by Dave Gross
"Snap out of it, boss!" Radovan slapped me again, this time lightly, before turning to fire another bolt at the vescavors. It shot harmlessly through their swirling bodies. "Can't you light 'em up or something?"
"Yes," I said, reaching for a scroll. "Yes, of course. No, wait—"
Taking my fingers off the fire scroll, I reached instead for one more efficacious against fiends. Holding it tight, I moved back, seeking the best vantage point. I found it atop a blackened tree stump.
There I unleashed a blast of frigid energy. Where it shot through the swarm of vescavors, the little fiends froze and fell to the ground. A few flapped once or twice before a sword swept down to end their struggles. Others fell upon the writhing aberration, which snapped them up as greedily as it had devoured Gannak and his horse.
Seeing the devastation wrought by cold, Jelani began picking off the remaining vescavors with frosty rays. Aprian stepped back from the amorphous fiend to call upon Iomedae. Her radiance spread from the crosspiece of his sword, scorching even more of the tiny demons.
By the time the few surviving vescavors flapped away, our sellswords and crusaders were finishing off the many-mouthed monster. Radovan joined them, plunging his big knife again and again into the thing's remaining eyes. Tonbarse, his eyes healed by Alase's arcane connection, came back to savage the last trembling flanks of the dying monster.
Two of the Kellids were beyond saving. Gannak was devoured to the waist, and Dolok died of blood loss from his devoured arm before Aprian could lay his healing hands upon the terrible wound. The paladin spent much of his remaining radiance sealing the deep wound Selka's axe had made in Valki's leg, doling out the rest of his succor to those whose injuries were too great for mere binding.
Radovan moved near me and pointed at some imaginary discovery on the ground. "Don't look now," he murmured. "We got a visitor. Seventeen or eighteen feet behind your left shoulder. On the dead tree, just a few feet off the ground."
I knelt and pretended to look at something on the ground. While miming a conversation with Radovan, I surreptitiously raised my eyes to glimpse a great leathery wing curling around the trunk of a burned tree, its dark skin almost indistinguishable from the charred bark. Around the other side curled a long, clawed hand. Like an enormous dried leaf, a batlike ear protruded from behind its hiding place. I whispered to Radovan, "Do you recognize it?"
"Death demon," said Radovan. "Like the ones that killed Erastus back in Undarin."
"Go for the eyes," I said. "At my signal."
I rose, turning my back toward the fiend. "Aprian, Jelani, come look at this."
Jelani arrived more quickly, one inquisitive eyebrow raised. The paladin rose with a sigh, exhausted from healing the others. When they both came near, I pointed to the empty spot on the ground and whispered, "Death demon on the tree to the left. Destroy its eyes and take it alive."
To their credit, both nodded as they looked down at our feigned discovery.
Taking the last of my arcane bolt spells in hand, I nodded at Jelani as I rose, turning. "Now!"
Radovan threw his big knife. The heavy blade pierced the demon's exposed wing and pinned it to the tree. The demon screamed and peered around the scorched tree trunk to see the source of its pain. Jelani's bolts drove into one of its deep-set eyes. I snapped off the scroll and sent my own hissing missiles into its other eye.
The demon shrieked, its long purple tongue lolling out of a mouth that by comparison made Radovan's teeth seem dainty. It flapped its free wing, tearing with its claws at the big knife that pinned the other. Failing to move the blade, it tore its own wing to pull it off the knife.
"Take it alive," Aprian called out.
The crusaders and sellswords ran to surround the tree even as the fiend beat its wings and began to fly. I had no scroll left to trap it between the branches, but I did have something that might let me duplicate Radovan's trick. Enhancing my strike with the last scroll of its type, I flung the Shadowless Sword. The point struck true, stapling the demon's ear to the tree trunk.
Pulling his big knife out of the tree, Radovan ensured the destruction of the fiend's death gaze with two quick strikes to the eyes. The demon screamed and clutched at its face before reaching and kicking blindly for its attacker. Pinned by its enormous ear, it could not follow as Radovan darted away.
