“Send it right back to Ambar’ogúl.” Cheyenne nodded. “Got it.”
“No, Cheyenne,” Persh’al said behind her. “Whatever that thing is, it doesn’t belong on either side of this portal.”
“What?”
“That thing lives in the portal.” Persh’al cracked his green whip and glared at the hulking thing.
“And that’s where it’s gotta stay,” Corian added.
Chapter Seventy-Two
Cheyenne couldn’t comprehend what she was seeing when the enormous creature emerged from the widening split in the portal ridge. Black tentacles waved in all directions like dozens of reaching limbs, clawed hands and barb-tipped legs morphing in and out. The creature’s center was a huge, nebulous blob, constantly shifting to show a glaring red eye, a row of razor-sharp teeth in a gaping maw, or a puckered nodule oozing black slime.
One massive claw rose from the crevasse and slammed down onto the ground. The earth shuddered again, and Cheyenne nearly staggered into Persh’al before she righted herself. Then the creature stepped forward with another foot that looked like a giant bird’s talons before the shape muddled into some other tenuous form. The thing bellowed so loudly, Cheyenne clapped her hands against her ears and stumbled backward.
“Did I make it do that?” she shouted above the wailing howl rising from the shifting black glob.
“I doubt it,” Corian replied. “Just moved up the timeline a bit. Let’s go.”
Without waiting for anyone to say anything, the Nightstalker disappeared in a blazing streak of silver light and darted toward the shifting, undulating creature crashing across the clearing. Black fluid sprayed in every direction when his lightning-quick attacks sliced through the morphing body. The creature roared again, its mass jiggling like black Jell-O before two tentacles whipped out in quick succession. Corian went flying toward the trees lining the clearing, skidding backward as he landed on both feet with a clawed hand digging into the dirt.
Cheyenne dodged another lashing tendril as the monster sprayed sizzling black goo at Persh’al. The troll ducked and rolled away, letting out a battle cry as he sprinted toward the ever-shifting mass. A pincer the size of a house snaked out from the center of the shapeless horror, the sharp-tipped ends open in anticipation of cutting the troll in half.
The halfling reached out with her tendrils and curled them around the edge of the claw before it reached Persh’al. The pincer cracked when she jerked it aside and half of it thumped to the ground. The troll dodged the other razor-sharp pincer and struck it with his green whip.
On the other side of the clearing, Lumil and Byrd sent their attacks flying into the globulous thing. Red and green sparks flared on contact but didn’t do much else. Corian broke into Nightstalker speed again and headed for the center of the beast’s looming shape.
The halfling didn’t even think about it before slipping into her enhanced speed and joining him. The sight of that undulating black mass slowing to a crawl as she ran toward it almost made her stop in her tracks.
There were faces in that black, shifting flesh. So many faces pressing against the thick, slimy film of the monster’s flesh as if they were pounding against a window, trying to get out.
“Ignore it,” Corian shouted as he slashed at the creature’s center.
“Help me!” a voice shrieked from within the monster’s nebulous form.
Cheyenne hesitated only an instant when she saw a female face pressing against the monster’s skin. Then the face morphed into a huge mouth with dripping fangs before a tendril materialized where the eyes had been. The halfling sent two bolts of crackling black energy into that transforming visage without a second thought. Black and purple light crackled along the beast’s flesh.
More black sludge erupted from the impact site, suspended in mid-air as the half-drow unleashed attack after attack on the changeling creature. Corian did the same beside her, then a shimmering blast of black energy erupted from the surface of the monster’s skin and sent them both hurtling backward across the clearing again, smacking them out of enhanced speed.
Cheyenne landed on her ass in the dirt and growled. Beside her, Corian chuckled, his blazing silver eyes locked on the creature. “Always on your feet?”
He dipped his head. “Mostly, yeah.”
Corian offered her a hand up as Lumil and Byrd kept shouting and screaming and ripping into the creature with their attacks. Persh’al lashed his whip across the next two tentacles that darted out to meet him and severed them both with his slicing magic.
“We’re not making a dent in that thing,” the halfling snarled.
“I know.”
“What the hell do we do?”
“Push it back, Cheyenne. This thing has one foot in this realm and the other where it belongs.”
“It doesn’t have feet!”
“Correct. But if this thing gets loose, we’re facing a much bigger problem Earthside than any of us planned for.”
The halfling snorted as they took off running toward the creature again. “No shit.”
She hurled ball after ball of her crackling black energy and watched the attacks send ripples of force up through the undulating mass, which kept wavering between solidity and a nauseating gooeyness. How the hell do you send something back when nothing stops it?
Corian’s silver light darted back and forth across the massive creature. Black sludge sprayed in every direction as the Nightstalker hacked and slashed and lit up the monster. When Corian stopped to stave off the black darts headed for the goblin team, the beast let out a quick grunt and nearly doubled in size. Its hulking form rose even higher in the darkened clearing, and five more pillars of black stone burst from the earth, stretching just as high.
“The stone,” Cheyenne muttered. She darted away from the creature, which stood as tall as a four-story building now, lashing its claws and pincers and tentacles at its assailants. “Corian! It’s the stone—”
A plume of black smoke jetted toward her. Cheyenne lifted a shield, splitting the smoke in two before it raced across the clearing and doubled back toward her again. The closest cloud of black smoke let out
