The Vacant Throne - Ed Greenwood [34]
The limbjaws bit down. Teeth clashed together inches in front of his face, and jammed. They were caught on each other in a tangle that grew thicker as Craer watched… and the teeth continued to grow.
The longfangs gave the world a startled roar and shook its limbjaws. When that helped not at all, it struck the entangled jaws against each other in mounting fury and frustration, trying to strike off whatever was binding them half-shut. Their glistening forests of fangs were two wild tangles now, both limbjaws growing shut-but the head of the longfangs, with its own larger snarling, drooling maw of fangs, was unaffected.
Fear and frustration joined rage in the beast's roaring; in the midst of the squalling tumult, Craer heard Embra laugh triumphantly, and knew who'd saved his hide. The longfangs reared up, like a mountain suddenly deciding to touch the clouds, and then plunged its head down to bite, tumbling the procurer helplessly off.
He was still bouncing and rolling through his own cloud of moss, still clinging desperately to his dagger-hilt and being dragged along the hillside as the beast's head swung, as he heard Hawkril curse weakly from somewhere beneath it-growled words that ended in a wet gurgling.
"Hawk?" the procurer called, kicking himself back onto the shaggy neck and then ducking low down its far side to avoid being dubbed by the furiously flailing limbjaws. The fur glistened dark red in more than one place, and Craer heard Sarasper make the sort of grunt that meant the healer had swung his sword hard, and it had struck something that nearly numbed his hands. Craer snatched out another of his daggers, twisting himself almost into a ball on the neck that was rearing up again, and shouted, "Hawk!"
Somewhere under the furry, heaving bulk, the armaragor groaned. Craer drove the dagger he wasn't clinging to deep into the fur beside him, struck a bone fairly deep inside, and watched black blood gush forth, burning his hand before he could get his blade free. His friend was hurt, and-
Something struck Craer so hard that his eyes saw only darkness slashed across with a scattering of winking stars before the world rushed, swimming, back. He blinked away enough tears to see something large and dark moving above him before he was smashed again, a blow so hard that his teeth rattled as he was torn free from his dagger and hurled away, propelled by a furry forelimb that broke a rib in the doing.
Pain stabbed at his right side, a searing that flared fiercer when he landed, skidding through yielding moss until he came to a sneezing stop, chin to the damp earth halfway down the hillside.
Embra was shouting something, her voice high with fear and urgency, and from behind him came the horrible cracking and gnawing noise of the longfangs biting on something, like a dog with a bone, that was slow to yield under its jaws. Hawkril's armor, no doubt.
Craer scrambled to his feet, wincing-oh, to be sure, a rib or worse was broken-doubled over to hiss out a long curse and set his teeth to face what he'd what he'd have to do next, and took one of his long knives from his boots. The longfangs was throwing back its head to tear something apart, and for one heart-stopping moment Craer thought it was one of Hawkril's legs. Then he saw the tatters of cloth and mangled metal, and knew it was just a leg of the armaragor's prized armor, with no flesh inside it.
Hawkril lay sprawled and bloody, staring unmoving at the sky, beneath the wolf-spider. "Three preserve!" Craer gasped, breaking into a ragged, desperate run.
Embra's hands were spread, a winking wash of light arcing between them as her latest magic faded. Whatever it had been, the longfangs didn't seem bothered-and as he ran, Craer saw her dart in under its descending head and offer herself to those hungry jaws, to keep it from biting open Hawkril's defenseless body. Sarasper was crouched a little ways off, feverishly plucking small items from within his clothing and spilling them out on the ground in front of him. He was seeking what he needed to weave a spell-but would he