‘There were people still here two days ago,’ said Hiza.
‘Must have moved on,’ shrugged the man. ‘Wouldn’t you? Nothing left to stay for. By Arkus,’ he laughed, ‘who could do such a thing? I’ve seen monster attacks before, but nothing like this. Maybe it was the dragon?’
Behind him the other warriors started to rise. As they did, the spit roast became visible. Perched above the flames was a man’s arm, some of its hair still frizzling in the heat.
‘I trust you are enjoying this little charade?’ said Bel, drawing his sword.
The man cocked his head quizzically, then glanced at the fire and the smoking appendage. His gaze returned with a smile on his face. The other warriors began to fan out beside him.
‘Waste not, want not,’ he said, and held out his hand. ‘Now, give us the Stone, and you and your friends can walk away unharmed.’
A path sprang up before Bel thick and fast, pulling at him like a powerful current.
‘Please,’ he managed to mutter to the others, ‘protect each other. Don’t …worry about me.’
Frenzy blazed through him and before he knew it, he was speeding towards the warriors with his blade held high. For a moment they stood, startled, not expecting such a sudden attack. As Bel’s sword sliced down upon one of their arms, fierce joy zinged through him. The arm fell away, mud spurting from the wound, and the warrior roared, his mouth elongating to widen his head. Another warrior drew his sword, and as he did his arm changed, sword hilt becoming an extension of ropy limb, blade fanning out into a brace of knife-like claws. Bel surrendered wholly to the fight, whirling amongst them as they began to change. Leather bubbled and became muddy skin, arms and legs extended, tendrils burst free. One of them, still mostly a man-shape, opened its mouth and shot out a needle-tipped tongue at Bel’s chest.
‘No!’ gurgled the leader, half-transformed, and snipped the tongue from the air with the tips of its claws. ‘He must not be harmed!’
Bel sensed their confusion as pathways spread out amongst them – there were now many ways in which he could travel to take advantage of their hesitation. He feinted then rolled, hacked out a pair of bandy legs, and a Mireform went down roaring. It kicked its stumps and new legs grew, thinner than before.
‘Restrain him!’ bellowed the leader, all vestiges of humanity melting away.
Claws closed over his arm. He did not feel the pain as he twisted free of a grip that cut him but had no real purchase as long as he was willing to suffer the consequences.
‘Get the others!’ the leader yelled.
Bel spun and saw Hiza and Jaya standing with swords drawn as the leader advanced on them, and M’Meska leaping up onto the roof of a hut, loosing arrows. Does no good , he thought dimly. Got to cut, not pierce. Then the path swept him along and, without even looking, he rolled away from a tendril that sought to entangle him. The sword followed him around and the tendril went flying.
‘Fazel!’ he screamed. ‘Gellan!’
He caught a brief glimpse of Gellan standing with his hands out, looking lost, as if unsure what spell to cast.
‘Do something!’
‘What is wrong, little light mage?’ laughed a Mireform, looming over Gellan. ‘Could it be we have no orders not to kill you ?’
Gellan waved a hand and the earth split beneath the Mireform, which suddenly found itself falling. The mage flicked his wrist and the hole closed up, swallowing the creature. Immediately, a clawed hand burst up through the ground like some abnormal bloom. Seconds later, the Mireform was pulling itself up, dirt showering from its back.
‘Think you can bury what is already earth?’ it roared.
Stop this , Losara tried again. The thought slid off the Mireform, failing to penetrate its magically resistant hide.
They can’t hear you , came Fazel’s thought. You will have to reveal yourself to call them off.
The undead mage gestured at a hut, ripping wood free and sending pieces spinning towards the Mireform, beating it backwards, delaying it, but doing no real harm.
A tendril wrapped around Hiza’s leg, yanked violently and sent him to the ground. Jaya found herself facing the Mireform leader alone. She swiped at it but the grinning thing rocked backwards, easily avoiding her blade, while at the same time its tongue shot out towards her. Her reflexes kicked in and she somersaulted backwards, landing amongst the huts. Suddenly she could not see any of the others.
The Mireform gurgled with laughter and tottered forward. Fear came upon her, a kind of fear she had never known. She turned to run, and her legs almost got away from her. She found herself crashing through the door of a hut and sprawling on a rug. There she lay dazed for a moment, her eye a finger’s breadth from a colourful flower woven into the fabric. For a moment the banal little picture was the only thing she could concentrate on, a pretty motif amidst the ruin.
‘Think you can hide in there?’ came a mocking burble.
She rolled off her stomach and elbowed herself backwards along the floor as the Mireform lurched outside the door. It gripped the doorframe and pulled, tearing away half of the hut.
‘Plenty others had that idea when we were here before,’ it said. ‘Suppose it helped them?’
Clicking its claws, it ambled inside.
Bel swung hard at a grinning head, sending it sloughing away from the shoulders. Mud bubbled at the neck as the head re-formed. He sliced again, this time at the arms. The head appeared just in time to yowl as the arms fell away, and he lopped it off for a second time. As the arms grew back it was off with the legs, then a mighty heave to cut the torso cut in half. Mud splattered his eyes as he relentlessly butchered the thing where it stood, denying it the chance to regain shape. Soon the Mireform was nothing but a puddle at his feet, from which a small worm-shape slithered away into the grass. Bel flung his sword, cutting it in two, and there was a sound like steam shooting from a kettle as it withered.
One down.
He pulled his sword from the ground, and for a moment stood disoriented. The remaining Mireforms had shambled off in pursuit of the others, leaving him alone before the smouldering pyre with nothing to attack.
Further off he saw M’Meska bound from a roof, saw a tendril shoot up and seize her leg, bringing her down somewhere out of view amongst the huts. Where were Jaya and the rest?
He heard her cry out in fear or pain, or both, and the sound was like an arrow through his heart. The bloodlust was not enough to dull his terror, and he raced towards her voice, cursing. He burst into a space between a group of dwellings just as Gellan and Fazel ran in from a different direction. A roar came from within a shaking hut, then the sides splintered as the entire structure fell away. The Mireform leader was revealed, stooping over something, obscuring his view of it. Then the creature lifted Jaya bodily into the air, its tendrils whipping to encircle her, pinning her to its chest as it spun to face them with both arms free. Dazedly she struggled, but more tendrils appeared from the Mireform’s abdomen, restraining her like a fly in a spider’s web. It grinned as it waved claws in front of her face, grinding them together harshly.
‘Look, Bel,’ it said. ‘I wear your woman like a tabard.’
Another Mireform appeared behind it, dragging the thrashing M’Meska by her tail. Then another, with Hiza slung across its back, and the fourth and fifth as well.
‘Don’t hurt her!’ shouted Bel, more anger in his voice than plea.
‘See what happens,’ the leader said, ‘when you deny us? Now the girl dies, and your friends will follow if you will not give the Stone.’