static as she strode toward the seething behemoth.
Two arms-if such they could be called-flashed out from different points upon the sapperling's body, one grasping the younger Furrow more firmly about the head, the other seeking the older man. His brother's leg snatched irresistibly from his futile grip, Quietis drew forth a heavy hanger and a tomahawk and, dodging the smaller limb, lashed at the main arm, severing it with three rapid hacks. The massive thing shuddered at the wound as it sucked Agitis into its squirming bulk, the peltryman's horrified screams stifled by a wormy gag wrapping about his face.
Unable to simply let the fellow be engulfed, Rossamund dashed forward, almost upending himself in a puddle, and flung the caste of beedlebane at the creature, whipping out another from his digital and throwing that too as the first burst with an orange flare against its thick neck. The sapperling reeled at the small eruptions. Though its gathering of slick hides was too slippery to take to flame, it staggered back yet, two dead worms slithering loose from the mass and falling to the earth. Scuttling in to try his strength extracting Agitis from the sapperling's inexorable consuming belly, Rossamund was struck by a smaller arm, even as he reached for the peltryman's twisting leg. The confounding clout sent him spinning like a toy to land seat-first in the icy shallows of the vile inky pond.
Retching on the greasy waters, Rossamund flailed for the shore, vaguely aware that Quietis had ducked low and was now under the sagging beast's pendulous abdomen. Pulling himself to slightly firmer sludge, he could see the older pelt-trapper chop at the nearest worm-formed leg, hewing at it over and over.Yet with each blow new worms descended from the belly to cover over and support their wounded fellows.
Face smeared with phlegm and tears, Bodkin let fly another musket shot, striking the sapperling's coiling neck, giving it such a smart it collapsed forward on its weakened leg, Quietis barely tumbling clear. Yet as the creature fell, Rossamund could see Agitis' now motionless body still being consumed, drawn in by abrupt stages through belly-folds of worms until only a single gaitered leg protruded-then that too was gone.
Still tossing arcs from one palm to the next, Europe stood before the sapperling. As it toppled, it fell toward her and she grabbed at the head, letting all her collected charge out with a mighty ZIZzzZACK! — a blinding glare, blasting the members of the head and neck apart in gouts of hissing orange mess and flapping worm bits.
She's done it!
Carried away by the rush of the fight, Rossamund yelled wordlessly in victory as the sapperling floundered, single worms losing grip and rearing individually from the deforming bulk to hiss at her silently.
But Quietis was not finished. Desperate for his brother, he began to slash and gouge blindly at the beast's pulsating belly, seeking to hack his way in.
'Away withyou, sir!' Europe roared with a volume Rossamund had never known her use before. 'Had you left it in the first, your brother would not have been taken!'
The peltryman just snarled at her and kept at his chopping. He lifted his orange-gored hanger for yet another cut and a new pair of reforming worm-limbs suddenly sprang out from the sapperling's shoulders. The first took the ferocious peltryman midswing by his sword arm, lifting him, though Quietis would not be so easily subdued and flailed wildly, striking the limb repeatedly with his tomahawk as he was hoisted high.
Exhausted of a more potent charge, it was all Europe could do to keep the second limb from coiling about her as she drew quickly back, slapping zick! zick! zick! at the wriggling fingers that clutched and writhed and tried to end her as they had poor Agitis.
Rossamund hurled his last handy caste of beedlebane, the sharp burst of falsefire scoring the base of the arm that harried the fulgar. It recoiled, leaving the Branden Rose free to withdraw.
Quivering, the worms pulled tightly back together and the sapperling heaved itself to stand once more, keeping its grip on the struggling elder Furrow.
Europe did not give ground too far. Mounting a half-submerged log only a handful of yards away, she put some rock salt in her mouth and began once more to swap an arc from palm to palm. 'Your intervention would be timely, little man,' she called across to him with preternatural poise.
Quick as he could, Rossamund snatched a caste of asper-the strongest potive he possessed-from its digital niche and shied it at the raging monster. The repellent hit the sapperling low on its side with a singular black gust, forcing it to stumble once more as it tried to escape the radiating sphere of acrid oily stuff. That same instant Quietis, shouting in a fury of success, amputated the arm that still held him, falling free, a single worm still gripped to his waist. Yet, as the asper boiled into a blistering inky froth that sent a veritable rain of stricken worms tumbling to the sludge, still another limb formed on the sapperling's opposite flank. Snatching the peltryman about his legs before he hit ground, it jerked him high over its lofty bulk and before anything could be done to stop it threw the madly bawling fellow down to the sod with deadly might.
'NO!' Rossamund and Bodkin Ease cried together, the young factotum despairing as to what it would take to best this crawling-fleshed horror.
This at last was too much for the lone surviving peltryman; wailing, Bodkin Ease ran into the mire without pause or a backward look, fleeing in mad terror and misery.
Reduced in size now, yet still thrice a tall man's height, the sapperling shrank from the seething residue of the asper. Oozing back, it seemed to pause, swaying, Europe's fuse still protruding from high on its left flank. All about it, single fallen worms hurt but not slain began to wriggle back to the main mass. The long-necked head slowly reformed.
Fury growing in his gorge, rising as a growl, the young factotum took a caste of loomblaze in one hand and Frazzard's powder in the other and stumbled toward the creature, ready to use all the might he possessed.
'Wait, Rossamund,' the fulgar said calmly as he stepped past her, strands of fine hair standing out crazily.
Certain he could hear the crackle of static in her words and smell it in the air about her, he obeyed, all too alive to the consequences of the reverse.
'Stay,' she commanded. 'I shall be back.'
Stepping lightly off the half log, the Branden Rose advanced through tufts and stumps toward the sapperling once again. At her approach, the worm-thing bent its head as if to regard her properly. After all the desperate mayhem, the scene seemed oddly tranquil in the failing light.
Europe raised her arms, holding them up and out to her sides.
What is she doing? Rossamund paced as far as he dared to the right, seeking a better view.
Without any alerting reflex or countermotion, the vermid thing shot out a grasping limb, snatching the unresisting fulgar about her waist and yanking her in to engulf her just as it had poor Agitis.
'NO!' Rossamund shrieked a second time. Instantly he was to action, hurling both potives to detonate yellow-green and blue about its shoulders.
The sapperling tried to reach out and grasp him too but shuddered, the half-fashioned arm twitching, hesitating, retracting. Its sides appeared to flex and bloat.
Rossamund finally stood still.
The tapered head began to whip about violently.The saps that formed it wilted and fell. The legs collapsed, and the bulk dropped into the filth with a loud squelch. Flickers of static forced their way through the mutual grip of the remaining worms, lighting the bog with a dazzling, strobing brilliance. Of a sudden, the distending mass of worms sucked inward. An almighty deafening bang, like the cracking of the back of the world, a stupefying flash and the entire creature was flung apart, its bits thrown wide, Europe's fuse flying to strike the ground shudderingly not one yard from Rossamund. A subtle growl like the echo of distant thunder rolled about the sink as a drizzle of orange muck and particles of black hide fell all around.
The sapperling beast was no more.
In its place, amid a mess of worm-parts, stood the Branden Rose, arms akimbo, fist clenched, head down, hair loose and hair tine missing, ruffled but unharmed. She looked up to Rossamund, his cheeks smeared with unabashed tears of relief, then down with vague irritation at the messes that smeared and tearings that dulled her once-sumptuous coat.
'My best Number 3 ruined,' she said.
