She'd mixed the stoneclaw sap and creeper gum herself, and spread it on the soles of her boots more thickly than most thieves, miners, and sailors would. It had seen her through more catwalk and rooftop landings on this foray than she cared to think about just now, and if it served her just once more…
With solid thumps, Asper's boots struck the beholder's body, and the blade in her hands flashed once and back again before she'd even caught her balance. Almost cut through, an eyestalk flopped and thrashed beside her, spattering her with stinging yellow-green gore as another eye turned her way. Her boots found purchase on the curving body plates, and Asper lunged desperately, putting her sword tip through the questing eye and shaking violently to drag the steel free before another orb could bathe her in its deadly gaze.
Three of the eyestalks were turning, like slow serpents, and the beholder was rolling over to fling her off. Asper kicked out at one eye, as her balance went, and flailed with her blade at another. She fell hard on the bony plates of the monster's body, arm wrapped around an eyestalk. She clung to it with one hand and drove the quillons of her blade into the questing orb that came curling at her. Milky fluid burst forth, drenching her. Spitting out the reeking slime, Asper grimly slashed at another eye. Then she was falling, the beholder's bony bulk no longer under her.
Stones rushed up to meet her, and Asper tucked herself around her sword, trying to roll. There was no time, and with numbing force, she crashed into what was left of a wall, and then reeled back helplessly. Mists swirled in front of her eyes, and a new wetness on her chin told where she'd bitten through her lip.
Mirt was roaring out her name and sprinting toward her, arms spread to embrace her. Would his failing shields protect them both?
Not from this death.
The beholder's large central eye was a rent, shriveled ruin, milky liquid dripping from a slash in the sightless bulge, but the smaller eyes on their stalks glittered with maddened rage. They stared at her, growing swiftly nearer. The charging monster would either ram her into the stones and crush the life from her, or roll over at the last instant to shred her with its fangs- teeth adorning a jagged mouth quite large enough to swallow her.
Asper shuddered, shook her head to clear it, and raised the gore-streaming blade she still held. Mirt came gasping up to her, stout sword raised-and the beholder's eyes vanished behind its own bulk. It rolled over to reveal the gaping maw that would devour her.
A giant among its own kind and armed with spells that they lacked, magic enough to overmatch many a human mage, Xuzoun had been contemptuously overconfident. It was always a mistake with humans, he vaguely remembered an older tyrant telling him once.
It would take many spells and long, long months in hiding to regain what had been lost in a few moments of red, reaving pain… but first to still the hands that had done this, forever!
Mirt fetched up against Asper, panting. "Are ye mad, lass? Yon-"
Asper shoved him away, hard, spun about, and dived away. Mirt staggered backward and, with a roar of pain, sat down hard on bruising stone. The beholder crashed into the stones where they'd stood, snapping and tearing with its teeth.
Rubble sprayed or rolled in all directions as the beholder raked the heap of stone apart, teeth grating on rock. The impact sent it cartwheeling helplessly away through the air-and uncovered a battered, unsteadily reeling tavernmaster.
Durnan found his feet and climbed grimly out of the heaped stones, growling at the pain of several stiffening bruises. He'd been buried long enough to know the first cold touch of despair and was in a mood to rend beholders.
"Urrrgh," Mirt snarled, waddling awkwardly to his feet. "What's this the earth spits forth? Tavernmasters gone carelessly strolling through Skullport?"
"Well met, old friend," Durnan said, grinning and clapping Mirt on the shoulder with fingers that seemed made of iron.
Mirt's mustache made that overall bristling movement that betokened a smile. "I saw the little minx ye came seeking, sitting as cool as ye please in Bindle's Blade, tossing down amberjack-so I came in haste, knowing ye'd be avidly hunting down a trap!" He cast a look at the beholder as it thudded into the wall of a stronghouse, where pale faces had just suddenly vanished from view. "So what did ye do to get a tyrant mad at ye? Refuse to kiss it?"
"Your wit slides out razor sharp, as always, Old Wolf," Durnan said with a sly smile that belied the light, innocent tone of his words.
Mirt gestured rudely in reply, and added, "Well?" "Nothing," Durnan said flatly, as they watched the beholder reel, steady itself, and begin to drift their way with menacingly slow, careful speed. "I came out of the Portal to aid a noble lady-and strode straight into a spell that snatched me here." He grinned suddenly. "Well, at least it saved me a bit of walking."
Mirt harrumphed. "Pity it didn't do the same for me." Rock shifted behind him, and he whirled around, sword out and low-only to relax and smile. "Lass, lass, how many times have I told thee how much I hate being sneaked up on from behind?" he chided Asper halfheartedly. She gestured past him with her sword.
"You'd better turn around again, then, my lord," she told him calmly, as a plucking at his belt told him that Durnan had snatched one of his daggers. Mirt grunted like a walrus and heaved himself around, puffing-in time to see the beholder rushing down at them again, beams of reaving light lancing out from its eyes.
"Keep behind me, both of ye!" the fat moneylender roared. "I'm shielded!"
"Against teeth like those? That's a spell you'll have to show me some time!" Durnan said, standing at Mirt's shoulder with a dagger in either fist. He'd lost his blade under all the rocks, and one eye had swollen almost shut, but the tavernmaster seemed content-even eager-as death roared down at them again.
With the ease and fluid grace of a prowling serpent, Asper slid up to stand at Mirt's other shoulder. "It seems strange to be worrying about a beholder's teeth," she said, "and not its eyes, for once."
"Get back, lass!" Mirt roared. "As if I haven't worries enough to-"
The beholder crashed into them, snarling and snapping. They hacked and slashed ineffectually against its bony body plates.
Its hot breath whirled around them as they jumped and hewed vainly and ducked aside-only to be struck and hurled away by what felt like a fast-moving castle wall. Durnan grunted as the tyrant smashed him down like a rag doll, and then rolled away into a gully as the beholder tried to crush him. Asper could not keep her feet when the jaws reached for her. She slid out of sight beneath the monster, only to duck up again, stab at it- and be thrown end over end across the ruins, sword flying from her numbed hands to clang and clatter to its own fall. With a gasp and a moan, she fetched up against a broken-off pillar, but Mirt was too busy to hear her.
He was scrambling and cursing and flailing away against persistent fangs, sword ringing off bony plates and fangs alike. In the end, he managed to avoid losing an arm only by setting his sword upright against the closing jaws and letting go. The eye tyrant's jaws caught on the blade, bent it, and spat it out. By then, the three battered, wincing companions were rising out of the rubble widely scattered about the ruin. The bettors yelled fresh wagers in the distance.
"Oh, by the way: this is Xuzoun," Durnan said formally, indicating the eye tyrant with a flourish.
"Ill met," Mirt growled, struggling to his feet. "Damned ill met."
Then the faint, everpresent singing of his shields fell silent: his defense against the beholder's eyes was gone.