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diversion. I'll deal with it." She shouted orders. I boomed a few of my own.
She was wrong, of course. The forvalaka was the diversion for those flying
Voroshk--though Bowalk would be convinced that the reverse was true. Once they
moved closer the airborne sorcerers appeared to be rippling lumps clinging to
long fenceposts. They were wrapped in and trailed acres of something
resembling black silk cloth.
They must have had some reason to believe that we would not be able to see
them. They made no effort not to be noticed.
When they slowed their approach I suspected immediately they wanted to
coordinate timing with the forvalaka--and I was right.
A burst of screams and dark fury erupted a scant hundred yards from our most
forward post. Unknown Shadows were all over the forvalaka. Exactly as they
were supposed to be, suddenly and briefly, at that point.
The moment Bowalk stopped charging to rip at the spooks they faded away.
For that moment she made a wonderful target.
The fireball projectors opened up.
Unfortunately, most that worked sped their blazing, unpredictable missiles
toward the Khatovaran sorcerers. Only two light bamboo pieces remained trained
on the monster. And one of those gave up the ghost after projecting just one
bilous green ball that flew in erractic skips and jerks but did graze the
beast along the flank scars she had gained during our previous encounter. She
took a solid hit in the shoulder from the other projector.
She could scream.
I did not look away. Lady kept talking, keeping me informed. She told me the
flyers had been surprised completely. That made me suspect that there had been
little honesty between Lisa Daele Bowalk and the Voroshk sorcerers.
They should have known. All of them.
The Voroshk were not entirely unprepared for trouble. They had surrounded
themselves with protective spells which did shunt the lightest fireballs
aside--usually from the path of the leader into those of the trailing two. But
those spells could not turn everything and they weakened quickly.
I was bracing to receive the charge of the forvalaka when one of the flyers
streaked across in front of me, behind Bowalk, tumbling, all that silk aflame.
A scream ended abruptly as the sorcerer impacted somewhere to my right.
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My strategy was to channel the forvalaka toward me and One-Eye's spear,
hurting it as much as possible as it approached. I had mounted the black spear
in the end of a twelve foot bamboo pole to give myself a little added reach.
Once Bowalk was pinned, the people with the fireballs could finish her off.
Assuming One-Eye's spear had not lost its potency with his death.
And assuming the people with the fireballs were not busy with the distraction
overhead. I risked a glance. The lead flyer was circling back. Whatever he had
intended to do he had not, because he had been forced to concentrate on his
defenses instead. The remaining Voroshk had come to a halt several hundred
yards east of us, smoldering, drifting on the breeze, evidently still alive
but just barely. Before I shifted my attention back to the forvalaka I noted
that that flyer was gaining altitude very slowly.
A swarm of javelins and arrows buzzed around the werepanther. The darts were
all poisoned. Just in case a few did penetrate her skin.
Wonder of wonders! A lot of arrows were sticking. A sort of black haze seemed
to cover the monster, making the boundary between her and the rest of the
universe appear poorly defined.
Lady was yelling. A lot. Fire discipline was critical. We would be able to
create no new fireball-spitting bamboo poles until we were safely back in our
own world. Half of those we started this fight with were out of action
already. The guys had not been in a real fight for years but they did remember
what was what. The fireballs stopped going up even before my wife started
yelling again. Several men did take the opportunity to put fireballs into the
forvalaka, though. Poor Lisa had no friends.
She was not as invulnerable as I had expected. She began to stagger drunkenly
well before I had hoped she would respond to the poisons. The endurance and
stamina of her kind were legendary and in our experience were exceeded only by
the ferocious vitality of the sorcerers who had belonged to the circle that
had been known as the Ten Who Were Taken. Of whom Soulcatcher and the Howler
were the last. Of whom there would be no survivors much longer.
I was determined. I had a whole list of people who were going to blaze the way
to hell for me.
Now the monster was up again, evidently shaking off the effects of missiles [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]