It tried baffling us by summoning a cloud of darkness, but within a minute we had it bound fast to the tree.
With the fiend's head and limbs secured, Radovan went to work with his fists. Jelani turned away, and a few of the others blanched to witness the brutality.
I understood their reactions, but I had long ago divested myself of sympathy for demons. It was as pointless to sympathize with hatred, cruelty, or cowardice.
Once the fiend was prepared, Radovan clutched its throat just below the jaw. We had done this before, far too many times to count. At my nod, he would choke the demon rather than allow it to summon an ally or utter a word of Abyssal magic.
I explained this situation to the fiend. "Now, tell us what we wish to know, and you shall have a clean death."
The fiend uttered a dangerous word. Even before I could signal him, Radovan closed the demon's windpipe. With his other hand, he removed a throwing dart from his battered jacket and found a painful place for it.
More crusaders and even a few of the Kellids gasped and walked away.
"You might want to walk away," Radovan said to those remaining. "Cover your ears. Think about puppies or something. This is going to get a lot worse before it gets any better."
Most heeded his warning, but Roga and Valki remained, as did Aprian and two of his crusaders. Dragomir stood clenching his fists, staring his hatred into the demon's face as if he could inflict pain by force of will alone. Naia drew her curved dagger and said, "Say the word if you need some help."
At her cool pronouncement, even Aprian raised his brows.
We continued for a while. Radovan performed the dirtiest of the work while I listened for any syllable of magic and interrogated the fiend in its own language.
"Kill me and be done," croaked the death demon. "My kind have no fear of death."
"We will cut off your wings and your hands and your feet, but we will not let you die. We will leave you here, bound to this tree, for all the vescavors to peck at you. You will be days dying, perhaps weeks."
"Shaorhaz will return to destroy you all."
"What is this Shaorhaz?"
"The greatest among death demons, with four fists of black fire to tear your bodies to pieces even as he devours your souls."
"Where does this Shaorhaz lair?"
"At Greengrave Keep, although you will not find him there."
"What is this Greengrave Keep, and where can we find it?"
The demon laughed. "We built it from the stones of your holiest site, the Circle!"
It was not my holiest site, but I knew the demon must speak of the Circle of Hierophants, thought by many to be the first druidic circle, and the birthplace of worship of the Green. "Did Shaorhaz command the destruction of these forests?"
"At first he did. Then he sent us out to gather what remained of the druids' lore. We gathered the stones we had shattered, sifted through the bark of the trees we had burned. Whatever we found with runes upon it, we returned to the Circle."
"You lie, demon. Perhaps we should start with the feet."
"No, I tell the truth! And I laugh at your feeble efforts. You're too late—others have already come to the Circle of Hierophants. You may have escaped death at my hands, but you will never overcome the new mistress of Undarin. Yavalliska will destroy you all."
Chapter Nineteen
The Prince of Bats
Oparal
Behind a dense cloud of vescavors, the prince's chariot flew above the Worldwound.
Kasiya clutched the rail and leaned forward, oblivious to the foul exhalations of the pestilent demons. He cast another spell to hasten their flight, heedless of the fact that exhaust
ion killed more of them each hour. His eyes were locked upon the pole star, Cynosure, using it to navigate us northeast toward our destination. I could not help but cast my eyes downward, into the endless yawning maw of the Abyss.
Diseased spires of stone thrust up from those occluded depths, forming small islands of stability. From some poured endless falls of tainted waters. On others, small bands of demons formed brief alliances to fend off challengers to their territory. We had taken shelter on one of them the day before. I stood guard, weaponless, as the prince slept within a grave I had dug for him with my hands.
I could have slain him then, if I had been willing to remain marooned upon a spear of earth within the mouth of the Worldwound after exposing his body to the sun. Several times, I had almost done so.
But then I thought of Gemma and the hope that she remained alive. I promised myself I would go back for her, but first I needed to escape. Until then, I would have to survive.
