Stardeep by Bruce R. Cordell Page B

peasant! Rip off his arms and save one as a trophy!” So much for surprise. The monk broke off his charge several yards from the troll.
    Raidon shook out the sleeves of his travel-stained silk jacket. They snapped, and the troll’s eyes flicked toward the distracting sound. Just long enough fot Raidon to kick a nearby stone hard, launching it directly into the troll’s left eye. The partial blindness distracted the creature, and Raidon vaulted up and over the troll and its too-long arms. He landed lightly in front of the wizard, the troll at his back. Better to deal with the spellcaster before all else; it was a certainty the Red Wizard was capable of other destructive spells.
    A strangely luminescent scar disfigured the ted-robed man’s face. And he was already chanting. Raidon stepped
    forward and delivered a magnificent roundhouse kick. It was like hitting a stone pillar. His shin flared with pain, but despite the locklike density of his adversary, Raidon also saw the man flinch. Something of his attack had penetrated the wizard’s stony ward. He delivered a killing elbow strike to the scarred man’s face. The wizard flinched again, but the ward absorbed most of the strike’s lethal energy.
    Ribbons of black fire streamed from the wizard’s open hands. Raidon evaded, leaping sideways. His pack, an unfamiliar weight on his back, snagged on a low-hanging tree branch. The monk’s trajectoiy skewed left, and he fell.
    Raidon was already rolling to his feet when another volley of darkling fire found him.
    Warmth streamed from Raidon’s open mouth, from his nostrils, even from his eyes and the ends of his fingers. Numbness raced through his limbs. He tried to pull himself upright on the bole of the tree his pack had snagged, but failed.
    Desolation beckoned.
    Then something warm touched him on his back, high on his shoulder blades. Heat returned to his core, and tendrils of sensation stole back into his limbs as quickly as cold had numbed them. Raidon whispeted, “From form to formless and from finite to infinite.” It was a mantra of his temple about overcoming limits. He’d overcome a limitation, but not through his own efforts.
    Accepting the gift of salvation without understanding, Raidon deflected a gteen-muscled claw with his forearm. The troll snarled—his left eye was bloody, but was already visibly regaining its normal hue and shape. A memory surfaced from stories he’d heard—few things could permanently hurt these hulking terrors. Raidon slipped below another claw’s vicious thrust.
    He couldn’t be distracted! The Thayan was still the greater threat.
    Raidon ducked beneath the troll’s legs and charged the wizard, unsheathing his daito. The look of triumph on the Red Wizard’s face crumbled, and he backpedaled. A root caught his heel, and he went over onto his back. The monk leaped forward, his knee coming down firmly on the wizard’s neck.
    “Yield,” he instructed the scarred man.
    The red-robed caster mumbled something unintelligible, then clearly stated, “You have made an understandable mistake—I am your friend, so I forgive you. Now, get up and help me to my feet.” The wotds rang through Raidon’s head like a gong, growing stronger and more reasonable the more he considered the new idea.
    Then warmth touched his back once again, and the compulsion blew away like ash, leaving only powerless words, naked in their inanity.
    The man’s eyes narrowed as he exclaimed, “That’s the second spell you’ve thrown off! What fell resistance guards your—urk!”
    Raidon leaned, exerting slightly more pressure with his knee on the scarred man’s carotid. With the blood flow to his head restricted, the man passed out heartbeats later. The monk jumped and spun, but the rush of wind signaling the troll’s attack had warned Raidon too late. The troll gtabbed him and raised him in the air.
    Whatever guardian spirit had protected him from the Thayan’s magic failed to tespond when the troll beat the