The Lost Library of Cormanthy - Mel Odom [70]
He added his own prayers to the Lady of the Forest to the priest's. Aymric's hand in his was already growing weaker.
A smoky blue aura glowed around Carceus's hands. He kept his fingers wide-spread. Then he placed his palms against the violent wound in Aymric's midsection.
The elf's body jumped in response, bowing up. Aymric's hand closed around Baylee's tight enough to cut off the blood flow. A keening moan escaped the elf ranger's lips, spitting out blood with it.
The smoky blue aura around the priest's hands spread, covering all of Aymric's stomach and lower chest. Miraculously, the flesh knitted itself back together. Muscle reconnected to bone, then to each other. Long moments passed as the healing continued. Perspiration dappled Carceus's forehead, trickling down through his eyebrows. After a time, the blue glow faded. Even after the work was done and he sat back in exhaustion on his haunches, the priest's prayer to Gond Wonderbringer continued unabated.
Baylee stared at Aymric's face. Once the blue glow had faded, the elf's body had gone into total relaxation, his eyes shut. He didn't appear to be breathing. "Aymric," Baylee called gently.
There was no response.
Fear clawed at Baylee's mind, bristly as the spider's leg had been all those years ago when he'd been tied securely in the web before Golsway had shown up to save him. There were stories from time to time of those who had been healed after having severe wounds who only turned out to be well-preserved corpses. Healing could still be done on the body even though the spirit had departed. His hand trembled, surprising him. "Aymric." He spoke louder, but his voice was lost in the myriad moaning and bits of other conversations circling around the group with the elf.
Serellia placed her fingers against Aymric's throat. "It's all right," she said. "He only sleeps. His heart beats strongly."
Baylee.
Heartened by his friend's survival, the ranger turned to look back at the azmyth bat. The skeleton warrior had gotten closer to the circlet in Xuxa's claws. Men and women surrounded the base of the tree. Even over the distance, Baylee heard the group talking about firing the tree. Someone else told them that firing the tree would do no good, that only magic weapons had any effect on the undead creature.
We have to deal with the skeleton warrior, Xuxa urged. I have but to release the circlet and he will go.
Not yet. Baylee stood and walked toward the tree with the skeleton warrior in it. He knew that the undead creature wasn't mindless. Far from it, skeleton warriors possessed cunning intelligence far above average. But they were bound by the drive to recover the circlets and become one with their souls again. That obsession weakened them once they were no longer in a con?troller's thrall.
"What is it you're going to do?" Karg growled, joining Baylee. He carried his axe in one huge hand.
"We have no clue where these skeleton warriors came from," Baylee answered. "But they were elves."
"Aye."
"Where is the skeleton warrior you and Serellia fought?"
"Destroyed," the giant killer replied. "It put up a fierce fight for a time. Of course, it helped when I removed one of its arms. Then it erupted into a frenzy that almost caught me unawares. Serellia saved me with as fancy a piece of sword play as I've seen in a long time. We were hard pressed for a time, but it turned its attention back to the drow. Were it a human foe, I would not have attacked it from behind. The blow cut its spine in two and took its legs from it. Still, it tried to battle. Then, of a sudden, it went limp. I wasted no time in cleaving its skull to pieces, I tell you."
"It's dead?" Baylee asked.
"Oh, and it didn't turn to dust, that's true," Karg said, "but it's deader than it has been in a long time."
How long a time it had been originally dead was only one of the questions on Baylee's mind. He'd noted the clothing the skeleton warriors almost wore. Fashion sometimes