Mordan hurled himself aside as an immense clawed hand reached for him, but he was a fraction too slow. The metal claws struck him a glancing blow, sending him cartwheeling across the ground. A beam of light stabbed out from Tarrel’s wand, striking the monstrosity directly in the face—and bouncing back to hit Tarrel himself, knocking him off his feet. Ignoring the fallen half-elf, the construct lumbered over to Mordan, picking him up in its massive fist. As he writhed in its grasp, it lifted him over its head, directly above the blood-encrusted spikes on its back.
“No!” With a cry, Brey leaped onto the creature’s back, swinging from spike to spike like an acrobat. Bracing her feet against the metal carapace, she reached out for its wrist—a column of metal and stone as thick as a tree-trunk—and pushed upward with all her strength. For a moment, she held the limb back, but a long, jagged spike was only inches away from Mordan’s body. He struggled in the thing’s iron grasp but could not free himself.
Tarrel struggled to his feet, smoke rising from a charred hole in the front of his coat. He clutched his chest, his face distorted in agony, and staggered a few paces toward the great construct. He stared at the impasse between construct and vampire, as if dazed and unsure of what he was seeing.
Brey had begun to shake with the strain of resisting the thing’s titanic strength. Its other arm was reaching over its back, trying to find her, but she was protected for the moment by the spines and corpses around her. Mordan’s struggles were becoming weaker as the metal fingers slowly crushed his chest. Brey’s lips drew back in a snarl of determination as she fought to hold the huge arm, but Mordan’s body was inching closer to the tip of the spike, a hair’s-breadth at a time.
Tarrel heard the sound first—or rather, he felt it before he heard it. It began out of the tremors of the collapsing hill, and rose in pitch until it became a rumbling, grinding sound like a rockslide. Then it struck.
The ground at the huge construct’s feet heaved and split, and a rushing column of debris vomited up from the earth, slamming into the cadaver collector with the force of an avalanche. The metal beast swayed backward and was forced to lower its arms to steady itself. Its fingers opened, dropping Mordan to the ground. Brey flung herself from the creature’s back and scooped up the wounded Karrn as the two huge beasts squared off.
The earth had taken a rough form: two stubby legs supported a thick body with no discernible head. It flailed at the construct with massive arms made of earth, stone, and bone. Pieces of the work-tables from the underground laboratory stuck out of its hide, along with stonework and even fragments of the dead bodies they had found there.
Brey and Tarrel backed away as the two titanic beasts flung themselves at each other. The earth shook with the fury of their battle; neither gave ground as they traded massive blows. The corpses on the construct’s back were quickly reduced to pulp, and the spikes upon which they had been impaled were bent or broken. Still the metal giant fought, ignoring the dents in its carapace from its opponent’s rocky fists. With every crashing blow of its metal claws, it rent a little more material from the fabric of the earth-creature’s body, but that did nothing to lessen the force of its attack.
Tarrel looked over Mordan’s battered and unconscious body, telling Brey with a nod that he was still alive. She slung the Karrn over one shoulder and pointed questioningly at the Brelander’s injured leg. Speech was impossible above the din of the battle. Tarrel limped a couple of paces, and evidently Brey did not think that he was going quickly enough, for she unceremoniously flung him over her other shoulder and set off at a run, away from the ruined hill and the fighting monstrosities.
When her untiring stride had put a few miles behind them, Brey set her companions down beneath the shelter of a fallen tree. At least, it looked like it had once been a tree, but now it was a massive, roughly cylindrical rock, crowned with an eruption of slim and jagged crystals. Mordan was still unconscious, his breathing ragged; Tarrel was stiff and sore from his injuries, but could limp around well enough. He dug around in his sack and pulled out a small clay jug. He uncorked and slowly poured a deep red liquid down Mordan’s throat.
A few seconds went by, and for a moment Tarrel feared that it was too late. Then the Karrn coughed, his face contorting in pain as his chest spasmed over broken ribs. His eyes fluttered open, and he tried to sit up. Brey pushed him down, gently but firmly, and he went to sleep.
Tarrel raised the jug to his lips and took a swig. Through the hole that the spell had blasted in his clothing, Brey saw his charred flesh knit together a little, though it remained inflamed.
