by Phil Tucker
More people were coming through, a group of six wearing matching robes of purple and yellow, moving without military precision but grabbing at each other's arms and gesturing, whispering excitedly to each other in Agerastian and shaking their heads in wonder.
Finally came an older man with a hooked nose and a lively smile, a pack hanging over one shoulder and a writing satchel over the other. He bowed low to Iskra, then turned to regard the interior of the great room with an appreciative whistle. "This will make for a beautiful drawing. My fortune will be made if I can produce enough copies to sell in the market, though few will believe me that this place is real."
Iskra said, "Audsley, let me introduce you to Orishin, a former scribe and my current translator. He aided us greatly on our mission."
Audsley inclined his head, unsure how much deference to show to an Agerastian former scribe, but the man bowed deeply in return as if Audsley were an emperor himself.
Ser Tiron looked around. "Temyl? Bogusch?"
Audsley shook his head. "My apologies, Ser Tiron. Bogusch was taken in the same manner as Meffrid. Temyl... insisted that I let him escape back to Ennoia via a Portal."
Tiron's brows lowered. "Insisted, did he? The coward." He then studied Audsley's frame. "Your clothing is torn. Were you in a fight?"
"Oh, this?" Audsley looked down at his slashed tunic, which was soaked in blood. "Ah, yes. It does look alarming, doesn't it? But no, I, um, tried to make field bandages for Bogusch. It's his blood, I'm afraid."
Tiron nodded, but Audsley didn't like the curious way he was studying what might obviously be the work of claws instead of tidy tearing.
Fortunately, Iskra interrupted Tiron's scrutiny. "Let's proceed immediately to Mythgræfen, Magister."
"Yes, absolutely."
He nodded eagerly and hurried through the mist, leading the group toward the far Portal column. He could sense the demons in his mind studying them, using his eyes to take in the new arrivals.
The men and women in purple and gold are Flame Walkers, said the monk, seeming to step forward from the darkness of his mind.
"Oh?" Audsley realized too late that he'd said that out loud. He walked a little quicker. Agerastian Sin Casters?
Yes, said the monk. Their auras are hard to read without a ready source of magic flowing through them, but they are clearly adept.
Audsley reached the column, walked around it to the Portal, then took a deep breath and turned to the others as they gathered. "When I open the Gate, it will remain passable for about a minute. Enough time for us all to go through, but, please, be quick. Agreed?"
Everyone nodded.
Audsley turned back to the Portal and read the demon's name that was inscribed across the top. Akressat M'chazk.
The door filled with black, flowing liquid, and Audsley took a deep breath, smiled, and stepped through.
He felt a moment of disorientation, a rushing wind, and a plummeting sensation in his stomach as if he were falling a thousand miles, and then he was through, stepping out into the basement beneath Mythgræfen. They'd done it! They'd returned! Now, to see how the others had fared in their absence.
Audsley walked forward, intent on giving the others space, and then froze. Was that - had he heard some kind of scream? All the way down here? Ser Tiron emerged behind him, then Ord, and all the while Audsley stood listening, staring up the staircase. A rumble filtered down to them, like boulders sliding down a cliff.
"Something's wrong," said Audsley.
Soldiers were coming through now, filling the chamber, their captain quickly assessing the situation and directing them to stand against the left-hand wall, ten wide and two deep.
Another rough scream. It was barely audible through all the rock, but Audsley felt the demons in his mind stir. All three emerged from hiding, filling his mind with their presence. Demons, whispered the old Aletheian man. I sense them. Many demons.
The Agerastian Sin Casters came through, and as one they cried out in wonder, taking deep breaths as if they had emerged from a long spell spent under water.
"Audsley, stay down here," said Ser Tiron, drawing his sword.
"No, um, you see...."
Audsley didn't quite know how to disagree with the knight, but Tiron had already turned away, looking for Iskra as she came through the Portal. Taking advantage of the opportunity, Audsley hurried up the steps, around and around, seeing each step plainly despite the darkness, and came out into the storage room just off the courtyard. His heart was pounding. The sounds coming from the courtyard were terrifying. Screams and roars, bellows and cries.
