Whisper of Venom

Medrash looked right and left and saw that only the one horse had balked. The mages’ charms were working on the rest.

Which didn’t mean everything was perfect. The line had gotten ragged. It wasn’t the moving wall Khouryn recommended. Nor did the riders have the open ground that would best have served their purposes. The huts and various pens broke up the space.

Still, he felt a sudden surge of confidence that the tactics would actually work. “Gallop!” he roared. “Kill the brutes!”

The giant directly in front of him whirled a sling. Sensing more than truly seeing the fist-sized stone hurtling at his head, Medrash raised his shield. The missile hit it with a crack, hard enough to jolt and sting his arm.

He hastily lowered his shield again so he could see. The lance still didn’t hit the spot he was aiming at, but at least it punched into his huge foe’s shoulder. In so doing, it nearly heaved Medrash out of the saddle. But he was bracing himself in the posture Khouryn had taught him, and that, combined with the high cantle of his newly altered saddle, held him in place.

The lance tore free in a shower of blood. The giant staggered, and Medrash plunged onward. At that moment, it would have been impossible for a human knight to make a follow-up attack. He was too close to his foe for a jab with the lance and had no time to drop it and ready a shorter weapon.

But Medrash had a weapon he didn’t need to ready, and so he used the tactic Khouryn had recommended for when a lance thrust failed to neutralize its target. He sucked in a deep breath, then spat bright, crackling lightning at the giant’s head.

His horse carried him by before he could see how much damage he’d done. As soon as he could arrest the animal’s forward momentum, he wheeled it around. Carnage spun past his eyes.

A giant with jagged black streaks of war paint supported himself on one hand and both knees. There was a broken lance stuck all the way into his belly and several inches out his back. Despite his size, his screams were shrill.

Another hulking barbarian swatted a lance out of line, then plucked the lancer out of the saddle. He gripped the dragonborn’s shoulder with one massive hand, seized his head with the other, and wrenched it off. Blood sprayed from the stump.

A horse repeatedly reared and hammered its front hooves down on a fallen giant, who writhed beneath the punishment but seemed capable of nothing more. The dragonborn on the animal’s back had lost his lance and uselessly brandished a war hammer. He wasn’t sufficiently adept at mounted combat to lean out of the saddle and land a blow. Fortunately, it didn’t look like the horse needed the help.

Another lancer missed. As he passed by his foe, the giant lunged after him, stone club raised for a blow that would at the very least dash him from the saddle. But another dragonborn rode at the barbarian’s back and speared him between the shoulders. Like Medrash, the rider had plainly finished his initial pass and turned his mount, because the animal wasn’t moving very fast. Still, the stab staggered the giant, and his intended victim galloped beyond his reach.

As near as Medrash could tell from such brief, chaotic glimpses, his side was wi

The new one barely fit there, and would have to crawl to squeeze through-the Loyal Fury only knew why he’d bothered to go inside in the first place. But from the runic scars carved into his long, bony face and the necklace of raw crystals and bones dangling around his neck, Medrash took him for a shaman and wondered if he was Shangbok.

Whoever he was, it would be wise to kill him before he started casting spells. Medrash rattled off an invocation and jabbed at the air with his lance. White light flared from the point. It slammed the giant with the burned face and wounded shoulder back against the front of the hut, which swayed beneath his weight. But it only rocked Shangbok back a little, like a startling but harmless slap in the face.

The shaman thrust his hand into the sack tied around his waist and brought out a green crystal egg, polished and perfectly formed. Staring at it, he rattled off a rhyme.

The burning wood and coals beneath the roasting ox heaved upward, and then-as if springing up from a hitherto hidden pit-a creature exploded out from underneath them, knocking over the spit in the process. It was about the size of an ash giant, but covered in green scales and possessed of a saurian head. It walked on its hind limbs, which were short and thick. The front ones were ungainly looking batlike wings.

Medrash cursed. He’d seen giant shamans create comparable creatures before. But on those occasions they’d conjured them from the endless drifts of ash in their own desolate country, where their magic was strongest. He hadn’t known they could play the same trick with just the ash in a cookfire less than a day’s ride from Djerad Thymar.

The scaly green head of a second beast popped up into view. Medrash wondered if killing the shaman, or simply disrupting his concentration, would stop that one from manifesting completely. But before he could try, the first conjured reptile gave a rasping screech. It bent its legs, leaped into the air, and spread its wings to glide, though it seemed to hurtle at him fast as an arrow.

Medrash turned his horse-biddable even in the face of this horror, thank Torm and the vanquisher’s wizards-and aimed his lance. With luck, the gliding creature would impale itself.

Its jaws opened, and it spewed slime at him. He raised his shield, and most of the spray splashed against the barrier. But stray droplets spattered his skin and seared him and his mount. His mount screamed. Noxious fumes from the slime choked him and flooded his eyes with tears.

Suddenly half blind, he barely saw the glider lash its wings and bob harmlessly above the head of the lance. It then whirled one of the limbs like it was striking a blow with a flail.

Once again Medrash lifted his smoking, sizzling shield. The claw-like extrusions at the ends of the bony fingers inside the wing slashed, clattering across the armor. Already crumbling under the corrosive onslaught of the spew still clinging to it, the heater couldn’t withstand the added punishment. It shattered, leaving Medrash with only the leather straps that had held it to his arm.

But at least the arm was still attached.

Having altered the attitude of its wing to strike a blow, the glider couldn’t stay in the air. It thumped down behind Medrash’s horse, then whirled, yellow eyes blazing.

Twisted at the waist to keep track of it, he saw he’d never turn his horse around as fast as his foe was spi

Crouched, the ends of its wings dragging on the ground, the creature snarled and recoiled. Hauling on the reins, Medrash brought his horse around. He aimed his lance and urged the animal forward.

The conjured reptile flexed its legs to spring back into the air. Once again Medrash reached out to Torm. A torrent of Power poured through the core of him, and he shaped it according to his purpose. His lance glowed, and his horse streaked across the intervening distance, less ru

As a result, he reached his adversary before the beast could get into the air. The shining lance stabbed through its torso, and it collapsed in a heap.

But then, to Medrash’s astonishment, it rose on its stumpy legs once more. Snarling and screeching, it started to shove itself up the length of the lance. Its neck repeatedly swelled and contracted, perhaps working up another discharge of burning sludge. Its wings whipped out and back, out and back, straining to reach the foe at the other end of the long weapon.