The Shield of Weeping Ghosts - James P. Davis [56]
From above, bits of Anilya's cloud broke away. Shreds of darkness, shaped into floating robes and gnarled claws, moaned as they flew through the chamber. Yells and curses echoed from below, the pile of bones at the base of the undead beast producing grasping arms and biting skulls. The fang hacked at the bones even as half-formed skeletons surrounded them. Thaena could not see Duras among them.
Glancing quickly at the serpent, she ran down the stairs, casting as she neared the bottom. The whoosh of flames and the rattling of bones followed her descent. Heat pressed through her cloak as the skull neared and she completed the spell. A shimmering shield of force appeared over the warriors even as another volley of arrows rained down from the Creel's balcony.
The arrowheads flashed as they touched the shield, most of them deflected by the enchantment, but many still found their marks. Several sellswords and berserkers cried out as they were struck and then pulled down by the swarm of bones and skeletons. Before Thaena could react, bone jaws clamped on her legs and hips, lifting her into the air. Floor and walls fell away as she was lifted higher and shaken like a rag doll. Pain erupted in her left hip, a fang pressing her hard against a blunted tooth in the bottom jaw.
Smoke entered her lungs and flames licked at her skin. Her stomach turned as the chamber swam before her eyes, blurring as the beast shook her from side to side. Crackling Are and screams filled her ears as she fought to conjure a spell.
Her vision filled with spots of blackness, the pressure making her nauseous and dizzy. She struggled to breathe in the smoke and heat. Between one bone-jarring shake and the next she felt certain she would die here in a room full of bones. Anger gave her a measure of renewed strength. She gripped her hands together, her left holding tightly to a small pearl ring on her right as she fought to mouth the words of a spell.
The serpent raised her high, bones rattling and turning in its neck as the fangs opened wide to get a better grip. She fell, rolling to the back of its throat, screeching the last of her spell. The pearl crumbled to dust that became a large, cloudy gray sphere of swirling air. Obeying her will, the sphere slammed into the skull, shattering teeth and bone as the jaw closed. Darting left and right, the sphere demolished everything it touched, snuffing out flames and breaking the bone-beast apart.
Broken pieces of the jaw continued to bite and snap ineffectually. Thaena held tight to bones inside its throat as the bone-beast reared and shook. She could see the floor far below as she fell forward, clinging to a broken tooth. Concentrating on the sphere's flight of destruction, she watched as half the skull was ripped apart into flying shards. The neck collapsed, bones clattering against the walls of the chamber as the sphere of wind hurled the bone-beast's bits away from the whole.
The grasping limbs and skeletons below faltered as the sphere tore apart the magic that had created them. Many melted back into the serpent's body as it attempted to maintain its shape, but the berserkers destroyed them. A few arrows still fell among the warriors, but far fewer than before and with much less accuracy. A shuddering rattle passed through the undead form, a tide of snapping bone that pulled painfully at the ethran's shoulders and elbows.
She slammed against the stairs, fresh pain erupting from the wound in her side. Her fingers slipped from the tooth and she fell as the undead-serpent disintegrated around her. She hit the stone floor, and the wind was forced from her lungs. Bones rained to ground, burying her legs. Choking for breath, her vision fading, she tried to raise her head to find Duras. The berserkers still fought, advancing up the