the side of a hill come to life. The heaving, pulsing body was supported by four wide legs, elephantine in their simplicity and shape but larger, yet the struggling monstrosity, when it finally extricated itself from its woody chrysalis, was headless. It was a vast mass of gross flesh supported by four massive legs with no front or rear, only body. Except… something protruded from the creature.
A slender horn, convoluted and fluted, but straight and spear-sharp at the end, jutted from the infeeted flesh. The horn was over fifteen feet in length if it was an inch, yet Marrec recognized its likeness from the first. The horn was like a unicorn’s.
“Abomination!” The words tore themselves from Marrec’s throat. The wrongness of the creature, the warped nature of its existence, the plight of the Giftit was all too much for the cleric to bear. He ran forward, past the throne on which the Rotting Man sat. A look of intense concentration suffused the Talontyr’s face, but Marrec barely noted it as he moved closer to the vast bulk.
Gunggari ran forward with Marrec. The Oslander was more nimble than Marrec remembered, jumping and leaping ahead with newfound vigor. Perhaps it was the influence of the Nentyarch’s final vial? Gunggari moved so quickly that he passed the cleric, running up so he was nearly beneath the Daughter. Utilizing his forward charge, Gunggari swung his dizheri around, two-handed, delivering a mighty blow upon the creature’s lower flank. The Daughter’s flesh rippled, and from somewhere, though no orifice was visible, a basso scream erupted.
The Daughter’s single horn slashed through the air with uncanny speed, nearly decapitating Gunggariit would have, were it not for the Oslander’s newfound quickness.
Marrec began incanting a spell, a spell he’d been unable to cast for months, a defensive spell. As soon as he felt its protective embrace enfold him like an old friend long missed, Marrec continued forward. He would try first his newfound connection with Luruehe would try to turn the creature from its present course, perhaps break it from the control of the Rotting Man.
Bringing his spear up, Marrec bellowed, “Lurue commands that you give way, abomination. Turn your face and be destroyed.”
His spear head, its shape that of a stylized unicorn horn, blazed with golden light. Unlike when he had tried this same ability against the vampires, his power did not break. He radiated a surge of holy power, which washed upon and over the Daughter.
The creature’s entire bulk shook, and a deep cry issued again from some unseen maw, but the creature would not be turned from its directive. The horn slashed forward, elongating as it moved, spearing at Marrec with a life-ending thrust. If not for the cleric’s just-cast defensive spell, he’d have been skewered. Still, the shock of the thrust sent him stumbling back.
By that time Elowen charged the Daughter, too. She came up to the creature several feet from where Gunggari danced, trying to keep from being trampled beneath the creature’s stamping feet. Fancy sword-work was impossibleshe faced a creature too large for such nicetiesit was too mindless to be distracted by feints and too massive for a blade to deflect a horn-thrust or a trampling foot.
Elowen ran up and shoved Dymondheart directly into the side of the creature, all the way to the hilt. Then she began to saw the blade back and forth, trying to lever the wound into something much larger. A spray of vile matter, fecal by its stench, began to spray from the widening wound, but the elf hunter had no time to finish her task. The massive horn, supernatural in its ability to elongate and shorten at need, found a new mark. The Daughter’s horn swiveled and struck, slamming lengthwise into Elowen’s body. The elf was sent bodily flying through the air, Dymondheart spiraling away the opposite direction. When Elowen rolled to a stop, she failed to rise.
Ususi finally entered the fight, this time on the side of her friends. A ray of yellow stabbed forth from her wand, but she targeted not the monster but its progenitor. The ray fell full upon the Talontyr as he sat his throne. A flash of amber and a crack that competed with the thunder still rumbling above followed. The Rotting Man was unfazed The power washed away from him with no effect, other than to catch his attention.
As Marrec cast Justlance deep into the side of the Daughtercausing the creature to buck and squirm, but only in apparent annoyancethe Rotting Man spared a splinter of his attention for Ususi.
