Frostfell_ The Wizards - Mark Sehestedt [112]
The sorcerer laughed, a rasp like dust sliding down gravestones, and said, "This blade cuts more than flesh, boy. You're right… to fear it. To fear me."
He raised the blade.
Jalan continued to kick and punch, but to no avail. He thrashed and turned, hoping against hope to be able to avoid the dagger.
"Don't struggle, boy," said the sorcerer. "Soon all will be… over. For you. Darkness. Cold. But for me… tonight I'll wear your… s-skin when I find your mother. When I… eat her heart."
Unable to look away, Jalan watched as the decaying muscles tightened in preparation for the downstroke-
A dark shape fell out of the sky and struck the sorcerer in the back, smashing him into the rocks. Jalan screamed. A demon! The sorcerer had summoned a demon to take his soul!
But the figure that struggled to his feet was no demon. He was a man-tall and thick with hard muscle, dressed in torn bits of leather that might once have been clothes, and every inch of him coated in dried blood. From the near-black blood, the man's eyes seemed to shine forth with both fury and pain. In one hand the man held a single-edge knife, the blade of which was almost as long as his forearm, and in the other he held a black iron club.
The sorcerer stood. His robes and much of his cloak had been torn away, and in the rents Jalan saw bits of ribs broken through the emaciated, gray skin. But even as he watched, the bones sank back into the flesh, mending with a sickening popping and crunching.
The man brought his club down in a fierce strike aimed for the ash-gray cowl, but the sorcerer caught the club in his hand. Bone cracked and tiny bits of flesh flew away, but the sorcerer did not weaken his grip. He twisted the club out of the man's hand and brought the club back around, striking the man with his own weapon. The club caught the man in the gut and he folded in half as he tumbled off the hill.
The sorcerer turned back to Jalan, but the boy was too frozen with shock and fear to move. Where had the man come from? Who was he?
Dropping the club, the sorcerer snarled and shambled forward, but he made only two steps when another figure dropped out of the sky, more gently than the man had, and landed between them. The clothes and cloak were strange, but Jalan recognized her at once.
"Mother!"
She kept her back to him and turned to the sorcerer. "Get away from my son, you bastard!" she roared. She thrust forward a strange golden-red staff and shouted, "Keljan saule!"
CHAPTER THIRTY
The Isle of Witness
The sorcerer screamed and flung Lendri away. He thrashed, his shriek rising in pitch until it passed beyond hearing. Still, the belkagen could sense it rattling inside his skull. The flames caught in the sorcerer's sleeves and lower robes, then ran down as if he were dipped in pitch.
Three shadows fell out of the storm sky and landed around the burning sorcerer. The tallest of the newcomers flung his palms out in an arcane gesture and screamed the words of a spell. A channel of wind filled with snow and sleet hit the gathered sorcerers, and so great was its force that the flames sputtered and died.
Most of the sorcerer's robes had gaping holes. His face was that of a cadaver kept alive by dark magics, his skin withered, gray, and stretched over a hairless skull. His nose was long gone, leaving only a desiccated hole. His eyes were deep pits rimmed in cold frostfire, and they bore down on the belkagen, who still lay prostrate on the rocks. The sorcerer raised his hand and pointed even as he spoke the words of his incantation.
The belkagen was halfway to his feet when the air around the sorcerer's hand coalesced and froze into a blue-white light and shot forth. The belkagen spoke his own spell and raised his staff just in time. The light struck the staff-
–a sharp crack, followed by a flash of darkness that the belkagen saw behind his eyes-
And the staff shattered, splinters and tiny shards of ice flying into the old elf's hand and face.
The belkagen screamed but kept moving. He turned his cry of pain into words of power and spread his