The Golden Shield of IBF (41 page)

The concentration evident in Swan’s dear face could not help but remind Erg’Ran of the young maid in the old story. Only Swan’s mind held back destruction.

Gar’Ath and Mitan reached the far side of the chamber, by the tall arched opening. Mitan would be second-sighting beyond it, looking for any evidence of more dangers. Gar’Ath had already sheathed his sword and readied his longbow.

Erg’Ran licked his lips.

“I don’t like this, learned ally,” Captain Bre’Gaa hissed through clenched teeth. “If your Enchantress’s concentration slips—”

“It won’t.” Erg’Ran cut him off. “We will pass them, so that once we are clear of this place, the Enchantress will have none to concern her save for herself and the Champion.”

“Aye, Erg’Ran.”

In the next few strides, Erg’Ran and Bre’Gaa overtook and passed the Enchantress and her Champion, neared the archway on the chamber’s far side. Erg’Ran’s eyes alternated their gaze between the Enchantress’s face and the green shells which covered the stone Tree Demons. The twitch near Swan’s eye evidenced itself once more and Erg’Ran’s eyes flickered toward the chamber wall. Two of the shells moved almost imperceptibly.

Erg’Ran quickened his pace, nearly running, Bre’Gaa striding beside him.

They reached the tall archway. “Now, this is a proper height through which a Gle’Ur’Gya can pass without hunching his shoulders!”

“I’m happy for you, Captain Bre’Gaa,” Erg’Ran replied dismissively, his eyes on the Enchantress.

“Do you think the Enchantress’ll make it, old friend?” Gar’Ath whispered hoarsely.

“Aye, lad. But be vigilant nonetheless.”

The Enchantress and her Champion were nearly to the archway. Just a few more paces remained. If one shell fell away, her spell would collapse and all of the shells would drop off. The vile little carnivores would swarm over anyone in their path. The six of their little band would be powerless against fifty-six of the Tree Demons, nor would there be time for any magic to be used against the creatures.

The Enchantress took another step, swayed slightly. The Champion tucked the firespitter from his left hand into his belt, his left hand moving to support the Enchantress at her waist.

Erg’Ran was about to speak as Mitan whispered in his ear, “There is someone coming, Erg’Ran.”

“G’urg,” Erg’Ran muttered under his breath, turning away from the interior of the chamber and looking into the passageway beyond. There were two Ra’U’Ba just entered into the passageway. He second-sighted quickly on the figures, neither helmeted—which meant that they could be killed—and neither carried the characteristically enormous shield. Both wore skirts that were an incongruous blend of sickly green, faded red and washed out grey, combining to compose an entirely alien color which was disgusting looking in the extreme. Both had full weaponry. Ra’U’Ba always looked odd, but these two moved more oddly than Erg’Ran considered normal even for Ra’U’Ba.

“They are drunk, I think!” Mitan exclaimed in a soft whisper beside Erg’Ran’s ear.

“I think you are right, pretty one.” As if to confirm the analysis of their behavior, one of the two promptly fell down, his enormous tail slapping into the wall. The other laughed. “Hide,” Erg’Ran ordered.

There was no reason to suppose that an inebriated Ra’U’Ba would be less capable of communicating his thoughts over great distances to his fellows than a sober one. The Ra’U’Ba had to be killed before they noticed that they were not alone and could reveal the information to other Ra’U’Ba within the keep. It was, at least, clear that the two Ra’U’Ba were not alert to the fact that they were being watched, because Erg’Ran still second-sighted them and the Ra’U’Ba had the peculiar proclivity for blocking the second-sight. Erg’Ran had never quite understood how this could be possible, but it was fact, nonetheless.

“We can’t stay here forever, old friend,” Gar’Ath whispered, stating the obvious.

“Aye, lad, I’m thinking.” Erg’Ran glanced over his shoulder. The Enchantress and her Champion were nearly through the chamber. In only a few eyeblinks, the Enchantress would be able to release the spell which so visibly exhausted her, but could not as long as it was necessary to hide on the chamber side of the archway from detection by the Ra’U’Ba. “Ra’U’Ba disgust me, and always have,” Bre’Gaa announced.

“We are in perfect agreement, Captain Bre’Gaa. At the moment, however, the issue is to contrive a manner in which the two Ra’U’Ba in question can be killed extraordinarily quickly, before they would be able to communicate our presence here to their fellows.”

“The exposed portion of the brain, where it looks like a third eye,” Bre’Gaa suggested. “That nauseating-looking yellow protuberance is an excellent target. An arrow might—”

“It will have to be an arrow,” Gar’Ath interrupted. “The distance is too great to hurl a dagger with certainty.”

