A frenzied squirming and mewling was the only action left. Lady Polaris lay on her back and wrestled with the laraken. Thriving on her personal dweomer, the parasite had expanded as large as a wolf, and now engulfed Polaris's torso like a giant ball of snot. Tentacles flailed for her arms and legs like some grotesque dance. Voice broken, she whimpered pitifully.
Plucking thorny feet from black ooze, Sysquemalyn loomed over Polaris. The archwizard's beautiful face was scratched, sweaty, scraped. Her hair was dirtied and dull, her eyes wild and bloodshot with fright.
"That's better," cooed the monster in a rasp like a file. "No longer high and mighty? Afraid? Suffering? Worried about dying? Oh, believe me, Great White Cow, Greasy White Sow, Gorgeous White Mistake, there are worse things than dying. Much, much worse. Having your skin peeled from your body, for one. Would you like that?"
A claw like an iron nail lovingly touched Polaris's cheek. She recoiled, but the throbbing laraken pinned her tight. With ease, Sysquemalyn drove the nail through Polaris's cheek. The archwizard screamed, but a thumb and finger like pliers snagged her tongue, pierced it, yanked. Polaris had to spit out blood or choke.
"We could do this all day. We might yet," crooned the fiend. "But I want you whole, to feel the touch of your pet." With a snaky hand, she caressed the laraken. It perked up, sensing more mystic energy, but Sysquemalyn flicked aside a questing tentacle. "Stone skin has advantages, see? I'll tell you what's going to happen. This laraken grows by consuming your dweomer. You'll weaken to a shell, utterly helpless. Then the laraken will move to its next task. You see, they don't mate, but reproduce themselves when they find plentiful magic. You'll serve nicely. The laraken will open a cavity in your body, plant an egg, and wait while it hatches. It will keep you alive while the offspring grows inside you, feeding off you. Slowly. Over months, or years. Oh my, I expect it'll hurt terribly! You'll feel yourself consumed from within! That almost pays us back, dear Lady Polaris, but come with me."
Grabbing the archwizard's white hair, Sysquemalyn dragged her to the black cavity left by the departed crysmal. She tipped Polaris and the laraken at the edge. Even in near-mindless fright, Polaris felt a bitter wind blow from the hole. The crysmal had bored back to its own plane. This drop would take her far from anything she'd ever known. Better to die-but would she die?
"This little friend will devour you," Sysquemalyn cooed, "but you needn't watch. Lie in darkness, deep in this mountain, never to see light again. And while you lie there, and shrivel, eaten alive, dream of revenge. As I did."
And the monster tipped parasite and prey over the edge.
Dazed, in shock, Polaris barely felt her head strike stone, her face rasp as they slid down the corkscrew hole. Too, the plump laraken absorbed some blows as they tumbled and rolled. Horror overtook Polaris, and she wished to find death quickly.
Yet part of her native intelligence fought back, calculating, though fear almost drowned out reason. For Sysquemalyn had made a mistake.
By her words, the monster assumed the hole simply dropped into the mountain like a mine shaft. But Polaris had felt the alien breeze, knew it traveled to another plane where she'd never survive. If so, there'd be an instant crossing of border to the next plane. And at the junction, the anti-shifting sphere around the mountaintop would end.
And so, despite grinding, pitching, and rolling, Polaris repeated her shifting spell over and over. Blackness wrapped her, the laraken strangled, rocks bruised, she grew dizzy, would soon black out -then the spell took hold.
Sunlight dazzled Lady Polaris. Or twilight, for the sun glared on the western horizon. Feebly she shielded her eyes, and found her hand free.
She was aching, and stiff with blood and slime. Sand clung to her face, clotted in blood at her punctured cheek. Her clothes were shredded, every inch of skin burned or scraped. Thirst throbbed as if she'd swallowed fire. Crawling, rolling over, she fought to locate herself.
Thin yellow grass clumped around, and she parted it to see. Through bloodshot eyes, she recognized a gray lump lit by dusky fire. Widowmaker Mountain belched smoke, spilled yellow-red lava down cracked sides, whirled ash into the air for miles. Sysquemalyn had turned the mountain into a blazing torch to celebrate her victory.
Polaris fell back, sucked dry of magic by battle and the laraken, but her final spell had worked. She'd shifted and left the parasite behind. She was alive, and whole in body.
But her spirit was shattered. The twilit sky seemed too big, the land too wide, the world too large. An overpowering ache possessed her, homesickness, the desire to snuggle in a dark apartment to eat, and drink cool wine, and rest.
Polaris, one of the highest mages the empire boasted, was surprised not to lust for revenge. Sysquemalyn and her hell-spawned powers were too great. Let others, a conclave of great wizards, punish the fiend. Lady Polaris only wanted to get home, take a bath, eat, and rest.
Yes, she'd stay home from now on.
Chapter 17
"Orcs!"
"Kill 'em all!"
The canny orcs chose a perfect spot for an ambush. This deep defile, almost a canyon, was the only pass through this stretch of the Barren Mountains. They'd hidden on ledges shrouded by gorse, hurled rocks onto travelers to stun and panic both horses and humans, then rushed from above like falcons. Unfortunately, orcs didn't plan far enough ahead or post a rear guard, so as the orcs battled the travelers, Sunbright and Knucklebones, and glory-hungry dwarves, tore into the orcs.
Knucklebones ran right while the shaman dashed and cocked Harvester of Blood over his shoulder. A pair of orcs bludgeoned a woman, holding her hair while her children screamed. Everyone shouted in the rock-strewn canyon, but Sunbright hollered "Ra-vens!" loud enough to make the orcs turn from their victim.
The first thug died instantly. Harvester of Blood swung in a whistling arc for the orc's elbow. As Sunbright expected, the cowardly creature ducked and flinched. The heavy blade clove into the orc's scrawny forearm, and slammed its slack-jawed head. Lopped off clean, wrist and hand flipped away while Harvester bit deep the orc's temple and snapped its neck with a heart-stopping crunch. The orc dropped like a log, pulling Harvester down. Sunbright's blood boiled with a battle-high. Flexing his thick wrists, he ripped the blade free, wary because he was temporarily unarmed.
He needn't have worried. The second orc had abandoned the attack to run. Sunbright took a long step, flicked the blade, and snagged the orc's ankle with Harvester's hook. Blood spurted as razor-sharp steel cut skin and tendons. Crippled, the orc collapsed on its own cleaver. It blubbered and cried for mercy, but the barbarian took another step, planted a heavy boot on the orc's back, and stabbed straight down as if gigging fish. Harvester's keen tip cleft the orc's spine, and the creature stopped wriggling.
The big barbarian whirled to appraise the battle. The travelers were twenty people, two or three families with many horses, more than twenty beasts. Tied head to head on long leads, the horses plunged and kicked and screamed so orcs and fighters ducked flying hooves. Humans grappled with orcs-there were nearly sixty villains-or else crouched behind packs and panniers dumped from the horses. Charging into this milling melee, dwarves with mattocks and warhammers chopped at orcs, hollering the names of their ancient gods and ancestors.
Knucklebones, not much taller than the mountain men, used the dwarves as shields, darting from behind to ply her dark elven blade. Even as Sunbright watched, she hung onto Cappi's belt to alert him that she was there and a friend. Working as a team with Pullor, the two dwarves carved into orcs that they had backed into a pocket of rock. Sunbright thought that action foolish, since even orcs would fight when cornered. Better to give them room to flee, then kill them from behind, but the dwarves were hot to destroy ancient enemies and win glory. One orc broke from the pack by hurling a spear at Cappi's face and bolting.