But Morebeth sprang up in a single leap, smashing her back against the vaulted ceiling. The spirit-wolves fell from her back, sprawled across the floor, and vanished into mist. Morebeth flipped over and gripped the ceiling, racing along the ribbed vaulting. Her pincers closed about one of the squid-things, tearing it to shreds. She caught the other between a pair of legs and ripped it in half. Mazael circled under her, Lion raised for a stab. She would have to come down sooner or later, and maybe he could spear her upon Lion...
Morebeth raced along the ceiling, spun, and fell. Mazael expected her to pounce upon him, or to drop onto Lucan or Harune.
Instead, she landed before Trocend and Lucan, even as they struggled to rise. Mazael sprinted towards them, Lion blazing like a torch in his fist.
Trocend scrambled backwards, hands waving as he tried to cast a spell. Morebeth stalked after him, crouching, preparing to spring. Trocend picked up the speed of his incantation, lights blazing around his fingertips.
Morebeth jerked forward, just a little bit, and her pincers ripped off Trocend's hands. Trocend fell to his knees with an agonized scream, blood jetting from the frayed ruins of his arms. Morebeth speared him through the belly, lifted him close, and bit off his face.
Trocend's wails ended in thick gurgle. Morebeth flung aside his ruined carcass and wheeled towards Harune. Mazael yelled and sprang at Morebeth, Lion raised high, and struck a blow along her flank. Black blood, shimmering with red fire, oozed from the gash. Morebeth shrieked, the sound writhed into Mazael's ears, and struck back. A leg smote his chest like an iron rod and sent him to the floor.
Harune ran at Morebeth, shouting a battle cry in the Ang-kath tongue. He slid past Morebeth's thrashing legs in a sinuous blur of scaled limbs, and stabbed his sword into her side again and again. She whirled, claws clacking, and slashed one of her pincers across Harune's chest, opening a shallow cut across his ribs. Harune staggered back a few steps, leaning hard on his thick tail. He hissed, sprang back up, sword ready.
Morebeth backed away, legs creaking. Mazael groaned and dragged himself back up, leaning on Lion like a cane.
Harune took a step forward, then stopped. His scales turned a deep purple, laced with writhing lines of pale green. His arms and legs began to jerk. Yellowish foam bubbled in his mouth, stained his fangs.
The gash on his chest frothed and bubbled with Morebeth's poison. Harune groaned and sank to his knees, sword clattering from his grasp.
Mazael roared and raced towards Morebeth, the Demonsouled rage flooding into him, blanketing the pain in a layer of strength. He threw himself at Morebeth, hacking and slashing, Lion a blur of azure flame in his hands. Lion's point slashed through Morebeth's leathery hide, black blood dripping across the ground. Morebeth backed away, stabbing with her legs, pincers clacking. She sprang backwards in a single mighty leap, climbed up the wall, and perched on the balcony ringing the nave. Mazael waited, preparing for her inevitable spring.
Instead she whirled, her rear legs lashing like whips, and struck the stone image of Joraviar. The statue shattered, chunks raining at Mazael. He leapt aside, but a stone arm crashed hard into his knee, and the statue's head smashed into his shoulder. He stumbled back, just keeping his balance. Morebeth whirled again, smashing another statue, the debris raining across Mazael. A shard raked across his jaw, sent him falling back. Morebeth tensed, legs creaking, ready to spring down upon him. Mazael tried to stand, tried to get his legs beneath him, but his head kept spinning...
Then a storm of rubble whirled into the air and slammed into Morebeth. She backed away, forelegs raised to ward off a barrage of broken statues. Mazael saw Lucan stalking across the chapel floor, arms raised, lips bared in a snarl of strain. He gestured, and a pew exploded, a barrage of wooden shards raining into Morebeth. Some stabbed themselves in her thorax, drawing trickles of black blood.
Mazael staggered back to his feet with a groan, the Demonsouled rage burning through him. He felt his battered bones strengthening, his bruises and cuts fading.
Lucan shouted a spell and thrust out his hand. A thunderous roar went through the air, and unseen force seized Morebeth and crushed her against the chapel wall. For an instant Mazael thought the Lucan had won, had broken her.
