Bracing her cane beneath her leg, the sorceress reached into the satchel slung from the kank’s harness. After a moment of searching, she extracted a pinch of yellow sulfur. She turned her free hand palm down and held it out, summoning the energy for a spell.
A javelin rattled against the kank’s abdomen, and Sadira halted her mount, bringing it around to face the halflings. In trancelike unison, the warriors gave a breathless war cry. Two of them broke stride to throw their spears. At the same time, Sadira flung the sulfur at her pursuers and uttered her incantation.
The javelins struck, hitting the kank mid-thorax. One spear sliced past Sadira’s thigh and bounced off the insect’s carapace. The other sank deep into its middle leg socket, sending a violent shudder through its body.
In the same instant, a crackling wall of fire appeared between Sadira and the halflings. The flames, stretching many yards to both sides of the road, completely obscured the warriors from view.
Her heart pounding a little less forcefully, the sorceress picked up her cane again and tapped her mount’s right antenna, signaling it to turn. As it obeyed, the rancid smell of kank flesh came to her nose. Sadira nearly retched, unaccustomed to the foul odor the beasts emitted when they were injured. Now she understood why few creatures preyed on the giant insects.
A series of bloodcurdling screams sounded from the firewall. The sorceress looked back to see a half-dozen halflings rushing out of the flames. Their faces were contorted in agony, with flakes of charred skin falling from their bones and streamers of ash hanging off their heads. They stumbled a few steps forward, then hurled their spears in the sorceress’s direction before collapsing into smoking heaps.
Sadira pressed her body flat against the kank’s back, simultaneously urging it into a gallop. Three of the spears clattered off the beat’s carapace and fell harmlessly away, and the others did not even reach it.
Spurred onward by the rattle of spears against its shell, the kank bolted forward in a lop-sided sprint, carrying its injured leg off the ground. Sadira dared to sit up and glance back. To her relief, no more halflings had been rash enough to charge through the firewall, but it would not be long before they began to pour around its ends.
The kank suddenly slowed. Fearing that it was about to collapse, Sadira looked forward again. To her relief, she saw that the beast had only swerved off the road, where the soft sand made running more difficult. She tapped the outside of its antenna to guide the pained beast back to the caravan path, confident she still had plenty of time to reach the far side of the chasm. The bridge was so close now that she could make out the individual cobblestones lining its roadway.
The kank did not obey. Instead, it veered further off course, then stumbled and fell, pitching Sadira from its back. She landed face-first, the air shooting from her lungs in a painful rush. She tumbled over and over, dropping her cane and entangling herself in the straps of her waterskin. Finally, the sorceress came to a rest half-buried in hot, rust-colored sand.
Less than ten paces away, the kank lay cowering on it belly, its antennae pressed flat against its head and the black spheres of its eyes staring vacantly into the sky. The beast’s shell shook in violent spasms, its legs as limp as worn-out rope.
Grimacing in pain, Sadira pulled herself to her feet. She picked up her cane and retrieved her satchel from the kank’s harness. “Sorry to leave you behind,” she said, patting its carapace.
A sputtering hiss sounded from the direction of the halflings. When Sadira turned around, she saw that Nok had turned the center of her firewall to steam. From out of the white vapor rushed her pursuers, their spears poised to throw.
Shouldering her satchel and waterskin, Sadira ran for the bridge. She still had not recovered from her fall and found herself gasping for air, but, in her terror, did not let that slow her down.
As the sorceress ran up the gentle slope leading to the center of the arched bridge, the halflings went wild, shrieking and screeching at each other in their strange language. Spears clattered off the stones at her heels, falling just inches short of their target.
Sadira kept her eyes fixed on the crest of the bridge, concentrating only on using her longer stride to open the distance between herself and the weary halflings. By the time the sorceress reached the top of the arch, she had moved far enough ahead that the halflings were no longer throwing spears at her. She stopped and tossed her cane a dozen yards down the roadway. Next, she ripped her waterskin from her shoulder and tore it open, then withdrew a handful of clay from one of the pockets inside her satchel.
The halflings reached the edge of the bridge and started after her. Sadira ignored them and rushed from one side of the bridge to the other. At the same time, she poured the last of her water over the clay in her hand, dripping the resulting sludge across the bridge’s black keystones.
Summoning the energy for a spell, Sadira backed away from the crest of the bridge. The lead halfling, who had already thrown his spear, reached the top of the arch and pulled his bone dagger. Sadira pointed at the line of sludge beneath his feet and uttered her incantation.
As the black stones changed to mud, the halfling rushed after the sorceress. Cursing, Sadira unsheathed her own dagger, but kept backing down the bridge. When her spell turned the last of the bridge’s keystones to mud, the entire structure would collapse, and she did not want to be on it when it happened.
The halfling stopped just short of an arm’s length away from Sadira and circled her, looking for an opening. His fellows reached the crest of the bridge and began to wade through the deepening pit of mud. The warriors did not throw their javelins, for it was obvious the sorceress could not flee with one of their number so close.
Sadira lunged straight at the halfling with the dagger. He slashed his bone blade across her arm, opening a deep gash. The sorceress cried out, then used her superior reach to drive her steel blade deep into the warrior’s throat.
Although blood poured from the halfling’s mouth, his eyes did not seem to register the fact that he had been wounded. He struck again, this time driving his dagger into Sadira’s upper arm. She screamed and opened her grip, stumbling away from the warrior. Once again he lashed out, this time harmlessly, and finally fell dead at the sorceress’s feet.
Sadira turned and ran, blood streaming from her wounded arm. Passing by her cane, she stooped and picked it up with her uninjured hand. The halflings behind her did not hurl their spears, no doubt confident they would soon catch the injured half-elf.
The bridge trembled beneath her feet. The halflings began to chatter in alarm, then Sadira heard several grunt with the effort of throwing their spears. Though still a short distance from the end of the bridge, the sorceress dived forward.
A tremendous crash sounded behind her. Sadira felt the air resonate against her belly, then smashed onto the stone roadway and rolled forward. Tendrils of fiery pain shot down her wounded arm, and the sorceress glimpsed halfling spears bouncing off the stones all about her.
When Sadira stopped rolling, she found herself at the edge of the bridge. Where the great edifice had once stood, there was only a plume of dust so thick that she could not see the far side of the chasm.
The sorceress collected her cane and satchel, then crawled off the last few feet of cobblestones, fearing that even the bridge abutment might collapse. For several moments, she lay on the ground breathing in shallow gasps, too shocked and exhausted to move.
After a while, Sadira sat up. She felt dizzy and weak, and her thoughts came slowly. When she examined her wounds, she saw that her cuts were bleeding profusely. Realizing that the more she bled, the more groggy she would become, the sorceress tried to rip the bandages from her dusty robe. She could not, for only her uninjured hand had the strength to tear the cloth. Sadira reached for her dagger, but found only an empty scabbard.