The Ancient Lands: Warrior Quest, Search for the Ifa Scepter by Jason McCammon

long time ago. For him, it was a simple
matter of concentration, but the ogres could not contact him
whenever they wished. They waited for his call —sometimes for
hours, sometimes for days, months, and even years.
     
     
     

XII BANDAGES
     
     
    Just as Hagga had told them, a boat awaited
them at the river. It was a small, frail wooden boat and from the
looks of it, Bomani doubted that it would float at all. He walked
toward the boat to untie it from a stake in the ground but he was
stopped suddenly with a thump. Farra looked at him curiously, and
he attempted to take another step, but he was met with an invisible
barrier that stopped him. He could not get within a meter of
it.
    “What’s wrong?” asked Farra.
    “I don’t know, but look.” Bomani reached out
toward the boat, again it was blocked. “I can’t get near the thing.
There must be a spell on it,” he said.
    “ Hmmm , she said the you must
get to it first. Maybe she didn’t mean we, maybe she just meant
me.” Farra stretched her hand toward the boat and tried to touch
it, but she could not get any closer than Bomani. “Hmm,” she said
thinking to herself for a moment. Then she placed her staff on the
barrier, and it caused a bright spark. Farra and Bomani shielded
their eyes from the light. She reached out to the boat again, this
time she was able to touch it. The Barrier was gone.
    “See, all it took was a little magic.” Farra
boasted in a cheerful grin. “She probably keeps a spell on it to
keep thieves away.”
    “Yeah, probably,” Bomani replied. He untied
the boat from the stake. “Come on, get in. I’ll push it. Let’s see
if this thing floats.”
    Bomani tossed his weapons inside, then Farra
and Pupa climbed into the boat, with a big push from Bomani, the
boat slid into the water. He was up to his waist in the river
before he tried to jump in, but when he lifted his leg, he realized
that it was stuck. He tugged and pulled, but something held him
firmly. He was caught by a river-worm and it wasn’t letting
go.
    The body of a river-worm resembles that of a
turtle, with its hard shell. Its feet bore claws with three-inch
nails that it used to borrow into the sand or mud in the side of
the riverbed. Its five-foot tongue stretched out into the water
just waiting for an unsuspecting meal to get caught as it floated
down stream – In this case, Bomani.
    The tongue was as strong as any python of
equivalent size. The underside was equipped with hundreds of tiny
hooked teeth serving as anchors once the tongue was wrapped around
its prey.
    The river-worm yanked Bomani into the
shallow water. Instinctively, he held his breath and part of him
wanted to panic. The other part, the warrior part, the part that
kept him disciplined and focused told him that if he panicked he
would die. He took no more than a second to gather himself and then
went to work on getting whatever this thing was off of his leg.
    He managed to get his head above water for a
breath of air before he was pulled under again. He struggled as he
fought the strength of the tongue. It seemed that the more he
pulled at it, the more it hurt – Its teeth pulled at every nerve
ending under his skin. Fighting the pain, he managed to get part of
it off of him for a moment only for it to once again wrap its grip
around him.
    Bomani could have saved himself a great deal
of pain had he not fought the thing. Generally once an animal
realized that fighting only made the pain worse, it would give into
the river-worm, only to be digested slowly by teeth and the
digestive juices of the tongue, if it didn’t drown, it would bleed
to death within an hour.
    It was no use; Bomani could never have
pulled all five feet of the tongue off of him, and with each
struggle, the stinging pain increased. He changed tactics and began
pulling at the other end, toward the body of the thing. Tugging on
the tongue, he pulled himself to the side of the riverbed, where
the creature had its body anchored in the