Swords Against the Shadowland

Flying leeches. They attacked the soldiers, the Gray Mouser, and Fafhrd.

Ripping away the beast on his face, Fafhrd lunged for a torch that lay on the floor and waved it desperately through the air. Touched by the flames, some of the leeches exploded, but more attacked Fafhrd's hands.

Two soldiers writhed screaming on the floor. One clutched his eyes, which were crawling black masses. The other clawed frantically at his ears. Another, working with the Mouser, tried to drag the corpse of the crushed soldier from between the doors while the Mouser threw his shoulder against them. They refused to open.

The remaining soldier, though covered hand and face with leeches, sought to fulfill his orders. Sword upraised, he lumbered toward the Mouser's unprotected back.

Screaming a warning, Fafhrd hurled Graywand. The long blade flashed across the chamber to slam forcefully between the soldier's shoulder blades even as the Mouser, alerted, spun and plunged Scalpel through the man's heart.

With one hand free, Fafhrd grasped the edges of his hood and drew it closer about his face. He felt the creatures striking him, attaching themselves to his clothes. More than a few had wormed their way under his garments.

He smashed the torch down on the head of another serpent, then snatched up a soldier's fallen sword to cleave its body in half. That still left five crawling about the room.

The Mouser was having no luck at the doors. Only the crushed body of the first soldier prevented them from closing and, no doubt, sealing them in.

Koh-Vombi! chanted the voices, Koh-Vombi!

"Koh-Vombi up your nose!" Fafhrd shouted at his invisible tormentors. He shot another look around the room. The last remaining soldier whirled blindly about, smashing chairs, tripping over a fallen comrade, screaming as he ripped leeches from his unprotected face. Coiled on the altar, a golden serpent hissed and showed its fangs.

Gripping the torch tightly, Fafhrd called to his comrade. "Look out, Mouser, I'm coming through!"

Running across the chamber, he leaped, hurling himself at the doors. Wood shattered and hinge-metal shrieked. Fafhrd struck the floor amid shards and splinters, and the Mouser flew over him to bound across the hall and up the staircase.

The voices followed them from the inner chamber. The hallway began to swirl with leeches.

Springing up, Fafhrd hit the staircase at a run, torch in hand, his new cloak thick and weighty with slimy bloodsuckers. Three at a time he took the stairs, climbing as fast as his legs would go.

"Want to go back for your sword?" the Mouser suggested sarcastically as Fafhrd overtook him.

"Want to go back for that damned jewel, you greedy-guts?" Fafhrd called over his shoulder as he passed his partner.

Leeches darted and dived at them. Bloated shapes covered the backs of Fafhrd's hands. Blood trickled down his neck. A wet warmth settled suddenly in his right eyebrow. With a gasp, he tore the bloodsucker away, and pushed himself to even greater speed.

"This way, Mouser!" he called desperately to his comrade, uncertain if the Mouser was still behind him. "This way!"

And ancient voices answered, Koh-Vombi! Koh-Vombi! The tower echoed with that sound. The very stones seemed to shiver with it.

At last, he found the window through which they had come. The Mouser slammed into him, nearly knocking him through it, as he struggled to free the line and grapnel from about his shoulders with one hand, while with the other he used the torch to fight off the leeches.

"Hurry!" the Mouser shouted, clutching his hood tightly about his face so that he saw only through the narrowest space of cloth. Fear and panic shone brightly in his dark eyes.

Setting the grapnel firmly on the sill, Fafhrd cast the line out. "Go!" he ordered, grasping the Mouser's shoulder, half-flinging him out the window.

While the Mouser scrambled over the edge and down the line, Fafhrd braced himself before the portal and swung the torch with both hands, igniting scores of leeches as they flew at him. Tiny burning bodies fell like stars at his feet, smoking and stinking with a hideously foul odor.

As many as he killed, though, far more struck his face, his hands, burrowed beneath his clothes. With fearful desperation, he touched the torch to one of the rafters overhead. The old wood took fire immediately. With a small curtain of flame burning before him, he threw down the torch and squeezed his great bulk through the window's slender space.

A leech slapped his nose and stuck.

Fafhrd's hands closed about the line. Without any control, he slid halfway down, burning his ungloved palms. The leech crawled toward his eye. In utter panic, he let go of the line with one hand and clawed at the creature. With only one tortured hand on the line, his weight and momentum proved too great.

The Mouser cried his name as Fafhrd fell.

ELEVEN THE RAINBOW'S BLACK HEART