Florin sprang in to cut at the tentacles, swotd in one hand and dagger in the other, and the beast rounded on him with frightening speed. The ranger's blades seemed to hack at the monster yet slice only empty air, again and again.
' 'Tis a dirlagraun!' Islif shouted from nearby. She charged past Semoor, heading for the beast's rump. 'Wide slashes, Florin! Swing wide!'
A tentacle came at her as the great catlike thing tutned its head and snarled.Semoor stopped staring and ran forward. Anger was rising in him, red and warm, as he rushed along, a good four running strides behind Islif. Her slash drove the tentacle away behind her, letting her run right in and spring onto the thing's bony back-dagger first.
It was a small fang, but it bit deep. The dirlagraun roared and arched, bellowing its pain at the stars, and Florin hacked at its throat and forelegs.
Its roar became a wild shriek as it backed hastily away from the ranger, shaking a gory limb that bore a paw no longer-and Islif clung to its neck, drawing daggers from all over herself and driving them in as she went, hurrying to the head, thrust after thrust.
The displacer beast shuddered and thrashed under her in obvious pain, arching its tentacles up to flail at her as hard as it could, battering her.
It kicked at Florin with its talons and snapped at him, too. He ducked under its belly to slash at it from beneath; crouching between its legs, he could hardly miss.
Semoor reached the dirlagraun and struck aside its ratlike tail with his mace. Rushing to its nearest hind leg, he planted himself, took his mace in both hands, and swung.
Part way through it, his mace smashed into something hard that gave slightly as the dirlagraun squalled and hopped, its numbed rear leg threatening to buckle under it.
Semoor found himself tumbling face-first into the stones, dumped aside in the frantic thrashings of a beast that was simply trying to get away. The beast slid and flailed its way back down the scree slope. Riding it, Islif drove her dagger into one amber eye- and was flung off as the thing reared, bucked, shrieked, and tried to roll, all at once.
The dirlagraun landed heavily, rolled, and bounced to its feet, only to stagger sideways-with Florin racing along amid wildly spraying stones to stay with it, slashing again and again at its throat.
Stabbing tentacles finally sent him sprawling, but the dirlagraun behind them was doing no more fighting.
It was scrambling wildly away, dying and in pain.
Leaving Doust and Jhessail down and Pennae-where was Pennae?
As if in reply to Semoor's silent question, a man cursed somewhere out in the night, and Pennae called, 'Like it? The next one'll find your heart!'
She grinned down at Semoor, a dagger glittering in her hand, and he decided it was a good time to faint. So he did.
To become the new Lord Yellander or at least get a farm or house or something that had been Yellander s from a grateful Crown, he'd have to ptesent King Azoun-or Vangerdahast, more likely-with some great and loyal deed.
That wasn't going to be easy, and it had just become harder. Much harder.
For the four hundredth time, Brorn ran his fingers across his left cheek to feel the smooth, bare bone there. It was spreading. The eyebrow on that side was gone, and much of his forehead was bone, now, too. Tluin.
When he drew back his hand, he saw that it had begun to appear on his fingertips. They, too, were bone. For a moment he rubbed them frantically along the rough stone edge of the casket lid, where one of the cracks was, but that wore it off not in the slightest. Nor caused any pain. There was no bleeding.
He held his fingers up, the better to peer at them curiously. It wasn't that his flesh and skin were withering away. No, the bone was growing over him, cloaking his flesh with an outer armor. He could still move and flex his body, just as before, but there was a heaviness, a shell atop the left side of his face and the ends of all the fingers of his left hand now. It deadened sensation. He could feel things he touched or held, but at a little distance, as if through a gauntlet.
It was something amid the corpse leavings. It must have been. While he was healing, it had crept into him somehow.
And just might be stealing Brorn Hallomond from himself.
He cursed loud and long, standing there alone in the forest, then turned back to the casket and bitterly thanked the boneshards and dust therein.
For stealing his life from him, perhaps.
He strode away, hoping his clothes could hide his skeletal limbs when things got that far.
He doubted that war wizards would let him see the Royal Magician or anyone else when they saw a walking skeleton heading their way.
Alaphondar leaned forward across the table. The Royal Sage seemed as calm as evet, but the gentle, reassuring smile he put on his face made Rhallogant Caladanter, sitting on the other side of the table, shake in his manacles.
'Be at ease, Lord Caladanter,' rhe sage said. 'You've been most helpful thus far, and the Crown is pleased. Thus far. You are here today merely to answer another question, if you can.'
He paused to give the young noble a chance to rush in and fill the silence, and the terrified Rhallogant Caladanter obliged. 'I–I'll do anything! Ah, say anything! I will!'
'That'll be helpful,' Dalonder Ree muttered sarcastically from where he stood lounging against one closed door out of the room.
The lady in battle leathers whom everyone addressed either as 'Dove' or 'Lady Dove' leaned against the other closed door.
'The… gentlesir in whose company you were found had some aims in life, some things he was striving to accomplish. Did he speak of them to you, at all? If he, say-to speak entirely in fanciful 'what ifs'-ran away from us, right now, where would he go, do you think?'
'I… I- Yes, he did, but I know not,' Rhallogant babbled. 'He… he… oh, let me think!'
'Please, be our guest,' Ree murmured. 'There's a first time for everything.'
His fingertips burned briefly. A counterspell. Drathar flung the dagger down, cursing.
Oh, 'twas a knife, and a good one. Useful enough and beautifully balanced for throwing. Plain, too; not traceable. Yet it held not one shred of a means of tracing her or working magic on her from afar. Of course.
Drathar threw back his head and went on cursing, loud and long, snapping out the words rather than shouting them. Beasts lurked in these wild woods, and he wasn't seeking to battle one just yet. Retrieving the knife-at least he knew it was clean, so they couldn't spell-trace him through it-he started walking along the game trail to keep his passage as quiet as possible.
It was too cold, before dawn, to sleep anyhail, even if he hadn't had a raw pain high in his chest, just in from his shoulder.
How had that bitch of a she-thief known he was there? He'd watched quietly from cover, not moving except to rise a little out of his crouch to see better, and not working any spells. How had she known?
Well, whatever the reason for that, she had, and this changed things. She had to be taken down, even before the spellhurlers and the ranger.
'The gauntlets,' he told the darkness around him with an angry hiss, 'are off.'
He was half-expecting to hear an angry, answering hiss, but none came.
'Dead,' Pennae said in grim satisfaction. 'The displacer beast, I mean, not the man out there whose bidding it was doing. He got away. For now.'
'So,' Semoor grunted, feeling his ribs and wincing, 'are we great heroes? Or do children in the Dales wrestle down displacer beasts?'
'It certainly looked fearsome enough,' Doust said. 'And I'm not going to be able to wear this armor again