He said, “You sought my attentionsee what you make of it.”
He gestured, and a wave of muck and rot gathered and flowed from around his throne, building, cresting and falling upon the wavering Ususi.
Where the wave passed, the imaskari stood unharmed, surprised to still retain her life. Ash’s influence still protected them from the Rotting Man’s direct power. Indeed, Ususi had moved to stand ahead of the child, even in her fear thinking to protect Ash. It was the child who offered their only protection there in the Court of the Rotting Man.
Marrec glanced back at Elowen. The elf had not stirred from where the Daughter’s horn had thrown her. Marrec realized she was out of the fight. He didn’t dwell on how hurt she might be. If they were unable stop the Daughter, they would all find themselves in a similar or worse state soon enough.
Time again to bring his gaze to bear. The Daughter had no eyes. Could he even affect that corruption of divine energy given life? He opened wide his eyes and reached again for the feeling in the back of his mind, the core of ferocity, the ember of his heritage. He called upon the gaze of the medusa.
Invisible lines of influence plunged from Marrec’s eyes, instantly wracking his head with pain. Where his gaze touched upon the Daughter’s side, flesh bubbledbubbled, then ceased all motion, as flesh became stone. He couldn’t encompass the creature in a single lookhe had to paint the Daughter with his gaze, moving left to right, right to left, and in the wake of his passing glance, flesh gave over to stone.
The Daughter reared up. A massive slab of hardened stone sloughed away to reveal terrible pink flesh within. The slab of stone, once part of the Daughter’s side, smashed into rubble, forcing Gunggari to skip away, though a few chunks caught the Oslander on the side, drawing blood. Marrec didn’t care. His power was overcoming that of the Daughter. His vision began to fill with red, blood pooling in his sockets from the strain, but still he pumped his force of will through the connection he’d made with the Daughter, through the thrumming invisible line of his sight.
Gunggari’s wail of agony was as water on the fire of his effort. The force of his gaze winked out immediately. The Daughter, rearing, had caught Gunggari. The Oslander was down. Down, too, came those hideously heavy feet, stamping. Gunggari rolled, but his pain hindered him, and he couldn’t roll far enough. The Daughter’s foot smashed down upon the tattooed soldier, breaking bones and bursting flesh. The tattooed soldier joined the elf hunter in stillness.
If Gunggari by some miracle retained grasp on life, his bleeding body would soon betray that effort without immediate tending. Marrec didn’t waste time thinking about ithe simply ran full out for his friend’s side. Where he presumed that Elowen yet survived her contact with the Daughter, he knew his friend would not. He might already be dead.
A geyser of fiery energy poured down upon the flank of the Daughter, distracting it long enough for Marrec to reach Gunggari’s side. Ususi was still in the fight and unleashing her most potent spells against the rampaging horror.
The cleric felt for the tattooed warrior’s pulsefaint, growing fainter, but still beating. Marrec called joyfully on his renewed link to Lurue and poured healing into his friend, but Gunggari’s flesh was grievously wounded. The Oslander opened his eyes but remained prone. He had managed to stabilize Gunggari, stop the bleeding. That would have to be enough.
The Daughter completely ignored Marrec, even though the cleric fairly kneeled at the creature’s feet. Furious at the fusillade of spells with which Ususi continued to burn it, the corrupted aspect charged the mage. Ususi cried out, seeing her death approach. She shot a look of apology Marrec’s way, touched the Keystone hanging at her breast, and was pulled backward, out of the Rotting Man’s court by the power of the amulet. She was gone.
The Daughter, deprived of its intended target, stumbled to a stop, its immense but dreadfully quick legs causing the ground to quake with each and every footfall. Its bulk hid from view both the Rotting Man and… Ash.
Marrec stood and began running in a single action. The creature was between him and his charge. If it killed her, then all their effort was for nothing.
Justlance was in his hand with merely a thought, but what hope did he really believe he had? The creature had proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was nigh on unstoppable. What force could hope to breach its bulk and reach its heart?
