The Outcast (Summoner #4)(60)

A shadow, falling across the circle. Then, the crackle of wood. As if a giant had slowly set its foot down on a forest trail.

The world flipped sideways. One moment they were staring in silence, the next they were screaming as the tree trunk was lifted high. Blue green, flashing as the trunk’s end faced the canopy.

Next a stomach-churning drop, and a bone-juddering crash that spun Arcturus on his side. The bark held—but more cracks appeared along its length.

There was no time for planning. Arcturus had barely a moment to draw his dirk before a snake of leathery gray flesh wriggled its way through the opening. The Phantaur’s trunk darted at him, two powerful fingers closing like a snapping mouth, grasping for its prey. The world darkened as the demon placed its face against the opening to push its trunk farther still, and suddenly it was within inches of Arcturus’s face. He stabbed at it, barely making a scratch in the thick skin. The fingers closed on his hair, jerking him a foot toward it before his scalp burned and a tuft of hair ripped free.

He rolled as the trunk slammed down, splitting the wood farther so that he felt wet soil against his bare back. He stabbed again, directly at the trunk’s tip. This time he was rewarded by an earsplitting squeal of pain, and the trunk withdrew a few feet. He stabbed it again, drawing blood. He felt the blast of air as the beast trumpeted in agony. The tip was sensitive.

Mere seconds of respite followed.

“Valens,” Elaine called desperately. “Valens!”

But if the little Mite was attacking the demon, Arcturus could not see it. They were on their own. He could hear Sacharissa whining, desperately trying to push past Elaine’s body to fight, but the space was too tight.

Crash!

Splinters of wood sprayed, throwing sawdust and a spattering of soil into the air. A great pillar of gray flesh and bone had slammed down on the end of their tree trunk, crushing the end, bringing the circle of light ever closer.

Crash!

Again, the Phantaur’s foot slammed down, crushing the end of the trunk.

Crash!

Arcturus closed his eyes, wishing he had had time to learn a spell, any spell that might save them. But all he could do was flash wyrdlight. Useless.

Crash!

The foot was but an arm’s length away now, working its way up the tree trunk. He would be first. One more stomp before it was over. Arcturus brandished his dirk, ready to stab it when it came. He would go down fighting.

He could almost feel the shift of weight as the Phantaur raised its foot. In that moment, Arcturus jammed the hilt of his dirk into the crack in the wood ahead of him, pulling his hand away in the nick of time. The foot slammed down, impaling itself on the slim blade.

For a second there was silence. Then, a scream of agony unlike anything Arcturus had heard before, so loud and high pitched his ears sung with pain at the noise.

“Now,” Arcturus cried out, grasping the leg as it withdrew. “Run!”

He was pulled through the splintered hole, holding on for dear life as the Phantaur lifted its leg in the air, the delicate pad of its elephantine foot pierced deep by his dirk. He felt himself slipping and let go, landing among the fragmented wood as Elaine and Sacharissa rushed past. Above, the foot hovered in the air, a pillar of gray with the hilt at the bottom.

Growling, Arcturus took the handle and twisted it with all his might, and the resultant scream of agony nearly deafened him as he pulled his blade free in a spray of crimson.

Then he was running, sprinting toward a gap in the foliage, where Sacharissa’s tail swished as she flew into the undergrowth. He snatched a glance as he ran, saw the shaman on the demon’s shoulders, hands in the air, sketching a symbol in blinding blue light.

He ran on, leaping for the undergrowth … only to slam into an opaque barrier. He fell, near-stunned. Upside down in his vision, he saw the beast approaching in a limp that shook the ground with every stomp. On its back, the shaman howled murderously, its staff pointed directly at his face.

Arcturus struggled to his feet and clashed his dirk against the barrier, but its tip slipped along the surface as if it were wet ice. He could not penetrate it.

Then Sacharissa was sailing through the air, and the shield dissolved as she passed through it, her demonic essence ripping through the mana like rice paper. But even as she leaped for the Phantaur’s leg, the demon’s trunk whipped out, hurling her body in a tumble of limbs into a nearby tree.

Arcturus fell to his knees, the pain of Sacharissa’s injury flaring like lightning across his brain. He could barely see through the agony, only feel the tremors of the Phantaur’s approaching steps.

The gray snake of the trunk encircled his neck and lifted him. He kicked his legs as it tightened, and suddenly he was staring into the orc shaman’s eyes, bloodshot and black in the dark pools of the skull-paint’s eye sockets.

The orc grinned a saber-toothed grin, and the trunk brought Arcturus closer until the yellow tusks scraped his ears, and he could smell the shaman’s fetid breath.

Pain. He saw Sacharissa pulling herself toward him, dragging her injured body over the dead leaves. But the trunk gripped tighter, and he could feel the veins throbbing in his temples.

The shaman laughed as Arcturus’s boots struck the thick skin on the Phantaur’s skull. It was like kicking a rock. He lifted his hands and scraped at the leathery surface of the trunk. It did nothing. He didn’t have the strength.

The orc lifted a black-nailed finger and brushed hair from Arcturus’s face, the gesture unnervingly intimate. He stared deeply into Arcturus’s eyes as the grip slowly tightened. He wanted to see the life drain from him.