But Morebeth twisted over and caught the wall, raced along the balcony railing, and leaped. She landed before Lucan, legs couched to catch the impact of her fall. Lucan stepped back, beginning another spell.
Morebeth slapped him across the face with a foreleg. Lucan sputtered, losing the incantation. Morebeth surged forward and speared Lucan through the stomach. Lucan shrieked and went rigid, the tip of Morebeth's clawed leg bursting from his back. Mazael raced towards them, Lion trailing a long stream of sapphire fire. Morebeth flicked her leg, and Lucan crumpled into the pews and did not move.
She turned to face Mazael, Lion's fire reflecting in the black orbs of her eyes.
She had killed all three of his allies, leaving him to face her alone.
She had saved him for last.
Mazael took Lion in both hands and waited for her to spring.
###
Lucan wanted to howl like a dying dog, but could not scream, could not breathe through the blood filling his mouth.
He felt nothing below his waist. Morebeth's blow must have severed his spine. A small blessing, that. Everything else hurt.
The back of his head rested against the cold stone floor. A deathly chill filled his ruined body, and blackness flooded his vision. He could not die here! Damn it all, he had vowed to outlive both his brother and his father...
His twitching hand fell into his torn cloak and closed about something warm, a cylinder of hot glass.
The vial holding the distilled essence of Mazael Cravenlock's blood.
A sudden wild hope seized Lucan. He fumbled for the vial. His fingers felt stiff and cold. He pried the cork free, the vial trembling in his weak fingers. Gods, to spill it now! He lifted the vial to his lips, threw back his head, and swallowed Mazael's blood, along with a good quantity of his own.
For a moment nothing happened.
Then fire exploded within him, burning fingers tearing through his flesh. Lucan screamed, his arms shuddering, his legs kicking of their own volition. His head filled with flame, and for an instant Lucan thought he would burn into a pile of smoldering ashes.
Then the power hammered through him.
All at once Lucan felt better. He looked down and saw that the ghastly wound in his stomach had healed, that he could feel his legs again. He sprang to his feet with a single, easy movement. He had never felt so healthy, so strong, in his entire life.
The rage burned through him, mingled with the power. Lucan yearned to kill, to slaughter everyone who had ever opposed him. First he would kill Morebeth, then Mazael, and then he would return to Swordgrim and slaughter his father and his brother, make himself King of the Grim Marches!
The Demonsouled power thundered in his mind. Why had Mazael rejected this marvelous strength? The fool!
Lucan saw Mazael and Morebeth locked in a deadly duel. Mazael wielded Lion with powerful strokes, the sword blazing in his fist. Morebeth skittered back and forth, pincers snapping, claws rapping against the floor.
Lucan laughed and strode towards them, raising a hand. A spell, ancient and terrible, rose in his mind. Marstan had known it, and the knowledge had passed to Lucan, but neither man had possessed the power to cast it.
But with the Demonsouled power raging inside him, Lucan could do anything.
He gathered his will, using the Demonsouled fury to fuel the spell. A rune of fire appeared on his outstretched palm, blazing like a shard of the sun. Lucan focused his mind and power upon Morebeth, and thrust out his shining palm.
There was a thunderclap and a dazzling flash. The rune appeared across Morebeth's back, burning its way through her thick hide and deep into her flesh. The great spider keened and reared back, legs lashing at the air. Lucan strode forward, beginning another mighty spell.
Then, all at once, the power drained from him.
Lucan reeled, clutching a pew to keep from toppling. He felt ghastly, his very bones caked in filth. It was as if the power had burned all away, leaving only its madness, its corruption.
Gods, gods, how did Mazael live with this in his mind?
###
Burning light exploded across Morebeth's back, etched in a rune of fire the size of a man. She reared back, thrashing like a mad thing, claws tearing at the floors and walls.
It was Mazael's last chance. Reeling from the wounds she had inflicted, the slashes, the bruises, the cracked bones, he ran at her. She lashed at him with a massive leg, but Mazael ducked under the blow, his sword cutting another gash in her side.
