Ixidor rammed the stick at her again, but she grabbed it and yanked herself to her feet.

Dropping the branch, Ixidor turned and ran. He had nearly killed her. The panther was, after all, just another weapon in his hand, and he had a whole forest of them. If only he could get far enough ahead She was too quick. Phage thrashed through the forest, closing on him.

Ixidor half-turned, raising his arm to ward back the blow.

She grabbed his arm, and contagion spread from her fingers. Her touch was agony-cold, numbing, killing. It turned his flesh black and made his muscles into gray jelly. Fingertips to shoulder, his arm rotted. Phage closed her hand around the bone and twisted. Sinews snapped, the joint popped, and like a wing pull from a long-roasted bird, Ixidor's arm ripped entirely loose.

Screaming, he clutched the bloody stump.

"If you had let me, I would have held you. You would have been gone completely by now. Will you make me take you one piece at a time?" Phage asked. She tossed the rotten bones aside and stalked toward him.

Ixidor staggered away. He stumbled backward over a root and fell, staring up into the canopy. "Nivea!"

Phage reached for him. Her arms opened in the all-accepting embrace of death.

"Nivea!"

Something flashed like lightning in the forest. A wide, white blade swept down and struck Phage's shoulder. Her right arm fell cleanly away. It thumped in the weeds beside Ixidor, and he had the crazy thought of grabbing it and placing it on his own stump.

A figure came between Ixidor and Phage. It was a woman-an angel. Her flesh was alabaster, the color of the statue in the garden. She was no statue, though. Her feet hovered above the ground, unblemished by dirt or grass. Her hair streamed, and her huge wings drove back Phage. She advanced, the lightning sword beaming above her shoulder.

Ixidor stared, dumbfounded.

Phage hadn't a chance. She stumbled helplessly.

The angel lifted her blade high and turned its point downward, and rammed the sword into a scabbard across her back. She was not going to kill Phage-or at least not that way.

The angel opened her arms and wrapped Phage in an embrace. Snow-white fabric enfolded black silk, purity warring with corruption. Smoke poured from their flesh. Skin peeled like burning paper and muscles caught fire. Bones split and organs drooled from ruptured cavities.

Phage crumpled. She slid like a greasy bag out of the arms of the angel. Whatever remained of her on the robes of the angel burst into flame and were gone.

The angel turned. She did not step or flap, but only swung slowly about, her wings gathered at her back.

Ixidor fell to his knees and then to his face. He clutched the ground with the fingers of his remaining hand. "Nivea."

She hovered above him, staring down.

"Forgive me, Nivea," he muttered into the ground. "Forgive me."

"I am not Nivea."

Ixidor raised his eyes. It was like staring into the sun-blinding and painful. "You are Nivea."

"I am not. I am your new creation. I am the Protector."

Ixidor blinked. "New creation?"

"Your dream was the medium."

He shook his head. "My dream?"

"All of this is a dream. It began when you thought you had startled awake. It ends now…"

Ixidor sat bolt upright in bed, breath raking into and out of him. He was covered with sweat. He dragged back the silk curtains and swung his legs down, seeing the unmen crowd nervously up around his bed.

A dream. The whole thing had been a dream.

Except that something beamed brightly-powerful, feminine, floating above the floor. The angel drifted beyond the circle of unmen, who cast watery shadows across their master.

"You are real," Ixidor said breathlessly.

"You created me out of your dream. I am your Protector. I will keep you safe from all foes."

Ixidor averted his eyes to the marble floor. "You will avenge Nivea. You will kill Phage."

The angel nodded with Nivea's own likeness. "I will kill Phage."

Ixidor smiled for the first time in days. At last, he had created something beautiful. He stood and held out his hands toward the angel.

Only one arm rose. His right arm was gone.

He gasped, prodding the stump of his shoulder. It was not gory as it had been in the dream, but still the limb had vanished.

"I am your Protector, your strong right arm," said the angel. "You made me out of dream and out of your own body. I am bone of your bone and flesh of your flesh. I will defend you."

Unbelieving, Ixidor probed the stump of his shoulder.

The angel held her arms open. "Come, my master. I will protect you."

Tears streamed down his face. Could he refuse? What would she do if he spurned her?

Ixidor staggered into those brutally pure robes. Radiance scorched his skin and prickled his hair. He was unworthy, yet he was her creator. "You are pure of every stain, and so I shall call you Akroma."

CHAPTER SIXTEEN: DEATH MATCH

Commander Kamahl rode his red battle snake Roth out of the forest. The wood had spread across hundreds of miles of sand and stopped in sight of the Corian Escarpment. Beside the commander, General Stonebrow trudged toward the granite ridge. In time, commander and general reached the height of the escarpment and signaled a halt. Behind them, with fist or claw or bough, the vast army of forest folk passed on the signal. They shuffled to stillness.

Standing there, they did not seem so much an army-two miles long and half a mile wide. They seemed the forest itself. Dryads had come in marching groves; spinefolk like fiery tumble-weeds formed ubiquitous hedges; brownies herded thistle stalks; and these were only the flora. Among them slithered giant serpents and enormous slugs. Toad men stood with legs akimbo beside elves in watchful rows. Giant centaurs and giant squirrels, bear warriors and mantis warriors-the great army of Krosan was, in fact, Krosan.

Sitting astride Roth, Kamahl got his first glimpse of enemy territory.

"It is like a great spider web," rumbled General Stonebrow beside him. The huge centaur's eyes flitted in their deep sockets.

Kamahl took a fortifying breath. "It is. My sister spun it."

Below their rocky vantage, the ground fell away to a wide black swamp. Brackish water reached to the horizons. Small islets rose here and there from the muck, piles of offal in a latrine, and from peak to peak ran a network of bridges. Here was a pestilent land with its borders wide open. It beckoned visitors as any snare beckons prey.

"There is her lair," Kamahl said, pointing to a huge ring of stone far away. Even from this distance, the coliseum was impressive. Tall, broad, perfectly proportioned, it was the only solid thing in that place of mud. More amazing still were the throngs that filled the distant roadways and bridges and the folk who blackened the stands. "She has already caught tens of thousands."

Stonebrow brooded a moment, his gaze shifting to the bridge that descended nearby. 'Tens of thousands in the stands, and tens of thousands in the swamps. Look." The islets below were not empty, each garrisoned with a small contingent. Other things patrolled the waters. Thousands of eyes peered up at the army. There would be no way to bypass Jeska's minions.

One minion particularly promised great difficulties. Kamahl growled low as he recognized a manic figure that bounded up the nearest bridge. "Braids."

Though the suspension bridge was sharply pitched from the swamp to the escarpment, Braids climbed as if racing across flat ground. Her feet made hollow sounds on the planks, a counterpoint to her giggles. This woman was lethal. She was not so much small but stunted, not so much capricious but chaotic, and her giggles were utterly mad.