In Red Rune Canyon Read Online Free PDF Page B

him. Then she darted to the floating mirror and shattered it with her sword. The bat creature pivoted toward the crash and screeched at the destruction.
    “Run to the other chamber!” Kagur shouted. “Break everything!”
    Without hesitation, Eovath whirled and dashed out into the tunnel.
    Kagur’s immediate objective was simply to get everybody moving toward the mouth of the cave, and she expected the demon to chase Eovath in the normal way. Instead, the creature paused for an instant—then vanished.
    She had a bad feeling about that. As she sprinted after Eovath, she called out, “Don’t break things! Just get out!”
    When she passed the entrance to the green-lit treasure room, the demon was inside. It had somehow blinked from its former location to its current one, and now it goggled at her, surprised that she and the giant were racing right on by without even trying to make good on her threat.
    Eovath lunged out into the sunlight, and Kagur scrambled out after him. Then, bursting into view as suddenly as it had disappeared previously, the demon was before them, crouched and ready.
    Kagur darted around Eovath and cut the demon across the ribs. The giant bellowed and buried his axe in the creature’s torso, and the bat thing stumbled backward. Judging by appearances, it had finally suffered real pain and shock from a wound.
    “Into the creek!” Kagur gasped.
    Charging, using the axe still embedded in its body like a handle, the giant bulled the demon backward. The creature snatched and scrabbled but failed either to deter its foe or detach itself from the weapon before Eovath shoved it down into the water.
    “Hold its head under!” Kagur said.
    Eovath dropped on top of the demon and wrapped his massive arms around it, forcing its face below the surface. Kagur ran up beside the other two combatants and, despite the risk of accidentally hitting her brother, stabbed the bat creature repeatedly.
    She no longer had any expectation that the resulting wounds would kill it. But the punishment might keep it too distracted to use any of its foul magic. And in a simple wrestling match, nothing could beat a frost giant.
    One and two at a time, ghouls started peering from their hiding places, from burrows like shallow graves in the sandy ground and shadowy depressions in the canyon walls. They might hate the daylight, but the commotion had roused them even so. Kagur wracked her brain for a strategy that would allow her and Eovath to contend with them and their master at the same time.
    But then Eovath wheezed, “I think we got it.”
    He straightened up, gripped the demon by the neck, and hoisted it high, displaying it to the ghouls. The fiend dangled limply as a rag doll, and its many wounds weren’t puckering shut anymore.
    “You see?” Eovath croaked to the ghouls. “The demon’s dead!”
    The ghouls exchanged glances. Then they started retreating back into their holes and dark recesses. Maybe they feared to fight folk formidable enough to kill their maker. Kagur supposed it was even possible they were grateful for their liberation.
    In any case, their withdrawal allowed her to take a closer look at Eovath, and she caught her breath to see how many times the demon had clawed him as it struggled to break free. “Are you all right?” she asked.
    “I will be.” Eovath dumped the demon corpse beside the water. “Thanks to my cunning sister.”
    “Who shouldn’t have insisted on coming here in the first place. I’m sorry. I’ll heed my elders and be cautious from here on.”
    He grinned. “Truly?”
    She felt a smile tugging at her own lips. “Well, maybe.”