Audsley lifted both fists before him, and a moment later crimson flame engulfed them with a whoomph as if they'd been dipped in pitch.
We have our utility, do we not? The Zoeian woman sounded darkly pleased.
Ignoring her, he ran forward, lifting off the ground a few steps before he passed through the door and emerged into the courtyard.
Audsley looked up and saw the forces of Hell assailing Kethe and Asho on the thin span of wall above the gatehouse. They stood back to back, their swords flaming brands against the night, fighting furiously as the wall below them crawled with climbing shadow corpses. About them flew great bat-winged shapes.
Terror surged through him. Audsley wanted to turn, to flee back into the storage room, down past the guards and Sin Casters, and leap into the silence of Starkadr. Instead, he sucked in a desperate gulp of air, clenched his fists even harder and with a surge he flew straight up.
Up past the aspen trees, at times quickly, at others slowly down as if about to lose all momentum, the hold's wall seeming to race past him as he climbed into the night sky, and then in a flash he was out of the hold altogether, Asho and Kethe's desperate duel taking place below him, and only then did Audsley see the true scope of the battle that was being waged around them.
Below him raged a coalition of the damned, a frenzy of imagination gone riot, the worst of every thundering sermon he had heard from priests who had described the gory inhabitants of Hell in an attempt to set their young charges right. Their cries shook the night, their keening slashed it to ribbons. Audsley saw their host extend down the length of the causeway, encircling the castle, engulfing it in a cataclysm of evil that was tightening like a hand closing into a fist.
An imp-like creature noticed him and swerved from its trajectory to attack, crying high with glee and slashing at the air with a sword that looked more like a shard of volcanic glass than a blade.
Audsley stared at it, his shock paralyzing him. The sheer scope of what lay before him had boggled his mind.
Attack it, fool!
The Zoeian man's bark snapped him back to life. Audsley raised both hands, screamed, and split the night with hellfire.
The imp incinerated, its sword spinning off into the dark. Audsley's terror was fuel to the flames, a gout both terrible and beautiful, roaring out almost twenty yards to catch another flitting shape and devouring it too.
The whole world seemed to slow and stop, and a hundred eyes turned to regard him as he fell. Even Asho and Kethe on their thin stretch of wall looked up, their faces smeared with blood, their eyes wide and uncomprehending.
"Oh," said Audsley as he caught himself and arrested his fall, panting for breath, his panic ratcheting up another notch. "Oh, hello."
A panoply of war cries rent the air, and Audsley saw all the flying creatures orient on him. He was suddenly the nexus of the swarm, their sole focal point, and they drew in, creatures large and small, winged or flying of their own volition like him; winged corpses wreathed in shadow, serpents of bone, great and monstrous eagles with the wings of bats. Audsley screamed and spun away as something dive-bombed at him, barely missing, then a second opened his shoulder with its talons as it flew by.
He didn't know what to do. He wanted to cover his face with his flaming fists, but the Zoeian demon carved into his soul was screaming at him, a bloodcurdling demand that he move, so Audsley dropped his arms and dove down, t
rying for speed, seeking to evade the attacks that were coming from left and right.
Down into the courtyard he flew, moving so fast that the leaves of the trees blurred, around the trunks, and almost straight into the ground. He managed to lift up at the last moment, scraping the uneven flagstones, and then shot straight out through the gatehouse, a burst of confidence leading him to turn onto his back and look at his pursuers. A multiplicity of evil had come howling after him, choking the gate tunnel. Audsley yelled his defiance and unleashed flame from both fists, filling the tunnel from wall to wall with roaring crimson and incinerating everything in there.
Immediately his power of flight left him. He hit the ground with his shoulders, rolled over backwards, cracked his head with frightful force, and then yelled and fought for air. Just before he hit again and began to roll head over heels he lifted back up as if caught by a powerful updraft, soaring out of the tunnel and nearly into the branches of the twisted oak.
