torg 03- The Nightmare Dream by Jonatha Ariadne Caspian Page A

nimbly drawing a sword out of one of the soldier's scabbards. He was about to complain when three figures leaped out of the brush.
    "Don't shoot, general," Mara ordered. "Those are our missing companions."
    Tolwyn let relief wash through her body. There were Bryce, Djil and Toolpin, looking ragged but otherwise safe and whole.
    "Not missing anymore, I'd wager," the general laughed. "Now if that's all of you, we'd best be moving on."
    "I hate to ruin this reunion with bad news," Bryce said quickly, "but there's something chasing us."
    Tolwyn heard trees snapping further back in the jungle as something large moved toward them. She motioned Bryce and the others to get out of the way, and they moved to a position behind the soldiers.
    "Any idea what it is, mates?" (General Wellington asked."
    "No, but we're pretty sure it belongs to a necromancer named Markham," Bryce replied.
    "Wilfred Markham?" the general said in surprise. "Of the Royal Society of Exploration? A necromancer? I don't believe it!"
    Soldiers all along the line gasped in horror. What emerged from the jungle was a monstrosity, a walking nightmare. It was a skeletal beast, perhaps three meters at the shoulders, perhaps more. It walked on four skeleton legs, and moved its skeletal jaws in mock roars. To Tolwyn's eyes it looked like a huge tiger whose flesh and organs had been stripped away. What remained was cobbled together with the bones of other dead creatures to form a dragon-sized monster.
    "Fire!" Wellington ordered, and his men sent a volley
    of bullets toward the monster.
    The blessed missiles clattered off bone, ricocheting in .ill directions. The monster let out another silent roar, t hen continued forward. It had an awkward gait befitting its haphazard construction, but it still looked menacing — and very deadly.
    It strutted into the first nest of Victorian soldiers, jerkily dropping two boney feet forward, then following them with its other two. The four soldiers tried to scatter before the monster, but it was faster than its size and awkward manner suggested. One of its front legs slashed out, and boney claws sliced two of the men open. A third was caught in its powerful jaws. It lifted the man into the air, shaking him violently as its sharp teeth sank deeper into his flesh. Fountains of blood gushed forth, and presently the man stopped jerking and fell still.
    "If you don't want to see more of your soldiers die, general, I suggest you give the travelers to me," called a voice from out of the jungle.
    Tolwyn tried to see where the voice was coming from, but its owner remained hidden. She contemplated rushing at the monster, even though the bullets fired from the soldiers' guns had had little effect. You needed enchanted weapons to deal with skeletons and other undead creatures, she knew, and the sword she borrowed from the Victorian had no dweomer upon it that she could divine.
    Still, she could not sit idle while others died trying to protect her. That was not what Tolwyn of House Tancred was all about. She started to move from her position when she noticed Grim also moving. He literally crackled with energy, and his hair and beard were standing on end from the static. He had a spell upon him, one that she had not seen before — at least as far as she
    remembered.
    (.n m stepped out of hiding, waving his fingers at the skeletal tiger. Then he spoke a word of power. To tolwyn, it sounded like thunder. The thunder rocked her, and she gasped as a bolt of lightning flew from Grim's outstretched fingers in response to the clap of noise. The bolt found its mark, playing a frantic dance along the naked bones of the monster. The skeletal golem fell back a few steps, opening its jaws in its familiar pantomime of a roar. The limp form of the torn and bloody soldier dropped to the ground as its jaws spread wide, but it didn't seem to care. It wanted only to be free of the dancing lightning.
    "Back to the depths of corruption, foul creature!" Grim shouted,