Stormlight - Ed Greenwood [112]
*****
The canopy fell away in tatters as lightning crackled and smoked along the ceiling. There was no one there.
The noblewoman lowered her wand and looked down at the bard. Storm did not awaken. Shayna was close enough now to see the shallow rise and fall of the Harper's breast. The master must be coming to feed, and take the bard's life at last.
"Well done, Shayna," his compelling voice came from just behind her. "Go now and guard the door. Blast anyone who tries to enter or strike at us from outside.
Shayna gave the shapeshifter a weak smile. She moved mutely out of the way. On her way to the door, she looked back and saw h i m wrap two tentacles around the posts of the bed and haul himself up onto it almost impatiently. A delicate tentacle probed down, stroking the woman from knee to chin in what was almost a caress, drawing the shroud aside. There was no reaction.
"She's in a trance at last," he murmured aloud, and lowered himself to straddle her. Shayna took up her stance by the doors, crossed her arms, and then risked another glance back at the bed. What would it look like when the master subsumed the powers of someone
who was almost a god?
The master's eyes gleamed with sudden fire. Shayna almost looked away-but suddenly Storm's own eyes were open. The Hungry Man's hands whipped up from her throat in a blur, reaching for the master!
The shapeshifter reared back with a choked, startled sound. The meaty smack of a fist striking flesh snapped across the room as the Hungry Man, tortured fury blazing in his own eyes now, punched his master with all his force.
The shapeshifter reeled. Storm's long legs rose up to hold him in a scissors lock. Tentacles flailed and grew bony spurs to stab with, but the Hungry Man surged forward, punching and throttling…
SHAYNA! The thought was furious, clawing at her will almost frantically. Shayna brought the wand up without thinking, in fascination watching the unfolding battle on the bed.
Something washed over her like cool, perfumed water. She found herself blinking, a hazy picture of the war wizard Broglan's face floating before her eyes. The Dark Master's mind touch was gone! She was-free!
The shapeshifter grew tentacles in a frantic forest of eel-like wrigglings. The doors of the robing-room burst open, and Broglan emerged, his head adorned with a tangle of lacy lingerie and gauzy stockings. He ran grimly at the bed.
A tentacle shot out in a blur. Shayna found herself reeling back, head ringing from a slap that had almost broken her neck. Her fingers were burning where friction had stopped the flesh from them-from the blow that had shattered her wand. As she stared at them, its fragments spilled from her nerveless fingers. The tentacle reached for her again. Broglan laid on it a hand that blazed with sudden fire.
Smoke curled up from the eel-like member. The master roared out his pain, but dare not spare more attention to whatever was melting away his flesh. He had more pressing problems.
Through a bucking forest of tentacles, Shayna saw the shapeshifter and the Hungry Man staring at each other, nose to nose, muscles rippling and trembling as they strained to throttle each other.
Then flames raced out from the Master's eyes in a fiery plume.
Storm was twisting out from under them both as the flames roared, blinding-bright. When they died away, the Hungry Man was headless.
The body of the servant toppled, truly mindless now, Shayna screamed and ran, brushing past a startled Broglan, to get her own slim fingers around the shapeshifter's neck. She struck him from behind, digging in her nails to draw blood, howling, shaking him back and forth in a sudden frenzy of pain and rage and loss… but he was flowing out from between her hands, changing shape, his head melting away!
The master oozed across the bed, growing tentacles