Spellfire - Ed Greenwood [183]
There was no other way.
With a sigh, he brought the horse to a shuddering haft, leaped clear and then tied its reins to a sapling before the winded horse could move away. He checked what he carried with him. It was all secure.
Well and good. A quick glance up and down the road-empty, as far as he could see from here-and he quickly cast spells of invisibility and flight upon himself, and leaped into the sky.
He was gone before Delg found the exhausted horse and wasted several breaths in puzzlement, as he looked about for traces of anyone leaving the road nearby or continuing on foot, but found nothing. The dwarf shook his head and rode on, thinking of Burlane and Ferostil and Rymel, all dead now, all never to laugh with him again… well, perhaps he'd join them soon, if there were hostile mages about. He kicked his mule into reluctant hurry, and watched the road ahead narrowly, his axe ready in his hand.
"Someone follows us," Narm said, peering back over his shoulder as they rode.
"Some one?" Shandril asked him. "One? Alone?"
"Yes… a child, or one of the short races, on a mule,"
Narm said doubtfully. "Seems an odd traveler, to ride alone through the wilderness."
"Well, it is an open road," Shandril replied. "It cannot be untraveled, by any means." She turned in her saddle. Behind them, the land fell away in gentle hills to the dark woods and Deepingdale, and she thought she could see The Rising Moon, or where it must be. Tears touched her eyes for a moment, again-and then she saw bony death gliding coldly down out of the sky behind them.
"Narm!" she screamed, as she kicked heels to her mount and climbed forward onto its neck in sudden, wild urgency. "Get down!"
Narm looked, and saw. In frantic haste, he tore Term's gift from his neck and threw it away. Shandril had one glimpse of his white face before the world exploded around them.
What in the name of the Soul Forger was that? Delg stood in his stirrups, open-mouthed, as the great skeletal bulk arrowed down out of the sky ahead of him. It was like a dragon, but it was a skeleton! It was… oh, by the lode-luck of the dwarves, it must be one of those dracolichs Elminster had told him about!
Delg swallowed and sat down in his saddle again. He was getting too old for this sort of thing…
No dwarf stood a chance against that! Nor, he thought grimly, did little Shandril, even if she had married a boy who could cast a handful of spells and gained some fire magic of her own. The mule beneath him had slowed to a walk as he had sat thinking.
Delg booted it mercilessly in the ribs then, waving his axe so that it flashed in the sunlight. "Get you going!" he snarled into the mule's ears. "I'm late for a battle, and they'll be needing me, never fear!"
Thiszult flew low over the trees to one side of the road, the wind of his flight whipping past his ears in his haste. He had to find them, and get ahead of them.
Soon, now…
There was a flash and roar of flame ahead. Startled, Thiszult veered off to one side, rising in the air for a better look. Were they in a fight? This might prove even easier than he had thought!
A vast, dark skeleton wheeled in the air, and Thiszult gasped in astonishment. A Sacred One! But how did it come to be here? And-who was it? He had never seen one so large and terrible before! As he stared at the dracolich, its cold orbs met his gaze, and it rose toward him. Its skeletal jaws looking somehow amused.
But I'm invisible! Thiszult thought in amazement.
How can it see me? Or is that a power of the Sacred Ones?
From the great dracolich's maw, a blue-white bolt of lightning leaped and crackled. Thiszult did not have time to protest that he was a friend before it struck him. All his limbs convulsed at once, and he was dead, mouth open to speak, even before Shargrailar's bony claws struck his body and tore it apart.
Thiszult's secret, powerful magic fell to earth. It was lost in the trees below.
Far away, Salvarad of the cult sighed and turned