The Jewel of Turmish - Mel Odom [120]
Borran Kiosk only glanced back for a moment to make sure they weren't pursued. He didn't hesitate in his forward momentum. His future and the destruction of every living thing on the Turmish coastline and perhaps the Vilhon Reach itself lay ahead of him.
"What can you do with insects?" Allis asked. "You should be leading the army you brought back from the Whamite Isles. That's why Malar had the glove made."
Borran Kiosk wheeled around on her, giving vent to the anger that raged within him. His long, thick, purple tongue slid free of his jaws before he knew it. He almost sent it spiking into her face, stopping himself only at the last moment.
"I sought long and hard for my victory against the damned Emerald Enclave," he growled. "The cities along the Turmish coast were going to be mine. Mine! I had them all in the palm of my hand, but then the Emerald Enclave had to step in and ruin it."
Allis stepped back from him, drawing up to her full height.
The mohrg continued, "Now the Emerald Enclave will have to sit and watch as everything they have fought to build and preserve slowly dies and withers to ash. My vengeance will be complete, and it will be years in the making-not some invasion of Alaghфn that will bring about return attacks from the rest of Turmish. I learned that last time. You can't destroy living things. They have a tendency to unite, even when they are from disparate causes and normally hate each other. I taught them to hate me even more and to fear me. Give them something larger than themselves and they will rise to conquer it. Together."
Allis said nothing, and a moment passed before her footsteps started splashing in the muck after him.
T would be a fool if I hadn't learned something during my incarceration," Borran Kiosk said, reminding himself more than he was telling her. "Once I have assembled Taraketh's Hive and used its powers, all of these lands are doomed. I can hide and wait, though it may take a hundred years. As long as they do not destroy me, I can live forever. And I will." He thrust the torch ahead of him and continued on defiantly. "By all that is dark and unholy, they will die and-I will liver
When she saw Haarn get hit by the zombie facing him then stumble back with blood gushing from his shoulder,
Druz stepped in, praying to Tymora that she would be in time. She slid her shield under the zombie's blow. The creature's fist would probably have cracked Haarn's skull, but the shield protected him. The shock dislocated Druz's elbow.
Biting back a yelp of pain, she stepped in again, still managing to hold the zombie's hand back. She shoved a hip into Haarn, knocking him out of the way. Reversing her sword, grabbing it so that it jutted down from the heel of her hand instead of up, she swept the blade across the front of the zombie. The practiced cuts sliced open the dead thing's unprotected stomach and spilled its guts in twisting coils to the pier. She pushed the shield up, crying out from the pain of the dislocated elbow, and brought the sword across the zombie's throat.
The thing's head flopped backward, blinding it to anything in front of it.
Druz raised a leg and kicked the zombie backward. Her opponent took three stumbling steps and fell, sprawling over two dead men in Alaghфn watch uniforms.
Even as the zombie fell, three more lurched in to take its place.
Druz's spirits fell. She hadn't hoped to hold the dockyards after the arrival of the zombie reinforcements. Her experience as a mercenary had made that plain, but she had hoped to live. Gritting her teeth, lifting her shield with her injured arm as best as she was able, she reversed her sword.
"All right then, you dried-up, diseased bastards," she growled, "come on and taste good Cormyrean steel. My father made this blade, and he made it to last."
Before the zombies could reach her, Broadfoot rushed in. The bear bled