“I don’t like it, but we have no alternative but to try,” Erg’Ran acquiesced.

“What’s goin’ on?” It was the voice of the Champion.

“Ra’U’Ba. I believe you encountered other specimens in company with Gar’Ath behind the Falls of Mir, Champion. These seem to have partaken a bit too much of intoxicants.”

“What are we going to do, Erg’Ran? Swan can’t hold the spell much longer without passing out, and then it breaks anyway, right?”

“You’re correct in your assumptions, Champion. We are going to endeavor to kill these Ra’U’Ba very shortly. Do your best with the Enchantress.”

“I will,” the Champion told him.

Mitan, Gar’Ath and Bre’Gaa had their longbows ready, arrows nocked. “Give the word, old friend,” Gar’Ath said.

Erg’Ran was about to speak, but as he looked at the Ra’U’Ba, the one who had fallen down a moment earlier howled with laughter and flung something from his six-fingered right hand.

“Fire!” Erg’Ran commanded, hoping that it was not too late. In their drunken condition, perhaps they had not already communicated their discovery.

Mitan’s and Gar’Ath’s bows were already drawn, their arrows flying to target in the eyeblink after Erg’Ran spoke, but Bre’Gaa’s bow string had not been taut. Bre’Gaa drew, but in the eyeblink that he released, a Ra’U’Ba star dagger struck the Gle’Ur’Gya Captain’s bow. Bre’Gaa’s arrow loosed, but upward, striking the archway, ricocheting off the rounded surface of the stone and flying wildly back into the chamber.

Bre’Gaa cursed, nocked a fresh arrow.

Erg’Ran’s eyes flickered toward the two drunken Ra’U’Ba. Arrows were buried half to the fletching in their yellow brain protuberances, their bodies falling dead to the stone floor of the passageway.

Behind Erg’Ran, there was the shriek of a Tree Demon.

Erg’Ran wheeled toward the sound, nearly falling on his peg leg.

An arrow—from Bre’Gaa’s bow—whizzed past Erg’Ran’s face and impaled the body of the Tree Demon, killing it in an eyeblink. One arrow would not be enough. The shielding green shells were falling away from the remaining fifty-five Tree Demons, the Enchantress was on the chamber floor with the strayed arrow piercing her left hand and the Champion was reaching down to her.

Too many things happened all at once for Erg’Ran to calculate the next logical move. The Champion swept the Enchantress up into his arms. The Tree Demons—one after another—streaked from their positions on the wall and toward human flesh. Gar’Ath lunged past Erg’Ran, snatching the axe from Erg’Ran’s belt as he went.

A Tree Demon jumped for Swan’s throat and the Champion skewered it on his sword. Gar’Ath swung the expropriated axe, killing two Tree Demons in midair.

Another arrow took flight from Bre’Gaa’s bow, another Tree Demon down.

Mitan, who had never developed her innate magical abilities, shrieked what Erg’Ran recognized as a shielding spell. “Good idea!” Erg’Ran called out to her, taking up the incantation in the next eyeblink. As the Champion, with Erg’Ran’s niece in his arms, vaulted from the chamber, the air between the archway and the rest of the chamber began to shimmer.

“Out of there, young swordsman!” Bre’Gaa shouted to Gar’Ath as Gar’Ath accounted for three more of the Tree Demons with the axe, then turned to run. Three Tree Demons fell upon him, one at his neck, two at his stockinged legs. Gar’Ath stumbled, fell, a dozen more of the Tree Demons swarming over him.

Erg’Ran heard the Champion shouting, “Take her, Bre’Gaa, and guard her with your life!” As Erg’Ran turned to look, the Champion rested his Golden Shield of IBF against the archway and raced past him, staggering as he passed through the still and too slowly forming shield of magical energy. A Tree Demon jumped for the Champion’s right cheek, the Champion’s left hand grasping the creature, flinging it with terrible force against the wall from which it had sprung.

The Champion skidded to his knees beside Gar’Ath, whose hands tearing at the Tree Demons as they tried to devour him alive. A Tree Demon attached itself to the Champion’s neck. The Champion either didn’t feel it or ignored it. A very tiny firespitter, its gleaming steel polished like that of a swordblade, emerged from his right pocket. The Champion put the firespitter flush against a Tree Demon which had begun to gnaw on Gar’Ath’s right thigh. There was a terrible noise, and the Tree Demon disintegrated, its blood and gore sprayed across Gar’Ath’s lower body.

“Get the Enchantress out of here, Bre’Gaa! Hurry!” Erg’Ran commanded. The shielding spell was not building fast enough, his magic and even that of Mitan, a female K’Ur’Mir, too meager in power. The far stronger, extraordinarily complex magic which had enchanted and still sustained the Tree Demons could only have been directly combated by magic which was its equal, such as the Enchantress possessed. And she could not aid them. The Champion’s tiny firespitter spoke again, another of the Tree Demons exploding.

