The Fallen Fortress - By R. A. Salvatore Page 0,80

to reload the crossbow, had to fall into the song of Deneir and pull something, anything, from the notes. But with the maze of darting heads, the creature pacing his every retreat, Cadderly couldn't begin to hear the song, had to concentrate simply on whipping his walking stick back and forth in front of him. He did connect once, luckily, the enchanted ram's head knocking a tooth from the closest maw. That head went up to issue a roar, and Cadderly, purely on instinct, rushed under it, used the serpentine neck as a shield against the other two pursuing heads.

The fourth head, the other one to the right, spit aside the dead man's torso and would have had the young priest then, except that Danic? came around from behind and snapped a kick under its jaw.

The monster's maw smacked shut; its flickering tongue fell severed to the floor.

Cadderly continued toward the door, concentrating on readying the crossbow- Danica came, too, by his side, looking back as the hydra lumbered about, dragging its one dead head along the floor as it turned.

"Get in!" she called, but Cadderly, for all his desperation, kept his wits enough to keep clear of the door. It was warded, he knew, sensing the magics upon it. Shoulder to shoulder with Danica, he brought his crossbow up again as if to shoot at the hydra. But then he turned, firing instead at the lock on the door, blowing a wide hole in the wood.

Danica hit Cadderly on the shoulder, throwing him aside. He came up against the wall, dazed, to see his love engulfed by four eagerly snapping hydra heads.

She rushed straight for the beast, ran inside its initial bites, twisting and turning, swatting blindly at anything that came near. A head turned enough to get at her, and she grabbed it by the horn, twisting with a jerk that angled the maw so that it could not wrap around her, so that the snout butted her in the ribs. Danica's other hand shot out the other way, her stiffened fingers driving through the eye of still another snapping head.

All the hydra's heads were turned completely about, facing its bulky torso. Danica grabbed the half-blinded head, threw her back against the thick serpentine neck, then dodged away as another head rushed in, its wide-opened maw biting hard into its own companion's neck. Before the hydra even realized its error, the other head fell dead.

Danica was still pinned in that hellish spot, but a quarrel skipped off the side of one turned neck - off the side of one to solidly strike a second. The first head that had been struck wheeled about to view the newest attacker, while the force of the ensuing explosion drove the second head aside, opening a hole for Danica to rush out The door is warded!" Cadderly cried at Danica as she darted straight for the loose-hanging portal.

It was a moot point, for Danica had no intentions of going through. She stopped and, sensing a maw rushing at her back, leaped up high, catching the top of the jamb and pulling herself straight up. The hydra's head burst through the door.

Lightning flashed several times; fire roared out from every side of the magically trapped doorjamb.

Only two heads remaining, the blasted hydra backed away. Serpentine necks crossed; reptilian eyes regarded the two companions with sudden respect

Cadderly tried to line one up for a shot, but he hesitated, not wanting to risk a miss.

"Damn," he hissed, frustrated, after a long and unproductive moment had slipped past He fired the bolt into the hydra's bulk, apparently doing no real damage, but driving it back another step. The hydra's living heads roared in unison. It hopped to the side, three dead necks bouncing along.

"Shoot for my back," Danica instructed and before Cadderly could ask her what she was talking about, she rushed forward, charged right between the swaying heads, drawing them in to her. "Now!" Danica ordered.

Cadderly had to trust in her. His crossbow clicked, and Danica dropped suddenly to her back, the quarrel crossing above her and splattering a very surprised serpentine face.

That wounded head did not die, though, and Danica, on her back, now had two snapping maws above her.

"No!" Cadderly cried out, and he charged ahead boldly, both hands tight on his ram's-head walking stick.

Danica kicked up, one foot and then the other, keeping the heads at bay. Cadderly saw that the head he had shot appeared fully blind, and he leaped right