Ghostwalker - Erik Scott De Bie [92]
Meris sighed. How disappointing. His aim had been too good. He had really been hoping for the chance to inflict some good old-fashioned terror and pain.
Well, he might as well go down and make sure the courier was dead.
He slid down the shadowtop trunk and landed deftly on both feet. Hooking his crossbow back on his belt, he drew his trusty hand axe. He had lost his old long sword in the forest, but he had Walker's shatterspike to replace it. He kept the fabulous weapon-spoils of war, he figured-sheathed at his belt. He would not need both weapons to handle a weak and helpless druid who was probably already dead.
The druid lay like a discarded doll, legs grotesquely bent. The quarrel, standing out from the druid's face, pointed straight up at the sky. Sighing at his own perfect aim, Meris raised his axe high and bent low to pull the hood aside.
When he did, he found Amra Clearwater's very alive eyes staring at him. She had been holding the quarrel up to her face, but now moved it aside and smiled at him.
"Well met, Meris Wayfarer," she said with a wink.
''Bane's blood!" Meris shouted.
He swung the hand axe down at that smile, but Amra caught it. The blade made not the slightest nick in her palm and Meris felt as though he had swung at solid rock. What was more, reddish magic flowed from Amra's palm and traced its way along the axe blade. Meris watched, horror-stricken, as the fine steel rusted over, corroded, and fell apart in his hand.
Suddenly unarmed, he leaped back and reached for the shatterspike. He was too slow, for Amra extended her hand toward him and a lightning bolt shot from the sky to strike at his feet, throwing him to the ground. Shivering with electricity, Meris tried to scream but found he did not have the breath. His legs, however, still worked, and he took full advantage of them to remove himself from the druid's presence.
As he ran, Amra rose up into the air, borne aloft by roiling lightning and wind. "You will pay for slaying Peletara, bastard!" she shouted.
"Everyone calls me that," muttered Meris as he hurled a dagger at the floating druid.
The tiny blade, flashing through the air, seemed inconsequential compared to the fury of nature's power coursing through his opponent. Sure enough, the dagger skipped off her shoulder.
Stifling a curse, Meris beat a hasty retreat to the cover of the trees and yanked the light crossbow free of his belt. Hands still twitching, he fought to load a quarrel into the weapon.
"You cannot run!" Amra shouted. "You cannot escape!" Words of power flowed from her mouth like a torrent of rain as she cast another spell.
At first, nothing happened. Then the trees behind which Meris hid twisted and curled, reaching gnarled branches toward him. Cursing, the wild scout struggled and squirmed free before they could grasp him.
"Beastlord's breath!" he growled as he fumbled at his belt pouch, staggering away.
He possessed a valuable-and expensive-item for just such an occasion: a last stand against a spell hurler. Normally, he never would have considered wasting such power for Greyt's sake-he would have preferred to run and leave the task incomplete. How, though, could he escape a woman at whose command the trees bowed and the very weather served? The choice was between much wealth and his life, and Meris was a survivor.
Even as Amra glided through the swaying, animate trees, lightning sparking from her eyes, Meris pulled the cloudy gray stone out of his pouch. It was plain and without ornament-it could have been any river-smoothed cat's eye, seemingly worthless. Within it, however, pulsed the spark of antimagic-a power he needed desperately.
As Meris leaped aside, narrowly dodging a bolt of lightning, he crushed the stone in two and hurled the pieces back. Not watching where he ran, he tripped over a slithering tree root and fell away from Amra. Even as he went down, he turned in the direction of his enemy, watching the stone's pieces fly toward her.
An aura of golden energy, pulsing with red sparks, burst from the broken stone in the air and struck Amra like a