The Magehound

Beside an ancient swamp oak stood a translucent statue of a beautiful female, far too lovely to be human. The slender hand disappeared into the trunk of a thick tree, and the frozen face was upturned with the hopeful expression of one who expects sanctuary. This, Tzigone realized, had been a dryad. She took a deep breath and plunged on.

As Tzigone walked, she saw other glassy forms of creatures suddenly drained of magic, and therefore of life. There were more dryads, and among the leaves, she saw the tiny fallen bodies of sprites and pixies, many of them nothing but shards. She saw a single faun frozen in midcaper and more elves than she'd seen in all her travels through Halruaa.

She'd seen one of these crystal shadows before and had thought that only elves could suffer this fate. But the lie was all around her. All magical creatures fell to the mystery of the swamp. No wonder wizards seldom emerged from Akhlaur!

A voice in her head sounded, part warning and part taunt. This could be you.

Tzigone blinked away the phantom image of her own glassy shadow and plunged deeper into the swamp.

Chapter Twenty

Matteo and Andris walked side by side, talking softly of all they had done since they'd parted and of the task that lay before them. Try as he might, Matteo hadn't been able to convince Andris to flee the swamp. He couldn't walk away and let his friend fight alone.

But his decision to stay went deeper still. Matteo had been raised with a firm sense of his own destiny. That had been sorely shaken. Lacking a vision of his own, he accepted the one shining in his friend's eyes. He would fight the laraken for Andris, not for Kiva. And when the battle was done, he would find a way to deal with the magehound.

An undulating cry howled through the forest, a terrible sound that was both deep, bone-shaking growl and raptor's shriek. Distant but powerful, it reminded Matteo of the winds that blew off the Bay of Taertal before the onset of a monsoon.

Matteo and Andris unsheathed their daggers instinctively, moving in perfect unison.

"It is still some way off," Andris said softly.

Matteo nodded. As he put away the daggers, an a

A dark, whirring cloud swept down on them, moving in deadly formation. The cloud dived sharply, and then at the last moment swerved in a rising arc to keep from crashing into the ground.

"A surge swarm?" muttered Andris. "What next?"

Angry and cheated, the swarm of mosquitolike creatures broke formation and began to whir around in small circles as they selected their prey.

Matteo groped for the thong that bound the four-foot pike to his back. He tugged it free and surged to his feet, thrusting at the stirge that swooped toward him.

The enormous insect slid wetly down the slender blade, its slide aided by the blood it had stolen from some hapless forest dweller. The stirge stopped only when it struck the pike's cross guard. Its long mosquitolike snout still stabbed and probed, even as it twitched in its death throes.

Matteo ducked and thrust and stabbed again and again, until the skewered bodies of giant mosquitoes filled half his pike and slowed his movements. He tossed the weapon aside and pulled his daggers, slashing at any of the creatures that came near.

The men fought furiously, and soon they were joined by unlikely allies-the stirges themselves. Desperate for food, some of the giant insects fell upon their fallen kin and thrust their swordlike snouts into their rounded bellies. Macabre little tunes, the stirge song hummed by the feeding monsters, filled the air as the creatures drank the twice-stolen blood.

Their traitorous behavior disgusted Matteo. He fell upon the ca

Andris waded over to him through the grim carpet. "Big swarm. Even so, they had to be desperate to attack an armed band."

Matteo nodded. He stooped by one of the men, a young jordain he recognized but whose name he had never known. The man had been bitten two or three times. He was as pale as a man drained by vampires. A pike lay nearby, heavy with skewered stirges. Another stirge lay dead beside him, leaking ichor from a gaping hole in its head where the snout had been. This protruded from the man's chest. He had torn it away when he ripped the giant insect from him, but not quickly enough. Blood had bubbled from the top of the tube, but the flow was stilled now.

Andris stooped and gently closed the man's eyes. He rose and motioned for the others to follow. The ground grew soft beneath their feet, and soon bog gave way to shallow water. They waded through it, moving into the deep shadows of moss-draped trees.

Matteo bumped against someone and stopped suddenly, instinctively putting out his hand to steady whomever he'd jostled. He felt a deathly chill and snatched his hand back. Squinting in the faint light, he made out the glassy shadow of an elf. Behind the crystalline form was another elf, and as his eyes adjusted, he made out several more. Matteo would have thought them to be clever statues but for the incredible cold within.

"I'm begi

"Since when did monsters become ordinary?" Andris said with an attempt at lightness. But his eyes were pained as he took in the ghostly shadows. "Let's keep moving."

The swamp water grew steadily deeper, the shallows unexpected giving way to sudden dangerous drops and deep pools. As they skirted one such pool, Matteo thought he saw the crenellations of a vast sunken tower, but he couldn't fathom a valley deep enough to swallow such a thing.

As he studied the towerlike shape, the water stirred. Before he could draw breath to shout a warning, a figure rose suddenly from the water, and of the water.

Shaped more like a giant bear than a human, its form was dark and brackish, and small fierce fish schooled frantically within the watery body.

Matteo shouted an alert and pointed to the magical creature. "Water elemental!"

For a moment the fighters paused. Such creatures were fought with spells and weapons of magic, and they had none.

Andris pulled a small bottle from his bag and shouted a command. Matteo quickly lit a torch and waited until Andris and several others had tossed the contents of their bottles into the fetid water.

He dropped the torch, and the swamp gas exploded into a ring of bright flame, which quickly engulfed the water elemental. With a roar like that of an angry sea, the creature fought to beat through the flames. Its body began to dissolve with a searing hiss. Clouds of steam billowed upward. Finally the creature could take no more and disappeared back into the pool.

Matteo and Andris regarded each other somberly. "A powerful wizard could summon an elemental, but no such person could survive here for long. Yet there is much magic here," Matteo observed.

"The water elemental was a creature of the plane of water," Andris responded, seeing Matteo's reasoning. "The gate must be near."

"And likely the laraken as well. Without Tzigone to draw it away, we will have to destroy it here," Matteo reasoned. "Then Kiva can close the gate-if that is indeed her intention."

Andris gave him an odd look. "We should split the men into two ranks. If we spread out, we may be able to flank the laraken with an all-out attack. You take the second troop."

They scattered into the swamp, creeping through the shallows and slipping through openings in the vines. The water became less fetid as they went, until it was as pure and clear as a mountain stream. One of the men bent to dip up some water in his cupped hands. Matteo gave him a quick jab with the blunt end of his pick, then shook his head sternly.