The Coral Kingdom - Douglas Niles [34]
The elemental tore its great feet free from the ground and clumped toward the monster. A tentacle lashed across the elemental's face, and the creature of earth seized the tendril in hands the size of boulders, planting its feet and tugging. The strand grew taut, and for a moment, the two creatures held in equilibrium, each struggling to dislodge the other.
Warlike chords of music rang through the air as Tavish took up her harp. The music infused the humans with courage. Suddenly Alicia found her fears vanquished, replaced by a grim determination to smite this horrific creature. Hanrald and Brandon urged their horses toward the monster, shouting challenges and raising their weapons-Brandon, his great, double-bladed axe and Hanrald his immensely long sword wielded in both his metal-gauntleted hands.
Even Pawldo darted forward, spurring his pony into a gallop while he drew a shortsword from a sheath on his saddle. Whooping savagely, he dashed up to one of the monster's legs and chopped with all the strength in his small, tough body. The pony skipped nimbly away as the beast swiveled toward the annoying attack.
The earth elemental, its feet still firmly planted, pulled on the monster's tentacle, and the force of the creature was enough to jerk the monster around, allowing Pawldo and his pony to barely escape the beast's clutching grasp.
Alicia spurred her horse and drew her longsword. Her instincts as a warrior ran deep, and loyalty to her companions told her that she belonged beside them. Thus she reacted with outrage when her mother seized the mare's bridle and hauled back as the princess rode past.
"Let go!" demanded Alicia.
"Use the staff!" Robyn cried, ignoring her daughter's command.
For a moment, the princess simply stared at her mother as if the queen had lost her mind. Alicia held a perfectly good-indeed, an exceptionally good-sword in her hand, and she had trained for much of her life in that weapon's use.
Yet now her mother urged her to set that aside in favor of a shaft made from a piece of wood.
But then Alicia remembered the reborn power of the goddess, and she wasn't so sure. "How?" Alicia asked, one eye on the heroic charge of the fighters. Brandon's axe bounced off the monster's shell, while a tremendous blow from Hanrald's sword inflicted a tiny nick in its bony plate.
Pawldo circled back, darting in with his shortsword raised when he saw an opening. The beast seemed to sense his approach, however, turning back toward the halfling and ignoring the two human warriors. The pony squealed as a tendril seized its foreleg. Another limb with sharp, bony edges slashed at the small horse, ripping a great wound in its flank as Pawldo flew from the saddle.
The halfling bounded to his feet, his face twisted in fury, and was about to charge with his shortsword when Hanrald rode up behind him. Seizing Pawldo by the collar, the earl yanked the little fellow off the ground and carried him, screaming and cursing, away from immediate danger.
"Plant the staff in the ground, then use the word!" Alicia's mother said urgently.
In a flash, Alicia remembered Robyn's instructions at the Moonwell. Her mother had been mysterious about the shaft's use, yet there was no time for questions. She pulled the staff from her saddlebags and leaned over to plant its base on the ground.
"Phyrosyne!" she shouted, mimicking the word her mother had given her with the staff.
Immediately the wood expanded upward and grew thicker-like a tree undergoing thirty years' growth in mere seconds, the princess thought in amazement. Branches shot out to the sides, armlike appendages with stout, grasping twigs as fingers. The trunk split into two, forming a pair of solid pillars that held the creature upright. Then the mighty legs flexed, to carry the tree thing forward in steady, ponderous strides. It marched as rigidly as a soldier trying to impress a strict sergeant-major. Higher it grew, reaching twice the height of the earth elemental. Alicia gaped at the tree creature in awe.
"Now-command it!" her mother urged.
The princess