Page 18 (1/2)
Shayleigh considered putting an arrow into the tu, but heard the three corridors behind her fast filling with enemy soldiers Instead, she turned about and launched the arrow into the thickeningto see if she had scored a hit The giant, though very ed, lay on its back, its head toward Shayleigh and its feet still far up the staircase It struggled to right itsetf, but its bulk filled the not-too-wide stairs, and in that aard position, with both legs injured, it floundered h drew out her short sword and leaped ahead, skipping off the iant grabbed at her with its hands, but she dodged thee leg and curled it in at the knee, forh drove her sword deeply into the thick thigh and the barrier fleay As she cleared the huge torso, the elf saw Pike! co
Shayleigh called out, thinking that Pikel would surely be crushed, but the das already wedged tightly between the stairs and the giant’s huge buttocks
A swar to get atop the giant, others drawing out bows and taking a bead on Shayleigh and on Ivan as the yellow-bearded dwarf rushed down to grab the elf iant on the fleshy backside, and the ave the dwarf all thehis shoulder, the powerful little dwarf heaved and groaned, turning the behe a wall of flesh between his friends and the enerunted several times as it intercepted arrows, and then, with Pikel’s stubby legs driving relentlessly, it went right over, wedging tightly into the low, narrow stairway entrance
Pikel gave his snake a pat on the head and tucked it back into his sleeve, then rushed to join his friends, taking his club back fro her head once ht, ain’t he?" Ivan asked, tugging her along
They met no foes at the top of the stairs, and Ivan and Pikel ime, Shayleigh heard no sounds about them other than the echoes of dwarven sandals and boots, and while that fact gave her soh the coet theh was able to stop the brothers’ wild run, re them that they had to sort out the maze of tunnels and try to find Cadderly and Danica
When the dwarves had quieted, they did hear soeneral h was about to whisper that she should go ahead and stealthily check out the place, but her words were buried under Pikel’s hearty "Oo oi!" and the resounding clae
The Fifth Corner
There," the prisoner said to Cadderly and Danica, pointing across a last intersection to an unremarkable door "That is the entrance to the wizard’s chaain in the young priest’s mind, from somewhere not so far away Cadderly closed his eyes and concentrated, co to understand that the call came from somewhere beyond the unremarkable door When he opened his eyes oncehim curiously
"The man does not lie," Cadderly said to her The prisoner seeuards?" Danica asked, more to the prisoner than to Cadderly TTie man had no answer for her "This is a wizard," Cadderly reminded them both "A powerful wizard by all that we have heard There ic"
Danica roughly pushed the prisoner forward "You shall lead," she said coldly
Cadderly i his arard Danica,
"We go together?" he asked as much as stated
Danica looked to the door, to Cadderiy and the other man She understood her love’s sympathy and protective-ness toward the helpless prisoner, understood that Cadderly, convinced that this was not an evil man, would not use the prisoner as fodder
"He and I lead," Danica decided, pulling the rasp "You follow"
The monk soft-stepped up to the intersection, bent low and peered both ways She turned back to Cadderly and offered a shrug, then motioned for the prisoner to keep pace and skittered across to the door - almost
The creature see first a black line, then expanding left and right, two dimensional, then three dimensional Five serpentine heads waved in front of the startled companions
A hydra
Danica skidded to a stop and hurled herself to the left, rolling froreat heads The prisoner, not as quick as the le step before a monstrous maw clamped down across his waist
He screamed and batted futilely at the scaly head as the needle-sharp teeth ripped him A secondhis screa in unison, the hydra tore the ht He got his loaded crossbow up in front of hi to follow the al heads
Where to fire?
He shot for the center of the great body, and the hydra roared in rage as the dart hit and exploded Two heads still snapped at the dodging Danica, two continued their feast on the slaughtered man, and the fifth shot forward, far short of Cadderly, but co the hydra’s bulky body into a short rush at the young priest
Danica started for Cadder’y, but reversed direction abruptly as the hydra shuffled by, and chose instead to work her way behind the beast She cried out for Cadderly to run, though she could not see him around the bulk of the ht as an arrow, for the young priest, testing his nerve as he struggled to get his weapon readied a second time The serpentine maas barely two feet ahen Cadderly’s ar off six-inch fangs, diving intc thein a muffled explosion
The head and neck dropped in a line on the floor, slowing the charge
The two heads that had been after Danica, and the one finished with the dead prisoner, ca priest wisely fell back, desperately bringing up his walking stick to fend off the nearest attack
He knew that he had to get fa- enough away to reload the crossbow, had to fall into the song of Deneir and pull so, fro heads, the creature pacing his every retreat, Cadderly couldn’t begin to hear the song, had to concentrate si stick back and forth in front of him He did connect once, luckily, the enchanted ra a tooth from the closest maw That head went up to issue a roar, and Cadderly, purely on instinct, rushed under it, used the serpentine neck as a shield against the other two pursuing heads
The fourth head, the other one to the right, spit aside the deadpriest then, except that Danic? came around from behind and snapped a kick under its jaw
The ue fell severed to the floor
Cadderly continued toward the door, concentrating on readying the crossbow- Danica ca back as the hydra lu the floor as it turned
"Get in!" she called, but Cadderly, for all his desperation, kept his wits enough to keep clear of the door It arded, he knew, sensing the ht his crossbow up again as if to shoot at the hydra But then he turned, firing instead at the lock on the door, blowing a wide hole in the wood
Danica hit Cadderly on the shoulder, throwing hiainst the wall, dazed, to see his love engulfed by four eagerly snapping hydra heads
She rushed straight for the beast, ran inside its initial bites, twisting and turning, swatting blindly at anything that carabbed it by the horn, twisting with a jerk that angled the maw so that it could not wrap around her, so that the snout butted her in the ribs Danica’s other hand shot out the other way, her stiffened fingers driving through the eye of still another snapping head
All the hydra’s heads were turned corabbed the half-blinded head, threw her back against the thick serpentine neck, then dodged away as another head rushed in, its wide-openedhard into its own companion’s neck Before the hydra even realized its error, the other head fell dead
Danica was still pinned in that hellish spot, but a quarrel skipped off the side of one turned neck - off the side of one to solidly strike a second The first head that had been struck wheeled about to view the newest attacker, while the force of the ensuing explosion drove the second head aside, opening a hole for Danica to rush out The door is warded!" Cadderly cried at Danica as she darted straight for the loose-hanging portal
It was a h She stopped and, sensing athe top of the jaht up The hydra’s head burst through the door
Lightning flashed several tiically trapped doorja, the blasted hydra backed away Serpentine necks crossed; reptilian eyes regarded the two companions with sudden respect
Cadderly tried to line one up for a shot, but he hesitated, not wanting to risk aand unproductive moment had slipped past He fired the bolt into the hydra’s bulk, apparently doing no real da heads roared in unison It hopped to the side, three dead necks bouncing along
"Shoot for my back," Danica instructed and before Cadderly could ask her what she was talking about, she rushed forward, charged right between the swaying heads, drawing them in to her "Now!" Danica ordered
Cadderly had to trust in her His crossbow clicked, and Danica dropped suddenly to her back, the quarrel crossing above her and splattering a very surprised serpentine face