“By the heavens!” Gerd cried, unable to restrain his surprise.
Nilsa covered his mouth with her hand. “It’s wicked magic. Don’t be scared,” she whispered in his ear.
But it was too late. They had been overheard. The figures turned to where Gerd and Nilsa were hiding.
Lasgol glanced at Astrid beside him and gave her a nod. He called upon his skills so that he would have an advantage in the fight, and as soon as he had finished he stood up with his bow nocked. He counted eight enemies: all half-man, half-crustacean. He aimed at the nearest, whose face and part of his torso were those of a giant crab. The figure even had huge pincers beside the arms that carried a sword and a knife. It took Lasgol’s mind a moment to make sense of what he was seeing, because it looked like something out of some nightmare of the sea. The turquoise crab-man saw him and lunged at him with his arms and pincers, but Lasgol released, and the arrow hit the being in the spot where a man’s heart ought to be. The arrow bounced off. It had hit the shell of the crab. He hurled himself at Lasgol.
Ona gave a tremendous leap and brought him down. When she bit the arm that was holding the sword, Camu leapt at the arm which wielded the knife and held the creature down on the ground. Lasgol recovered from the shock and launched an arrow at the stomach of that nightmarish creature, and this time he hit flesh. The crab-man uttered a sound of pain and tried to reach Lasgol with his pincers. Lasgol became aware of his eyes, which were almost human, still holding within them the essence of what the creature had once been: a man. He killed it with another arrow.
In front of him the fighting had broken out in earnest. Gerd was releasing against another crab-man, even bigger and more horrible than the one Lasgol had killed. The arrow struck him on the head, but bounced off when it met a protective shell.
“Aim at its stomach!” Lasgol yelled.
“Avoid the armor!” Astrid shouted, as she leapt forward to attack the lobster-man with a pirouette and tried to knife him in several parts of his body. Both the enormous pincers and the two knives in his hands were trying to slash her neck and arms, but she was defending herself with well-coordinated movements. The creature’s entire back and side, including its legs, were covered by a hard orange shell.
Eicewald conjured quickly, pointing his staff of ice at one of the attackers, who looked like a conch-man, completely covered by a hard shell except for his hands and legs. He was armed with a pair of short swords. The Mage attacked him with an ice bolt which he kept in place above the being until he was frozen.
“I can’t believe we’re fighting against crab-men!” cried Ingrid. She was rolling this way and that with Punisher in her hands, trying to reach one of them. It was particularly ugly, and covered with spines.
“Speak for yourself!” Viggo shouted. “I’m dancing with this beautiful specimen of a lobster!” He was stabbing his black daggers into the being’s shell, without success. “Promise me I’m going to be able to eat it barbecued later. It must be delicious!”
“Shut up and be careful!” Ingrid snapped. She was launching arrow after arrow at another lobster-man, who was trying to cut off her head with his enormous red pincers.
Lasgol, with the help of Ona and Camu, finished off another crab-man with a huge protective shell. It looked as though the crabs, which those poor wretches had become fused with were of different species, so that everyone was different. Lasgol was impressed by the fact that in all of them, he could see something of the human being they had once been, particularly in their eyes, and this took him aback.
Gerd, axe and knife in hand, was hammering at a lobster-man, blocking the attacks it was making with pincers and knives. At the third axe-blow, he managed to break part of its protective shell.
“Gotcha!” he yelled, and went on delivering tremendous axe blows, sending fragments of its protective shell flying.
Astrid and Viggo managed to find their opponents’ weak points, and in the end their knives had their effect. Ingrid too managed to kill her enemy when one of her arrows hit him in the eye and buried itself deep in his head.
Nilsa, Lasgol, Camu and Ona between them finished off the last one. They were left exhausted and panting from the intensity of it all.
“This has really been quite an experience!” Viggo said as he contemplated the fallen creatures which lay scattered around.
“They’re half-man and half-crustacean!” Ingrid exclaimed in disbelief as she too examined the remains.
“And they’re not something artificial,” Astrid pointed out as she examined one closely. “They’re really half-man and half-marine animal.”
Eicewald nodded. “No, they’re not artificial creations. In fact, this is Transformation Magic, and very powerful.”
“Olagar? Lasgol asked.
“That’s what I’m afraid of. He’s using his magic to transform men and crustaceans into these beings we’ve been fighting.”
“That confirms it,” Nilsa spat out. “All magic is abominable.”
“Not all, but in this case I agree with you. Turning men into these beings is an abomination.”
“Are they still men?” Ingrid asked him.
Eicewald
