Free Torment and Terror by Craig Halloran Page A

tight.
    “It is over.”
    Jasper’s eyes landed on Melegal. “Nooooo!”

 
     
    CHAPTER 18
     
     
    Jab! Stab! Jab!
    The underlings filled Georgio with holes.
    He screamed. “Aieyyee!” Being a regener didn’t mean he didn’t feel pain, and nothing hurt more than steel hitting bone.
    The underlings were on him like rabid hounds. Unrelenting. Hungry.
    Georgio wrestled one down and squeezed his fingers into its neck until he busted its windpipe.
    The underling that was latched onto his back chittered.
    These fierce little men are like ticks.
    Georgio found a loose dagger on the ground and jabbed the one on his back in the eye. Puffing for breath, blood charged by battle, he felt another one stabbing his back. He reached back, fingers clutching.
    A sharp blade bit his fingers.
    “Ow! Blast you, fiend! I’ll show you!” He jumped up and flopped all of his weight on his back.
    Crunch!
    A gust of wind burst from the underling’s lips. Its grip loosened.
    Georgio wrestled out of its hold, turned, and stabbed it in the leg.
    It screamed. Its dark red eyes burned with rage.
    Georgio grabbed its ankle, jerked it toward him, and started stabbing. “How’s that feel?” Glitch! “Huh?” Glitch! “How does that feel?” Glitch!
    The underling died.
    Wincing, Georgio sucked for air and mopped the sweat and blood from his eyes. All around him, metal clashed on metal. Moans and grunts of death bellowed. With effort, he took a knee, eyes searching for his friends. His shoulder burned. He tried to roll it. “Ow!” A dagger was lodged deep in the meat. He reached back to yank it out.
    “I’ll take care of that,” said a deep dwarven voice. It was Pall the blood ranger. The bushy red-and-white-bearded dwarf was covered head to toe in gore. His meaty paw reached out and plucked the dagger out. He stuck the blood-coated dagger in the ground and scooped up a handful of dirt. “Here, let me rub this in it.”
    Georgio’s brows lifted. “No, I’ll be just fine.” He scanned the ground until his eyes landed on the jeweled pommel of his sword. He was reaching to pick it up when the ground shook him from his feet. Aghast, he said, “What in Bish was that?”
    “Trouble,” Pall said, readying his machetes. “Big trouble.”
    A huge bulbous head emerged from the ground. It was a monstrous beast. Warted, fat, and ugly, it stood several horses tall. The red-skinned and spotted monster’s tongues shot out and sucked jung men in.
    “What in Bish is that thing?” Georgio cried out in astonishment.
    “Balfrog,” Pall muttered.
    “A what frog?”
    “Balfrog!” Pall’s bushy brows narrowed. “Its hide’s thicker than dwarven armor!”
    A knot of striders, with their long double-kneed legs moving with the speed of gazelles, charged the balfrog. Each and every spear splintered on its hide.
    Its tongue licked out and snatched up the striders, one-two-three, and gulped them down.
    “That was bad,” Georgio said with a swallow. He eyed the blade of his sword. So far as he knew, the jewel encrusted blade of Tonio could cut through anything. He set his shoulders and marched forward. “I can kill it.”
    Pall took him by the arm and pulled him back. “Ye ain’t slaughtering no ten tons of fat, boy!”
    Georgio watched in horror as the balfrog devastated the ranks. Its tongues licked out, and it spat a strange sticky fire. Arrows, bolts, spears, skipped off its hide.
    Somewhere, Billip’s voice cried out over the battle. “Retreat! Retreat!”
    The jungs and striders had none of that. They slammed into the beast. Crawled up its hide. They cut and chopped like wild men.
    Suddenly, the balfrog’s body heaved. The great toad sprang high in the air, topping the highest spires on the castle.
    Georgio’s chin tilted up with eyes glued on the creature. “How can that fat thing jump so high?”
    The balfrog went up in a slight arc. Its shadow descended another hundred feet away. Georgio followed it all the way to the ground. A