The Hammer and the Blade Read Free Page B

as an enormous, scaled, misshapen form lurched up, and Nix realized with horror that the lampreys were attached to the form at the shoulders.
      They were its arms.
      "What devil is this?" Egil said, raising his crowbar and taking a step back despite himself.
      The devil pulled the rest of its girth from the pit and stood heavily on the floor. The wrongness of its appearance put stinging bile in the back of Nix's throat. Foul fluid glistened on its scaled form. It stood on two legs as thick as temple columns. Muscles pulsed under the deep green scales of its torso. But where it should have had a neck, it instead had an enormous, toothlined hole that opened directly into its torso. Vertical slits in its chest, under the mouth, exhaled wetly. Its lamprey-arms writhed, the motion hypnotic, grotesque.
      "It's a devil, indeed," said Nix, recovering his wits. He'd seen illustrated guides to Hell's Eleven Pits. He knew a diabolical form when he saw it. He noted the grotesque organ hanging from between the creature's thighs. "And not a she-devil, we can be sure."
      The eyes of one of the lampreys focused on Nix, the others on Egil. The fang-lined mouths opened and closed, ichor dripping. The mouth in the creature's center opened in a prolonged snarl of hate.
      "That idol is to be mine, fiend," said Egil, and brandished the crowbar. "Now climb back into your pit ere I and Ebenor give you this to feed on."
      The creature shrieked and bounded toward Egil, its movement surprisingly rapid despite its size and shambling gait. Nix had two throwing daggers in hand and gone before the devil had taken three steps. Both hit the creature and bounced off its scales. It barely seemed to notice.
      It lashed its arms at Egil, the teeth snapping. The priest held his ground and swung the crowbar twohanded at one of the onrushing arms. It connected with a dull thud across the lamprey's mouth. Teeth and dark ichor sprayed. The other arm caught Egil in the side so hard it nearly folded him in half. The impact drove the priest to the ground and sent him sliding across the floor. He dug the crowbar into the floor to stop his slide, the friction spraying sparks.
      The devil lurched toward the prone priest, arms writhing, teeth snapping.
      Nix rushed toward it from the side, throwing his hand axe as he did. The weapon hit the devil squarely in the midsection and again bounced off the scales. The devil roared with anger and Nix ducked under a backhand strike from the lamprey arm, darted in close, and swung his falchion two-handed at the abomination's thigh.
      He might as well have struck stone. His blade rang off the creature's scales and the jarring impact numbed his arms. The devil kicked him in the chest and sent him flying across the chamber. He hit the ground in a heap, the breath knocked from him, unsure if he'd broken any ribs.
      The ground vibrated with the devil's heavy tread as the creature left off Egil and charged toward Nix. Nix rode adrenaline to his feet, wincing from the pain in his sternum. He parried the attack of one of the lampreys, his arms tingling from the force of the blow. He ducked under a blow from the other lamprey and unleashed a flurry of overhand slashes and cross-strikes. His weapon struck home often, but his blade would not bite the creature's flesh. A blow to his head nearly knocked him senseless and he just ducked under the sucking fangs of the lamprey.
      Egil's sharp whistle drew his attention. The priest had scaled the largest statue of Abn Thahl and stood on its shoulder, beside the wizard-king's regal visage and sand serpent headdress.
      "Bring it to me!" he shouted in Urgan, his native tongue.
      Nix didn't know Egil's plan and didn't need to. He feinted an overhand slash with his falchion, causing the devil to hesitate briefly, and sprinted to his left across the chamber.
      "There!" Egil said, pointing with the crowbar at the ground before the statue. "Right there!"
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