Bradok gasped for air as he struggled to his feet. The Disir turned, lurching under the burden of its wounds. Bradok brought his sword up just as the monster collapsed, its limbs pawing the sand. There it lay, bleeding to death from its wounds.
“No time for that,” Much said as Bradok paused to catch his breath. “There’s still more of-look out!”
Much shoved Bradok hard, causing him to stumble away. In the sand, right where he’d been, a Disir blade arm had gouged a trench in the sand. The creature whirled to focus on Much, who was backing away. The old dwarf gripped a short sword, but Bradok doubted Much or his weapon was any match for the hulking monster.
“Here,” Bradok yelled, clanging his sword down on the stone of a nearby column. “Over here, you big dumb bug!”
The Disir turned and, with a speed Bradok didn’t fully expect, lashed out with its swordlike arms. Though its arms pointed downward, they were longer than one would expect. Bradok barely had time to duck behind the column of rock before the chitinous arm slammed into it, gouging a deep cut out of the stone.
Bradok hacked at the arm, chopping off the tip. The creature retaliated, reaching around the column and slashing Bradok’s left arm, driving the tip of its remaining good arm into the dwarf’s side. Bradok cried out with pain and fell backward with the force of the blow. His sword went spinning out of his grasp as the Disir rose above him, ready to impale him.
Bradok rolled as the creature’s gleaming arm came down. Pain whipped across the side of his face as the arm slammed into the sand, grazing him. Blood ran into his eyes, blinding him.
The Disir pulled its arm back for another strike. Frantically wiping the blood from his eyes, Bradok scrambled back. A shadow swept past him; then Thurl was there, wielding Bradok’s sword. The Daergar assassin easily parried the Disir’s arm, knocking it aside and running the enchanted blade straight through the creature’s torso.
The Disir reared back, and Thurl jerked the blade out of its chest. The dying creature lunged at Thurl, its massive maw spread wide. Thurl sidestepped the creature with a grace that seemed impossible. As the Disir fell, Thurl brought Bradok’s sword around and struck off its head.
Bradok tried to rise, but a piercing pain in his side sent him crumpling to the ground. His shirt and cloak were soaked in blood. Bradok unclipped his cloak and wadded it up, pressing it against the wound in his side to contain the bleeding.
“Stay down,” Thurl said as two more Disir emerged from the hole in the ground. “I’m starting to enjoy this.”
Thurl advanced on the creatures easily. When the blind monsters lashed out at him, he methodically cut off their limbs, literally disarming them with repeated slashes until he could step in and deliver a fatal blow. He moved with the smoothness of a dancer performing an intricate ballet of death. Occasionally a Disir would strike him a glancing blow, leaving a trail of red over his scarred flesh, but his wounds were superficial.
“Lay down,” Tal said to Bradok, suddenly at his side. Without waiting for cooperation, he pushed Bradok down hard and tore open his shirt.
“Hold this to his head,” Tal said to someone Bradok couldn’t see. “He’ll lose that ear but it can’t be helped. I have to tend this other wound first.”
“What about the Disir?” Bradok croaked, wincing at the pain as Tal cleaned his wound.
“They’re all dead,” Rose’s voice answered.
“It looks like it was a small scouting party,” Thurl added, coming into Bradok’s vision. “Only a dozen or so.”
“They’ll be missed, then,” Bradok said. “They’ll send more to find out what happened to the scouts.”
“Not for hours, if we’re lucky,” Thurl said.
Tal pressed his silver flask up to Bradok’s mouth. “That means we have to hurry and get you patched up and ready to travel,” he said. “Drink this.”
Bradok tried to protest, but Tal forced the flask into his mouth. Whatever was in there had a sweet, sticky flavor and burned all the way down into the soles of Bradok’s feet. Almost immediately his vision blurred and a heavy, contented feeling swept over him.
“Hold him down,” Tal said, his voice seeming to come from a great distance away.
Pain shot through Bradok’s side, but he didn’t seem to have the willpower to care. He could hear Tal and Rose talking as Tal labored on Bradok’s wound. He seemed to be stitching it together like a tailor would close a rip in a shirt. That didn’t make any sense to Bradok, but his foggy mind couldn’t make sense of anything.
“Just wrap up his head,” Tal said after an indeterminate amount of time had gone by. “Hurry,” he added as Rose lifted Bradok’s head. “There are others we must save.”
Eventually, the stinging sensation in Bradok’s side and head began to fade. At the same time, he began to feel the world gradually coming back into focus. When at last his vision cleared, he found Rose sitting beside him. Her hands and arms were stained with blood, and she was scrubbing them with sand.
“I … we …” he said, struggling to form words.
“Lie still,” Rose said firmly. “You need to rest now. We’re going to need to travel in a few hours, and you have some healing to do before that. And then it’s still not going to be pleasant.”
Bradok opened his mouth to speak, but something caught his eye. He reached out and grabbed Rose’s arm. She tried to yank her arm away, causing Bradok to cry out as pain shot through his side.
“Stop that,” Rose said, letting him see her arm.
The gray patch of skin had grown considerably and glowed a sickly yellow color. A tiny mushroom protruded from the center, and Bradok could see several more forming just below the surface.
Bradok swore.
“I didn’t want to bother you with what’s happening to me,” she said, withdrawing her arm after Bradok released it. “I’ve been putting the moonwell water on it, but it’s still growing. I’m going to have to leave soon, or I’ll become a danger to everyone.”
“Book,” Bradok croaked.
“What?” Rose asked, wrapping a fresh bandage around her arm.
“Metal book, from Starlight Hall,” Bradok said. “Maybe the metal book has a cure.”
“Bradok,” Rose said hesitantly. “I don’t need false hope.” But her face showed that it was something she hadn’t thought of.
“What’s he doing awake?” said Tal, coming up to them. “He needs to sleep at least four hours before he can travel.”
Something was pressed to Bradok’s lips, and more of the burning liquid ran down his throat. He preferred to stay awake, to reassure Rose, but the strength of the liquid was not to be resisted. The world faded to black, and Bradok knew no more.
CHAPTER 21
The pain woke Bradok-a dull, throbbing ache that seemed to run from the top of his head to the tips of his toes. He didn’t mind the pain so much; after all, it meant he was alive.
He lay in that half-waking dream state for what felt like hours. Just beyond the reach of his senses, full consciousness waited, but there seemed to be no hurry to rush there. Bradok knew when he finally woke, the pain would be more real and more bothersome.
As his mind drifted, he gradually became aware of sounds. Confused at first, the sounds resolved themselves into snatches of garbled conversation and the weeping of children.
Bradok tried to force his mind awake, but whatever Tal had given him to sleep made it impossible to focus. He needed something to hold on to, something to use as an anchor to pull himself into wakefulness. The conversations were too vague, and he couldn’t ever seem to understand the words. Finally, he became aware of an odor-not the smell of blood nor the smell of the caves, but something far more pungent.
With a jolt, his drifting mind caught hold of the name he’d been seeking to put to the smell-rot. The odor was the stench of death and decay.
“Rhizomorphs,” he gasped, remembering, his eyes popping open.