Morebeth shuddered, legs buckling, and Mazael sprang upon her back. The bristly spines covering her hide tore at his legs and knees, but he ignored the pain. Morebeth slammed up and down, trying to dislodge him, but Mazael held on.
He raised Lion high over his head, both hands locked around the hilt, and brought the point down with all his strength. It plunged through the back of Morebeth's neck, the blue fire blazing down the blade and into her flesh.
Morebeth lurched once, shuddering, and flung Mazael from her back. He struck the floor, his right hand clenched around Lion's hilt, his left arm shattering with the impact. Mazael groaned and rolled over, expecting Morebeth to fall on him, rending and tearing.
Instead she thrashed and bucked, her form beginning to blur. Mazael levered himself up, and as he did, Morebeth shuddered back into human shape.
The back of her neck was a bloody pulp, and blood dripped from a gaping wound between her breasts. The strange rune had been burned into her right thigh and lower back, the flesh scorched down to the bone. She looked dazed, and stunned, and in mortal agony.
Then her eyes fell on him, and filled with such hatred that Mazael flinched. She staggered towards him, her lips peeled back in a snarl, her hands twisted into claws.
Then her eyes dimmed and she crumpled to the floor, dead.
Lion's flame dimmed and went out.
Mazael stared down at her, grief and exhaustion churning through him. She had been his half-sister, his lover. She had tried to kill Rachel, slaughtered thousands, and done her best to transform him into a monster. And yet...and yet...she had made his blood burn as it never had before. If she rose up now, offered to give herself to him again...he did not know if he had the strength to refuse.
A boot scraped against the stones.
Lucan hobbled towards him, face pasty, black hair plastered with sweat. He looked downright crazed. For an instant Mazael thought Lucan would attack him.
“You're alive,” said Mazael.
“I...” said Lucan, his eyes wandering. His gaze settled on Morebeth's corpse. “Is...is it over?” He sounded younger than Mazael had ever heard him.
“Yes,” said Mazael. “It's...”
Morebeth's corpse shuddered. Lucan gasped and raised his hand. Mazael's fingers tightened around Lion's hilt as Morebeth's belly bulged and distended
The child, the Demonsouled creature in her womb, was trying to claw its way free.
With a yell of horror and disgust Mazael slammed Lion down. The blade flamed to life once more, azure fire pouring into Morebeth's cooling flesh.
The child, the unborn Destroyer, went still. Mazael yanked Lion free.
“Now,” he said, not bothering to blink back the tears, “now it is over.”
Chapter 12
1
Hall of Triumphs
On the day of the wedding, Mazael walked alone through the Arcade of Sorrows, his heavy cloak rustling against the floor. His tunic itched, and his new boots did not grip his feet well. Mazael walked into Audea's Garden, past the grasses and the fresh-blooming flowers, and leaned against the stone rail. He watched the hazy dawn sunlight glimmer through the valley, the Riversteel glinting like a silver ribbon. A small cluster of tents stood near the barbican; Sir Tobias's and Sir Gerald's knights, back from the ongoing conquest of Mastaria.
Mazael was so tired. He was tired of Knightcastle, tired of the endless intrigue of the court, tired of the war.
Silk rustled whispered against the grass.
Mazael turned and saw Rachel standing, brilliant in her white bridal gown.
“Rachel,” said Mazael.
She hiked the voluminous lengths of her skirts and crossed the grass to his side.
“I thought,” Mazael said, “that the bride was supposed to remain in seclusion until the wedding.”
“It is a tradition, aye,” said Rachel, “but just a tradition. Besides, it's not as if I've crept out to see Gerald.”
Mazael shook his head. “The poor fool's terrified. In the past month he's survived assassins, the second battle of Tumblestone, and half a hundred minor skirmishes. Now ask him to stand before the archbishop of Knightrealm and wed a woman, and his courage turns to mush. I'd get him drunk, if he didn't think it ungodly.”
“Mazael,” said Rachel, looking at the railing. “I'm...I'm sorry about Lady Morebeth.”
Mazael touched her shoulder. “I know.”
