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.The small thief clutched her elven blade close and waited for an opportunity to strike, but these undead menaces were beyond her capabilities.In Karsus, she'd have run ten blocks by now.And Sunbright held the center of the battle, and nothing could get near him for his whirling blade.The dumpy manling with mandibles plied short knives in all four hands.He slashed the air and keened like a seagull, distracting Sunbright until others could strike.The shadeling slithered under the tree to circle behind, and the amputee zombie dragged itself up close to strike with a rusty cleaver it wore on a thong down its back.Sunbright watched them all, still calm, but singing the battle anthem of his people.As she watched and waited, stunned, Knucklebones felt a thrill in her breast, an admiration for this man who possessed not only strength and intelligence, but gentleness and the will to win, to learn, to delve into magic and make it his own.Too, she felt a sudden and surprising yearning to hold him close, a rush that made her belly tingle.Mighty queer feelings for a disastrous battle in a darksome, haunted forest.The attack coalesced when the knitting yarn tangle of arms and tentacles dropped from a tree onto Sunbright's head.Immediately limbs began to wrap around his eyes and mouth, to blind and smother him while the other fiends rushed in for the kill.But Sunbright took it all in stride.Still watching his enemies, he squirmed his left hand up along his neck and cheek, halting the tangled thing's cruel embrace.Biting through a ropy arm, then wrenching, he ripped the thing off his head.His skin was torn and rasped, for the tentacles were as abrasive as a squid's.Sunbright wore a mask of his own blood, but as the thing coiled around his bicep, he smashed down hard to grind it against his ribs, crushing it in his armpit.The four-armed manling scissored pipe stem arms wide, slid them between Sunbright's legs, and sliced to hamstring and cripple him.But the barbarian snapped his free hand on the juncture of two of the manling's arms, flicked his wrist, and broke both arms so they dangled and flapped uselessly.The cleaver-wielding zombie scuttled like a crippled crab to hack at Sunbright's backside and spine, and here Knucklebones got her chance.Hopping up and skipping along a branch, she might get behind the thing and yet be out of reach of Sunbright's long, flashing sword, or so she hoped.Crouching, she latched onto the zombie's tattered robe to jerk it backward and pierce its throat.The rotten cloth only tore in her grip.Grunting, the zombie spun faster than she would have imagined and the pitted, nicked cleaver came at her.The undead thing grunted, and Knucklebones saw with horror that its tongue was missing, cut out long ago.Up close the fiend was unspeakably repulsive.It stank of the grave and had only patches of skin to cover its yellowed skull, yet a deadly unlife glittered like moths in its eye sockets.Knucklebones wanted to shriek, but that would only get her killed, so she put her energy into striking instead.A short stab with her dagger, and the blade sank to the hilt in the zombie's neck.With a lurch and wrench, she jerked the blade toward herself and down to sever windpipe and vein.The blade tore free, the dead skin tearing like old, gray leather.The hideous wound did exactly nothing to the zombie, despite the fact that its head was half severed.The glittering moth eyes only bored deeper into Knucklebones as the cleaver whipped at her head.Still crouched, she stumbled backward, hooked her swollen foot on a branch, and fell.That left her legs exposed to the zombie's chop.She'd be as legless as it was in a second.Sunbright still had the tangle ball pinned in his armpit, for he hadn't the necessary second to rip it loose.The thing's arms and tentacles slapped, rasped, and sucked frantically at his arm and side and neck and thighs.The bitten off limb flailed, spraying black blood like octopus ink, and the limbs seemed to be growing, thinning and elongating.Two sucker-covered limbs wrapped around the barbarian's knee and yanked upward to trip him.Sunbright ground his arm tighter against his ribs, making the thing squirm, and tried to ignore it.The dumpy manling with two broken arms was hot for revenge.All this took place by the eerie light of the barbarian himself, for the green-white glow still surrounded him.Too, in the east and high up, dawn sent rose-yellow tendrils of light onto a low overcast slit as if with a knife.Knucklebones glimpsed all this as she flopped.The zombie made to chop at her leg, but she whipped it free before the cleaver struck.It cleft instead the branch she'd tripped on, the dull steel chipping through bark to white wood.Its stinking evil had first terrified Knucklebones, but now infuriated her.This zombie had been a bastard in life, too, she would bet.Scrambling on her butt and hands like a crab, she kicked hard at its brow, avoiding the mouth of broken teeth.The sturdy blow rocked the thing, but it didn't tumble.It was heavier than she'd guessed, as if the flesh had taken on the denseness of its tomb.Another quick kick glanced off its skull, shearing away rotten flesh and exposing fresh bone.For a moment, Knucklebones thought she'd vomit.Instead, she crabbed away from it.Sunbright grappled with the yarn ball that flapped and flailed like a mad octopus.Snatching another limb with his free hand, he put it to his mouth and bit through that also.He spat, lips black with blood.The dumpy manling chittered at him with a high, rabbitlike keen.Sunbright had no desire to kill it, for it was obviously under the thrall of Wulgreth.But the yarn ball was becoming a problem, raking his skin raw where it touched.Sunbright feinted at the manling, a quick jab to make it fall back.The manling did scuttle back, cradling its broken arms across its chest.With two good arms it slashed the air viciously, but long as those pipe stem limbs were, they couldn't reach past Harvester without taking damage.Another swipe of the glowing blade made it hop back on short, stumpy legs and bare feet.That step landed it on the stingers severed from the gas bags.The manling yelped as if it had stepped on hot coals, then yelped again as the barbed stingers jammed into its dirty yellow feet.Screeching, it caught the saw-toothed barbs and ripped so blood flowed.But now its tiny, skinny hand was poisoned.Sunbright grabbed another handful of arms and tentacles and branches to bite again, but the yarn ball creature was learning, and its pseudopods coiled around his hand like a bullwhip.When the tentacles retracted the barbarian's arm was jerked back tight to his own shoulder, and more coils trussed him.So it was stalemate, Sunbright thought.He had the thing pinned, and it had him half trussed.Cursing, he whirled to see how Knucklebones fared, and where Wulgreth had gotten to.The upshot was not good.As Knucklebones scrambled to her feet, knife in hand, and backed from the truncated zombie, Wulgreth clambered over the trunk to snatch her from the rear.She'd be a hostage, Sunbright saw.He made to shout a warning, but a coil slapped around his mouth from chin to cheek, tightening too fast for him to bite.He cast a quick glance to his left, saw the four-armed manling had toppled, screeching and rubbing its feet with dirt.No enemies behind.But hadn't there been—The shadeling struck.All this time the smoky being had skulked close and low, biding its time.Now it leaped, like a shadow cast by a candle on a wall, and landed on Sunbright's back.The barbarian caught the flicker of it, but at first felt nothing.It had no weight, no substance.He felt the attack in his mind.Suddenly his head seemed empty and echoing [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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