Below the spires and hoodoos, the rift fell away much farther than my elven eyes could see. In the light of the crescent moon I glimpsed ridges glistening like the inside of a gullet rather than cliff walls. Oozes climbed up or drizzled down the crannies, disappearing into cavernous openings. From some of them emanated the glow of fires, yellow and red. I could hear distant clamors, some of metal, others of voices or the clash of hard demon carapaces.
Flights of death demons, shadow demons, fire demons, and Deskari's favored locust demons crisscrossed the chasm. One of the latter peeled away from its patrol to approach us. Two wasp-like constructs of metal and chitin moved to follow it.
"I have no time for this," said Kasiya. "Hand me a flame. Prepare the thunder."
I passed him one of the red javelins from the quiver built into the chariot's shield. He raised it to his lips, whispered a word of arcana, and hurled it at the demons moving to intercept us. The javelin burst into flames as it left his hand, growing larger and larger until it exploded within feet of one of the wasp-constructs. That one fell flaming into the Abyss while the locust demon and its other servitor veered away, unwilling to further test the charioteer's patience.
Silently, I replaced the thunder javelin in its compartment, suppressing the desire to thrust it through the vampire's back to pierce his undead heart.
Slaying him would cost my life, if I could not control his chariot—and I had no idea how to begin directing the chaotic vescavors drawing the vehicle. But plunging into the Abyss might be a fair cost to pay for ridding the world of the vampire-sorcerer, not to mention the fell tomes he carried on his hip.
And yet doubts lingered in my mind. Though free from the dominating power of his mesmerizing eyes, I had not yet found a way to destroy him without sacrificing my life and thus abandoning Gemma to the depravations of the vivisectionists in the Tower of Zura. Yet with every mile we drew closer to the Circle of Hierophants, my chance of destroying him before he could use the power of the Lexicon of Paradox grew slimmer.
Yavalliska's message had arrived only a few hours earlier. Upon hearing it, Kasiya flew into a rage, incinerating the messenger with a spell. The succubus had gone on before us, to prepare the way, she said, for Kasiya's great ritual at a place called the Circle of Hierophants. One of her demon allies had been combing the ruins of the northern forests for the lost lore of the druids. This same ally was also the one responsible for first razing the land, an irony that Kasiya did not appreciate as fully as Yavalliska might have done.
We left Undarin at once, driving the vescavors without mercy. Every hour or so, a few more died at the jaws of their fellows. I began to fear we would not reach our destination before falling into the Worldwound and all the way down into the Abyss itself.
Yet somehow we endured and continued to fly ever northward. We landed an hour before dawn, whereupon Kasiya spoke the words that returned his chariot to miniature form. I wondered what became of the vescavors, but when he rose again after sunset and threw the chariot upon the ground, they remained tethered to the full-sized vehicle.
At last we spied solid ground once more. Even from a great height, I could see the ruination of the woods. They had been felled and razed, in most places their lands tainted beyond regeneration. Fires still smoldered here and there, vile fumes rising from what might once have been hot springs before the demons had polluted them with the foul discharge of their bodies. Only a few sad stretches of new growth dared to strive against the desolation.
We flew deep into the ruins before the anomaly appeared: In the center of the ruined forest lay a tangle of new growth, little of it green. Weed-choked woods of black trees formed an outer barrier around a labyrinth of demon-tainted foliage. Giant briars with blood-red teeth formed twisting walls around a huge, spiral-shaped hill.
Where the thorns thinned, mounds of moss or fungus poked up misshapen heads. Gargantuan heaps of rotten vegetation steamed in the cool night air, while plantlike hulks shambled out from under their flaccid leaves to wander the twisting avenues.
Here and there a true clearing emerged around a circle of stones. Even with my limited experience among the Green-worshiping druids, I recognized something wrong in the configuration of the monoliths. They were not set in patterns reflective of the stars, the planets, or the chambers of the sun or moon. Instead, the five-pointed figures suggested the asymmetrical circles of evil cultists. They had been set not by druids but by demons.