That firespitter was so much smaller than the other firespitters. “Of course!” Erg’Ran shouted. “Smaller was better in this situation,” Erg’Ran announced to anyone listening. “And, sometimes simpler is better, too.” Erg’Ran called to Mitan, urging her, “Forsake the shielding spell! You can levitate; I’ve seen you do it. My cloak! Levitate my cloak!” Erg’Ran snatched the cloak from his shoulders and hurtled it into the chamber, then employed one of the most basic of all spells to make fire. The cloak was ablaze as Mitan began the levitation. “Now, propel my burning cloak toward the Tree Demons and burn them to death!”

Gar’Ath was to his knees, tearing Tree Demons from his body, his face and legs and hands covered in bleeding bites. The Champion, his exposed skin having suffered much the same abuse, flung a Tree Demon from his face, then killed it with another blast from the tiny firespitter. There was one of the Champion’s odd knives in his other hand, and he hacked through the air with it, missing one Tree Demon and slicing the arm off another. Five Tree Demons, slavering jaws snapping, attacked the Champion’s head. The Champion cried out in pain, but did not surrender.

Drawing his father’s sword from its scabbard, Erg’Ran hobbled into the chamber, to aid the Champion and Gar’Ath. The burning cloak sailed about the chamber, trapping Tree Demons within its folds, setting them afire. The vile things, skin in flames, ran wildly about, hurtling themselves into the air, smashing against the chamber walls, rolling about on the chamber floor. The Tree Demons’ howls of pain echoed off the stone, pulsed within Erg’Ran’s ears.

If the burning cloak could combat and kill the rest of the Tree Demons, there were still more than half a score of Tree Demons attacking the Champion and Gar’Ath. These could not be dealt with by means of magic. Erg’Ran’s father’s sword was unlike any which he had ever seen in all of Creath. And, its single edge could be to be sharpened more finely than any steel even Gar’Ath could fashion.

Erg’Ran grabbed with his left hand at a Tree Demon which gnawed at the nape of the Champion’s neck, tore it free and flung it into the air. Erg’Ran’s father’s sword was already in motion as his left hand closed behind his right on its hilt. The Tree Demon was still in the air as steel met foul flesh and cleaved that flesh in twain.

Gar’Ath was to his feet, axe in hand. Wrestling a Tree Demon from his left cheek, Gar’Ath hurtled it into the burning cloak, the tiny beast’s skin ablaze in an eyeblink. As the Champion tore a Tree Demon from his neck, Gar’Ath’s borrowed axe cleaved through it, burying its edge into the stone wall.

A Tree Demon jumped for Erg’Ran’s face, and in his terror in the instant that the creature’s teeth clamped to his cheek, Erg’Ran nearly hacked at it with the sword. Had he done so, he would surely have sliced off half his face. Another Tree Demon bit into Erg’Ran’s left hand. Erg’Ran smashed his left hand toward the wall, crushing the Tree Demon’s skull, leaving his bleeding left hand free to claw at the Tree Demon on his face.

The thing was coming for his eye. Erg’Ran could see its yellow-brown eyes, feel its exhalations against his skin. Bile rose from Erg’Ran’s stomach and into his throat. In the instant that the Tree Demon’s humanlike hands grasped for his nose and left ear and its teeth let loose from his cheek to clamp into his eye, Erg’Ran jerked at the creature, tearing away his own flesh as he freed its claws. The creature fell to the floor. Erg’Ran staggered with pain, and in that eyeblink, his peg leg lost traction in a puddle of blood and slipped from beneath him.

As Erg’Ran fell, the Tree Demon lunged toward him again. There was the earsplitting crack that was the thunder made by the Champions tiny firespitter. The Tree Demon burst into a puddle of blood and gore.

Erg’Ran tried to stand up.

Gar’Ath, a Tree Demon on his neck, wrenched free his axe, pulled the Tree Demon free and flung it against the wall. With the flat of the axe, Gar’Ath smashed at the vile creature, crushing it.

The Champion, his face all but obscured by bleeding wounds, tore a Tree Demon from his left hand, threw it to the floor and stomped it beneath his boot,

Gar’Ath had the last of them in both hands, its arms outstretched, legs gyrating wildly. “Die, you little piece of g’urg!” With that utterance, Gar’Ath snapped his own arms outward and tore the Tree Demon’s arms from their sockets. The beast fell to the floor, writhing in pain not unlike that which it inflicted upon its victims. Blood spurted from the arm sockets, slicking the floor. And the Tree Demon died.