CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Whipping his scimitar in front of him, Haarn barely managed to block the skeleton's claws from his throat. The clang of metal against bone echoed over the marshlands as Broadfoot roared a challenge.
The druid moved slowly. With moccasins caked in mud, his feet felt heavy, awkward, and his reflexes were slowed as a result. The skeleton gave him no time to use spells, and Haarn was forced to simply defend himself.
Turning, setting himself in the mud, the druid blocked the skeleton's attacks. As he parried just to keep himself alive, Haarn caught glimpses of Broadfoot closing in. Above, on the ridgeline, Druz began her descent, sliding down the steep, mud-encrusted mountainside. Haarn knew with grim certainty that the fighting would be over long before Druz could reach him. Only Broadfoot stood a chance of reaching him in time to help.
He parried the skeleton's strikes again and again, giving up step after step of the muddy ground, leaving a ragged battlefield in his wake.
Despite the ravaged ground and the thick mud, the skeleton had no problem pursuing Haarn. It lunged after him, taking long, slapping strides through the mud. Without a true mouth and only a leathery husk for a tongue, the undead thing's voice came out as a barely audible, growling hiss.
There was no finesse to the skeleton's attack. It swung its arms like bludgeons, depending on its sharp talons to flay him.
The skeleton was far stronger than Haarn had at first realized. The creature was an inhuman dreadnought that kept on coming. As it struck, the ruby jewel inside its chest rattled against its rib cage. Sunlight splintered from it in a cascade of crimson colors so bright they almost hurt the druid's eyes.
Haarn dodged behind a tree, and the skeleton lashed out again. Narrowly avoiding the blow, Haarn narrowed his eyes as the heavy claws ripped through bark. A cloud of splinters flew into the air, and the sound of the impact was like nothing Haarn had ever heard before. A shiny patch of white marred the tree where a patch of bark nearly the size of Haarn's head had been.
Haarn brought the scimitar up in both hands, driving it toward the skeleton's skull. The undead thing managed to get a hand up first, though, and the clang of bone against metal rang across the marshlands. Mud sucked at Haarn's feet as he shifted. He struck again, but the skeleton managed to block him once more, though this time a finger bone flew from one of its hands. They were moving so fast that the druid couldn't tell which finger had been lost.
Abandoning all hesitation, the skeleton threw itself at Haarn.
Knowing his undead opponent's weight would drive him into the mud and trap him, Haarn jumped to one side, trying for as much distance as he could. He knew Broadfoot was almost on them now, and he trusted the great bear to help guard his back.
Before the skeleton could reach Haarn, who struggled to extricate himself from the mud, Broadfoot's shoulder hit the skeleton so hard that bone shattered and broke. Knocked off its feet by the terrific force, the skeleton flew through the air, scattering pieces of itself as it flipped and cartwheeled.
Haarn shoved himself to his feet and spat mud. Slimy muck caked his face and blurred the edges of his vision. He started forward as the skeleton struggled to draw itself to its feet once again. It stood on unstable legs in the splintered shadows that tracked the ground beneath the trees shivering gently in the breeze.
The skeleton's jaw moved, and it leaned down to seize a broken tree limb that floated on the water. As the skeleton turned, drawing back the limb in a threatening manner, the jewel inside its rib cage twisted and gleamed like a coal that had just been hit by a blast from a smith's bellows.
As if surprised, the skeleton glanced down at its broken rib cage. Within its ivory prison, the jewel glimmered and spun, rattling in wild abandon. The skeleton loosed an ululating wail as if in pain, sinking to its knees and holding its arms across its rib cage. The ruby light squeezed between its arms and lanced at the ground.
An invisible force scooped up a load of muck-encrusted earth. Water and young toads spilled off the sides of the earthen burden, plopping down into the hole that rapidly drained the nearby marshlands.
Taking cover behind a young elderberry tree, inhaling the sweet scent of the blossoms and aware of the bees working the flowers around him with no concern at all, Haarn prepared a spell, sheathing his scimitar. He touched the symbol of Silvanus at his throat and threw out his hand.