The Jewel of Turmish - Mel Odom [94]
His presence filled the marsh.
"Beware this thing," Haarn said, still dangling upside down. "A skeleton called it up from the earth."
The shambler turned. Though it had no eyes, it seemed to sense the elfin some manner. The elf was smaller than Haarn, smaller even than Druz, and more slender. Still, when he started toward the shambler, Druz moved to follow him into battle. The elf threw up a hand without glancing in her direction.
"You can't face that thing by yourself," Druz protested.
"Stay," the elf said. He closed on the shambler, stepping gracefully through the uneven terrain masked by the water.
The shambler loosened its squeeze on Haarn and pulled its feet out of the ground. It tinned, and as if toying with the new arrival, the shambler dangled its captured prize in front of the elf.
The elf spoke, but Druz couldn't understand the language, though she got the impression it was an old tongue.
As the elf s words died away, he raised his right arm. A blazing blade formed entirely of twisting red and yellow flames nearly four feet long sprouted from his hand. The flames danced and shivered, and Druz expected the elf to yank his hand back in pain. Instead, the elf lashed out with the fire sword.
The move caught the shambler unprepared and the flame blade cut through the shambler's vinelike arm. Haarn dropped from the shambler's grip like a fresh-harvested fruit.
For the first time, Druz saw the shambler hesitate before attacking. She thought the thing might have recognized something even more fearsome than itself.
The elf stood there with his blazing sword and the wind blowing through his hair. He spoke again as the shambler attacked with its other arm. Moving only enough to avoid the whipping lengths of the vinelike appendages, the elf lashed out with the flame sword again. Smoke puffed from the amputated end of the shambler's arm as the first half of it dropped, sizzling, into the mud.
Nearby, working in spite of the pain that still racked him, Haarn stripped the dead length of the shambler's arm from him. He tried to get to his feet, but his legs kept going out from under him.
Stepping back, opening his arms wide, the elf shouted to the heavens, his face upturned. Dark clouds formed above the shambler. Sparks flitted like fireflies inside the clouds. The shambler started forward then, like an avalanche of mud. Before it had taken three steps, the swirling dark clouds above it unleashed a column of white-hot flames that descended on the shambler.
Holding her empty hand up to shield her face from the heat, Druz peered through her fingers. Almost between heartbeats, the shambler dried out, hardened, then flaked to pieces. When the column of fire died away, a pile of gray ash-all that remained of the shambler-spread out over the water.
Druz sucked in a breath, only then aware that she'd been holding it. Wicked and acrid, the stench of the dying creature filled her nose.
"The skeleton," Haarn said.
"What skeleton?" the elf asked.
"I was trailing a skeleton."
Haarn pushed himself up from the ground with some difficulty, but Druz was still amazed at the druid's resilience.
"Who is the woman?" the elf asked.
Seizing his scimitar from the muddy ground, Haarn glanced at Druz, then quickly looked away. He looked self-conscious.
"She's…" he said. "She's a… friend."
Despite the tension of the moment and the unexplained appearance of the elf, Druz almost smiled in disbelief. She couldn't understand Haarn's deference to the strange elf. Since she'd known him she'd never seen him defer to anyone, but with the elf he acted like a student facing a harsh taskmaster.
"She shouldn't be here," the elf said. "She has the stink of city upon her."
Druz's ears burned in embarrassment and anger, but it was hard to be rancorous with someone who had just saved her life.
"I know," Haarn agreed. "Other business brought us together, business that I had no say in."
"You always have a say in the things you do, Haarn," the elf said. "I've always taught you that."
Blood tracked Haarn's face. He squatted and checked on Broadfoot