The Jewel of Turmish - Mel Odom [88]
Taking cover behind a young elderberry tree, inhaling the sweet scent of the blossoms and aware of the bees working the flowers around him with no concern at all, Haarn prepared a spell, sheathing his scimitar. He touched the symbol of Silvanus at his throat and threw out his hand.
The trees around the skeleton bent and snaked their branches down toward the undead creature.
The beam of red light leaping from the jewel slashed through the tree branches. The smoldering limbs dropped into the shallow water of the marshlands, hissed, and sank beneath the dirty surface.
The clump of mud writhed and jerked into motion. The mud flew into the air and came down in a sprawling mass.
Not believing what he was seeing, Haarn watched as a creature forced itself to an erect position.
Shamblers, also called shambling mounds, lived in warm wetlands and underground caverns. Carnivores, they hunted animals even as big as they were. Haarn generally left them alone unless they unduly threatened a local animal population.
Like the other shamblers Haarn had seen, this one resembled a huge mass of rotting vegetation until it stood and revealed its humanoid shape. Two massive tree trunk legs, each sprouting root-like appendages as thick as Haarn's forearms, supported the creature. While the body of the shambler was yellowish brown, the same as the mud and muck of the marshlands, the two arms showed green as if freshly grown. The arms stretched out over twice the shambler's height, and moved like whips. Only a short distance from the shoulder, the arms each flared out into two pieces that looked like vines.
The shambler snapped out one of its vinelike arms. The arm sailed through the air with uncanny accuracy for a creature that seemed to have no eyes, and struck Broad-foot's shoulder. The attack ripped through the bear's fur and opened a crimson gash nearly a foot long.
Blood wept from the bear's terrible wound and matted fur. Angry and in pain, Broadfoot reared to his full height and started for the shambler. The shambler reacted at once, flailing the bear with the lashlike appendages that made up its arms. More bloody welts opened up on Broad-foot's body, but the bear didn't give ground.
"No!" Haarn yelled, yanking his scimitar free again.
He pushed away from the tree and ran at the shambler, certain Broadfoot would be slain before he could get away. Behind the shambler, the skeleton turned and started into the forest, making its way east again. Before Haarn covered the distance to the shambler, the skeleton had disappeared.
The shambler drew back its right arm again and whipped it forward. The smack of tentacles against the bear's flesh was interrupted by a sucking sound. As Haarn braced himself in the mud, he saw the blue-dyed fletching of an arrow jutting from the lump atop the shambler's shoulders. As he chopped at the tentacle that wrapped around one of the bear's legs, Haarn saw another arrow pierce the shambler not two inches from the first.
Haarn hacked at the arm holding Broadfoot. He brought the scimitar down in a two-handed swing. The blade cleaved deeply into the creature's muck and vegetation flesh and left gaping wounds that would have killed anything mortal. Even the shamblers Haarn had encountered before would have been seriously injured and probably withdrawn from the fight.
The creature released its hold on Broadfoot.
"Back," Haarn told the bear, grabbing a handful of fur and urging Broadfoot away from the shambler.
Haarn stayed with the bear, glancing back the way he'd come. Haarn spotted Druz already fitting a third arrow to her string.
"Aim for its chest," he called. "There's an organ that serves as its mind. That's the only way you can kill it."
Readjusting her position and stepping around a clump of brush, Druz steadied, then fired again.
The arrow flashed by Haarn less than a foot to his left. There was no warning from the shambler as it raced forward again, pursuing Haarn and Broadfoot even while