Read Online Echoes of the Fourth Magic by R. A. Salvatore - Free Book Online Page B

when Corbin slapped his hand over the seaman’s mouth. He motioned for Thompson to follow and began crawling up the side of the hillock. As they neared the top, the croaking voices became clearer; guttural, sounding somehow not human, but speaking in a broken form of English. After a long moment, Corbin mustered his courage, squirmed to the top, and looked down on the speakers; then, so entranced was he by their appearance, that he didn’t even notice Thompson crawling up behind him.
    Hideous they were, mutated as if nature herself had rebelled against their very existence. Nine of them stood naked except for scant lizard-skin loincloths tied about their waists and sheathed swords strapped to their sides. They were shorter than men, but stocky, their sinewy trunks supported by bow-legged, powerful legs, and pallid green skin blotched by uneven clumps of knotted, filthy hair, hung about them in loose flaps. Their faces were worse yet; lipless mouths stretched thin, straining to cover cruelly pointed, yellow-stained teeth; twisted, boil-infected noses; and evil eyes, bulbous and yellow, like barren desert cracked by rivers of blood. Twisted arms hung crookedly at their sides, nearly reaching the ground.
    Thompson’s face went white at the sight and, much to Corbin’s dismay, he let out a bloodcurdling scream. Instantly, the creatures wheeled and drew their wicked swords. Corbin put his head in his hands.
    “Well, Thompson, I guess it’s time we met our new neighbors,” he said with as much calm as he could muster.
    Furious at the intrusion, the creatures charged the bluff. Corbin reacted quickly, springing to his feet, pointing his rifle into the air and firing a thunderous volley that froze the creatures in surprise.
    The tension held for a long moment, but then the largest member of the group, a wide-shouldered brute, stepped through the line of its terrified comrades.
    It eyed Corbin with cool contempt, its grimace showingthat it was not shaken, even by the gunshots. Corbin returned the stare, but felt the sweat beading on his temples. Thompson stayed huddled in the grass, not daring to move.
    “Friends?” Corbin asked weakly. Then in a lower voice so that only Thompson could hear, he added, “I don’t think they’ve seen you. Stay low and get back to the raft to warn the others.”
    But Thompson didn’t move.
    “Go!” Corbin said as loudly as he dared, and he kicked Thompson in the ribs. Still quivering, Thompson inched down the hill.
       “Gunfire?” Mitchell gawked.
    “Probably DelGiudice and that other moron playing games,” Reinheiser snapped, rising from the stagnant pool he had been examining. “Just the sort of thing that appeals to juveniles.”
    “Del wouldn’t do that,” Brady came back angrily. “He doesn’t fool around with guns. Besides, those shots came from the south.”
    Mitchell agreed. “Get everything together,” he instructed. “We’re heading back.”
    “Miles!” Reinheiser protested. “And still we have found nothing fit to drink.” He threw a clump of weeds back into the fetid pool. “We need water, Captain!”
    Mitchell’s hesitation further showed Brady the growing relationship between the captain and Reinheiser. Lately it seemed to Brady as if Reinheiser’s recommendations had taken on the tone of command.
    “All right,” Mitchell conceded. “We’ll go a little farther. But keep your ears open!”
    Brady just smiled away his distaste.
       Corbin stood eyeing the leader.
    The creature growled a command to its troops, a word that Corbin could not understand, and they began slowly approaching, weapons in hand and all too ready.
    “Put the swords away!” Corbin warned, and he blasted a second volley into the sand in front of their feet. This put Thompson, now at the bottom of the bluff, into a dead run. Terrified, he sprinted over the dunes, stopping only when he deemed that he was a safe distance away. Looking back from the top of another knoll, he could