Realms of Valor - James Lowder [98]
The bones had been stripped of most of their flesh by the assassins, the tack and saddle chewed almost beyond recognition. That was more than enough to panic the highwayman. With a single glance back at his son, the Shadowhawk sprang toward the hedgerow. He fixed his cold eyes on the hillside beyond. The trees, leafless in the Uktar wind, promised safety with their high branches. If only he could reach them.... As soon as the highwayman moved, three tracks of churning earth shot across the road-two from the horse's grave, another from beneath Artus and Azoun. The groundlings burrowed furiously after the Shadowhawk, like sharks in bloody waters. They converged on him just before he reached the row of thorny bushes at the road's edge. Clawed hands burst through the topsoil and closed around his ankles. Talons sharp as swords tore deep furrows in the highwayman's boots and painful scratches in the skin below. The Shadowhawk screamed once before he disappeared into the burrow. The force globe vanished when the groundlings went after the highwayman. Prince Azoun hit the bottom of the sinkhole with a grunt of pain, then reached out to stop the boy from running. Artus ducked the prince's awkward grab, leaped from the hole, and raced to save his father. “They won't kill him!” Azoun shouted. “They're after me!” Artus wasn't listening. When he reached the burrow where the Shadowhawk had vanished, he stuffed the blue gem into his pocket and grabbed a more suitable weapon- a fist-sized wedge of stone tapering to a point at one end. Kneeling before the hole, he whispered, “Father?” His knees had barely touched the road before two squinting red eyes appeared in the blackness. Artus didn't wait to see what the groundling would do. Savagely he lashed out with the stone. The Shadowhawk had trained the boy in knife-fighting, but his years in the roughest alleys of Suzail had given him less orthodox fighting skills, too. In his hand, the stone might as well have been a warhammer, wielded by a young dwarven warrior from the halls of Earthfast. The blow landed on the bridge of the assassin's snoutlike nose, shattering it noisily. The groundling howled and clutched at its face. Artus attacked again, this time planting the stone squarely atop the creature's shaggy head. The sound of a skull fracturing resounded in the burrow. For an instant, Artus felt a surge of relief. Then the groundling burst from the burrow once more, crazed with pain and fury. When he saw the flash of the creature's teeth, the boy realized what a horrible mistake he'd made. Certain of his doom, Artus braced for the attack. He didn't close his eyes or turn away; fright had locked his arms and legs. The sole thought running through his mind was how stupid he'd been for putting the magical gem in his pocket.
Like a diving falcon, a silver blade flashed out of the night and pierced the groundling's back, right between the shoulder blades. The assassin's dirty paws went limp on Artus's arms. The thing puffed out a last stinking breath and was still. Artus stared in horrified amazement at the groundling. Short and stocky, it vaguely resembled the dwarves who sometimes passed through Suzail as itinerant sell-swords or miners or metalsmiths. Yet its features had been twisted by the Zhentarim's dark sorcery. Whatever stunted ears it had were buried in wild fur, its eyes reduced to nothing more than narrow slits. Artus had bloodied the long, fleshy snout, probably even broken it, from the awkward bend near its bridge. Even in death, though, the bristles on the snout's tip twitched spasmodically. The creature stank of rotten meat and fetid water. Sticks and decaying leaves, worms and crawling weevils, dotted its hairy flanks and the crown of its head. “Get to the trees!” Prince Azoun shouted. Artus, shocked out of his frightened stupor, looked up to find the prince bracing one dragonhide boot on the corpse. He was trying to wrench his sword free. The blade had gone right through the assassin, pinning it to the ground. Now it wouldn't budge. A shriek reverberated eerily from the depths