The Door into Shadow Read Online Free PDF

her feet.
    Off to her left she heard Steelsheen scream in defiance and crash into a Fyrd; a skull crunched, crushed by hooves. At the same time Segnbora got a pinwheeling glimpse of Khávrinen jerking up in Herewiss’s hands after a downstroke. A half-seen form came at her low and sideways—Segnbora chopped at it, a poorly aimed blow that slid off hard smooth plates. Hissing, the nadder’s gigantic serpent-head rose up before her, then struck. She danced desperately aside, swung scythe-style at it and chopped off the head at the neck.
    Segnbora turned away and looked around. Khávrinen struck downward again, and as it struck both Herewiss and the keplian he had killed moaned aloud. The Fire wavering about those parts of the blade not yet obscured illuminated Herewiss’s face. Tears? Segnbora thought, though not entirely in surprise. Khávrinen was more of a symbol than a weapon, and Herewiss was no killer—
    Steelsheen trampled another maw, and Moris nailed the last one to the ground with a two-handed straight-down thrust. Finally everyone was standing still, panting, sagging, wiping blood out of their eyes.
    “ More coming!” Segnbora said, wanting to moan out loud at the feeling of yet another of those hot, hating minds heading their way from the north. The source was still a hundred yards away, but showing much more of itself above the grass than had the other Fyrd. Segnbora recognized it, and her heart constricted in terror. She’d never seen one of these, but if the stories of the creatures’ endurance were true, this one could afford to take its time.
    “ Oh Goddess,” whispered Freelorn from beside her. “A deathjaw!”
    “ With the Fire,” Herewiss said between gasps, “possibly—” He lifted Khávrinen again, but there was no great hope in the gesture. Deathjaws were so fearsome that there was only one way to successfully hunt them: stake out a human being as bait, and hide a Rodmistress close by to do a brainburn when the thing got close enough. We’ve got plenty of bait, thought, but he doesn’t know how to do a brainburn, or he ’ d have done it by now.
    The shambling form was closer. “Run for it,” Herewiss said, sounding very calm.
    Everyone hesitated. “I mean it,” Herewiss shouted, “what are you waiting for? ”
    Lang turned, and Moris, and Harald, but they were slow about retreating. Freelorn didn’t move from beside Herewiss. Herewiss’s glance darted sidewise to him. “Lorn—!”
    “ Big, isn’t it,” Freelorn said. His eyes were wide with fear, but his voice was as steady as if he was discussing a draft horse.
    “ Lorn—!”
    “ Shut up, Dusty,” Freelorn said. “Do whatever you’re going to do to that thing. I’ll watch your back”
    Segnbora stepped up behind them as they set themselves. “I don’t know how to burn ,” Herewiss said to Segnbora, without looking at her. “The eye, though, that’s possible—“
    — Put a longsword into that little eye and hope to hit the brain? Segnbora didn’t dare laugh at the idea. The deathjaw was close—shaggy-coated, brindled, the size of three Darthene lions. Shiny black talons gleamed on its great catlike paws. The deathjaw opened its mouth just a little, showing two of its three lines of fangs above and below. Then it finally began to run, its face wrinkling into a horrible mask.
    Herewiss swung Khávrinen up with elbows locked and let it charge—his only option, for running was as hopeless as a slash-and-cut duel would be. The blade into the eye, she heard him thinking, and Fire down the blade, enough to blast the brain dead. I hope —
    He never had a chance. While still twenty feet away the deathjaw screamed horribly as fire suddenly bloomed about it, eating inward through flesh and muscle and sinew quick as a gasp. The still-moving skeleton burned incandescent for a moment more before the swirling flames blasted bone to powder, then ate that too. The deathjaw was gone before its death shrieks faded.
    And