Stardeep_ The Dungeons - Bruce R. Cordell [101]
The fungus hulk, Kiril, and the monk formed a rough triangle. Back to back, they were stemming the onslaught.
But for how long?
His skills had rarely been matched in his temple. But for all his expettise, his talent was bettet used against foes whose flesh was living, or at least supple. Of the many lessons he'd learned at Xiang, one was fundamental. In a fight, a defender either treated himself as the center and moved his foes around him, or he treated his foes as the centei and moved around them. Raidon was a master of the former fighting style. Unfortunately, it was a style unsuited to fighting animated fossilized corpses.
He fell back, kicking, chopping, and evading until he stood only a few paces from Kiril. He yelled, "These creatures attack us without end! Are they truly undead, or is the earth itself forming and spewing them forth, mockeries of life meant to deprive us of ours?"
The ferocious but strangely vacant gaze of the swordswoman, as she methodically destroyed every monstrosity that strayed into her reach, gained some measure of animation. She muttered, "If they're being created as quickly as we can destroy them…"
"Then we are doomed if we make a stand here," finished Raidon, sidestepping the bull rush of a towering stone humanoid.
Kiril gritted her teeth and said, "Hear that, bastard? This fight is concluded already-you're just too dim-witted to recognize it." Raidon realized she spoke to her blade. "Ease up on me, and I can get us out of here. Should I die here, you'll be without a wielder. You'll have no vessel for your damned piety. We're close to Stardeep. Have you considered this uprising might be a ploy of the Traitor…"
She suddenly pirouetted in a full blazing circle, smashing half a dozen advancing figures to rubble. She continued, "… though these… undead or stoneborn… do not have the feel of something left behind by aberrations. They are something different. I doubt they are tethered to the Traitor's will."
"But they are no less a threat. We must flee someplace safer, somewhere we can tend Adrik. And, I tire," confessed Raidon. He didn't have a magic blade to feed him limitless strength, or to mend his bones and stitch his flesh when he miscalculated. The blood flowing from his scalp threatened to obscure vision in his left eye. Several cuts on his arms and chest threatened to spill blood, but were restrained from gushing only through his strict control and focus on his body. If one more stone fist penetrated his guard and smashed him, he might fall.
The animate stone with Raidon's daito embedded in its neck trundled into Kiril, arms wide, undeterred by the length of steel. It knocked her back two paces. Her eyes lost their moment of coherence. She yelled in an oddly resonant voice, "Pretenders at life, feel the Cerulean Fire!" She lopped the arm, upper chest, and head from her attacker as if it were formed of clay, not stone.
The daito clattered free and Raidon retrieved it with an easy motion. He sheathed it immediately. He couldn't risk using it again, and more importantly, he did not want to view any damage upon the weapon from his brash attack.
Abruptly, a colossal hand reached down and plucked Adrik from the ground. Raidon yelled, but the fungus hulk turned and thundered clear of the mushroom grove. It tan toward an opening in a far wall, bowling over several stony attackers who failed to clear its path.
"Kiril, we must follow-that thing has Adrik!" The monk backed quickly towatd the retreating fungus hulk. Had they been fooled by the hulk? Did it think the fallen sorcerer was food?
The swordswoman, with an obvious effort of will, also fell into a retreat. She called, "Follow it-the creature forges a path for us, knowingly or not!" Above her, the circling dragonet pealed an ongoing commentary on the battle raging below