Part 47 (1/2)

”Then we should be finished by breakfast.”

”Yes, but whose breakfast?”

With howls and scrabbling feet, the Transformed came on again.

Eremius suspected that his face was streaming sweat, as if he had been in a steam bath. He knew that pain racked his joints so that it needed real effort to stand.

Nearly all his magic was pouring into the duel with Illyana. The little he could spare for the Transformed was barely enough to keep them attacking without turning on one another. Those who took wounds or lost their courage had to do without his help.

This should not be. It could not be, unless Illyana had become greater than he. That was impossible. She did not have it in her to become so.

Eremius turned against Illyana even the little magic he was sparing to ease the pain in his joints. He almost cried out, like a man on the rack. He eased his pain with the thought that this addition of strength might be enough to let him try piercing the veil around Illyana's Jewel.

He tried and failed.

Only after he abandoned the effort, when he could barely stand, did he realize that the failure had told him what he wanted to know. Illyana's Jewel was utterly in harmony with her, defending both her and itself against him. How had she achieved this harmony?

Eremius thought he knew the answer. When he allowed himself to contemplate it, he knew fear as well, for the first time in many years.

Both Conan and Raihna were bleeding from a dozen minor wounds. Their muscles twitched and ached, their breaths rasped, and neither of them had enough intact clothing to garb a tavern dancer.

They fought on, because the Transformed did so. Illyana chanted and the Jewel-light danced and flickered. Bora's sling flung stone after stone, always swiftly, often with effect.

It was still mostly Conan's fight and Raihna's. Neither any longer kept count of the Transformed maimed or slain. Neither kept count of the times they had saved the other's life.

These matters were of small importance, compared with the oncoming Transformed. There had to be an end of them, to be sure, but would that end come before Conan and Raihna reached the end of their strength?

Already Raihna's dagger was blunted from thrusting through scales, and her sword was kinked. Conan's sword showed as many nicks as if he had been chopping wood with it. They might soon lose the power to harm the Transformed even if they still possessed the strength.

It seemed to Conan that the Transformed were somewhat thinner on the ground. It also seemed that the intervals between attacks were growing longer. It was not impossible that the tide of battle was flowing their way.

Would it flow fast enough? They could still lose everything, if the Transformed broke through in sufficient strength to slay Illyana.

Another Transformed-no, two of them-charged the opening. Conan dashed the sweat from his eyes. Matters were not well, when he could hardly count the number of his opponents!

The Transformed facing Conan bore several wounds and an arrow, relics of previous exchanges. It stumbled against the barricade, flinging all its more-than-human weight against the stones. One of them s.h.i.+fted, then another.

With a rattle and a crash, the barricade subsided in a cloud of dust.

The second Transformed leaped through the dust. Raihna met him with a desperate lunge. Her sword bent almost double. Conan hewed at the Transformed's neck, but it had the speed to elude him. It leaped between the two defenders, shrugged off a stone from Bora's sling, and lunged at Illyana.

The talons were only an arm's length from the sorceress when she leaped up and back. Conan would have sworn that she floated into the air. He did not doubt what he saw leaping from the Jewel-emerald fire, a spearthrust of eye-searing light.

It struck the Transformed. One claw raked Illyana's shoulder, without drawing blood. Then the flesh was boiling off the Transformed's bones, like stew in an untended pot. A wave of indescribable stench swept over Conan, making him blink and reel. When he saw clearly again, only smoking bones on the cave floor remained of the Transformed.

Illyana stood, fingering a shoulder that Conan knew should have been gaping nearly to the bone. The smooth flesh was unmarred. Unbidden and unwelcome, the thought of how he had held that flesh close to him entered his mind.

As if she shared the thought, Illyana smiled.

”I should not have been able to do that. The Jewels-” Whatever she might have wanted to say about the Jewels went unuttered. Instead her face turned grim. ”I do not know how often I can do that. I can certainly do it often enough to let you and Raihna attack.”

”With what?” the swordswoman exclaimed, holding out her crippled weapons.