“Way to go, Ususi,” he congratulated the mage. She graced him with another of her rare smiles.
The muckman continued its disturbing chant about the imminent arrival of Anammelech. It opened the distance between itself and Marrec, wary of Justlance’s sudden return to Marrec’s grasp.
Without warning, the creature exploded.
Ooze and odiferous mud splattered Marrec and Ususi. All that remained of the muck creature was a crater- like circle, its circumference formed by its remains.
“Well… that was convenient,” opined Marrec after a few seconds of examination.
Ususi studied muck crater, concentration wrinkling her brow. She said, “That was no accident.”
“You think it blew itself up on purpose?”
She responded, “The master calling home his familiar, perhaps.”
“Messy way to say, ‘here, boy,’ don’t you think?”
Ususi sighed, “Do you make a joke of everything?”
“Only when I’ve just escaped death by a nail’s breadth,” confided Marrec, grinning.
“You know, I have noticed you don’t always joke.
“Hmm?” Marrec raised an eyebrow.
“Most of the time you speak simply, even like a commoner, but every so often your speech lapses into a series of formal proclamations, like ‘Flee or perish!’ or ‘Now you shall meet the cruel end of Justlance!’ It is… interesting,” finished the mage.
Marrec opened his mouth to respond, but Ususi spoke up again, saying, “It is a habit I’ve been studying. It is my theory that you slip into that manner of talking when you think people around need the encouragement of a self-assured voice. Or you yourself need it. Anyway, it is a theory.”
Marrec’s felt his face warm. Ususi looked at him with one raised eyebrow, as if she expected him to cork off with a sample proclamation.
A gurgle and sucking sound drew their gazes back to the circular crater of ooze. The ooze was drawing back together.
Marrec said, “He’s returning, be ready.” He was almost grateful the creature was backit relieved him of having to comment on Ususi’s theory. He readied his spear.
Yet another blanket of stench erupted from the coagulating ooze. As it slumped back together, it seemed to grow in quantity. Soon there was no question that the ooze was somehow replenishing itself, growing larger and taller than the muck man had been. A half-formed arm reached forward, palm out. Marrec’s stomach twisted as he recognized a sort of dark mirror of himself summoning Justlance. In the half-formed creature’s hand a slender, weapon-shaped object blackened the air. Both he and Ususi recognized the weapon immediately. It was twin to the halberd wielded by fallen Gameliel.
Ususi whispered, “A blightlord comes. I am too tired to fight.”
“You were right about the ooze creature, almost. It called its master, not the other way around. It must be Anammelech.” He grabbed Ususi’s hand and they dashed toward the empty mouth of the Arches of Xenosi. “Let’s try to catch up with Gunggari and Elowen.”
Marrec glanced back as they passed from the sun into the tree-lined corridor framed by the arches. The blightlord was almost fully formed and already sliding forward on a layer of slime like an upright, armored slug. Then they were fully committed to the cool green hall under the trees, running over light-stippled earth.
He was surprised to discover that he couldn’t see very far at all along the length of the passage. Some sort of viridian mist greened out vision beyond more than forty or fifty feet, if that. As it happened, that was about the distance between each successive stone arch. Though the lane was strangely clear of growth, the forest pressed in on all sides, and vines grew thickly on the sides of each arch, and some few hung down beneath each stone span.
Like light, sound was also muffled in the lane, though he thought he could hear the sound of conflict far ahead If Gunggari’s tracking skill could be trusted, Ash and her kidnapper were also ahead. He tightened his grip slightly on Ususi’s hand and tried to speed up.
Ususi’s injuries came to the fore. A stitch in her breath soon became a gasp, and she stumbled. She said something in a language Marrec couldn’t understand. He was pretty sure it was a language he’d never heard before.
“What?” he asked, slowing a trifle.
“I can not keep this pace. My foresight has failed me. I know just the spell to speed me along, but I do not have it prepared.”
Marrec frowned but decided not to remind Ususi of his current diminished state of being unable to prepare any spells at all. It would only come across sounding petty.
Instead he said, “They are just a bit ahead of us. Just a little bit farther. I’d rather Anammelech catch up with us only after we’ve caught up with Gunny and Elowen.”
She nodded, conserving her breath.
CHAPTER 16
They penetrated further into the Rawlinswood. The light dimmed slightly, but otherwise the trees, undergrowth, and other foliage to either side of the corridor remained fairly uniform. By that time their forward progress had slowed to a fast walk. The sounds of fighting ahead died away, perhaps because of intervening distance.
To keep his mind off their slow pace, he asked, “Why’d you call those creatures twigblights?”
Ususi shrugged. She said, “It seemed appropriate.”
The unicorn warrior smiled and gave her hand a squeeze. “Indeed.”
Recognition of the true nature of the ‘dead tree’ standing just outside the arch-defined corridor came a heartbeat too late, as it stumble-rushed forward on its tree trunk legs, blocking their path.
Ususi cursed, again in a language unknown to Marrec. No, she wasn’t cursing; she was uttering syllables of a spell. Marrec released her hand and reached for his spear. Just in time; her hands began to spark with the imminent release of power.
The twigblight rushed them. It was so big that it had to duck to fit beneath the stone arch under which they’d stopped. He rolled left, Ususi rolled right; the creature charged past. One of its twig-claw hands scraped along Marrec’s armor but failed to find an opening.
Marrec drove his spear into the creature’s back, trying to find the ‘sweet spot’ he’d discovered on the other creature outside the forest. It deflected his thrust with a weighty claw of gnarled wood.
Ususi’s spell generated an arc of electric blue light that crackled along the creature’s body, sending it into flailing convulsions. The smell of burning wood and ozone mixed, and a trail of smoke rose to mingle with the greenish mist.
Partially stunned, the twigblight shuddered and stepped back. Marrec was ready. That time the creature wasn’t able to bring up its wooden limbs quickly enough to defend its heart. The tip of his spear punched through the woody shell and found something soft, yielding, and odiferous. It shuddered again, then ceased all movement. Robbed of animation, the creature resembled nothing so much as an old, rotting tree with vividly posed branches.
“Impressive,” whispered a voice from behind.
Marrec groaned with sick anticipation as he whirled to face the speaker. A dark silhouette, hazy and indistinct in the green distance, gained clarity and sharpness of outline as it glided smoothly forward along the ground. Anammelech had caught them.
The blightlord’s armor was either covered with or formed of hardened ooze. The plates were mobile, softening, shifting, and flowing over and across each other in a mesmerizing crawl. Anammelech’s head was bare, and the crawling plates of his armor never rose above his neckline. His face was filthy and his eye sockets twin voids but for a wet sparkle far back in each empty orbit. In one hand he gripped a halberd-shaped hole in the air, just like Gameliel’s.
The blightlord continued to slide forward without flexing his legs to stride like a mortal. Marrec saw a