In the center of it all rose a pinwheel-shaped hill, its top flat to accommodate a hectic fortress. The walls appeared to have been scavenged from hundreds of druid's circles. The blue-gray stones absorbed more than reflected the moonlight, except where the deep runes carved into their faces glowed sulfurous yellow. Craggy towers rose toward the sky, some of them tilted at such improbable angles that only fiendish magic could have held them in place.
Enormous insects emerged from hives pasted between gaps in the stones. They floated wasp-like into the night air, reminiscent of nothing so much as the temples of Calistria in Kyonin. The difference was that these giant insects glittered with clockwork mechanisms, and their stingers left sizzling puddles of venom in their wake.
A vulture demon leaped from a filthy aerie to swoop down on one of the wasps. It struck its prey hard, bearing it down to the ground while rending the flesh out from beneath its carapace and steel armor. The wasp's fellows swarmed to its aid, but the demon sent them reeling with a shriek so loud and piercing that it scattered our vescavors, sending us into a dive.
With a silent command, Kasiya regained control of the fiends in time to smooth our flight. We circled the shambled tower twice before someone on the ground set alight a flaming symbol of Zura on the ground. The vampire guided the chariot down to the site, where we saw Yavalliska standing before a cowering mob of cultists and demons. Directly behind her, the daemon Ommors made a noisy mess of a felled blood demon.
The chariot touched down, and Kasiya reined in the vescavor with an arcane word. With another, he returned the chariot to its diminutive state and hung it from his belt, beside the Codex and Lexicon, which floated at his hip by some enchantment of their chains.
We stood at the base of Greengrave Keep. Upon the ground beside the flaming symbol of Zura lay a pentagonal design. Nearby, stacks of bark and stone lay on the backs of brimoraks who knelt to form a table.
Kasiya drew his khopesh and marched toward Yavalliska. The instant he spoke, the curved blade glowed with crimson magic. "How dare you leave Undarin without me?"
"And interrupt your studies, my prince? That is what I dared not do." She stood with utter nonchalance, even raising her chin in an unspoken invitation to his blade. "I thought it better to surprise you with my acquisition of the last pages you require for your ascension."
Kasiya raised his sword, but the succubus held her ground. As the vampire threatened Yavalliska, a vulture demon plunged down to land behind her. A buzzing miasma surrounded its foul and lanky body. It approached, pausing as it noticed Ommors sucking at the carcass of the blood demon. It screech
ed in offense, but Yavalliska waved it back with a casual gesture.
"I am, of course, yours to dispose of as you will, my prince," said Yavalliska. "Yet in my absence, I fear there are no others here who can advise you as to which of the recovered pages you require. Also, while the dread Shaorhaz will not mind my visit, should he return to find me damaged, I am afraid he will be quite uncooperative."
"Whoever this Shaorhaz may be, I do not fear him."
"No, princes never know the fear that resides in common men," she said. "Thus are they pitted one against the other, often to unfortunate conclusions. Shaorhaz is a prince among the death demons. You have seen some of the minions he sent to Undarin as a favor to me."
Kasiya hesitated, torn between executing his threat and learning more from Yavalliska.
What a fool he was. In Undarin she had mocked him to his face, and moments later wrapped his fragile ego around her finger. Whatever happened next, it was by her design, not his.
Then I knew that it was by the grace of Iomedae that I had not slain him sooner. His death was not worth my life, but hers might be. Killing her would surely cost my life, here beneath the shadow of her death demon's castle. The only decision I had left was when to strike.
"Tell me, then," said Kasiya. He returned the khopesh to his half-scabbard. "Tell me what preparations you have made."
"The restless dead of the northern groves have drawn his attention for a while," said Yavalliska. "But he shall dispense with them soon, and I fear he would not look kindly on our use of his library."
"You call this a library?" said Kasiya.
"The embarrassing truth is that he had nearly annihilated this forest before realizing the treasures it contained. Only in recent years has he set his minions to salvaging what remains of the ancient lore the druids carved upon the trees and stones. Precious little remains. Fortunately, I was able to recognize enough of the ancient figures you showed me in the Lexicon to narrow the salvage to these dozens." The succubus gestured to the sheets of stone and bark lying upon the table of brimoraks.
