Extinction - Lisa Smedman [22]
The creature struck with its other hand, raking it across Halisstra's chest. The magical chain mail stopped the claws from penetrating, but the force of the blow sent Halisstra stumbling backward. She slipped on the slushy ground and went down. Sensing an easy kill, the troll lunged, and only at the last moment did Halisstra manage to bring her shield up. The troll's teeth sank into the edge of the shield, crumpling it. Then the troll shook its head, wrenching the shield from Halisstra's arm. Pinned to the ground by the weight of the monster kneeling on her, she was unable to bring her sword into play.
Negating his levitation magic, Ryld plunged down through the branches. He landed perfectly braced in a ready posture, drawing Splitter in one smooth motion from the scabbard at his back. Putting all the force of his will into the blow, he swung the greatsword with both hands and felt it slice cleanly into the troll's neck, cleaving it instantly. The head flew into the air, eyes blinking stupidly, then it landed and rolled away. The headless body reared to its feet and spun around as Ryld opened its stomach with a second sword swing, spilling foul-smelling entrails.
The headless, disemboweled troll finally stumbled away into the forest.
Halisstra lay on her back on the wet ground, gasping, rain spattering her face. Worried that she might be in immediate need of healing magic, Ryld reached down to help her and was slammed to the ground by an attack he should have anticipated. Rolling quickly away, he saw that the troll was back. The creature stumbled toward him, one hand holding its head on the stump of its severed neck, the other attempting to rake Ryld with its claws. Even as Ryld flipped himself up off the ground and back onto his feet, dancing out of the reach of those claws, he saw flaps of sinew burst out of the ropy muscles of the troll's neck and quest up like sentient worms to hook themselves into the head. Swifter almost than the eye could follow, they stitched the head back onto the body, while the entrails that had spilled from the troll's slashed belly sucked back into the stomach wound. Already the fingers that Halisstra's blow had sliced off earlier were starting to grow back. Knobs of pinkish-gray flesh pulsed outward from the severed digits.
Leaping forward, Ryld slashed at the troll's neck a second time, but the monster, unlike him, anticipated the attack. It ducked-startlingly fast-then lunged forward and wrapped a rubbery hand around Ryld's own. Ryld heard a bone in his hand crack and gasped at the incredible strength of the troll. Even with a hand that was missing two fingers, its fist was crushing his. The troll jerked Splitter out of Ryld's hand and cast it away.
Halisstra had struggled to her feet and was slashing at the troll's broad back, her sword making strange, flutelike noises as she swung it. The monster grunted with each stroke like a slave under the lash but otherwise ignored the deep cuts in its back. Whirling, it backhanded her away with a blow that sent her staggering. Ryld drew his short sword and thrust at the spot where the troll's heart should have been, but even though the blade buried itself to the hilt in the thing's rubbery chest the monster was not slowed.
A hand whipped out with the speed of one of Quenthel's whip vipers and wrapped itself around Ryld's neck. Powerful fingers tightened against flesh, choking off his breathing. Ryld felt a rush of magical energy flowing into his body from the dragon-shaped ring on his finger, as the ring hardened his flesh against the troll's claws-but too late. His windpipe had already squeezed shut. Abandoning his sword, still hilt-deep in the monster's chest, he drove stiffened fingers into what would have, on a drow, been a crippling pressure point-then he winced. He might as well have driven his fingers into solid stone.
Halisstra charged back