The rocky shell encasing Burke erupted from within, shooting shards of rock in every direction and blasting Balthor back ten feet where he landed on his back, his face, hands, and arms streaked with blood from wounds caused by the blast.
Balthor could hear the mer chuckling off behind him but was more worried about the freed beast, which was bearing down upon him. Rolling to his side, Balthor pushed himself up and tried to dive between Burke's legs, for the creature was right on top of him. He felt a searing pain across his back as he rolled through.
Looking back as he ran for safety, Balthor could see Burke's fingers, which had turned into long thin blades, retracting back to a normal size as he turned to follow.
"I can't cut him. I can't blast him. And I can't bum him," said Balthor to himself as he ran, blood trickling onto the ground from his back. How do I kill him, he thought to himself.
I told you, came the reply in his mind. You can't. Give up now and serve me… and I may let you live.
"Get out of me head, ye devil!" screamed Balthor as he dived to the ground again to get out of the long reach of the mer's blue-black minion. "I will find a way to kill your beast. I always do."
But nobody short of a god can kill Burke, came the mental reply. Believe me. And once he's done with you, I'll send him into the forest to kill Kamahl. Live with that failure dwarf… but not for long.
"A god, eh?" mumbled Balthor as he dived out of Burke's reach to avoid yet another swipe from the beast's strong arm. "I may jest have something for ye then. But first I gotta get me axe."
On Burke's next pass, Balthor tried to sidestep the incoming attack, planning to get inside the beast's reach and make a grab for his axe, which still impaled the creature. Burke's arm grew another six inches and caught Balthor in the shoulder, shattering his collarbone and knocking him to the ground.
"Damn ye-" started Balthor, wincing in pain and trying to move his now useless arm, but his curse stopped short as the beast plunged its fist into his mouth. Burke extended the flesh of his hand and arm down into Balthor's throat, choking the dwarf and closing off his air passage. Balthor could see the shaft of his battle-axe sticking straight out of the beast toward him and flailed with his one good arm trying to grasp it. It was just out of reach.
About to black out and gagging on the rubbery flesh of Burke's arm, which continued to flow down his throat, Balthor bit down hard, severing the arm. Still choking, the bloody and battered dwarf ducked under Burke's flailing appendage as the beast tried to shove it into his mouth once again. He leaped high up into the air to grab his axe.
Fighting to stay conscious, for he still couldn't draw a breath, Balthor began to summon the mana he needed for his final spell. A spell handed down in his family from generation to generation. A spell, it was said, that had been given to the great Balthor Stoneface by Fiers himself. A spell so powerful it often consumed the caster as well as the target.
Burke grabbed the dwarf's head and began to squeeze his skull, but Balthor ignored the attack as he infused more and more mana into his axe, draining all of his reserves and calling for more from the distant mountains. With darkness intruding on him, blood welling up in his eyes and seeping out of his ears from the pounding pressure on his brain, Balthor unleashed the spell. A beam of white light shot up into the sky from the head of the axe, which still lay deep inside Burke's body.
When the beam touched the sky, clouds began to form around it, roiling, black and brown clouds that emanated from the beam and quickly covered the sky, blotting out the sun. Then, as Balthor passed out, the beam ended, rising up into the clouds and disappearing.
The last thing Balthor heard was the merman laughing again. But he knew. He knew he had won. Before Burke could drop the unconscious dwarf to the ground, the clouds above opened up once more, and from the very spot where the thin beam had disappeared, a five-foot-wide bolt of crackling lightning shot down to the ground, engulfing Burke and blasting the unconscious dwarf he held at arm's length halfway to the forest.
The beam opened up a hole in the ground beneath Burke's feet, boring deep into the earth, burning everything it touched to ash. Burke withstood the electrical onslaught for several minutes, but the beam continued to bore into him and into the ground until it began to flay the skin, layer by layer, from the beast. Inch by inch, Burke's flesh was ripped away and burned to ash by the wrath of Fiers until nothing was left save the hand that had held Balthor.
Balthor woke with a start when he hit the ground, but he still couldn't breathe with the large chunk of Burke still clogging his throat. He lay on the ground, gasping for air, well after the spell ended, unable to dislodge the rubbery flesh. Finally, he saw two silvery-blue, webbed feet stop in front of him.
"I should kill you for that, dwarf," said Laquatas. "But I see that most of my work has already been done. Perhaps I'll just sit here and watch you die, choking on the marvelous creature you just destroyed."
"I won't… give ye… the pleasure," gasped Balthor as he started to reach into his mouth to pull the dead flesh of Burke out of his throat.
"Unh unh unhh," said Laquatas. "I can't have you doing that."
Balthor looked up to see Laquatas gesturing and gathering mana. A moment later, his arms and legs were frozen in place. He couldn't move. He couldn't clear his throat of the blockage. He could only lie there as the darkness settled back in.
"I'd love to stay and watch the end of the legendary Balthor Rockfist," said Laquatas, kneeling down, so Balthor could see his face and the battle-axe he now carried with him, "but I have your weapon for my trophy case. That's enough revenge for me. Besides, I have a destiny of my own to fulfill. Goodbye, dwarf. Good luck with your death."
"I'll… be coming… for ye," gasped Balthor right before he blacked out again.
CHAPTER 20
Laquatas strode toward the edge of the Krosan Forest, noticing once again how clearly defined the edge was. The high grass of the savanna ended just yards from the broad trunks of the first trees, replaced by the spongy moss that covered the ground beneath the forest. The mer knew that once he stepped into the forest he would be entering a different world, a world of shadows and danger much like his undersea world. The light of the sun did not penetrate the dense canopy of the trees just as it could not penetrate to the bottom of his ocean. Death could as easily come from above or below you in the forest as from the side. The creatures of the forest lived and battled at all elevations.
"Damn that dwarf," muttered Laquatas again as he peered into the shadowy darkness from the mossy edge of the forest. "This won't be easy without Burke."
Laquatas focused his mind on the forest, pushing his senses out to their limits. After a few moments, he could hear spiders spinning their webs, see termites burrowing into the rotting hulk of a dead tree, and feel the breeze created by moths fluttering inside the forest. Summoning up even more mana, the mage raised his hands up near his face, snapped the fingers of both hands simultaneously, and disappeared.
"Now I can see you," said Laquatas to the forest, "but you can't see me." With that, the invisible mer inched his way into Krosan, picking his way around the dense foliage to avoid providing any visible clues to his location.
As he moved silently and carefully toward the ambush spot and his ultimate prize, Laquatas scanned the forest around him with his enhanced senses, searching for lurking dangers as well as the wayward barbarian. But the forest was strangely silent.