Realms of the Underdark - J. Robert King [52]
It would take many spells and long, long months in hiding to regain what had been lost in a few moments of red, reaving pain… but first to still the hands that had done this, forever!
Mirt fetched up against Asper, panting. "Are ye mad, lass? Yon-"
Asper shoved him away, hard, spun about, and dived away. Mirt staggered backward and, with a roar of pain, sat down hard on bruising stone. The beholder crashed into the stones where they'd stood, snapping and tearing with its teeth.
Rubble sprayed or rolled in all directions as the beholder raked the heap of stone apart, teeth grating on rock. The impact sent it cartwheeling helplessly away through the air-and uncovered a battered, unsteadily reeling tavernmaster.
Durnan found his feet and climbed grimly out of the heaped stones, growling at the pain of several stiffening bruises. He'd been buried long enough to know the first cold touch of despair and was in a mood to rend beholders.
"Urrrgh," Mirt snarled, waddling awkwardly to his feet. "What's this the earth spits forth? Tavernmasters gone carelessly strolling through Skullport?"
"Well met, old friend," Durnan said, grinning and clapping Mirt on the shoulder with fingers that seemed made of iron.
Mirt's mustache made that overall bristling movement that betokened a smile. "I saw the little minx ye came seeking, sitting as cool as ye please in Bindle's Blade, tossing down amberjack-so I came in haste, knowing ye'd be avidly hunting down a trap!" He cast a look at the beholder as it thudded into the wall of a stronghouse, where pale faces had just suddenly vanished from view. "So what did ye do to get a tyrant mad at ye? Refuse to kiss it?"
"Your wit slides out razor sharp, as always, Old Wolf," Durnan said with a sly smile that belied the light, innocent tone of his words.
Mirt gestured rudely in reply, and added, "Well?" "Nothing," Durnan said flatly, as they watched the beholder reel, steady itself, and begin to drift their way with menacingly slow, careful speed. "I came out of the Portal to aid a noble lady-and strode straight into a spell that snatched me here." He grinned suddenly. "Well, at least it saved me a bit of walking."
Mirt harrumphed. "Pity it didn't do the same for me." Rock shifted behind him, and he whirled around, sword out and low-only to relax and smile. "Lass, lass, how many times have I told thee how much I hate being sneaked up on from behind?" he chided Asper halfheartedly. She gestured past him with her sword.
"You'd better turn around again, then, my lord," she told him calmly, as a plucking at his belt told him that Durnan had snatched one of his daggers. Mirt grunted like a walrus and heaved himself around, puffing-in time to see the beholder rushing down at them again, beams of reaving light lancing out from its eyes.
"Keep behind me, both of ye!" the fat moneylender roared. "I'm shielded!"
"Against teeth like those? That's a spell you'll have to show me some time!" Durnan said, standing at Mirt's shoulder with a dagger in either fist. He'd lost his blade under all the rocks, and one eye had swollen almost shut, but the tavernmaster seemed content-even eager-as death roared down at them again.
With the ease and fluid grace of a prowling serpent, Asper slid up to stand at Mirt's other shoulder. "It seems strange to be worrying about a beholder's teeth," she said, "and not its eyes, for once."
"Get back, lass!" Mirt roared. "As if I haven't worries enough to-"
The beholder crashed into them, snarling and snapping. They hacked and slashed ineffectually against its bony body plates.
Its hot breath whirled around them as they jumped and hewed vainly and ducked aside-only to be struck and hurled away by what felt like a fast-moving castle wall. Durnan grunted as the tyrant smashed him down like a rag doll, and then rolled away into a gully as the beholder tried to crush him. Asper could not keep her feet when the jaws reached for her. She slid out of sight beneath the monster,