The Jewel of Turmish - Mel Odom [117]
Haarn's heart swelled with pride as he watched the druids attack their undead foes. In the face of overwhelming odds, the druids stood their ground.
Broadfoot burst through the final ranks of the retreating would-be city champions and rose to his hind legs. Towering over the zombies, the bear laid waste to them. Massive blows from his front paws scattered the zombies in broken heaps of bone and torn flesh.
Haarn clutched his scimitar tightly and cut at a zombie to his left. The heavy blade connected and the zombie's head leaped from its shoulders.
Broadfoot roared again, dropping to all fours for an instant to regain his balance, then he surged up once more like a flesh and blood mountain and knocked a dozen zombies backward into each other. The first few were only bags of bones that were never going to be able to move again.
Magic shimmered through the air.
Great tentacles formed from thin air, and multi-colored rays touched zombies and reduced them to dust. Haarn grabbed the hand of another zombie as he drew the scimitar back, unable to get it into play quickly. Yanking on the zombie's hand, he pulled the foul thing off-balance then chopped the scimitar across its back, ripping through dead flesh and biting through its spine.
Black seawater boiled from the zombie's guts as its stomach opened and small crabs scuttled out.
Fighting revulsion, Haarn drew back his scimitar and cleaved the skull of another zombie. The creature continued to stare at the druid with hatred in its dead eyes, and it reached for him. Haarn slapped the creature's hand away with his free arm then stepped forward and to the side. He stamped and shattered the zombie's knee, driving it to the tilted wooden pier.
Only a short distance away, Druz Talimsir fought for her life. Her sword flew, gleaming as it reflected the flames that still burned in the ships, and zombie body parts dropped to the ground around her. Blood spattered her face and arms, and since the zombies didn't bleed, Haarn knew it was hers, though there were dead humans and elves at her feet as well.
A female druid came sprawling back out of the melee ahead of Haarn. He caught her and barely blocked a knife thrust in time that would have opened his throat for him.
"Sorry," she said then lunged back into the fray.
By the time she reached the line of undead staggering out of the water, she'd shifted into the form of a leopard. Her claws and fangs flicked into the zombies, slicing them to ribbons.
Haarn raced to aid Druz, getting there just in time to watch the mercenary skewer the last zombie in front of her with her long sword, then rip its throat out with her knife, decapitating it. She whirled on him, bringing her weapons to the ready.
"Are you all right?" Haarn asked.
Druz wiped the blood from her face. Only a few scratches showed and none of them looked serious.
"I'm fine," she said as she sheathed her dagger and leaned down, scooping up a round shield from a dead soldier.
Another lurch of zombies drew Haarn's attention back to survival. He fought with every trick and skill he knew. Anything mortal would have fallen before his blades a long time before. He thanked Silvanus that the zombies were so slow. He was tiring, but he was still faster than they were.
A whirlwind took shape near the water's edge, and Haarn knew that one of the elder druids had summoned it. The shrieking column of air danced through the zombies, picking them up and shooting them high into the air. The undead things fell back down onto the burning wrecks.
Farther out beyond the water's edge, four water ele-mentals surged up from the roiling surface. They rose from the sea like storm-tossed waves, each with two deep green orbs that served as eyes. When the elementals encountered zombies, they wrapped their watery arms around them and dragged them under the sea. The water churned, then zombie pieces-no longer in any shape to be animated-floated to the top.
Broadfoot continued fighting, snapping off hands, arms,