David Gross: An Opportunity for Profit

Rings and Anvil took the lead, each carrying a freshly lighted torch. Rings held his plain axe in his other hand, while Anvil clutched the unlighted lantern. Its hood was missing, and the remaining oil sloshed gently as they walked.

Sharessa knew that Anvil hadn't liked relinquishing his stewardship of the blinded Ingrar, but after exacting a promise from Belgin that the round-faced gambler wouldn't stray from the young pirate, he had relented.

The three survivors of the Morning Bird took up the rear this time. Turbalt kept pushing ahead of the other two, trying desperately to keep himself in the middle. The crewmen glared at the back of their former captain's head. They obviously despised him more than the Sharkers ever could. It was bad to be a weak and cowardly man, but it was far worse to be so when commanding the lives of others. They would never forgive him for that.

"He's using us as bait," whimpered Turbalt. His earlier histrionics had reduced his voice to a strangled mewling. "Belmer's sacrificing us to the fiend to save himself!"

Belgin reached out and slapped Turbalt in the back of the head with a quick hand. The fat ship captain stumbled to one knee. He rose, indignant and persistent.

"You know it's-" The heavy slap whipped his face around, harder than before. Belgin didn't speak a word. When Turbalt opened his mouth again, he just struck him again, harder still, spinning the fat man to the ground.

"That's enough," said Belgin softly. With the faintest of whimpers, Turbalt crawled to his feet and followed, this time taking up the rear.

Sharessa watched it all from the darkness. Her clothes remained damp from her plunge into the river, but the sultry night was uncomfortable. On this side of the river, the ground was soft and moist. The tall trees had shrunk and withered, their gnarled limbs painful in the shifting torchlight.

The breezes had fled, and in their wake had risen a miasma of insects. Where they stung, Sharessa felt her flesh contract and burn. She dare not slap at them as she shadowed the others, staying always just outside the torchlight, but not too far away. Instead, she squeezed the handle of Rings's everbright axe.

Somewhere on the other side of the torchlight was Belmer, his path mirroring Sharessa's. He bore Brindra's enchanted sword. Together they waited for the fiend to attack the others. They couldn't defend themselves without these two weapons, so Turbalt's words were true. Belmer had called it a lure, but the careless passage made them nothing more than bait. Sharessa and Belmer were the hooks.

The heat grew more intense, the insects ever fiercer. Sharessa wiped at her sweaty neck, and her hand came away a battlefield of bloody mosquito bodies. Another legion took their place, their buzzing growing louder in her ears.

Back in the torchlight, Turbalt and the sailors slapped at their faces and arms, cursing, then peering into the darkness to see if their noises had at tracted attention. Sharessa could see by their halting gaits that they expected the attack at any moment. She knew how they felt. Her own muscles were sore from stopping at the crack of a twig, from twisting suddenly at the supernatural chill that passed like a winter cloud across the back of her neck.

Maybe the fiend never crossed the river, she half-hoped. She banished the thought as soon as it formed. That's what the thing would want them to think. They had to believe it would attack again, or else it would catch them by surprise yet again.

Something trembled the brush ahead of Sharessa. She stopped. Her blood turned to ice, and the mosquito bites spread like fire across her skin. She watched the spot carefully but saw nothing. The others hadn't heard the sound. They continued their journey.

The sound came again, this time behind the travelers. They spun around, the sudden movement of the torches creating a vertiginous whirl of shadows. Rings and Anvil brandished the torches like swords, holding their weapons like mere shields. Belgin swept Ingrar behind the warriors, and the sailors followed, forming a defensive square around the blind boy and the gambler.

Turbalt screamed and ran blindly into the woods- straight toward Sharessa. The rustling darkness followed him.

Sharessa slipped sideways, smooth as a serpent. The bumbling Turbalt crashed past her. Something hotter and darker than the night followed upon his heels. Sharessa raised the axe in both hands and struck.

The impact was tremendous; it evoked a squealing hiss and a blast of putrid breath. The axe re bounded, spinning Sharessa backward. She barely kept her double grip upon the dwarven weapon. She struck again before recovering her balance. Again her blade struck hard, but she felt the same unyielding impact, closer this time. The thing closed with her.

Sharessa threw herself backward, but one foot caught in the undergrowth. She felt a searing slash across her hip. Before another came, she thrust away. Dead roots twisted hard at her feet. She tore away, wrenching an ankle. As she stood, pain exploded in the twisted joint. She hopped to the side, but then an avalanche fell upon her.

Sharessa felt ragged fingers reach into her hair, pulling her head back. A bony knee pressed hard into her spine. She opened her mouth to scream, but her lungs were already squeezed empty. It was breaking her in half.

The fiend squealed again, this time in pain and rage. When it released Sharessa, the pirate rolled weakly to the side. She saw Belmer's lithe form in silhouette against the torchlight. He stood before the fiend, Brindra's sword pointed at its face. The torches came closer as Anvil and Rings charged forward.

Even crouched, the fiend towered over Belmer. Its arms and legs were long, with hard muscles knotted together in grotesque clusters. Claws whipped toward Belmer, blossoming like bony flowers. Brindra's sword licked out, and the fiend drew back its wounded hands. It held them to its mouth, and Sharessa heard a horrid sucking sound.

Belmer didn't give the fiend a chance to lick its wounds. He darted in, stabbing at its leg. Blood sprayed like a string of black pearls, glimmering briefly before splattering on the ground.

The fiend struck back with a scythelike motion. Belmer's parry materialized before the attack, but it was only a feint. The heavy tail crashed into the ground where Belmer had stood, but the little man leapt above it, slashing at the fiend's face. The creature was too fast, slipping back just out of range of the sword.

It didn't hear the others until they were nearly upon it.

A burly sailor threw his shoulder into the back of the fiend's leg. The monster stumbled backward, turning to reach its attacker with its teeth and claws. The man had time for a single dying scream.

A torch smashed against its head, casting a halo of sparks about its skull. A second sailor backpedaled to escape, but he was too slow. The fiend's tail arched down, piercing the man's throat with its sharp barb. A dark spurt of blood crossed the sailor's face. He reached up with clumsy hands to staunch the flow, but his movements were weak and jerky. He sank to the ground.

A big shadow rose behind the fiend as it descended upon the fallen sailor. Anvil smashed the open lantern against the monster's back. The blow itself would have stunned or killed a man, but it merely surprised the creature, splashing it with lamp oil. Rather than press the attack, Anvil threw himself to the side, narrowly avoiding the fiend's powerful tail.

Rings was already on the fiend's other side. He smashed his flaming brand against the fiend's back. The oil ignited immediately, spreading across the monster's decaying flesh in a blue-white wave. The fiend raised its arms high above its head and shrieked, shaking its ragged claws at the sky.

Anvil and Rings backed up, watching the monster burn but ready for it to lash out. Belmer remained in his fencer's stance, ready for anything. Sharessa hobbled to a tree and held herself up, watching. The fiend kept on burning and screaming, but it did nothing to escape the flames. Then she realized that it wasn't howling in pain.