Elfsong - Elaine Cunningham [40]
"A call to battle," Wyn said softly, echoing Danilo's disconcerting thoughts.
Elaith wrapped his reins around the pommel of the saddle and readied his bow. "What are we fighting?"
"I don't know," Wyn replied in a tense voice. "Something new, perhaps."
The organ's music stopped abruptly. A grim silence hung over the marsh, broken only by the gentle pop of bubbles rising to the surface of the water. Vartain pointed to bubbles on both sides of the causeway. "Whatever they are, they're all around us," he observed.
That observation was too much for Cleddish, and his long gray braid whipped from side to side as he frantically tracked the marsh for the unseen musicians. His dappled gray horse sensed the rider's rising panic, and it shied and pitched. At that, Cleddish snapped. Dropping his sword into the marsh, he flung both arms around his horse's neck. This increased the horse's panic and it reared. Its hoofs came too close to the causeway's edge. Stone gave way, and horse and rider tumbled backward into the marsh. The horse found its feet quickly and scrambled back onto the path, its eyes wild and white-rimmed. Cleddish thrashed about in the shallow water, shrieking hysterically.
"Pull him out!" Danilo called to those closest the fallen man.
Morgalla leaped from her mount and snatched her spear from its holder. Grasping it near the jester's-head top, the dwarf held the other end out to the hysterical mercenary and planted her booted feet wide. "Grab ahold," she hollered, but Cleddish was apparently past hearing or reason.
Then the source of his panic became apparent. Green hands rose out of the weeds and water, closing around thefrantic mercenary's throat. Danilo caught sight of long fingers ending in bulbous tips before Cleddish was pulledunder. The water churned madly for several moments. Morgalla flipped her staff around and bared the spear's tip, dancing back and forth as she tried to decide where tostab.
"Ride on," Elaith commanded softly. "Stay as far away from the causeway's edge as possible. Maybe the creatures are like wolves, only attacking those who weaken and fall away from the herd."
Morgalla spun on her heel. "Yer gonna leave him?" she demanded
"Yes," the elf said curtly. "And quickly, before whatever ate him decides to seek a second course."
As if on cue, a large green head broke the surface of the water several yards from where Cleddish had disappeared. The creature had the bulging yellow eyes and broad mouth of a frog, but as it rose from the water its body appeared to be roughly shaped like a man's. Its jowls suddenly bulged outward like those of a giant bullfrog, but with one difference: three long green appendages hung from the lower part of its giant air sack. A shrill, droning sound began to issue from the creature, an unmistakable call to battle that struck Dan as hideously similar to the skirl of bagpipes.
More of the creatures rose from the marsh in response to the summons, and the droning became a battle chorus. Elaith and his mercenaries fired again and again, but theagile frogs took cover under the surface of thewater andfew of the arrows found their marks. The frog creaturesclosed in, slowly and from all sides.
One of the pipers threw back his green arm and hurled a sharpened reed like a javelin. The rigid shaft sank deep into the flank of Balindar's horse. The animal screamed and reared, sending the huge mercenary into the marsh.
Again green hands reached out for their prey, but this time Morgalla was ready. She stabbed the creature through the wrist, then gave her spear a vicious tug back and up, pulling the frog creature partly onto the causeway. With its unharmed hand, it gripped her ankle, and its jowls bulged for another sort of attack: it shrieked. If a hurricane had been forced through a bagpipe, the sound could hardly have been less painful. Morgalla froze, her face contorted with agony.
Two streaks of