Филип Этанс - Shadows of Amn

The Ravager shook off what little effect the lightning might have had on it and whirled to face the elf mage.

"That elf is going to die very soon," Yoshimo said grimly.

The Ravager took two huge, ground-trembling steps toward the mage, who was wise enough to turn and run. The elf managed to disappear through a doorway that Abdel never would have seen in the base of the tree. The Ravager screamed out its rage and set Abdel's ears ringing.

The sellsword in him noticed a hesitation in the monster's step. The tiger had hurt it more than Abdel had at first realized.

"Yoshimo," Abdel said, "we have to immobilize it."

"Immobilize?" the Kozakuran asked.

"Make it. ." Abdel fumbled. "Make it so the thing can't move. Make it fall down and not be able to get back—"

"I understand, now," Yoshimo interrupted, "thank you. So, we go for the legs?"

"I think so," Abdel answered, "avoiding the arms. If we can get it to just stop, maybe I can talk to it."

"Abdel—" Jaheira, who had moved up behind them started.

"It's Imoen," Abdel told her. "Imoen's in there somewhere."

"Abdel—" she started to say.

"Don't, Jaheira," he said. "It was you who started this. Before I met you I wouldn't have hesitated—not just now but lots of times before. Yoshimo would be dead now, so would Gaelan Bayle—but they live because of you, because you taught me to fight with my heart— my human heart—not my tainted blood. That thing is Imoen. I can't kill her. I killed Sarevok, but I can't kill her."

Jaheira smiled sadly, then her attention was ripped away by another elf's dying scream.

"Yoshimo?" Abdel asked.

Yoshimo nodded but looked to Abdel to make the first move. "I will try, my friend," the Kozakuran said, "but I will have to go, if I feel I have to go."

It was Abdel's turn to nod. He took the first step, then the two of them were charging.

A wave of fleeing elves covered the bulk of their charge, and the Ravager was still trying to find the elf who'd sent the lightning bolt its way. Abdel got to the thing's leg and made to swipe at the already open wound. The broadsword bounced off the thing's armored skin less than half an inch from the wound. The Ravager took no notice of him.

Yoshimo circled around. The Kozakuran moved with barely a sound, and though it looked as if he wanted to let loose a battle cry of some kind, he held his tongue. The sword bit deeply into the Ravager's leg, benefiting from the Kozakuran's running momentum.

The monster flung its head backward on its hunched neck and hissed into the air. Yoshimo, teeth clamped hard together, began to work his sword back and forth in the creature's leg. Abdel couldn't tell if he was trying to get the blade out or deeper in. Green gore was spraying everywhere, and Yoshimo was quickly covered in it.

"Enchanted," Yoshimo called. "The blade, I mean."

The Ravager reached down for Yoshimo, and Abdel, not sure what else to do, screamed. This distracted the Ravager for only half a second, but that was enough time for Yoshimo to sidestep the thing's multifingered hand.

The Ravager reversed the direction of its arm and swatted Yoshimo away. The enchanted sword came out of the thing's leg, releasing a second torrent of green blood, and Yoshimo was thrown several paces away and to the ground.

"Imoen!" Abdel screamed. "No!"

The Ravager roared and tipped its head down to Yoshimo. The Kozakuran, stunned, shook his head and tried to stand.

"Yoshimo!" Jaheira shouted, "get out of there!" as if the Kozakuran would want to do anything but.

The Ravager brought its mighty head down and impaled the Kozakuran through the small of his back with one of the scythelike horns on the side of its face. Abdel watched this and heard the avatar sniff the fallen Shadow Thief like a dog might test a meal. Yoshimo tried to get up, but the thing had him pinned to the ground. A wavelike shudder went through the Kozakuran's body, and he coughed on the blood that was quickly filling his mouth. The Ravager almost seemed to grin at the sight of it.

"Harasu," Yoshimo said, his voice breaking, his right hand fumbling vainly in the dirt for the sword. "Harasu …"

The Ravager slowly brought one hand down over Yoshimo, withdrew the horn, and ripped the Kozakuran to bloody shreds.

Abdel screamed and drew his arm back, forgetting the futility of tapping at this thirty-foot monster with the simple steel broadsword. The Ravager whipped its head around to face him and drew a deep breath through its palm-sized nostrils. The thing tipped its head, reminding Abdel of a dog for a second time. It almost seemed to recognize him. Abdel let his arm drop.

"Imoen," he said. "It's me."

The Ravager roared, and Abdel threw his hands up to protect his ears, dropping the inadequate blade in the process. His already ringing ears ached, and he recoiled at the blast of fetid wind the roar sent his way.

"Abdel!" Jaheira screamed. He barely heard her. "The sword!"

The sword!

Abdel dived for Yoshimo's blade, launching himself farther through the air than even he imagined himself capable. He came down with his hand on the hilt of the sword and instantly felt a burning agony explode on his left shoulder. The Ravager had pinned him to the ground the same way it had Yoshimo. Abdel could feel its hot breath and the smell of it gagged him. The pain of the wrist-sized horn jammed through bone and flesh set Abdel's head spinning in colored lights and brought him to the edge of unconsciousness. The yellow haze came back, and Abdel roared himself this time in rage and frustration.

Abdel flipped himself over onto his side, letting the horn rip through his already numbing flesh. He swiped the sword across his turning body with every muscle in his arm tensed to its breaking point. The blade sheared through the horn, and with the help of his strong twisting motion, it came off the Ravager's face like a branch being shorn from a tree.

The monster flinched back, and Abdel, overcome now only by a desire to kill—an overwhelming blood-lust unlike anything he'd ever felt—reversed the blade and brought it smashing into the Ravager's crocodile-like lower jaw. The whole jaw came off, and green slime drenched the prone sellsword. Abdel blinked but was too far gone to let that stop him. He hacked the thing's head again, ignoring the deep gouges one of the creature's clawed hands made in his right side.

The horn fell from the gory wound in Abdel's shoulder, and without even thinking, he snatched it out of the air before it hit the ground. Without hesitation, he drove it into the monster's blood-soaked throat. The Ravager screamed again, robbing Abdel of his ability to hear at all.

Abdel's whole body twitched, then tightened, and the deep wound in his side closed all at once and was gone. The yellow haze deepened over his vision, and all he saw clearly was the Ravager—his opponent had become the entire world.

The sellsword hacked the thing again, then again, and again. He didn't stop until the huge hellspawned beast fell to the ground with a tremor like an earthquake and a sound only Abdel couldn't hear.

Quiet.

Not silence, there were sounds: the sound of running feet, burning wood, crying children, voices calling out, asking in Elvish if everyone is all right, if anyone has seen my husband, if anyone knows what happened to my family…

Abdel heard all of it, but as one muffled, wavelike hum. He could feel blood trickling out of his ears. His eyes hurt, and so did his head. He felt wet and uncomfortable. The nondescript chain mail tunic and trousers he'd accepted from Bodhi were drenched in gore that smelled sharply of iron and power.

He could see, but his vision was blurred, almost as numb in its own way as his shoulder and side. Jaheira leaned over him, and though he could see her lips form his name, the sound of her voice was buried under the omnipresent dull roar. Elhan was there too, then both of them were dragging him across the uneven, mossy, gore-soaked ground. They got him to the side of one of the trees, and Abdel groaned at the pain that burned through his upper body when they propped him as gently as they could against the rough, but somehow comforting, bark of the ancient tree.