Crushed under Ick

The vampire went under the Ick's feet with a wailing squeal and a crunchy-sounding splatter of vile fluids. The collision tripped up the massive hunting creature as its legs tangled with the vampire's rubbery, sinuous limbs, and the Ick came crashing to the ground, its unnatural drumbeat heart thudding loud and furious, swiping and smashing in fury at the entanglement without ever bothering to consider what it might be destroying.
Susan adjusted almost instantly to what had happened, and closed on the sprawling Ick with incredible speed. Her arm blurred as the Ick began recovering its balance, smashing her club straight down onto its skull and driving its head down to rebound from the floor.
The Ick took the hit like it was a love tap, slashing at Susan with its claws - but she had already bounded into the air, jerking her knees up to avoid the grabbing claws and flying clear over the Devourer to a roar of approval from the watching goblins. She landed in a baseball player's slide and shot forward over the gore-smeared stone, snapping one hand back to grab the throat of the downed vampire as she did.
The battered body came free of the Ick's limbs, minus a limb or two of its own, and thrashed weakly, slowing Susan's slide and stopping her forward motion a bare inch before her feet would have slid into the green flame surrounding the fighting ring.
The Ick whirled around as it staggered to its feet again, preparing to pursue her, when I lifted my blasting rod, snarled, "Fuego," and hammered it with all the power I could shove through the magical focus. Blue-white fire, blindingly bright against the rather dim green flames of the Erlking's will, drew a group scream of surprise and discomfort from the gathered goblins. The fire struck the Ick and gouged a chunk of black, rubbery flesh the size of a watermelon out of the massive muscles of its back. Its head whipped back so sharply that the top of its head practically touched its own spine, and it lost its balance for another second or two, slipping on the gore the first vampire had provided as it turned toward me.
I dimly took note of Susan as this happened. The half-crushed, half-dismembered vampire flailed wildly with its remaining claws and fangs, putting up an insanely desperate, vicious fight in an attempt to hang on to its life.


Changes Chapter 37, Page 380-382