sword with a mighty leap, his legs strengthened by Slip's divine magic, and caught the hilt in both hands at the apex of his jump. The goliath's momentum carried him past the golem and his firm grasp on the sword ripped the weapon through its innards.
Gargan's sword tore the creature in two in a way that was anything but tidy.
The golem reeled, pieces of itself flopping all over. The tendrils holding it precariously to the ceiling strained and snapped free of the stone, and the golem tumbled to the ground. It wheeled and writhed, trying to reform. Its tendrils slithered and whipped, caught in death throes.
Climbing to his feet, Liet breathed out in relief, but his eye fell on the fallen elf. " 'Light!" he shouted, taking a step toward her.
When Twilight's gloved hand moved, Liet's breath caught. Then her blood-streaked face turned up to him. He smiled, and the tiny twitch of her lips might have been an attempt to return it.
Slip was on her way, healing at the ready, a tremendous smile on her face. "Wegwf it!" she squealed. A tendril snaked up behind her.
"Down!" Twilight shouted, yanking the halfling off her feet and rolling over her.
Eyes wide, Liet saw what was about to happen and threw himself down.
The golem lashed out, its tendrils a whirlwind of whips that caught the three within. Liet cringed and jerked as his body felt dozens of kisses and slashes.
When it was over, he looked up to see a bruised and battered Twilight lying, unmoving, where she had collapsed limply over the halfling.
" 'Light?" Slip screamed, shaking her by the shoulder. "Wake up!"
The golem, its fury spent, collapsed into a quivering mass of tendrils.
Liet blinked at the two, then at the golem, then at the staggering Gargan. Then he realized that if he