Temple Hill - Drew Karpyshyn [51]
"Hold on, 111 check." The female finished her scan of the door, confident there were no trip wires or other devices to set off a warning. The watcher laughed silently. They were so cautious, so careful. Yet they were oblivious to the true threat, the creature that would feast on their flesh. Their doom hovered not twenty feet away, but their attention was on a harmless door.
The female leaned forward and carefully placed her ear against the door, listening for signs of life on the other side. Again, the watcher was still as stone.
"I don't hear anything. I think we're safe. Let me get my pick out," she added, standing up and turning to face her companion. "I'll start on the lock."
Then she froze.
"Corin," she whispered at last. "There's something in the shadows behind you. A snake, I think. A big one."
The watcher spat on the floor in disgust. The female could see her through the blackness, sensing the temperature of the watcher's cold blooded body against the slightly warmer background of the wooden crates.
"Don't move," the male whispered back. "I'll draw it out."
He did a slow pivot to face the watcher, and began to tap his foot on the floor in a soft, arrhythmic motion.
The watcher sneered. They thought it was an animal, an ignorant beast driven by instinct. They were fools.
The watcher began an incantation, its sibilant voice weaving words of power in the air. A simple spell, yet effective. A magic shield to hide it from sight-even from the damnable heat sensitive vision of the female.
"Wait, Corin. It's gone now. It just sort of… disappeared."
The watcher began a second spell. A charm to put the thieves to sleep while it devoured their living bodies. It would gorge itself on their beating hearts, pumping and spurting blood from their still warm corpses until only swords, boots, and a small pile of bones remained.
"Sssleep," the watcher hissed as it finished the spell. The male drooped his head, the female shut her eyes, but only for a brief second. With a start they both snapped awake. They were strong. Stronger than the watcher first expected. Perhaps here was an adversary worthy of destroying-unlike that pathetic snoop Berg.
"Did you feel that?" the female asked. "For a second I was so tired I nearly passed out on my feet."
"Magic," the large one said, his voice louder than before. "There's more than just a snake hiding in those shadows."
"Wait, Corin. I see it again. In the corner. It's huge."
Casting the sleeping charm had nullified the watcher's protective spell of ^visibility. The female thief could see it again, but the male still peered hopelessly into the darkness.
With another litany of arcane chanting, the watcher quickly cast a third spell-one to keep its opponents from communicating and coordinating their attacks.
The male tried to speak to his female companion, asking her to point him in the right direction. Only oppressive silence came from his lips. Desperation flashed in the warrior's eyes, and the watcher heard the words, Afore sorcery. We're sitting ducks! shoot through his mind. With a soundless scream, the male leaped to attack.
He launched himself into the shadows, scattering crates and boxes in a noiseless vacuum of carnage as he tried to flush his unseen opponent into the light. But he attacked without direction, and he was nowhere near his target. The female pointed to the watcher, and tried to call out, but her warning went unheard, and unheeded, swallowed up in the magical blanket of silence that engulfed them both.
Amused at the antics of its prey, the watcher at first did nothing as the male flailed away in his futile search, and the female tried in vain to attract his attention and point out their enemy. Soon the watcher grew bored, and slithered out from its biding place to slay the intruders. The hunt was over, soon the feasting would begin.
The female let out a soundless shriek as the watcher closed in.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Corin had a bad feeling about this job. Right from the start, his instincts