Glint's Arc

Chapter 5 of 5

Glint turned back toward the trail. His crossbow was with the thieves, and the thieves still had his mother's letter. "If we's quick," he told Anu, "we grab my stuff and run." Then a scream cut across the swamp. Metal clanged. Something huge roared. The sounds came from where the four strangers had robbed him. Anu's ears flattened. "That's no scream of winning, laddie." They crept to the edge of a wide green pool. Across the murky water, the robbers were losing. A giant lurched among them, a mound of dead bodies fused into one hulking shape. Vines wrapped its limbs. A dozen rotting heads snarled from its chest and shoulders. Filch, the hooded halfling, lay face-down in the mud, pouches scattered. The drunk dwarf sat nearby, still clutching his beer. Prinn bled from his arm but kept swinging his long sword and shouting. And Nymphadora, the elf in the useless armor, had draped herself against one of the monster's heads, cooing at it. "You've got the prettiest dead eyes," she purred, patting its rotten cheek. Glint stared. His stomach twisted. "We could just leave them." The strangers had robbed him. They deserved the swamp. He looked at Anu, then back at the dying fight. The halfling wasn't moving. "Oh... fine!" He spotted his crossbow strapped to Filch's belt. He splashed around the pool's edge, dropped beside the limp halfling, and yanked the weapon free. It clicked. Loaded. Bramble had told him speed beat cleverness out here. Now he believed it. Glint raised his arm and fired. The bolt punched through a snarling head. It went limp. He fired again. Another head sagged. The self-loading crossbow snapped a fresh bolt into place each time. "Over here, you ugly pile!" Glint shouted. "Look at me!" It worked too well. Every remaining head swung toward him at once. The hulk forgot Prinn, forgot the elf hanging off its shoulder, and charged. Nymphadora tumbled into the mud with a yelp. The ground shook under Glint's boots. "Run!" Anu barked. "Into the water, laddie, now!" Glint bolted along the pool's muddy rim, firing backward as he went. The monster crashed after him, slow but huge, slinging mud with every step. He splashed into the shallows where the murk ran deep and soft. His small feet barely sank. The hulk's great weight did not. It lunged. One heavy foot plunged through the surface and stuck fast in the sucking mud below. The giant toppled, thrashing, pulling itself deeper with every twist. Glint spun and emptied bolt after bolt into its heads until the last one stopped snarling. Silence settled over the pool. The strangers stared at him from across the water, bleeding and stunned. Prinn lowered his sword. Nymphadora wiped mud from her face. Glint stood knee-deep in the swamp, crossbow still smoking, his mother's letter somewhere in a halfling's pouch. He had just saved the people who robbed him.