Screaming in fear, Audsley managed to veer up and to the right, blasting through the branches that whipped and tore at him, then he was out in the air, flying up and over the demonic horde that capered and leaped and sought to drag him down.
Audsley felt a hand clench his ankle and, without looking, poured flame from his hands below him, sending an expanding ring of lurid crimson out along the ground. Momentum carried him up, the hand let him go, and just as he hit his peak and began to fall he focused once more on flight and shot up, out of reach, up into the blessedly cool night air. He turned to look back and saw that more demons were coming for him, including something that looked like a dragon, oh, by the White Gate, a dragon - and then he turned to look at where he was going and tore himself to a stop.
A man was flying before him, huge wings of flame beating in sensual undulations, each downbeat casting a hail of sparks and cinders upon the horde below. He was crowned with fire, a jagged circle of living flame that caught the fire in his eyes and gave him a malevolent authority and presence that took Audsley's breath away.
Now, this I have not seen in millennia, said the man - no, the demon. Shall I draw my brothers from your soul, human? Grip each one by the throat and tear it free?
Audsley quailed. What is he? Is he an ur-destraas?
No, whispered the Aletheian man. But still too powerful for us. Flee!
How do I kill it?
You can't kill it, said the monk. Audsley thought he heard it whimper.
Audsley raised his hands, pressed his thumbs together and fanned wide his fingers. A little fire. Now. Please?
Power gathered in his hands with tremendous speed, building up to a painful level as the three demons panicked and poured their very essence into the attack. A hideous gout of flame blazed forth, knocking Audsley back as it shot toward the demon, perfectly aimed dead center on its chest.
The demon made no effort to avoid it. Instead, it threw wide its arms and laughed, a fell sound that mocked Audsley to his core. The flame spattered off him, a shower flowing to either side of him as if it were little more than water.
Audsley caught his fall just a few yards above the horde, staring up aghast the demon as it hovered in the air above him.
You think to destroy me with their essence?
Audsley let out a wail and put all his mind into flying back and up as quickly as he could, up and over the wall, catching one knee on a parapet and sending a flash of pain through his leg. Only the demon's laughter followed him, and Audsley felt a shaky wave of relief flood through him. Asho and Kethe were being swamped by the shadow corpses that were climbing the walls, so he extended his hands again and dropped back inside the courtyard, alighting on the ground. He took a deep breath and unleashed blast after blast of fire against the castle wall.
The shadow demons blistered and burst. "Have at thee!" yelled Audsley, moving his hands from side to side, charring the stones and destroying every black skeletal figure in sight.
Each burst of flame forced him to stagger back, buffeting him and rocking him onto his heels. He felt like laughing, a maniacal laugh that he knew he'd never be able to stop. His moment of elation died, though, as a wave of demons came pouring in through the gatehouse, a deluge that turned and began to climb the wall, ignoring the remains of their fallen brothers.
A lanky, many-limbed demon akin to a spider clambered into view at the corner of the hold's wall. Audsley saw it out of the corner of his eye; saw it lift a limb, then let out a scream and sent a silver blade of some kind whipping past him, end over end, nearly shearing off his face. Turning, Audsley saw that it had another seven such blades in hand. It raised two of them and threw them at him.
Audsley dropped his hands and flew up, felt a flare of pain in his thigh as something cut along the side of his leg, and turned to blast the spider demon – only to see a giant step up to the outside wall.
Audsley gaped. The monster had to stand fifteen yards tall for its head to clear the wall in such a manner. It was wearing a huge helmet of warped black metal, twin horns extending from the sides like the jaws of a stag beetle. Though its face was hidden in shadow, its eyes burned with livid light. It tore a crenellation off the wall and hurled it at Audsley, the huge chunk of wall whistling through the air and nearly removing his head as he ducked and twisted back down.
Winged shadows slashed at him. Audsley cried out and dove awkwardly to the side, but there was nowhere to escape.
