Stormlight - Ed Greenwood [92]
“Mercy and kindness are power,” Insprin replied firmly, weaving another spell as he backed away from the slowly advancing tentacle. “The slowest sorts to reward, but among the most mighty.”
"What nonsense d'you speak?" the shapeshifter asked scornfully as Insprin spread his hands. Something that glowed drifted up from between them. "Tell me-how are they mighty?"
"They separate the truly just and noble from all others," Insprin replied softly, dodging away from the tentacle and drawing the dagger from his belt.
"And why," the foe asked, as his tentacle lashed out with the sudden speed of a striking snake and snapped around Insprin's throat, "would I want to do that?"
"What manner of monster are you?" Insprin gasped, feeling the coils tighten and knowing his dagger would be too little a fang to cut it in time.
The shapeshifter shrugged. "Once men worshiped me," he gloated, "and called me Bane."
Insprin Turnstone's face turned pale, and he closed his eyes.
The shapeshifter shook him by the throat as if he was a rag doll. "Hah! Not so noble now, are you, dead hero! I'll have your spells first, and then…"
Insprin opened his eyes again and gasped, "You… shall… not."
And from above Insprin, the glowing blade he'd wrought with his spell arrowed down to strike his own head.
Bright radiance burst in all directions, and the foe roared in pain as lightning spiraled down his tentacle. Hastily he severed it, reeling back as it dropped off to writhe and lash the floor like an agonized serpent.
"If that is what mortals mean by mercy," he croaked aloud," 'tis a power yet beyond me!"
His voice twisted into the icy fury of Pheirauze Summerstar. "Stole his spells from me in the end, did he?"Tentacles grew hands and pointed in unison-and the reeling, headless body that had been Insprin flew apart in all directions, bloody bones clattering against the walls.
The man-thing who once might have been a small, twisted part of the god Bane did not wait to see the remains of his victim. He whirled about with a roar of rage that echoed back from the keep all around. Wings grew and took him racing down dark passages, seeking the last wizard. Like a loosed thunderbolt, he swooped.
Men cowered away in fear and shielded their guttering torches.
There'd be time to slay them later, when he was done hunting wizards. A wizard, Broglan Sarmyn-leader of these ineffectual dolts. A man who must have some spells worth hurling. A bit of a coward, who'd probably be somewhere near the boldshield and the largest band of Purple Dragons, a man who was… there!
Broglan saw death coming for him, and knew it for what it was. He fired his wand carefully, but did not wait to watch its blue-white bolts strike home. If any of the men around him were to survive, he had to get clear of them, and die-if Mystra willed it-alone.
He broke into a run, bellowing, "Ergluth, stay back! Keep your men back!"
Stones loomed up ahead of him. half-seen in the darkness; he leapt over them, stumbled on loose rubble, and ran on, staggering. Behind him he heard wild, triumphant laughter. He spun, fired his wand at a flicker of movement, and ran on…
On into the Haunted Tower. In the distance, a pale phantom glided from doorway to doorway. Broglan shrugged and turned toward it, heading for a faint glow of moonlight. That must be the place the foe had blasted open to the sky.
Tentacles slapped at him and smote stones from the crumbling edge of a broken wall.
Broglan dodged desperately, his own breath deafening in his ears, and kept going. An archway, a glimpse of Shayna Summerstar’s face-wearing a crown?-from the gaping darkness of a chamber over-head, and he was clambering up a huge heap of stone.
A ball of fire burst ahead of him, hurling him back and blistering his face. He fell hard and tumbled on stones, losing his scepter somewhere in the fall.
He could see nothing but the afterimages of that flash. He was blind, and the foe was laughing somewhere nearer… and nearer…
He struggled to sit up and clear his head, shaking it violently. It throbbed. The