The Floodgate   ::   Каннингем Элейн

She vaulted onto her horse's back and set a brisk pace north, sparing no glance or thought for the dead girl.

The terrain grew steeper and more inhospitable with each step. Soon the rocky pass gave way to forest, which thinned to scrub pine as they climbed higher into the mountains. With each step, the song of the stream grew stronger and more urgent.

The Crinti warriors rode until the sun had set, and they pressed on through the lengthening shadows of twilight. The sounds of gathering night echoed through the trees-the screech of raptors, the snarl of wild cats, the sharp sudden squeal of prey. When it grew too dark to ride, they dismounted and led their horses, trusting the keen night vision inherited from distant drow ancestors.

Dawn was near when they came to a small clearing. In the center of it, the stream flowed out of a small and apparently shallow pool. There was no sign of the creature that had shredded Rekatra.

Shanair left her horse at the edge of the clearing and crept cautiously nearer. She circled the stream's mouth, peering keenly at the moss-covered ground. "Bring me a stout stick," she ordered.

Xibryl complied at once, dragging a six-foot length of deadfall wood over and hacking off the side limbs with a hand axe. Shanair took the rough staff and jabbed tentatively at the water. Try as she might, she could not find the spring's source. The bed beneath was solid ground.

"Impossible," she muttered. Raising the stick high overhead, she plunged it hard into the water.

The staff dived so deep and so easily that Shanair nearly lost her footing. She leaped back, staring in amazement at the two-foot length of wood in her hands.

An enormous green hand shot out of the spring and fisted over the empty air where Shanair had just been standing. The hand was the size of a small battle shield. Webbing connected the four fingers, each of which was as long as her forearm and tipped with talons as barbed as fishhooks. As suddenly as it came, the hand disappeared, slapping back into the incomprehensible spring.

Shanair quickly conquered her surprise and drew her swords. Steel hissed free of Whizzra's baldric. The creak of whirling chain announced the lethal dance of Xibryl's spiked flail. The three Crinti moved quickly, silently into triangle formation around the spring.

Suddenly the clearing seemed to explode. The monster leaped out of the water like a geyser, and its voice was the roar of a waterfall.

The massive creature was twice Shanair's height. Roughly humanoid in shape, it crouched on two froglike legs.