Филип Этанс - Shadows of Amn

Yoshimo's voice followed suit, then Jaheira's again.

"Where is she?" Abdel asked Irenicus.

"You can't do anything for her now, Abdel," Irenicus said, his voice strangely subdued. "It's all over. I've won."

Abdel, snarling like a dumb, enraged animal, shot forward. Irenicus said three foreign words and was gone before Abdel could take off his head.

Suldanessellar was already in ruins.

There was smoke everywhere, and Abdel almost choked on the thick stench of burning wood, singed hair, and crisping flesh. Screams of fear, shock, sorrow, and pain punctuated the morning air. All around there was fire, elves running, trees burning, and the visceral death of the elven tree city.

Abdel ran off the effects of the teleport that brought them back from Myth Rhynn fast on the heels of the Ravager. The beast must have flown, run faster than anything on Faerun, or teleported itself to beat them there. Jaheira and Yoshimo fanned out behind him.

A haze of yellow rage descended over Abdel, and he ran against a tide of fleeing elf civilians into the chaotic hell of the Swanmay's Glade. His eyes blazed bright yellow, and any traces of injury he might have had faded into hard, ready muscle and kill-crazed adrenaline. He came through a wall of thick smoke, and when he saw the Ravager, the yellow haze fell away.

He had to stand in awe of the thing as it hit him all at once. Imoen. This beast was Imoen. This thing was made from the blood that ran through his own veins. This thing could be him. He could be this thing—he had been this thing. It was something just like that that had ripped Bodhi to shreds. His father's name crossed soundlessly across his lips. For the first time, the reality of who and what he was descended full onto him, and he was simply overcome.

Behind him, Jaheira raised her voice into a keening chant.

The Ravager hung from the side of one of the enormous trees. Its long, taloned feet dug deeply into the ancient bark, and it had all four hands free. With one mighty limb the creature smashed a hole into the hollow tree and revealed the modest home of an elf family who couldn't possibly have done anything to deserve this. An elf woman screamed and all but threw a squalling infant into a bassinet in one corner of the room. The Ravager picked the woman up as if she weighed nothing and squeezed. The claws were as long as the woman's arms, and they impaled her four times from four different directions. She didn't scream again, but she managed a sob before she died. An elf warrior answered from below with a battle cry that set Abdel's heart racing again.

The Ravager heard the cry and bent backward, still holding the tree with its feet, still holding the elf woman in one hand. The elf warrior stepped forward with a wide-bladed bastard sword that only glanced off the Ravager's nigh impenetrable chitin. The beast let the elf think he'd dodged a swipe of one clawed hand, then came down over the warrior with its open mouth. Abdel, in his paralyzed haze, made note of the fact that it was the first time he'd seen anyone, man or elf, bitten cleanly in half.

"Imoen," Abdel whispered, "no…."

The heat and sound of the fireball brought Abdel just one more notch closer to the situation at hand, but he didn't turn to find the source of it. An elf mage stepped a few paces behind what looked like a boulder of yellow-hot lava. A family of elves ran across the fireball's path. The mage showed the fine control she had over her burning conjuration by making it swerve around them so fast and by far enough that the elves didn't seem to see it. The ball was rolling toward the tree, toward the Ravager, and Abdel realized it must have been dozens of spells like it that accounted for all the fires.

Another elf warrior died horribly after trying to even dent the Ravager's armorlike skin. Abdel took a step forward, and he looked at the sword in his hand. He didn't even remember now where he'd gotten it. It wasn't even his sword. It was too light for Abdel's tastes even when fighting only other men. Against the Ravager, it would be no better than a needle. It was poorly made and cheap and certainly not enchanted in any way.

And did he even want to kill this thing? Of course, he had to. The lives of hundreds had already fallen to it, and a beautiful place that deserved none of this was being torn to ribbons, but this was Imoen. Somewhere in there this monster was still Imoen. And Jaheira was here. If he killed Imoen, what would she think? She had tried so hard to turn him away from his father's blood. Any death at his hands was a betrayal of that. Wasn't it?

The flaming sphere rolled to the base of the tree, then up. The Ravager slipped off the tree and almost seemed to willingly fall through the fire spell on its way down. The magical flames merely dissipated around the creature, who paid them no mind.

Jaheira cursed from behind Abdel, and he heard her call on Mielikki and ask her favors before slipping into that arcane tongue once more.

"Imoen," Abdel said again, his feet planted firmly in place.

"Abdel, my friend, ' Yoshimo said, sliding behind him and coughing once from the smoke. "What is it we're to do here? What can you do from this. . what, forty yards or so away? Do we attack it? How does a man stop such a … such a …"

There was a roar, a flash of purple and black, and a tiger the likes of which Abdel had never imagined, much less seen, appeared in the glade in front of him.

"You know what to do, my girls," Jaheira said, her voice as certain and steady as she could make it.

Abdel turned to look at her, and before he saw Jaheira he'd counted six of the huge cats. Standing in front of her were two more. From the mouths of these tigers grew fangs like scimitar blades. A few of the tigers spared Abdel a passing glance, then they loped determinedly toward the Ravager, two of them circling off to the right, two to the left, and four straight down the middle, straight at it.

"I came here for …" Yoshimo said to Abdel. "I did not come here for this. It is time for me to … go."

The first tiger hit the Ravager hard and heavy, daggerlike claws tried to dig in, to hold, then tear. The monster reacted to the animal's weight with a sense of irritation rather than pain or fear. It took hold of the beast as if it was a mewling kitten and crushed its spine with a single twitch of its massive hand. The second cat was caught in midleap by another of the Ravager's clawed hands. The single backhanded swipe took the tiger's head off. The other cats pulled up short, quickly regrouping in the face of an enemy they couldn't ever have been ready for.

The Ravager waded through the confused tigers and ripped a long, jagged gash in the side of one. The mighty animal's entrails spilled onto the ground, and it died at the Ravager's feet. The other cats each glanced at Jaheira in turn. A tear stained the druid's cheek, but she nodded the animals in. One of them latched onto the monster's leg, sinking its huge fangs through the hard exoskeleton with a loud crack. The Ravager trembled, injured for the first time. It grabbed the tiger and snatched it up hard and fast enough that the animal's head came off, its teeth still wedged firmly into the creature's leg. The Ravager tossed the headless tiger away and grabbed for another, which dodged lithely out of reach.

"I can't.." Jaheira said. "I free you. Go!"

The four tigers who still lived didn't hesitate to follow Jaheira's advice and withdraw. They scattered in all directions, then simply faded into thin air before reaching the edge of the glade. The severed head was gone from the Ravager's leg, and a thick green fluid oozed from the wound.

"It can be hurt," Abdel said, and Yoshimo nodded.

There was a brilliant flash of blue-white light—a single bolt of powerful lighting—that ran parallel to the ground and was obviously the doing of a young elf, standing defiantly at the base of one of the mighty trees.