Free The Dragon-Child by B. V. Larson Page A

their eyes and gritted their teeth, nothing could keep those terrible words out of their heads.
    “That speech!” said the monster, twisting its snake-like head around to look down upon Therian again. “I have not heard such sweet words for an eon! I barely recall their meaning.”
    Something moved then, in the forest where Therian had bade the monster to look. There was a large, shapeless mass that struggled to rise. The summoning lifted itself, dripping earth, as if it had been buried in the sands. With a man-shaped body of wet, dark sand, it had limbs made of driftwood logs. It was large, but not so large as the sea monster.
    “Ah! Now I see your tricks, tiny sorcerer. But you made this one much too small.” So saying, the Dragon-Child darted forward her snake-like neck and snapped her jaws. She bit into the sandy golem. The golem in turn reached up and grappled with the mouth that latched onto its shoulder.
    The struggle generated a deep grinding noise that terrified Gruum and Bolo. It was as if the walls of a castle had reared up and formed fingers of stone to grip a watchtower—which had itself formed a mouth from its door and now snapped back at the walls. The two men stepped back further, to the very edge of the beach. They would have fled, but where upon this cursed island might they find safety? They knew not, and so they stayed and they watched with growing dismay.
    More sand golems arose. Gruum counted seven of them, in all. One for each of the souls Therian had consigned to Anduin. Eldritch sparks ran over their bodies, which were held together by forces unseen. Some had limps, shambling upon peg-legs built of buried logs. Others bore swords in the jagged-shape of sharp coral. One had a mace with a huge, gray boulder of granite at its head. None of them had eyes to see with—nor mouths with which to scream.
    Gruum saw one of them then, in detail. It had fat cheeks, if nothing else. And a nose. It was the coxswain’s face, without his eyes or mouth. He felt certain of it. Gruum loosed his own cry of fear then, but in the din of titanic battle, none could hear it.
    Humusi thrashed. Her great tail swept the sands behind her, knocking down trees and taking the feet of golems out from under them. But always, they rose again, reassembling themselves from the dripping wet grains. They beat her with their staves, their coral swords and the boulder-headed mace. They grappled with her, clinging to her thrashing limbs.
    Therian stood calmly inside his circle. None of the struggling forms entered the space he had formed there.
    Eyes black and wide with rage, Humusi snapped at him, but could not reach over the shoulders of the golems that grappled with her. She used her mouth to rip loose the mace with the boulder head from the golem that resembled, so closely, the coxswain. With a whipping, heaving motion, she threw it at Therian.
    Gruum winced as the mace, a dozen feet long, twirled toward his master. But Therian stood motionless. The mace came down and struck some kind of barrier, something unseen. The head of it rolled off, a boulder once again. The shaft splintered and blasted the beach with shattered bits of driftwood.
    “He stands in the circle to keep the golems out, not the monster,” said Bolo.
    “It would appear so,” agreed Gruum.
    The struggle went on for several minutes more, but in time, even the fantastic vitality of one so huge and powerful as Humusi gave out. She was winded and heaving about in spurts. Finally, she had had enough.
    “Very well, sorcerer,” she huffed. “You have defeated me. I must retreat to the sea.”
    So saying, she gave a great lurch and crawled toward the waves. She made it to the first lapping breakers. They furled over her flesh, wetting her claws and splashing up to her squat flippers.
    Therian had been watching with idle interest. Rose and called out to his creations. “The tail! All grasp the tail!”
    The sand giants tottered to do his bidding. More than a dozen