Realms of Shadow - Lizz Baldwin [43]
Melegaunt glanced toward the mountains. To his alarm, the distant fliers were now so close that he could make out not only the white bodies hanging beneath their wings, but their bandy legs and curved swords as well. Whatever the creatures were-and he had yet to see their like in a century and a half of wandering this world-they were as fast as baatezu. He only hoped they were not as adept as the pit fiends at defeating shadow magic.
Melegaunt sent the rescue rope out again and managed to pull in six more warriors before the bog people claimed the rest. Though he was not happy to fail so many-the number had to be nearly twenty-the Vaasans took their losses in stride, pausing only to grunt a half-understood word of thanks before rushing back to join Bodvar and their fellows in defending the women and children.
Seeing there was no more to be done, Melegaunt retrieved his tarp line and turned toward the mired wagons. With the half-naked warriors he had rescued rushing back to help, the women and old men were holding the bog people at bay with surprising displays of swordsmanship and bravery. No matter how well they fought, though, it was clear that the younger children and older clansmen lacked the agility to leap from wagon to wagon-especially over the heads of panicked oxen- as the warriors were doing.
Melegaunt rushed alongside the caravan, laying his shadow-walk close enough that the trapped Vaasans could jump from their wagons onto the path behind him. The bog people redoubled their attacks, glugging up alongside the walk in a near-solid wall. But all of Bodvar's clansmen were as well-trained and disciplined as his warriors, and they repelled the attacks easily. Though Melegaunt failed to understand why the bog people did not use their rotting magic on the wagons themselves, he was relieved that they were not. Perhaps their magic-user had run out of spells, or maybe the enchantment took too long to cast.
With their panicked masters rushing past, the mired oxen bellowed for help that would never come. Given time, Melegaunt could certainly have freed the creatures and saved the cargo in their wagons, but as things were, he would be doing well to lose no more of their masters. As he neared the end of the caravan, he was astonished to see that the bog people had not pulled even one of the beasts from its yoke. Whatever their reason for attacking the Moor Eagles, it had less to do with hunger than wanting to wipe out the tribe.
Melegaunt was twenty paces past the last mired wagon when a trio of bog people emerged before him, snatching at his legs with their webbed hands. He drilled the middle one with a black shadow bolt, then heard hooked finger-talons clattering off his spell-armor as the other two attempted to slash his legs from beneath him. He brought his boot heel down a sloping forehead and heard a loud pop as the skull caved in, then caught his other attacker by the arm and jerked it out of the peat. Save that the bog-man was covered in slimy brown scales and had a flat, lobsterlike tail in place of legs and feet, it looked more or less humanoid, with powerfully-built shoulders and a navel that suggested it was born rather than hatched.
It slashed at Melegaunt with its free hand several times. When its claws continued to bounce harmlessly off the wizard's shadow armor, it gave up and opened its mouth, attacking with a long, barb-tipped tongue so fast Melegaunt barely had time to tip his head aside and save his eye. He caught the tongue as it shot back toward the creature's mouth, then whirled around to find Bodvar and the rest of the Vaasans staring at him with expressions that were equal part awe and terror. "Don't just stand there," Melegaunt ordered, "kill it!" Only Bodvar had possession enough of his wits to obey, slashing the thing across the waist so hard that Us borrowed sword came a hair's breadth from opening Melegaunt's