Tymora's Luck - Kate Novak [74]
The heat was almost more than he could stand, but the bard did not withdraw. He continued to lower his hands until he heard a sizzling sound. Not until a searing pain shot up his arms did Joel jerk forward away from the lava pool. He began tugging on his bindings, struggling wildly.
The pain was excruciating.
Suddenly he felt the bindings snap, and Joel jerked his hands forward. His left wrist was free, but flaming fabric still encased his right wrist. The bard grabbed the remains of his cloak, which the barghest had left by the pool, and used it to smother the fire. Whimpering from the pain, Joel used his teeth to tear the last bit of the blackened fabric from his burnt flesh.
"You know, there's a nice dead slasrath around here somewhere," Emilo was saying to the barghest as it clawed its way up the steep slope. "It looks like a giant winged worm. A real gully dwarf treat, worms, and easy to catch, too. You might like it for breakfast."
With an enraged bellow, the barghest clamored up the last few feet of slope and lunged at the kender.
Emilo glided backward, riding on the magic carpet, until he disappeared from view. The barghest teetered on the edge of the ridge, growling and snarling. At that moment, Jas soared out of the darkness, coming up behind the barghest with one of Winnie's backpacks swaying beneath her. The pack hit the creature in the head with a thunk. The barghest stumbled, then tumbled down the other side of the ridge.
For several long seconds, they could hear the monster's anguished cries. Then the screams ceased abruptly.
Emilo brought the flying carpet swooping down near Joel and Holly.
"Hurry!'' the paladin cried. "The other one could return any moment."
There was a shimmer in the air beside the pool of lava as a magical doorway opened onto the barghests' campsite. The second barghest stepped out from the shining portal. Joel tossed his tattered cloak in the barghest's face and raced toward the carpet.
From the sky plummeted another backpack, which struck the barghest square in the head. Rocks spilled out of the pack as the creature fell to its knees, howling and clutching its head.
Joel hurled himself onto the carpet, pulling Holly behind him. The paladin was armored in heavy plate mail, but the bard managed to drag her over the edge and onto the carpet. Joel could feel his injured wrists and hands throbbing. Holly rolled into the middle of the carpet, and Joel shouted, "Go! Go!"
Quickly Emilo ordered the carpet to rise twenty feet.
"Backward, quickly!" Holly shouted as the barghest took a leap into the air and levitated upward toward them.
The barghest clawed at the carpet, managed to grab at the fringe, and found itself being pulled along by the retreating carpet. Jas swooped out of the darkness, flying alongside the creature. She hacked at the monster's hand with her sword, and the barghest instinctively released his hold on the carpet.
The barghest hung motionless in the air, growling at them.
"It can levitate, but it can't fly," Holly said. "Better move away before it tries something else."
A howl echoed in the canyon as the first barghest also stepped from a magical door beside the pool of lava.
"I wasn't planning on hanging around, I assure you," Emilo retorted. He slowed the carpet just enough for Jas to settle down beside them, then continued the ascent up the mountain.
Once Jas had cut Holly free, the paladin laid her hands gently on Joel's burned wrist and used her gift of healing to soothe the pain. The scars were terrible to look at, but at least the bard hadn't lost the mobility of his wrists.
"Your ring of fire protection didn't do much good," Jas noted.
"The rings can only protect you from so much heat," Holly said. "Joel nearly dipped his wrists in molten lava. If it weren't for that