Triumph of the Darksword - Margaret Weis [43]
Mosiah watched it in helpless terror, wondering what hideous being this was and how it came to be loosed upon the world. Then he discovered, horribly, that the creature was not blind. It had eyes. Like the basilisk, it used them for seeing … and for killing.
Hidden in a clump of trees about twenty feet from the creature, Mosiah saw suddenly a warlock fly toward him, fleeing the lumbering monster. Hurtling in wild panic through the air, his red robes streaming behind him, the War Master was easily outdistancing the slow, awkward creature.
The creatures head revolved, it appeared to be hunting its prey, sniffing it out. Suddenly, a single eye—hollow, dark, and empty—winked open in the head and focused on the flying wizard. The eye blinked, shooting forth a thin beam of light that flashed on and off so swiftly Mosiah wasn’t even certain afterward that he had seen it.
The eye beam struck the warlock in the back, causing the man to plummet to the ground. The momentum of his frantic flight carried him forward. He rolled near Mosiah, who stared at the warlock hopefully. At last, he wasn’t alone? Surely this War Master would know what was going on. Mosiah waited for the warlock to stand up, for the fall had not been particularly severe. But the warlock didn’t move.
“He’s not dead,” Mosiah told himself, swallowing the fear that was a choking bile in his throat. Glancing up, he saw that the creature had momentarily come to a halt, its head staring forward. “How could he be dead? There’s no wound, nothing but a hole burned in his robes…. He must just be stunned. I’ve got to help….”
But it took several seconds to grapple with panics debilitating grasp. Finally, keeping one eye warily on the creature, seeing the head start to swivel around again—probably in search of its downed prey—Mosiah crept from the shelter of the trees and, grabbing the warlock by the collar of his robes, dragged the man back into the shadows.
Mosiah turned the warlock over on his back, but he knew even before he saw the staring eyes and gaping mouth that the man was dead. A tiny wisp of smoke curled upward from the wizard’s breast. Mosiah’s breath caught in his throat and he backed away from the corpse.
The beam of light that had flashed for less than a split second had burned a hole through the wizard’s body as a red-hot poker burns a hole through soft wood.
The ground shook beneath Mosiah’s feet. The creature was coming in search of its victim. Mosiah wanted to run, but all feeling left his legs; the sight of the dead warlock and the swift and sudden manner of the man’s death completely unnerved him. Raising his gaze from the corpse, Mosiah stared at the great beast as it approached, knowing it must see him. When it came in search of the wizard it had felled. But still he couldn’t move.
The creature drew nearer. Mosiah could smell its foul odor, poisonous fumes spewed out from its underbody, robbing him of breath. Choking and coughing, cowering amidst the trees, he had no thought of escape, no thought of anything except his fear.
Undoubtedly, this saved his life.
The creature swerved and rumbled past him, as a wolf passes by the rabbit sitting frozen in the presence of its enemy, knowing instinctively that movement draws unwanted attention.
Mosiah watched the thing lurch away from him, its hideous head—now seemingly blind again—turning this way and that in search of more prey, crawling past the body of the warlock without a look, without so much as a sniff.
A centaur kills out of hatred and mutilates the body. Dragons kill for food, as do the griffin and the chimera. A giant kills out of ignorance, not understanding its own strength. But this thing had killed purposefully, coldly, without apparent reason or even interest.
Though the fog had lifted and Mosiah could now find and join up with