As Balthor rolled back up to his feet, he saw Kamahl jump on the horse and ride off toward the forest's edge just before the creature turned and swung his great fist, hitting Balthor square in the jaw and sending the dwarf and his iron helmet flying in different directions.
"You're a strong one," said Balthor rubbing his jaw as he staggered back to his feet, "and quicker than ye look. Let's see ye outrun this." Balthor clapped his hands together and shot a beam of lightning, striking the beast in the stomach just below the embedded axe and burning a hole right through to his back.
Still, the blue-black monster came on.
"Great Fiers!" said Balthor. "What in the nine hells are ye?"
"His name is Burke," came a reply from behind Balthor. "And you can't kill him."
Balthor glanced over his shoulder to see a tall, silvery-blue man with small horns on his head.
"Ye must be Laquatas," he said, moving to the side, so he could keep both the mer and his monster in sight. "Nothing's unkillable, believe me. And when I'm done with your pet, I'll be coming for ye."
"I'll be waiting for you over here, old man," said Laquatas. "If you live, you can take your best shot."
As Balthor looked back at Burke, he began to believe that the mer was telling the truth, for the flesh surrounding the gaping hole in the jack's torso was flowing together to mend the huge wound, leaving no evidence, not even a scar, of the hole Balthor had blasted through the beast just moments before. However, Burke did nothing about the wound in his chest or the battle-axe still trapped within his blue-black body.
"Won't give me my weapon back, eh?" said Balthor. "I don't blame ye. But having no weapon's never stopped me before."
Balthor danced out of Burke's way as the creature advanced on him. He was just quick enough to avoid taking another shot to the head. Leading the beast ever away from the forest, Balthor gathered more mana, hoping he could burn the creature to ash.
Turning around just after Burke made another pass, Balthor unleashed the lava flow spell that Murk had tried on Kamahl during the tournament. Curling his fingers as though he was about to scratch the beast, Balthor concentrated on the air above Burke. A torrent of lava began to spill from this spot, cascading down upon the jack, searing its head and shoulders with red-hot, molten rock.
Balthor poured more and more mana into the spell, opening the rift in the air wider to release gallons of lava on top the beast until it was covered from head to toe, and the river of lava pooled on the ground, threatening to start a brush fire in the tall grass.
Releasing the spell, Balthor warily watched as the lava cooled, entombing Burke within the black- and red-streaked, still-smoldering rock. The ironwood shaft of Balthor's battle-axe, impervious to the heat, protruded from the rocky prison, but there was no movement from within.
"Unkillable, eh?" asked Balthor, glancing back at the mer, who sat stoically, looking bored and unconcerned with the fight. "There's nothing nor nobody on this world I cannot best in battle."
"Finish this battle first, and then we'll see," retorted Laquatas.
Balthor humphed at the mer and turned back to the lava-encased beast. It still hadn't moved, and Balthor was sure nothing could survive the heat and power of that much lava. He slowly, cautiously, approached, intending to rip his axe free and use it to crush the misshapen black statue.
The rocky shell encasing Burke erupted from within, shooting shards of rock in every direction and blasting Balthor back ten feet where he landed on his back, his face, hands, and arms streaked with blood from wounds caused by the blast.
Balthor could hear the mer chuckling off behind him but was more worried about the freed beast, which was bearing down upon him. Rolling to his side, Balthor pushed himself up and tried to dive between Burke's legs, for the creature was right on top of him. He felt a searing pain across his back as he rolled through.
Looking back as he ran for safety, Balthor could see Burke's fingers, which had turned into long thin blades, retracting back to a normal size as he turned to follow.
"I can't cut him. I can't blast him. And I can't bum him," said Balthor to himself as he ran, blood trickling onto the ground from his back. How do I kill him, he thought to himself.
I told you, came the reply in his mind. You can't. Give up now and serve me… and I may let you live.
"Get out of me head, ye devil!" screamed Balthor as he dived to the ground again to get out of the long reach of the mer's blue-black minion. "I will find a way to kill your beast. I always do."
But nobody short of a god can kill Burke, came the mental reply. Believe me. And once he's done with you, I'll send him into the forest to kill Kamahl. Live with that failure dwarf… but not for long.
"A god, eh?" mumbled Balthor as he dived out of Burke's reach to avoid yet another swipe from the beast's strong arm. "I may jest have something for ye then. But first I gotta get me axe."
On Burke's next pass, Balthor tried to sidestep the incoming attack, planning to get inside the beast's reach and make a grab for his axe, which still impaled the creature. Burke's arm grew another six inches and caught Balthor in the shoulder, shattering his collarbone and knocking him to the ground.
"Damn ye-" started Balthor, wincing in pain and trying to move his now useless arm, but his curse stopped short as the beast plunged its fist into his mouth. Burke extended the flesh of his hand and arm down into Balthor's throat, choking the dwarf and closing off his air passage. Balthor could see the shaft of his battle-axe sticking straight out of the beast toward him and flailed with his one good arm trying to grasp it. It was just out of reach.
About to black out and gagging on the rubbery flesh of Burke's arm, which continued to flow down his throat, Balthor bit down hard, severing the arm. Still choking, the bloody and battered dwarf ducked under Burke's flailing appendage as the beast tried to shove it into his mouth once again. He leaped high up into the air to grab his axe.
Fighting to stay conscious, for he still couldn't draw a breath, Balthor began to summon the mana he needed for his final spell. A spell handed down in his family from generation to generation. A spell, it was said, that had been given to the great Balthor Stoneface by Fiers himself. A spell so powerful it often consumed the caster as well as the target.
Burke grabbed the dwarf's head and began to squeeze his skull, but Balthor ignored the attack as he infused more and more mana into his axe, draining all of his reserves and calling for more from the distant mountains. With darkness intruding on him, blood welling up in his eyes and seeping out of his ears from the pounding pressure on his brain, Balthor unleashed the spell. A beam of white light shot up into the sky from the head of the axe, which still lay deep inside Burke's body.
When the beam touched the sky, clouds began to form around it, roiling, black and brown clouds that emanated from the beam and quickly covered the sky, blotting out the sun. Then, as Balthor passed out, the beam ended, rising up into the clouds and disappearing.
The last thing Balthor heard was the merman laughing again. But he knew. He knew he had won. Before Burke could drop the unconscious dwarf to the ground, the clouds above opened up once more, and from the very spot where the thin beam had disappeared, a five-foot-wide bolt of crackling lightning shot down to the ground, engulfing Burke and blasting the unconscious dwarf he held at arm's length halfway to the forest.
The beam opened up a hole in the ground beneath Burke's feet, boring deep into the earth, burning everything it touched to ash. Burke withstood the electrical onslaught for several minutes, but the beam continued to bore into him and into the ground until it began to flay the skin, layer by layer, from the beast. Inch by inch, Burke's flesh was ripped away and burned to ash by the wrath of Fiers until nothing was left save the hand that had held Balthor.