Quest for the Well of Souls - Jack L. Chalker [88]
Vistaru looked around appalled. Both Dillians were either out cold or dead; Burodir was frozen stiff, Renard was unconscious and covered with sticky Yaxa stuff.
She looked at the two survivors with her. "Nothing to do but go get them before they try again!" she yelled.
"I agree," yelled Trelig, slapping a new energizer into his pistol. "Let's go!"
"Let me go out the door first!" the Ghiskind cautioned. "I'm harder to kill."
There was no argument, and out it went, the other two following a second or so later when they heard no sound of struggle.
The hall was deserted, but there was a thin trail of a pale-green ichor leading toward the other room. One of them, probably the Yaxa from the nature of the stuff, had been hurt.
"Take it easy," the Ghiskind cautioned. "No sense in playing their game all the way. We hurt one, yes, but they're still a whole party and we're down to three. It's even now. If we go charging in there dead on, they'll just wipe us out. Let's think a minute."
* * *
Although Mavra and Joshi knew the plan, they were helpless to do anything one way or the other. This was not their fight; they wanted only to survive it.
When Wooley and Yulin had come crashing back through the door, the horses knew that the plan had been only partially successful; there were some gashes in Wooley's tentacles, too, which slowed the Yaxa a good deal, and a few nasty welts on Yulin's back. The Torshind entered by other means and slid back into its crystal shell.
"Be ready," the Yugash warned them. "The few remaining will come at us as soon as they can. It will be hours before they can count on any of their survivors, and they won't wait that long."
Wooley's death's head nodded. "If I were they, I'd be coming through that door right now. Check your weapons and be at the ready. Yulin! Dim the light so we can make sure the Ghiskind doesn't pull our own trick on us! Mavra and Joshi, stay back and out of the way!"
They waited tensely for the counterattack, and they didn't have long.
The door opened slowly, and they all trained their weapons on it, ready to fire as soon as the creature was visible.
It was the Ghiskind's ptir, against which they had only the energy pistols, but they fired anyway.
Which played right into the Ghiskind's hand.
The shots ignited a series of smoke and concussion grenades attached to the creature; these went off with a deafening roar that almost blew the door apart and filled the entire area with a dense, acrid yellow smoke.
Everyone was blinded, and Yulin started coughing. As he did so, something struck him hard on the back of the head and neck, knocking him down and rendering him semiconscious. His pistol skidded into the yellow fog.
The Ghiskind, its shell destroyed by the blasts, drifted across the room to the two horselike creatures it saw cowering helplessly against the far wall and entered the first one it encountered, taking control. Suddenly animated, Mavra made for the Torshind's crystal shell and plowed right into it, sending it sprawling. The horse reared and with its forelegs struck the fragile crystal form repeatedly, shattering it like glass.
The fog began to clear, allowing Trelig and Vistaru—who were wearing the breathers from their spacesuits—to join the action.
The Torshind abandoned its ptir for the body nearest it—Wooley's. The Yaxa was surprised, but the Torshind knew the Yaxa system well and was in complete control almost immediately. It quickly turned on Trelig, spitting the brownish substance.
The material didn't devastate the reptile as it had the Agitar, but the goo did blind him for a minute. Wooley then turned to the horse, which was finishing the job on the Torshind's shell, and raised its pistol.
Joshi, still amazed at Mavra's jumping into the fight, noticed Wooley's threat to her, although none of the others did. Without thinking, he leaped to the center of the room, placing himself between the Yaxa and Mavra, who was just turning around.
The pistol fired full-force, enveloping Joshi in a blinding electrical light that flickered like a photographic negative