The Dragon's Doom - Ed Greenwood [183]
It quivered, seemed to shudder soundlessly… and kept coming, as large as a one-horse cart, its low body covered with angled plates of bone.
Tshamarra cursed softly and backed away from the advancing bulk. "What is it?"
"Hawk!" Embra called sharply. "Back here, please! I like not the look of-"
Another monstrous something loomed up out of the drifting dust of the felled door, gliding through the ranks of Serpent-priests, and a soft green glow of magic wafted out from it, washing over the procurer and a priest he was busily slaying.
They stiffened and groaned in unison. Then the Serpent-man toppled, trailing blood, and Craer ducked away, falling heavily amid the rubble and losing the gory dagger he'd just used. On his hands and knees he scrambled clumsily but hastily back to Embra.
A Serpent-priest ran after the procurer, but Hawkril plucked up a fallen stone and hurled it hard, taking the man in the face and hurling him back into a hard landing on the floor.
Craer slithered to Embra's feet, his voice a raw gasp. "Whatever that is, its magic numbs… weakens… Three Above, it still hurts…"
Tshamarra hastily snatched the Dwaer from Embra and bent down to touch Craer's shoulder with it.
The Lady of Jewels eyed both advancing monsters, and frowned. "Hawk," she asked quietly, "what are these beasts?"
"Fearsome monsters, Lady," Craer offered brightly, shaking still-numbed hands as he smiled his thanks up at the Lady Talasorn. Embra didn't even bother to sigh.
The armaragor pointed at the bone-plated, crablike creature advancing slowly toward them from the archway. Serpent-priests could be seen advancing in its wake, keeping well back. "Yon's a dargauth, moving about as fast as such things can move. 'Tis like a gigantic scorpion without a stinging tail. Those two pincer-claws up front are what it slays with; they can easily crush warriors, armor and all. See the dark syrup dripping from its barbs? Smeared on… poison, methinks."
"Plague-taint," Tshamarra murmured. "Let's blast it."
Embra nodded, and they directed the full fury of the Dwaer on the crablike dargauth as they backed away, eyeing the other monster now. Blackgult's circling Stone flashed at each orbit, tugging at the fire the sorceresses of the Four were sending.
"Over here, Ladies!" Craer snapped.
Embra whirled, stabbing out with one hand, and brought the Dwaer-fire with her. It washed over a handful of spellweaving Serpent-priests, setting the clinging dust cloud aflame, and seemed to struggle with a fresh gout of the soft green glow spewed by the larger, gliding monster.
Craer shook his head. "The Snake-lovers certainly seem to have made the Silent House their home. Hawk, this beast would be-?"
"A sarath of the swamps. They must have used spells to tame it, but yon green light is magic of its own, that slows prey and foes, even puts small creatures to sleep or freezes them where they stand. The spell-bolts come from somewhere amid those spines along its back, but it feeds like a score of eels: with many little fanged sucking maws on its belly. We're food to it-and it can smother, too. I've only ever seen one before."
"Charming," Tshamarra remarked, as they backed away to the very tingling edge of Blackgult's Dwaer-barrier. "Any chance of getting these two horrors to fight each other?"
"Not while the priests are controlling them," Embra replied grimly. "I'll not be surprised if both these beasts turn out to be humans twisted by the plague."
"We haven't swords enough to fight both," Hawkril rumbled. "Any swift sorcery?"
"Litde time for that, either," Tshamarra snapped, watching the beasts close in. Neither the scuttling thing nor the gliding one were moving with any haste, but they