The spider monster hurled another two spars of silver. Audsley heard the giant tear out another chunk of the wall. Desperate, with sweat pouring down his face, the flames that licked along his fists beginning to die down, he backed away, floating toward the far wall. He threw bolts of fire at his weaving opponents, dropping a couple of yards each time, his growing panic making him miss more often than hit.
There was no way he could win this battle. There were too many fighting against him. He could kill a hundred and make no impression on the horde. He couldn't breathe; his throat was on fire, and pain suffused his wounded thigh. The demons in his mind were screaming at him, their commands and pleas melding with his own desperate cries. He hit the inside of the far castle wall, the mossy stone blocks arresting his retreat. Almost immediately the spider demon hurled another silver spear, which missed him by an inch but pinned his tunic to the wall.
Audsley threw out another cascade of flame, incinerating four shadow demons as they swooped down at him, his tunic jerking tight as the silver spar arrested his fall. The giant hurl a second boulder at him. He screamed again and tried to fly to the side but was held in place - the spear had him pinned. Horror dawned on him as he realized that he didn't have time to tear free. He turned to see the boulder sailing toward him faster than he could have thought possible – and then it exploded in a sheet of black flame.
The sound was ear-shattering. Chunks and shards of rock flew in every direction. Audsley gaped and looked down to see six individuals striding out into the courtyard, their yellow and purple robes whipping around them, their faces alight with wonder and determination.
The Agerastian Sin Casters.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Were talons and maws not seeking to rend his flesh on every side, Asho would have stood and stared as Audsley fought his terrible if erratic path through the sky. But he didn't have the time, didn't have the luxury of doing more than focusing on sheer survival; out of the corner of his eye he saw Audsley flit here, blast flame there, drop out of the sky and then retreat from the demon lord, but the whole time, Asho was fighting. He swung, blocked, ducked and pivoted, swapping places with Kethe so smoothly that they might have spent their entire lives training together.
Even if they had, they would still never have come close to this level of unity. She was an extension of him. He felt her pain, felt her exhilaration, felt her desperate need to fight on for just one more minute, one more second, to block one last cut, to kill one final demon. And just as he sensed her, he knew she felt him, anticipated his maneuvers, turning to swing her blade over his head as
he ducked to kill an attacking shadow even as he hacked the legs out from under another.
The demon corpses fell from their attacks, toppling over the edges of the walls left and right, none of them gaining a foothold, but there were always more. More skeletal hands clasping the edge of the parapet to pull their grinning, cadaverous faces into view, the shadow-stuff of their bodies wrapping around the rock as they hauled themselves up to rake and strike.
Audsley screamed, and Asho saw as he turned an actual giant stride up to the castle wall, dripping black water from the lake, to tear off a hunk of rock and hurl it at the flying magister. Audsley was beleaguered, being attacked from all sides. Asho felt fury surge up within him, anger at his inability to help his friend. He redoubled his attacks, crushing a skull, booting a second corpse in the chest and off the wall, lunging past Kethe to block an attack that was about to take her in the side.
Another scream from Audsley. Asho risked a look and saw the portly Noussian pinned against the far wall - How by the Black Gate is he flying? - then the giant threw a second boulder.
"Audsley!" Asho's cry was lost in the roar of battle, and then totally eclipsed by the shattering crack as black fire destroyed the rock in midair. Asho actually stopped fighting and stared down into the courtyard. Six men and women were running there, power boiling off them, dressed in purple and yellow robes.
Agerastians! Lady Kyferin had done it. She'd –
A hand grabbed him by the shoulder and yanked him down. He fell to his knees as wicked claws scythed through the air where he'd been standing, then Kethe's white-burning blade passed clear through the corpse. Asho fought back to his feet, but the pressure on him and Kethe was lessening. Panting for breath, he blocked a swipe, taking off the corpse's arm as he did so, and saw that the shadow corpses on the inside of the hold wall were swarming back down to attack the Agerastians, some of them leaping clear off the wall only to be burned in midair.