Both Morebeth Galbraith and Trocend Castleson had been assassinated by a San-keth, or so everyone in Knightcastle believed. Mazael had discovered the assassin an instant too late, but avenged Morebeth’s and Trocend’s deaths.
No one wondered why the body of the San-keth assassin had arms and legs. Harune Dustfoot had been a loyal friend and ally, and Mazael regretted the need to lie about him, even in death. It pained Mazael to see Harune's body hanging from a pike over Knightcastle's gates.
But Harune, who had dedicated his life to the secret war against the San-keth, would have understood.
“It's not fair,” said Rachel. “You loved Romaria and she died. And then you loved Morebeth and she was killed...”
“I didn't love her,” said Mazael. What he felt for Morebeth had been something rawer than lust, more elemental than love. The mad power in her Demonsouled spirit had called to the same fire within him. But he could tell none of this to Rachel, and the that made him even wearier. Morebeth, despite her madness, had understood him very well.
But she was gone.
“I didn't love her,” said Mazael quietly. “But it would have been a good marriage.”
Rachel looked away. “Did Gerald tell you yet?”
Tell me what?” said Mazael.
“That we're...that he's going to leave your service after the wedding, that we're going to stay at Knightcastle,” said Rachel, the words tumbling out in a rush.
“Yes,” said Mazael, “he told me.” In fact, it had been partly Mazael's idea. With both Sir Garain and Trocend dead, Lord Malden needed new advisors. He needed Gerald. “It's time, I think, for Gerald to come home. And you should enjoy living at Knightcastle.”
Rachel hesitated. “I wish I could come back home with you.”
“No,” said Mazael. “You don't, not really.” Castle Cravenlock held nothing but black memories for Rachel. There she had been dominated by cruel Lord Mitor, there she had fallen into despair until she drifted into the serpent cult and pledged herself to a San-keth cleric. Perhaps at Knightcastle, she could begin anew, and be happy.
“No,” said Rachel. “I suppose I don't. But I will miss you, Mazael.”
“I know,” said Mazael. “And I will miss you.”
He looked down at her smiling face with its green eyes. He had wanted her to wed Gerald, wanted that marriage as a shield between Lord Richard and Lord Malden. How many had died to bring this day about? How many sons, husbands, and brothers lay dead on the fields outside Tumblestone, never to return to their mothers and wives and sisters?
But if Morebeth had worked her will, had made Mazael into her hawk, then uncounted millions would have perished. Things had been bad, but they could have been far worse.
And that, Mazael supposed, was the only comfort he could draw.
That, and seeing Rachel happier than he could ever remember.
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Someone called out. Mazael saw a half-dozen women hurrying down the Arcade of Sorrows, skirts flapping around their legs.
“It seems,” said Mazael, “that your maids have discovered your escape.”
“Bother,” said Rachel. “I'll see you at the wedding?”
“You will,” said Mazael.
“I love you,” said Rachel.
“And I love you,” Mazael echoed.
The maids gathered around Rachel like a flock of clucking birds and led her away.
###
Rachel Cravenlock wed Gerald Roland in the Hall of Triumphs, before a throng of lords and knights.
Mazael walked down the length of the Hall, Rachel on his arm, a pair of noblewomen carrying the long train of her gown. He stopped before the altar, bowed, and placed Rachel's hand in Gerald's. The archbishop of Knightrealm began droning into the ceremony. Mazael walked to Lord Malden's side.
Lord Malden leaned heavily on his cane, his face haggard and his eyes bloodshot. In the last month he had lost both his eldest son and his closest advisor. Both losses had taken their toll on the once-vigorous old man. Mazael wondered if the old lord would live out the year, if Sir Tobias might become Lord Tobias within a few months.
Mazael's eyes wandered, and he saw the Old Demon.
His father stood beside one of the columns, wrapped in his black robes, his shape ghostly and translucent. No one else seemed to see him. He looked at Mazael, and the fury in his red-glazed eyes washed over Mazael like a wave of acid.
His voice hammered into Mazael's thoughts like a hammer of glass.
Demonsouled Omnibus One Page 74
