Taker Of Skulls(28)

One of the bats peeled off from the pack, tipping over sideways and seemed to slide down a chute of air. The rider leaned out, whooping and threw another dart directly at Kormak. It flickered through the gloom, a shadow amid shadows. Kormak parried it. He caught the whiff of something nasty as it slid past his face. Poison, he thought, or perhaps excrement pushed into serving the same purpose. In any case, it was not something he wanted in a wound.

The bat came ever closer. In the bad light, concentrating on the incoming missiles, Kormak misjudged its speed. Suddenly foetid breath was in his face. Razor sharp teeth snapped by his ear. Warm drool dribbled down his neck. Claws grabbed him and, with a thunderous beating of wings, the bat strained to lift him into the air. This close, he could see that the bat had a head like a goblin’s. Its whole body seemed like an unholy hybrid between goblin and flying mammal. It shrieked and chittered madly as it flew. The voice sounded like a demented goblin raving.

The bridge shrank beneath him and his companions dwindled to the size of dolls. The bat swerved to one side and they were out over the glowing river of sickly green, looking down at the hideous drop. The goblin rider gibbered something in his mount’s huge earflap and Kormak felt the claws open to release him and send him tumbling to his doom. Desperately he hooked his free arm around the bat’s neck, forcing his shoulder under its windpipe. He tried to scissor his legs around the bat’s torso but its scrabbling lower claws kept him at bay.

His swinging weight started to tip the bat’s balance. It flapped its wings frantically, trying to remain aloft and in a flight position. Its rider shrieked and gibbered suddenly terrified as they began to drop. Kormak beat the bat on its ear, forcing it to swing back towards the bridge then he lashed out at the rider with his blade but could not get any power to his thrust.

Another brilliant blaze of light and another shriek told him that Sasha had used her dwarven weapon again. He saw the goblin’s terrified face above him, eyes suddenly darker than they had been, then becoming lighter as the flame-burst faded.

For a brief incongruous moment, he wondered why that should be. He considered stabbing the beast or trying to break its neck but realised that would be suicide. It was the only thing keeping him from plummeting to his doom. The bridge was below him again now, coming closer with terrifying rapidity. He swung his weight on the bat’s neck, trying to guide it as much as the goblin was doing. As they reached the point of impact, he managed to turn the thing over so that its bulk was beneath him and the ground, cushioning his fall. He heard the goblin’s head smash on the stone as they skidded to a halt.

He picked himself up and noticed the goblin’s broken head lying in a puddle of greenish slime. The dying bat tried to pull itself back into the air, its broken wings beating against Kormak’s face, sending him reeling away. Somehow he managed to regain his balance and lunge at it, driving his sword into the bat’s breast, skewering it. It flopped to the ground.

He glanced around. Boreas was engaged with another huge bat. It hovered over him. Karnea hunched in his shadow, ducking and weaving to keep out of his way, while remaining under his protection. Sasha was loading another flamestone into her weapon and aiming at another bat. Its rider seemed to realise what was happening and sent his beast jinking to one side. The comet trail of the blazing shot whizzed past it and arced down to sink into the water below.

Kormak reeled forward, still winded by the impact and lashed at Boreas’ assailant with his blade, shredding a wing. The wounded beast hit the ground. As its goblin rider tried to scurry away, Boreas’ hammer made an awful impact on its skull, turning it to jelly. His second blow sent the small creature flying over the edge of the bridge to drop into the water below.

It was too much for the remaining flyers. They pulled up and away into the darkness leaving the humans to stare at each other in the aftermath of the battle.





Chapter Twelve





“YOU ARE EITHER the luckiest or the most blessed man I have ever seen,” Boreas shouted at Kormak. He was cleaning his hammer head on the fur of one of the fallen bats. “I thought you were dead when I saw that monster carry you off.”

“That makes two of us,” said Kormak. He felt slow and dizzy but glad to be alive.

“Hold still,” said Karnea. “I need to look at you. A fall like that could easily have broken something or given you concussion.”

Her fingers were warm and they probed at his skull and then at his neck and ribs. As she did this, she muttered something to herself. He felt his Elder Sign amulet become warm against his chest. She reached out and touched it. “You’ll need to take that off,” she said. “It interferes with the divination.”