8
Kerrick shivered under a sense of revulsion so strong that he almost gagged. He had never seen a monster like the beast towering in the Escarpment Pass, never even imagined that such a horror could exist-save, perhaps, in the lightless depths of the ocean, where even the gods never looked. To find such a grotesque creature here, in the shadow of the Icewall, seemed like a defiance of life itself, of every order of natural law.
Thedric Drake, a brave man, and a solid and sensible leader, was gone forever, taken in the first slashing bite of the monster. A dozen more Highlanders lay on the ground where the beast had smashed them, some dead, others writhing in pain, clutching broken limbs or puking up blood and guts from insides wracked by smashing force. Barq One-Tooth, knocked aside like a toy by the monster’s first rush, had struggled to his feet and managed to stumble away.
The creature seemed to barely be getting started. The elf watched as the monster rushed forward again, smashing through the front of the war party’s column, crushing men under its multiple feet, jabbing this way and that with those horrid, slashing jaws. The humans had no recourse. To a man they turned and fled back from the gap in the ridge crest, spreading out, tumbling and falling, crawling on hands and knees in frantic attempts to escape.
Some of them made it, and others didn’t. The monstrous head lunged forward again and again, each time striking some hapless person. Many of these victims disappeared in a single gulp, swallowed by the same fate meted out to Thedric Drake; others were cruelly cut, even bitten in half, until the ground at the mouth of the pass was littered with body parts and gore.
Kerrick spun around, having momentarily forgotten that the horde of thanoi remained in their grim, silent semicircle. He would not have been surprised to see that band rush forward to take advantage of the human’s consternation. Instead, the walrus-men seemed content to watch and to wait. All along they had been waiting.
“Why not?” muttered Bruni, who had apparently taken note of the same thing. “The tusked bastards won’t take any more losses, and what in Chislev’s name can we do against that thing?”
What, indeed? The monster had a segmented body that was fifty feet or more long-indeed, the tail remained out of sight, buried within the cluster of rocks from which it had burst.
“We have to try to attack it!” Moreen declared. “Surely it can be wounded somehow!”
“I agree,” said Kerrick, with another glance at the ominously waiting thanoi.
“Let’s go,” grunted Bruni.
She had dropped her heavy pack on the ground and now drew out the Axe of Gonnas, quickly pulling the leather shroud off of the blade. The metal gleamed in the pale daylight, shining with an internal brightness. The shaft alone was nearly six feet long, and the blade was as big as a barrelhead.
The Arktos woman hefted the weapon in her hands and started toward the notch of the escarpment, Moreen and Kerrick advancing stoutly at her side. Barq One-Tooth, bleeding from several wounds, joined them, and even old Dinekki hobbled behind. Others of the war party maintained the solid rearguard under Mouse’s command, facing the walrus men, banging weapons and chanting, making a show of force that would keep the thanoi away.
More Highlanders joined the small party in the advance, until there were three or four dozen fighters making the charge.
“Kradock curse that thing-it can’t be slain!” grunted Barq. “I landed a sharp blow on those chest plates, and me axe bounced away like I was smitin’ stone!”
“That’s because your blade, solid though it be, is but cold steel,” said Dinekki, who somehow managed to keep up with the striding warriors. “That is a beast of the dark corners of the planes-as such, it must be pierced by metals that have been cast in forges of godly blessing.”
“My blade was made in the ancient elven fires,” Kerrick volunteered grimly. “I will try it against the brute.”
“This axe is a talisman of the immortals-even if it was made in the name of an ogre god,” Bruni declared. “Let those gods turn its edge against the monster.”
Barq looked at the woman and the elf with an expression of grudging respect. “Well, I’ll attack with ye-even if I can’t hurt the thing, I’ll give it worry!”
More and more of the Highlanders had fallen in with them as they approached the mouth of the pass. The monster seemed to be at rest, but those bulging, multi-faceted eyes were alert, shifting and glowing as it inspected the approaching force. Slowly it drew its sinuous foreparts off of the ground, rising to twenty, then thirty feet in the air. The grotesque jaws, gory with blood and bits of clothing and flesh from its victims, gaped.
“Feel that-the beast is hot,” observed the chiefwoman in surprise.
Kerrick, too, sensed the heat against his face, a sensation as though he was approaching a large pile of glowing coals.
“ ’Tis a remorhaz-the polar worm,” said Dinekki, with a low whistle. “A creature of legend it be, and never did I think I’d be looking one in the eyes. Beware those plates on its back-they are hot enough to sear your flesh, should you come close.”
“Aim for the belly, then,” said Kerrick, “and strike hard.”
The attackers, two score or more of them, rushed forward in unison. Again that monstrous head snapped forward and a big Highlander right next to the elf screamed as the gaping jaws descended upon him. The sound was instantly muffled as the elf struck to the side, driving the tip of his blade through the plates armoring the monster’s flanks. Kerrick needed all of his strength to pull the sword out when the creature twisted away.
When the beast reared back the hapless warrior’s boots were left scattered haphazardly on the ground, the elf nearly gagging as he realized that the Highlander’s feet were still in them. He pressed home the attack, lunging in to stab at the exposed belly. Again, he cut through the hard, scaly surface, but the sheer size of the creature insured that he could not strike very deeply. Barq, too, struck a blow, his mundane steel cutting open one of the plates, but neither did he do much apparent damage to the rampaging beast.
Bruni had a little more success-the Axe of Gonnas blazed fire as she drove against the monster’s other side, and with a powerful blow sliced off one of the spidery legs. The creature shrieked and whirled toward her, but she fended off the jaws by waving the sacred axe back and forth. Kerrick and the others then attacked frantically, stabbing, chopping, even shouting invective, and finally the monster turned away from the big woman to snap at another victim. This time it was a courageous Arktos warrior who vanished into that insatiable maw.
When the worm reared back again, the elf and humans had to yield to the inevitable, retreating in a scramble to get out of the mouth of the pass. The remorhaz lunged but came up short. This time it clawed its way fully out of its rock pile, twisting the serpentine body and sending huge boulders tumbling this way and that. Kerrick felt a stab of panic as the creature came on in a startling rush, undulating the body as its many legs clawed across the ground.
Moreen sprinted next to the elf, and he held back, giving her the edge to get away. A Highlander tumbled and fell, then screamed horribly as those mandibles stabbed down and ripped him apart. A quick glance showed the creature gathering for another lunge, and Kerrick ran desperately, passing Dinekki. He stopped in shock as he realized that the slight, elderly shaman was standing firm and alone in the face of the monster.
She held up a skinny hand and barked out the words to a spell, a casting that Kerrick had seen her use once before.
The remorhaz roared forward, and at the same time the swath of mountainside in its path began to darken and sag. Kerrick saw an outcrop of rock melt like butter under a hot sun, oozing down. The monster’s front end reached the soft terrain, and it fell in, sinking with a splat, throwing mud up in the air as it thrashed and fought. Slowed by the mire, it pulled backward and lifted its forequarters high into the air, shaking free of the muck, regarding the humans and elf with cold, baleful eyes.
Instead of resuming its pursuit, however, the polar worm roared a shrill sound of triumph, spewing a cloud of sulfurous smoke. Several grisly objects, charred and unrecognizable, belched from those horrific jaws to bounce and roll across the rocks. Each of these was blackened and charred, still smoking. A couple bore ghastly resemblance to burned human skulls, while one bounced and clanged metallically, rolling all the way down to the surviving
