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.
'It's laughing at us!' she cried out.
It turned toward her then, its lipless grin nearly splitting its fleshless face. The fiend took two slow steps toward her, and then Belmer flashed toward it, sword arm straight as a lance, lunging for the thing's chest.
The little man flew straight through the fiend. Despite his surprise, he recovered with a graceful roll that left him crouched and facing the opposite direction. It had simply vanished, leaving only its fiery corona and a stench of sulfur.
The Sharkers needed no order to regroup, backs to center, swords out and up. Sharessa was last to join them, hindered by her injured ankle. The last living sailor joined them, his face grim with the acceptance of his fate. Sharessa knew how he must feel.
'So much for our advantage,' grumbled Anvil. 'Now we're back where we started.'
'No,' said Belmer. 'It's hurt, worse than before. If we're lucky, it's angry.'
'If we're lucky?' said Rings, incredulous.
Ingrar's scream was a bolt of lightning, galvanizing them all. Anvil was moving even before Belmer. They rushed toward the sound.
The fiend had Belgin by the throat, pressing the round-faced gambler into a tree. At the monster's feet curled Ingrar, seemingly uninjured, but paralyzed with terror. The fiend dropped Belgin as soon as they approached. It had used them as its own lure. Now it turned toward Belmer. It wanted revenge.
Belmer rushed toward the fiend, feinting at the last moment. This time the fiend wasn't surprised, and it sidestepped in the other direction, wagging its long finger at Belmer in a mockery of human admonishment. The slender man attacked again, this time in earnest. The fiend hopped backward and landed in a low, four-limbed stance, crawling sideways like the scorpion it resembled.
'Surround it,' snapped Sharessa. She lagged behind the others but kept coming. 'Help him!'
Rings, Anvil, and the sailor spread out. Only Rings still had a torch, and he waved it to attract the fiend's notice.
'Here, you great stinking spider!' he called. The fiend grinned and turned toward the dwarf. Belmer lunged, but the fiend had faked its distraction. It deflected Belmer's thrust with one arm. Brindra's sword cut a deep line into the gray flesh, but the fiend's other hand was a blur, clamping down on Belmer's wrist. The swordsman snapped a punch at the fiend's chin, but the monster only smiled. Then it clutched Belmer's arm in both hands and twisted.
'Ah!' Belmer didn't quite scream, but his eyes opened wide in the pain. The sword fell from his hands, and the fiend stepped on it. Then it lifted the squirming Belmer up toward its face, jaws wide.
Anvil and the sailor hit the fiend's legs together. They tumbled together, grasping and punching ineffectually, trying to wrestle with the thing. The fiend rose in the struggling mass, lifting Belmer by his arm. It threw him to the ground with bone-crunching force, reaching down to peel its attackers from its legs. Rings rolled away nimbly, but the monster's long fingers found the sailor.
Sharessa looked for Brindra's sword. She saw where it had fallen, but Rings's torch was moving, shaking the
