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.Maybe it was a giant white shrew, or a wild dog or an albino weasel.More likely it was someone's worst nightmare.That was certainly the way Tannim felt when the thing's teeth met in his arm as it knocked him to the ground.He screamed, unable to stop it, no macho posturing or stoicismhe screamed.He didn't resist the fall, he continued it, rolling over on his back and kicking at the beast as hard as he could with both legs, feet planted firmly in the creature's belly.The thing let go of his arm as the breath was knocked out of it in a fetid puff, and the force of his kick sent it sailing over his head.Into the side of the Mach I.The monster screeched like a chainsaw ripping through an oil barrel.For a moment, it hung over the front fender, body convulsing as it encountered some of the protective spells.It screamed again, and a crackle of energy arced across its body, a tiny display of fireworks that obscured whatever the beast had looked like.Not that he was in any shape to notice details.In fact, he wasn't in much shape to notice much of anything, since he was lying on his side, eyes unfocused, trying not to scream loudly enough to attract another one of the creatures.The thing hung on the fender for a few more moments, then it slid to the ground and burst into flame.Within seconds, as Shar ran toward him out of the mist, hands ablaze with magical energies, it was gone, leaving nothing behind to show it had ever existed.Except, of course, for the ragged remains of his shirtsleeve, which hardly amounted to more than a few ribbons of cloth over the armor.And the bleeding puncture wounds, where the beast's teeth had gone through the armor.He clamped his teeth shut on his own pain and stared at the sluggish blood dripping down his arm in shock as the pain turned to numbness, though he knew that state was only temporary.The shock was not only because he had been wounded, but because he had been wounded through the armor.Shar dropped to her knees beside him but did not touch him."Is that arm broken?" she asked, her voice tight.He shook his head, unable to speak, for now the pain began all over again, worse than before, and his arm felt as if he hadhe hadAh, God this hurts!With that assurance, Shar carefully picked his arm up by the wrist, and with one crooked finger, deftly made a slit along the joining of the top row of scales.The armor peeled back from his wounded arm, revealing a half-circle of wide, oozing punctures, all of them turning an ugly shade of purple around the edges."Is that poison?" he asked in pain-filled and masochistic fascination."No," Shar replied absently, "just fast bruising.Mother taught me some Healing; I'm not in her league, but let me see what I can do." * * * Shar's reaction was automatic and immediate: I've got to help him! Without a second thought, she dashed in the direction of the scream, war-magics ready and burning to be thrown, only to see Tannim go over on his back and flip his assailant against the fender of the Mach I.That was the end of that; Shar didn't need to watch the beast convulse and burst into flames to know that it was finished.She dropped down beside him and went to work, ignoring the blazing mist-creature, although she thought it was a species that she recognized.The beast, before it had vanished, seemed to be one of the guard creatures Charcoal had created, or else something cooked up along the same plan.Charcoal did that sort of thing on a regular basis, rather than recruiting other creatures to his service.In fact, when she was young, he had made a habit of going to pockets of the Unformed specifically to create such monsters and chimera, bringing them back to his own domains to serve as watchdogs.Madoc Skean had gone Charcoal one better, creating the Faceless Ones the same way.Both of them preferred the expenditure of personal energy in order to obtain servants that were utterly loyal.The only trouble with these little expeditions was that it was quite difficult to keep the new creations rounded up.They always lost one or two every couple of trips, leaving the creatures roaming the mist, waiting for unwary prey.That explains why Father had a Gate set here, she thought, as she engaged the little set-spell that parted Tannim's armored scales and slit it along the top of his wounded arm.This pocket of the Unformed must be particularly sensitive.The mists were not uniformly psychotropic, and those who used them to create living creatures kept the locations of the best mist pockets as a valuable resource.She couldn't help but notice Tannim's start of surprise at her ability to open his armor.But at the moment her greatest concern was with his damaged arm; if that creature really was one of Charcoal's "shrogs" (her father's "clever" name for a thing based on shrews and dogswhat an idiot), the wounds could and would go septic in a heartbeat, and there wasn't exactly an emergency room with antibiotics handy.She sank quickly into a Healing trance, held her hands around the wounds, and forced Healing energies into his cells.She worked from inside out; that way she wouldn't Heal the wound only to leave the infection still active inside.There was no telling if there were any more of the creatures nearby, nor when they would appear if there were more, but Tannim's injury had to be dealt with now.As she penetrated his defenses, she realized something else.There was something very erotic about this; it was the first time that she had Healed anyone other than herself of a serious injury.Shar had closed up other peoples' cuts and soothed abrasions, but this was deeper, much deeper.She was aware of him in a way that she had never experienced with anyone else; the touch of her hand on his arm sent pulses of sensuous electricity through her arms; she felt what he felt directly, from the tiny ache where he'd hit the back of his head, to the caress of the silk-smooth armor over the rest of his body, including the places where it was so closely fitted that it held swelling down.Hmm.They didn't allow for it to expand much, did they?She had never been so aware of a male in her life, or on so many different levels.Not the level of telepathy; neither of them were telepaths.No, this was on a visceral level, where the instincts lived.Was this how an empath felt? Small wonder most of them got into Healing of one sort or another and pursued all Arts of the body.She wasn't good enough to mend the bites completely; she cleaned out the sites of possible infection, dulled down the pain, and stopped the bleeding.Then she accelerated the cell growth as much as she had the skill and the power to do.In another day, he would have a half-circle of mostly healed punctures, and in two, a half-circle of tiny scars.She got into the car for a bottle of water and washed the blood off him with it, then got a pad of gauze from the first-aid kit [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.Maybe it was a giant white shrew, or a wild dog or an albino weasel.More likely it was someone's worst nightmare.That was certainly the way Tannim felt when the thing's teeth met in his arm as it knocked him to the ground.He screamed, unable to stop it, no macho posturing or stoicismhe screamed.He didn't resist the fall, he continued it, rolling over on his back and kicking at the beast as hard as he could with both legs, feet planted firmly in the creature's belly.The thing let go of his arm as the breath was knocked out of it in a fetid puff, and the force of his kick sent it sailing over his head.Into the side of the Mach I.The monster screeched like a chainsaw ripping through an oil barrel.For a moment, it hung over the front fender, body convulsing as it encountered some of the protective spells.It screamed again, and a crackle of energy arced across its body, a tiny display of fireworks that obscured whatever the beast had looked like.Not that he was in any shape to notice details.In fact, he wasn't in much shape to notice much of anything, since he was lying on his side, eyes unfocused, trying not to scream loudly enough to attract another one of the creatures.The thing hung on the fender for a few more moments, then it slid to the ground and burst into flame.Within seconds, as Shar ran toward him out of the mist, hands ablaze with magical energies, it was gone, leaving nothing behind to show it had ever existed.Except, of course, for the ragged remains of his shirtsleeve, which hardly amounted to more than a few ribbons of cloth over the armor.And the bleeding puncture wounds, where the beast's teeth had gone through the armor.He clamped his teeth shut on his own pain and stared at the sluggish blood dripping down his arm in shock as the pain turned to numbness, though he knew that state was only temporary.The shock was not only because he had been wounded, but because he had been wounded through the armor.Shar dropped to her knees beside him but did not touch him."Is that arm broken?" she asked, her voice tight.He shook his head, unable to speak, for now the pain began all over again, worse than before, and his arm felt as if he hadhe hadAh, God this hurts!With that assurance, Shar carefully picked his arm up by the wrist, and with one crooked finger, deftly made a slit along the joining of the top row of scales.The armor peeled back from his wounded arm, revealing a half-circle of wide, oozing punctures, all of them turning an ugly shade of purple around the edges."Is that poison?" he asked in pain-filled and masochistic fascination."No," Shar replied absently, "just fast bruising.Mother taught me some Healing; I'm not in her league, but let me see what I can do." * * * Shar's reaction was automatic and immediate: I've got to help him! Without a second thought, she dashed in the direction of the scream, war-magics ready and burning to be thrown, only to see Tannim go over on his back and flip his assailant against the fender of the Mach I.That was the end of that; Shar didn't need to watch the beast convulse and burst into flames to know that it was finished.She dropped down beside him and went to work, ignoring the blazing mist-creature, although she thought it was a species that she recognized.The beast, before it had vanished, seemed to be one of the guard creatures Charcoal had created, or else something cooked up along the same plan.Charcoal did that sort of thing on a regular basis, rather than recruiting other creatures to his service.In fact, when she was young, he had made a habit of going to pockets of the Unformed specifically to create such monsters and chimera, bringing them back to his own domains to serve as watchdogs.Madoc Skean had gone Charcoal one better, creating the Faceless Ones the same way.Both of them preferred the expenditure of personal energy in order to obtain servants that were utterly loyal.The only trouble with these little expeditions was that it was quite difficult to keep the new creations rounded up.They always lost one or two every couple of trips, leaving the creatures roaming the mist, waiting for unwary prey.That explains why Father had a Gate set here, she thought, as she engaged the little set-spell that parted Tannim's armored scales and slit it along the top of his wounded arm.This pocket of the Unformed must be particularly sensitive.The mists were not uniformly psychotropic, and those who used them to create living creatures kept the locations of the best mist pockets as a valuable resource.She couldn't help but notice Tannim's start of surprise at her ability to open his armor.But at the moment her greatest concern was with his damaged arm; if that creature really was one of Charcoal's "shrogs" (her father's "clever" name for a thing based on shrews and dogswhat an idiot), the wounds could and would go septic in a heartbeat, and there wasn't exactly an emergency room with antibiotics handy.She sank quickly into a Healing trance, held her hands around the wounds, and forced Healing energies into his cells.She worked from inside out; that way she wouldn't Heal the wound only to leave the infection still active inside.There was no telling if there were any more of the creatures nearby, nor when they would appear if there were more, but Tannim's injury had to be dealt with now.As she penetrated his defenses, she realized something else.There was something very erotic about this; it was the first time that she had Healed anyone other than herself of a serious injury.Shar had closed up other peoples' cuts and soothed abrasions, but this was deeper, much deeper.She was aware of him in a way that she had never experienced with anyone else; the touch of her hand on his arm sent pulses of sensuous electricity through her arms; she felt what he felt directly, from the tiny ache where he'd hit the back of his head, to the caress of the silk-smooth armor over the rest of his body, including the places where it was so closely fitted that it held swelling down.Hmm.They didn't allow for it to expand much, did they?She had never been so aware of a male in her life, or on so many different levels.Not the level of telepathy; neither of them were telepaths.No, this was on a visceral level, where the instincts lived.Was this how an empath felt? Small wonder most of them got into Healing of one sort or another and pursued all Arts of the body.She wasn't good enough to mend the bites completely; she cleaned out the sites of possible infection, dulled down the pain, and stopped the bleeding.Then she accelerated the cell growth as much as she had the skill and the power to do.In another day, he would have a half-circle of mostly healed punctures, and in two, a half-circle of tiny scars.She got into the car for a bottle of water and washed the blood off him with it, then got a pad of gauze from the first-aid kit [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]