It’s no use putting things off. Slin doubted the horde of chimerae would be persuaded to stop on the strength of a vague promise or two. He had no choice. “Vraccas, you know this is the only way.” He fired the bolt.
The shot pierced the naked breast of the bull-headed man, who stumbled and measured his length on the ash-covered floor. Clouds of dust rose up.
Slin reloaded. The chimerae were a good three hundred paces away. It’s impossible to shoot all of them. I haven’t got the ammunition or the time. He yelled down to the others to hide and to keep their weapons at the ready. “I shan’t be able to hold them all off.”
His next victim was a woman with the legs of a horse. She was quicker on her feet than the others. She fell to the ground with a scream, losing her sword.
Two wolf-based chimerae were coming through the trees; they had human heads, but Vot had grafted on animal snouts, which gave them a grotesque appearance.
Slin managed to shoot one of them, but the second had already reached the gate.
“Watch out! There’s one at the gate!” he warned Rodario and Franek, reaching for his bugle. He desperately needed the support of the Zhadar, otherwise his mission to find fame and adventure in the burned-out forests of Ran Ribastur would be meeting an untimely end.
He let out a blast on the bugle and the chimerae reacted with shock to the sudden booming noise. Then he concentrated on doing away with the biggest and most dangerous-looking of the monsters. In some cases he shot them through the heart, but they only seemed to die after he had sent several bolts through their heads. Magic had made them almost invulnerable. Or perhaps their hearts are not in the normal place?
The selection he made led to some of the smaller chimerae getting through to the gate. They set up a cacophony of roars, shrieks and barks, sending shivers up the dwarf’s spine.
Suddenly there was a crash and the creatures’ noise was now coming from the inner courtyard.
Where else am I expected to be, all at the same time? Slin turned round and aimed at the first thing he saw.
Rodario and Franek had not sought hiding places. Instead they had lit an enormous fire in the middle of the yard and armed themselves with burning planks.
“Charming. The long-uns are keen to do the hero thing,” Slin mumbled into his beard, shooting one of the wolf figures, which had been about to spring at the actor. In contrast to normal animals, these beasts did not seem worried by the heat and flames.
Something whipped through the air behind him and there was a tight feeling round his ankle, as a tentacle trapped his leg. He turned, reloading as he did so.
A chimera man with tentacle arms had pulled himself up the wall and was halfway through the hatch; one arm was wrapped around Slin’s leg and with the other he was hanging from a beam. “Come over here to me, dwarf!” he growled. The tentacles tightened.
“I’d rather send you something over!” Slin fired, but because his leg was being tugged from under him, he lost his footing and the bolt went astray, piercing not the creature’s heart but its shoulder.
The chimera man screamed and pulled Slin over, while climbing further up through the hatch. The second tentacle grabbed a beam and broke a piece off to use as a club. The makeshift weapon thundered down but the dwarf had seen it coming and was able to dodge. Holding the crossbow steady with both hands, he swung it like a pick-ax against the massive tentacle, but it was not enough to sever it.
Now he was at the feet of the chimera man. The enemy pressed his boot into Slin’s face; the tentacle round the leg slackened, and then was placed round his throat.
The dwarf employed the second mechanism on his crossbow, making a hidden dagger shoot out. He sliced through the tentacle and his adversary hopped backwards.
“I don’t need the bolts!” Slin shouted as he followed through, stabbing again and again.
But his adversary had been paying attention. He swerved and the stump of his tentacle swept the crossbow aside. The second long snake-like arm was going for Slin’s head.
Slin ducked and pulled a hatchet out of his belt. He limped over to the right to put a support pillar between himself and the monster. The leg that had been mangled felt swollen. He was struggling to avoid further attacks.
Two more hybrids swung up through the trap door; they also had tentacles instead of arms. Vot had given the woman the head of a boar; the man had the skull of a bear on his shoulders.
The three of them united to hunt Slin down, sending out their whip-like arms time and again to block off any escape.
Slin was at his wits’ end. “You asked for it,” he told the chimera, brandishing his hatchet. “I’ll do for you all!” With a loud war cry he launched himself at the creatures. A second tentacle dropped, severed, to the floor, where it executed a macabre spiraling dance.
But then four tentacles surged forward and swarmed round to encompass his upper body, legs and throat.
Slin felt himself lifted up, then the pressure became pain and his head swam. He wanted to call out, but the bonds round his throat were too tight and he failed to utter a single sound.
Rodario dodged the attacking bear claws and smashed the burning plank against the chimera’s head. Red and yellow sparks flew up and the head snapped round; the neck broke with an audible crack and the chimera fell dead.
“Another over by you, Franek!” he warned the famulus.
The man avoided the fangs from the wolf’s head and hit back with both the planks he was holding, crushing bone between the two pieces of wood.
Rodario glanced over at the open gate where the monsters were flooding in. Slin had already sounded a bugle call for assistance, but if Tungdil and the Zhadar did not arrive soon, help would be too late arriving. “Why doesn’t he shoot?”
Suddenly the dwarf appeared in the loft opening, took aim and dispatched a wolf chimera with a single shot; then he disappeared.
“What’s Beardy doing up there?” Franek was thrashing about with the planks but the attackers kept returning for more. They had smelled blood and were not going to give up or be frightened off.
Rodario exchanged one of the planks for his sword. Fire was not working for them, so it would have to be steel. “And all this just because Coira got the wrong end of the stick,” he muttered, as he stabbed a horse-headed woman. Her claw-like fingers failed to grab him and she careered past into the flames. “I could be lying by the pond with her doing all sorts of nice things.”
“The pond?” Franek was running a creature through, half-dog, half-man. “Not the one by the waterfall?”
“Yes, that one.”
“Then you were lucky. There’s a monster at the bottom of that pool. Vot created that one, too.” Franek was having to step back to avoid a man who had giant crab’s pincers instead of hands. “Sometimes it comes out and eats everything it can grab.”
Rodario groaned. I might easily have had Coira’s death on my conscience. “It sounds like you’ve been around these parts some time?”
“I had no choice.” The famulus leaped through the flames to escape the clutches of a monster, which promptly turned its attentions on the actor.
Rodario struck out, but the crab claw caught the blade and snapped it off! “Oh Samusin and Palandiell! Can one of you gods spare a second and come down and help us here?” He hurled the remains of the shattered weapon, injuring the chimera on the head. But he was not able to kill it.
The foe sprang forward, pincers agape.
Ireheart suddenly appeared and hit out with his crow’s beak. The flat side smashed the armor and the claws were broken into tiny pieces. Blood sprayed out of a wound. “Ho, a fish-man!” Ireheart rammed the spike through the creature’s throat and dragged it to the flames. A quick flick of the wrist and the sharp end of the crow’s beak slid out of the creature’s flesh and the creature stumbled into the fire. “Mmm, that smells good! A little bit of mayonnaise on the crab and supper is ready!” He laughed out loud.