Don Bassingthwaite - The Binding Stone

But for every dolgrim that died under the elemental’s fist, three more slipped away. The elemental was so ponderous and so much larger than the twisted creatures that they had an advantage in dodging the earth-spirit’s blows. And the hamlet was still burning.

“Move in!” Adolan yelled. His voice cracked with emotion. “Do whatever you can!”

Geth roared and charged like a mastiff released from its chain, sword and gauntlet catching the burning light. Adolan raced forward as well, the deep words that commanded the elemental rumbling out of his chest. Singe scanned the smoke and shadows of the common. When he had first glimpsed the hellish light of the burning hamlet rising about the trees, one guilty thought had shot through him.

He had left Toller alone while he pursued Geth. Now the young commander was somewhere in the middle of madness that would make even a veteran falter.

Dandra was still standing with him, the shock in her eyes seeming stronger than ever. She had her free hand wrapped around the psicrystal that lay against her chest. Her whole body was trembling. Her gaze was empty, as if her entire awareness had turned in on itself in reaction to the horror before her. Her mouth was moving, though. She was muttering to herself. “I won’t run. I won’t. They need us …”

“Dandra!” Singe shouted over the cacophony of screams and cracking flames. She didn’t respond. He had seen too many recruits freeze with shock at their first battle to be gentle. He reached out and slapped her.

The kalashtar reeled back, then looked up at him sharply.

For a moment, Dandra’s eyes burned with the feral, brittle fury of someone terrified beyond madness. Singe gasped and snapped up his rapier, but before he could do more than react, Dandra sucked in a deep, wracking breath. Her eyes squeezed shut and a shudder passed through her.

When she opened her eyes again, they were frightened, but clear and rational. “Singe …” She stared at his raised blade, touched her cheek, and swallowed. “Il-Yannah, what did I do?”

The truth of what he had seen-or thought he had seen-almost rolled off Singe’s tongue. From somewhere behind him, though, a heartrending shriek tore through the screams of Bull Hollow’s destruction. The wizard glanced over his shoulder at the fiery scene, then back to Dandra. He swallowed his answer.

“You froze,” he told her. “That’s all.” He lowered his sword. “Have you recovered? Do you think you’re ready to fight again?”

Dandra nodded grimly and shifted her grip on her spear. Singe took a breath. “Good. Stay with me. I left a friend in Bull Hollow. I need to find him.”

He turned and plunged across the common, shouting for Toller. Through the smoke, he could see the towering form of the elemental as it slowly chased down dolgrims, swinging its immense fists at any that came within its reach. Adolan moved with the earth-spirit, his spear skewering any dolgrims lucky enough to escape the earth-spirit’s fists. Geth was leaping and springing through the shifting shadows cast by the burning buildings, darting back and forth wherever dolgrims menaced the people of Bull Hollow. Singe whirled around, looking for some sign-any sign-of his young commander.

On the far side of the common, Sandar’s proud inn was half ablaze, its northern end devoured by flame that was slowly working its way south. In the cover of the south end, sheltered between the inn and its stables, a makeshift barricade had been erected. A classic defense taught in House Deneith officer training. Behind the barricade, a blue jacket with the flashing silver insignia of the Blademarks flew like a rallying banner from a broken pole. Dark shapes crouched low around it. Hope leaped in Singe.

“Toller! Toller!” He grabbed at Dandra’s arm and pulled the kalashtar around to point the barricade out to her. “My friend is there!”

He sprinted across the common without waiting to see if she followed. The barricade was intact and three dead dolgrims were scattered across the ground before it. “Toller!” he shouted again.

There was no response. The only sound beyond the barricade was the screaming of terrified horses in the stable.

Singe slowed to a stop with sudden dread. “Toller?” he called. “Anyone?” He approached the barricade, a spell ready on his lips.

The light from the burning inn danced across fallen bodies-the dark shapes he thought he had seen crouched around the banner of Toller’s jacket. With his heart in his throat, Singe vaulted over the barrier. Toller sat slumped with his back against the banner’s broken pole. The scion of House Deneith, a promising Blademarks commander, slumped to the side at the wizard’s touch. Any sign of life Singe thought he had seen was, he realized stupidly, nothing more than the shifting of firelight.

Toller’s shirt had been torn open. His exposed chest, his arms, and his throat were all strangely pockmarked, the skin shriveled and pale. His dead face was locked in an expression of agony.

Singe squatted down and touched the swirling colors of Toller’s dragonmark. The bright mark had faded slightly with its bearer’s death, but it was hot to the touch. Toller had used its magic before he died.

There was a whimper from the deepest shadows alongside the stable wall. Singe lifted his glowing rapier sharply. Its light fell on a huddled woman-the serving woman from the inn. Her eyes were wide with terror, but she was alive and, except for minor bruises and burns, uninjured. Singe’s jaw clenched. There was a slight shimmer about the woman. He recognized it. House Deneith carried the Mark of Sentinel, the ability of magical defense. Some heirs of Deneith could turn aside arrows or conjure phantom armor or block spells. Toller had been able to throw up a minor magical shield.

In his last moments, he had used it to protect a serving woman.

Singe rose and took a step toward her. “What happened here?”

The woman’s response was to stiffen and press herself back against the wall, her wide-eyes staring at him.

Past him.

Singe whirled as the tall, emaciated figure of the dolgaunt emerged from the smoke and shadows. Hruucan, Dandra had named him. His shoulder tentacles twitched like an insect’s antennae, probing the air. Up close, Singe had a better view of what he had thought at a distance to be thick hair and light fur on the dolgaunt’s head and body. The truth was repulsive. Thick tendrils of flesh dangled from the creature’s scalp and ran down his neck and onto his shoulders in a heavy pendulous mane. Hruucan was naked from the waist up and all over his exposed skin, tiny buds of flesh rose up in imitation of whiskers and body hair-except that those fleshy buds writhed and shivered in reaction to every speck of falling ash and every breath of hot, fire-born wind. The black pits of the thing’s eyes turned toward Singe.

“Wizard,” he said and the grating bluntness of the word made Singe shudder. There was no emotion in Hruucan’s harsh voice, only cold acknowledgment of what he faced.

His tongue-like tentacles lashed forward.

The huddled serving woman finally found her voice and screamed, scrambling away over the barricade. Singe leaped away from the whipping tentacles. Hruucan, however, closed in behind them, moving with uncanny speed and fighting in silence. His tentacles swept the air again and this time the dolgaunt whirled with them, spinning up on one leg to reach and kick with the other. Singe jumped back again. He slashed his rapier at the tentacles, but the tough strands of muscle just twitched out of the way as if possessed of a mind of their own. He shifted and stepped back, trying to pick his target.

His foot came down on something hard and thick, yet yielding. An out-flung leg. Toller’s leg. His arms flailed and he staggered, then lost his balance entirely. The ground-and Toller’s sprawled body-rushed up at him. Singe tucked his shoulder in and rolled as he hit the ground, coming up in a crouch. One of the dolgaunt’s tentacles hit Toller’s corpse and seemed to dig into the flesh, almost sucking at it.