High druid of Shannara_ Jarka Ruus - Terry Brooks [111]
“What is it doing?” she whispered.
Weka Dart’s eyes were bright. “Listen.”
She did, and then she heard it, too — a high-pitched, keening sound that seemed to come from everywhere at once. It was clearly bothering the ogre, who was grunting with annoyance, lifting its head every so often in a futile effort to search out the source. The sound intensified steadily, turning to a wail that cut right to the bone, raw and harsh and filled with pain.
Finally, the ogre stopped walking altogether, turning this way and that, blunt features twisted into an ugly knot. Grianne flattened herself further. The ogre was looking for something on which to vent its irritation, and she had no desire to provide it with a target. Weka Dart lay motionless, as well, but she saw the knowing smile at the corners of his mouth. There was anticipation in that smile, and she did not care for the look of it.
Suddenly, small, four-legged creatures began to appear, coming out of the grasses and from behind the rocks, a handful at first and then dozens. Their sharp-featured cat faces and sleek, sinuous shapes were unmistakable; she recognized them at once, even though she had never seen one before. Furies. She had read about them in the Druid Histories. Only once since their imprisonment had they broken through the Forbidding, doing battle with Allanon and nearly killing him. They were creatures of madness and mindless destruction, the worst of the many bad things imprisoned in this world. They attacked in swarms and were drawn to their victims by a hunger for blood. In the world of the Jarka Ruus, everything avoided them.
They closed now on the ogre, coming at it from all directions, so many that she could no longer count them. The ogre waited on them, its small, piggish eyes already anticipating the damage it would inflict on the creatures. Because it was young, it did not realize the danger it was in.
When they attacked, leaping blindly at the ogre, it smashed them like flies, wielding club and fists with equal effect. The Furies were smaller and their bodies unprotected, and those it found could not save themselves. But there were too many for the ogre to stop, and soon they had broken through its defenses, biting and tearing at its massive body with teeth and claws. Bits of flesh and patches of hair came away, and in moments the ogre was slashed and bleeding from head to foot. It fought on because that was all it knew to do, killing Furies as long as it could, struggling to stay upright.
But in the end, they pulled it down, severing ligaments and tendons, shredding muscle and flesh, draining its blood and its strength until it was helpless. Bellowing in rage and despair, it disappeared beneath their relentless onslaught, blanketed in a squirming, heaving mass of furry bodies, borne to the earth until its life was gone.
Grianne, who had witnessed many terrible and violent deaths in her own world, nevertheless cringed at that one. The ogre meant nothing to her, and yet she was horrified by what had happened to it. She wanted to look away when the ogre was reduced to its final shudders and gasps, but she could not. It took a tap on her arm from Weka Dart to recall her to her senses.
“This way,” the Ulk Bog whispered, “while they are busy.”
They crawled through the grasses along the top of the rise and then down the reverse slope until they were out of sight. Once concealed from view, they stood and began walking, neither speaking, concentrating on the sounds that came from the other side of the hill.
When they were far enough away that they could no longer be heard, even by cat ears, Weka Dart turned to her. “Better they find it than us,” he said with a wicked smile.
She nodded in agreement. But she did not feel good about it.
They slept that night in the trees again, and Grianne did not offer any objections. She understood how vulnerable they were to the creatures that roamed the Pashanon under cover of darkness. Many she had not even seen, but a single viewing of the Furies was