The Jewel of Turmish - Mel Odom [89]
The threat drew an immediate response from Broadfoot. The bear shrugged off Haarn's tugging hand and gave in to instinct.
Haarn stepped away, setting himself in the mud, and watched helplessly as the bear met the shambler's lunge. Though Broadfoot was the taller of the two, even the great bear didn't have the shambler's bulk. When the shambler slammed into Broadfoot, the force of the impact carried the bear backward. Broadfoot tried to stand his ground, but the mud gave way beneath his clawed feet.
Another arrow feathered the shambler's chest, and Haarn silently acknowledged Druz's skill with the bow. Even with four arrows in it, the dread creature wasn't slowed at all. Two of the shafts snapped off as it fought Broadfoot.
The bear stood his ground, leaning on the shambler's greater bulk and managing through sheer strength and rage to hold the monster back. The shambler's vinelike arms whipped again, leaving furrows of torn and bloody flesh. During the next attack, the shambler wrapped the two appendages at the end of its left arm around the bear's broad upper body and tightened its grip. The shambler's rootlike feet plunged into the ground and took hold.
Locked down as it was and holding Broadfoot, Haarn knew that the shambler was at its most vulnerable-and most deadly. The constricting power of even a normal shambler could break a man in half. The bear would only take longer.
Haarn prayed to Silvanus for his next spell, then unleashed the power within him as Broadfoot's growls of rage tightened to shrill agony. With the constricting coils around him, Broadfoot couldn't take another breath. If the bear's ribs didn't shatter and pierce his heart, then he was doomed to a slow death by suffocation.
Gripping the scimitar, Haarn hurled himself at the creature. He knew it was aware of him by the way it moved its body, but it had already chosen its victim and the only way it could engage Haarn was to release the bear.
Haarn stepped behind the shambler, praying that his spell would work in time. Holding the scimitar in both hands, he drove it deeply into the creature's broad back. Nearly a foot of steel penetrated the shambler's body before the scimitar stuck. A frantic buzz reached the druid's ears, and he knew at once it was the horde of flying carrion beetles bis spell had summoned. He just didn't know if they were arriving in time.
The shambler shifted slightly as Broadfoot's wailing blows finally died away and the bear slumped in the creature's vine-arms.
Fearing the bear was dead, hoping his companion was only unconscious, Haarn shoved the scimitar harder. The wound gaped more obscenely and made sucking noises like a man pulling his boot from mud, then the flying beetles arrived.
Sunlight and shadow alternately dappled the insects' hard carapaces as they streaked toward the shambler. Haarn held the wound open. Some of the beetles flew into the gaping hole, but others clustered over the shambler's back, forming a hard crust of chitin-covered bodies.
Haarn ripped the scimitar free of the wound, satisfied the gorging mass of beetles would keep it open, and sprinted around the shambler. If the creature felt the invasion of its body, it gave no indication.
At the shambler's side, still gripping the muddied scimitar, Haarn brought the blade crashing down into the vinelike arm that was wrapped around Broadfoot. The bear's legs twitched and his eyes were closed, but the druid knew his companion was alive.
Druz stepped into place on the other side of the shambler. She'd dropped her bow somewhere behind her, but she wielded her long sword with grim intensity.
The shambler released its hold on Broadfoot. Weak and helpless, the bear dropped into the mud, but Haarn heard the whoosh of air sucked into Broadfoot's lungs.
Crouching again, pulling the massive tree trunk legs free of the ground, the shambler faced Haarn in eerie silence.
The druid's senses, so finely tuned