The Fate of the Dwarves - By Markus Heitz Page 0,186

feet of the chimera man. The enemy pressed his boot into Slîn’s face; the tentacle round the leg slackened, and then was placed round his throat.

The dwarf employed the second mechanism on his crossbow, making a hidden dagger shoot out. He sliced through the tentacle and his adversary hopped backwards.

“I don’t need the bolts!” Slîn shouted as he followed through, stabbing again and again.

But his adversary had been paying attention. He swerved and the stump of his tentacle swept the crossbow aside. The second long snake-like arm was going for Slîn’s head.

Slîn ducked and pulled a hatchet out of his belt. He limped over to the right to put a support pillar between himself and the monster. The leg that had been mangled felt swollen. He was struggling to avoid further attacks.

Two more hybrids swung up through the trap door; they also had tentacles instead of arms. Vot had given the woman the head of a boar; the man had the skull of a bear on his shoulders.

The three of them united to hunt Slîn down, sending out their whip-like arms time and again to block off any escape.

Slîn was at his wits’ end. “You asked for it,” he told the chimera, brandishing his hatchet. “I’ll do for you all!” With a loud war cry he launched himself at the creatures. A second tentacle dropped, severed, to the floor, where it executed a macabre spiraling dance.

But then four tentacles surged forward and swarmed round to encompass his upper body, legs and throat.

Slîn felt himself lifted up, then the pressure became pain and his head swam. He wanted to call out, but the bonds round his throat were too tight and he failed to utter a single sound.

Rodario dodged the attacking bear claws and smashed the burning plank against the chimera’s head. Red and yellow sparks flew up and the head snapped round; the neck broke with an audible crack and the chimera fell dead.

“Another over by you, Franek!” he warned the famulus.

The man avoided the fangs from the wolf’s head and hit back with both the planks he was holding, crushing bone between the two pieces of wood.

Rodario glanced over at the open gate where the monsters were flooding in. Slîn had already sounded a bugle call for assistance, but if Tungdil and the Zhadár did not arrive soon, help would be too late arriving. “Why doesn’t he shoot?”

Suddenly the dwarf appeared in the loft opening, took aim and dispatched a wolf chimera with a single shot; then he disappeared.

“What’s Beardy doing up there?” Franek was thrashing about with the planks but the attackers kept returning for more. They had smelled blood and were not going to give up or be frightened off.

Rodario exchanged one of the planks for his sword. Fire was not working for them, so it would have to be steel. “And all this just because Coïra got the wrong end of the stick,” he muttered, as he stabbed a horse-headed woman. Her claw-like fingers failed to grab him and she careered past into the flames. “I could be lying by the pond with her doing all sorts of nice things.”

“The pond?” Franek was running a creature through, half-dog, half-man. “Not the one by the waterfall?”

“Yes, that one.”

“Then you were lucky. There’s a monster at the bottom of that pool. Vot created that one, too.” Franek was having to step back to avoid a man who had giant crab’s pincers instead of hands. “Sometimes it comes out and eats everything it can grab.”

Rodario groaned. I might easily have had Coïra’s death on my conscience. “It sounds like you’ve been around these parts some time?”

“I had no choice.” The famulus leaped through the flames to escape the clutches of a monster, which promptly turned its attentions on the actor.

Rodario struck out, but the crab claw caught the blade and snapped it off! “Oh Samusin and Palandiell! Can one of you gods spare a second and come down and help us here?” He hurled the remains of the shattered weapon, injuring the chimera on the head. But he was not able to kill it.

The foe sprang forward, pincers agape.

Ireheart suddenly appeared and hit out with his crow’s beak. The flat side smashed the armor and the claws were broken into tiny pieces. Blood sprayed out of a wound. “Ho, a fish-man!” Ireheart rammed the spike through the creature’s throat and dragged it to the flames. A quick flick of the wrist and the sharp end of the crow’s beak