“Keep it busy!” he shouted to Mandes.
He dodged between XimXim’s many legs, dropping low beneath the creature’s underbelly. Here the dark green armor faded almost to white. With both hands on the hilt, Tol thrust his sword hard at the monster’s abdomen. There was resistance for a moment, then the thin shell gave. Green blood, black as ink in the dim cave, gushed over Tol’s hands. XimXim snapped violently from side to side, tearing the saber from Tol’s hands.
Mandes picked up one of his Balm of Sirrion pills and pressed it lightly between his palms. Uttering an incantation, he rolled the soft wax pellet across the stone floor. It stopped just short of the blue web and dissolved into a patch of white mist.
Flexing his six legs, XimXim brought his ponderous abdomen down hard, seeking to crush his tormentor. Tol rolled aside, grabbing his sword hilt and yanking it free. The creature tried twice more to quash him, but Tol evaded him.
By now Mandes’s mist was filling the tunnel. In response to Kiya’s shouted demands, the magician retreated to the edge of the precipice and gave the Dom-shu a terse account of the battle.
“Get me up there and let me have a crack at him!” Kiya roared.
“Sorry, lady, there’s no time. Ah! He’s bitten through the Phoenix Web!”
Mandes threw the second wooden tube, but this time XimXim saw it coming and batted it away. It sailed back over Mandes’s head into the pit. The wizard watched its fall with wide-eyed alarm.
“Uh-oh…”
Tol crawled on his belly until he emerged behind the monster. He could see XimXim’s bulbous abdomen waving in the fog as the beast attempted again and again to crush him. When the body dropped once more, Tol ran and sprang. He landed on the monster’s back.
XimXim, free at last of the clinging blue tendrils, whirled in a complete circle when he felt Tol’s weight on him. Tol slid over the hard armor, only halting his fall by driving his dagger into a hairline gap between the plates covering XimXim’s wings. More ichor oozed from the new wound, but Tol had found a secure handhold.
XimXim went berserk with pain and outrage. He ran up the tunnel’s side, his clawed feet easily keeping their grip. Tol tried to hang on, but when the monster turned him upside down, he lost his hold and fell to the floor. XimXim promptly let go and with astonishing agility twisted in mid-air to drop on top of his human antagonist. Quick reflexes saved Tol’s life. XimXim’s armored feet struck sparks off the hard floor, but just missed the young warrior as he scrambled clear.
The monster’s frantic movement had brought it closer to Mandes and the rim of the pit. Snatching up two clay pills, the panicked sorcerer hurled them at XimXim. One after the other they detonated in a silent flash. Mandes was blinded, and on the ledge below, the Dom-shu were dazzled. The flash instantly dispersed the magical mist and the remnants of the blue webbing, leaving the tunnel clear and open.
Fortunately, XimXim’s bulk protected Tol from the eye-searing blast of light. The young warrior’s vision went red in the glare, but he didn’t lose his sight. XimXim, though, was stricken sightless. The terrified monster charged back and forth, butting his head against the granite walls. Shards of rock and dust fell, and Tol feared the crazed creature might bring the whole mountain down on them.
Tol retrieved his sword, dropped when he fell from XimXim’s back. Gripping it in both hands, he stalked toward the monster. Blood ran down his face from cuts in his scalp. His arms were raw from scraping against the cave walls and floor.
On the other side of XimXim, Mandes groped for the last weapon at his disposal. His fingers found the glass cruet, but there hardly seemed any point to this last throw. If Balm of Sirrion, the Phoenix Web, and thunderflash powder had failed, what good would Oil of Luin do? It was all he had left.
The wax seal was hard, and Mandes couldn’t pry the glass stopper out. He could hear XimXim raging, feet pounding and palps grating, the sound reverberating through the tunnel. He had no idea what had become of Tol.
XimXim inadvertently kicked the prostrate wizard, a stunning blow. The cruet flew from Mandes’s fingers. Tol saw it sail through the air and shatter on impact. The contents spattered on the floor, shiny as quicksilver. He tensed for some big effect, but the liquid merely lay there. Mandes must not have had time to speak the proper words of power.
XimXim’s vision was returning. Having accidentally located the wizard, he turned to snip him into pieces. He hoisted the unconscious wizard high, holding his arm fast in the crook of one claw-
“Juramona! Juramona!”
Shouting to distract the beast, Tol ran under an arch of green legs, turned, and thrust his saber hard into XimXim’s gut. The creature convulsed in agony, his front legs twitching spasmodically. Mandes’s left arm was severed at the shoulder.
XimXim dropped the sorcerer and lurched away from his attacker, tearing the sword from Tol’s hand. Tol’s dagger was still buried in XimXim’s back. The young warrior was weaponless now.
Fluids green and black gushed from the monster’s belly wounds. XimXim opened his wings part way, but there was no room in the tunnel for flight. He staggered closer to the edge of the chasm. His middle legs trod on the Oil of Luin and promptly slid out from under him. He fell heavily on the thin pool of oil and slid toward the rim of the pit. Unable to stop himself, legs flailing, the monster skidded over the edge.
Kiya and Miya cried out when they saw the huge monster plunge by their narrow perch. It tried to spread its wings, but failed, and, helpless, clacking his palps in terror, XimXim plummeted into the pit. The awful noise he made was cut off abruptly when he splashed into the pool of molten rock far below.
A thick column of white smoke rose from the pit, filling the tunnel. The Dom-shu choked and gasped. Kiya had been hammering the rock wall with the pommel of Miya’s sword to make shallow toeholds. She began to climb.
When Kiya gained the tunnel floor above, she spied Tol kneeling by Mandes, working feverishly. Both men were covered, as was she herself, with a layer of white ash from XimXim’s immolation. She crawled to Tol, and he didn’t even flinch when she appeared suddenly at his elbow.
“What happened?” she asked.
“The monster cut off his arm. I’ve made a tourniquet, but I fear it’s too late!”
“Let me,” she said. “Help Miya.” Her hands were scored bloody from her climb, but she took over with the tourniquet. Beneath its coating of ash, Mandes’s face was pale as wax. His lips were purple in the red light of the tunnel.
“Miya!” Tol called, crawling on his hands and knees to the edge of the pit.
Miya still had the rawhide rope tied around her, so she tossed the free end to him. It took four tries, but he finally caught it and hauled her up. By the time she reached the top, her face was stiff with pain.
“Mind that silver stuff,” he said, indicating the magical oil. “That’s what did in the monster.”
“Poison?” she asked.
“Bad luck.”
Tol left her lying on the floor, nursing her cracked ribs, and went back to Kiya. She was threading a needle with a length of sinew, supplies from the kit she used to mend tears in her buckskins.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Sewing up his wound. Have you never seen it done? In the woodland, we often do it to gaping injuries.”
He watched, fascinated, as she used deer sinew to close Mandes’s terrible wound. It took time, but when she eased off the tourniquet, no blood flowed from the stump of the wizard’s arm.
“Now, let me see you,” she said.
He waved away her concern. “I’m fine.”
Kiya took Tol’s head in her strong hands and glared at him, looking like a stern ghost in her coating of ash. “I’ll tell you when you’re fine!” she said. “After all, what’s a wife for but to bind her husband’s wounds?”
Chapter 20
