by Joe Jackson
And not just any sylinth, but another abnormally large one, as though it was a prince…
Chapter VIII – Snag
“Well, isn’t this a surprise?” the sylinth hissed in infernal. “Father suspected this ruse would bring the Ashen Cowards out of their holes, but to find you here? This represents a turn of fortune even my elestram servants would never have properly accounted for.”
Kari folded her legs and kicked up onto her feet. The sylinth didn’t seem particularly impressed. He was massive, similar in body styling to Ressallk, but much larger. Kari guessed he might be closer to twenty feet from nose to tail, his arms were more muscular, and his scales and their diamondback pattern indicated longevity. This prince might not be Sekassus’ firstborn or heir apparent, but he was no whelp like Ressallk was. Even the weapon he held spoke of his power and prestige, its intricate haft of intertwining snakes made of some precious metal, rather than the cheap wood of Ressallk’s that Kari had split with a sundering strike sequence.
The demonhunter considered her options. The cry of a wounded elestram behind her opened up more of them. With Seanada by her side, Kari might be able to best this impressive creature, prince or not. The likelihood of finding aid nearby seemed small, but with a prince exposed and alone out in the wilds, Kari was reminded of the bandits that attacked. It was possible, however improbable, that disgruntled subjects of Sekassus might show up and lend Kari their aid. The final option would be difficult, but represented her best hope of surviving at the least and slaying him at best: drawing him east into Tess’Vorg.
Where Emanitar and Morduri would be at this point was anyone’s guess. Kari couldn’t count on their aid, even if she could draw this sylinthian prince across the border. But if she killed him in Tess’Vorg, there would only be so much Sekassus could do. Unfortunately, they had chased the cart quite a distance back into Sorelizar, and Kari figured it would be several miles just to reach the border of Tess’Vorg. Would the prince be that intent on capturing or killing her that he’d risk entering enemy territory? And could Kari and Seanada outpace him for long enough that it wasn’t a moot point?
“That you’re looking at the two of us and calling it a turn of fortune is something your elestram servants would probably never account for,” Kari returned. She took up her scorpion-like pose and readied herself for battle. It might come down to running – or, more appropriately, leading him into a trap – but first she would have to convince him that he had put them to rout.
The sylinth stood his weapon up on end and laughed. “Oh, this is precious. You think because you killed my brother that you pose some credible threat to me? It’s interesting; I had expected father’s thoughts on your arrogance and bravado to be overstated, and yet here I find they might just be understated. Did you…did you honestly think the two of you were going to pose some threat to my elder brother? Oh, that is rich.”
He slithered to the side, holding his weapon casually but in a position where he would obviously be ready to defend at a moment’s notice. He glanced at Seanada as she approached, but then turned his slit-pupiled gaze back to Kari. “I will give credit to your resourcefulness and courage on escaping my father’s realm on your first visit, Vanador, but if you think you stand a chance against a prince, let alone our patriarch, you are sadly mistaken.”
“Your brother said the same thing, shortly before I separated his head from his body.”
“Pah. Ressallk was a whelp! You killed one of my father’s youngest, weakest children. Did you think he would send another weakling with the mallasti on the verge of open rebellion? You are about to get a very slow, painful lesson in arrogance, Vanador. You may take comfort in knowing that while this traitorous companion of yours will die, you will yet live for a long time – in my father’s dungeon.”
“Did you know your brother never landed a single blow on me?” Kari asked evenly. The sylinth’s brow lowered in a slight scowl, but he was fighting the urge to let his anger show. “For all his talk and threats – oh, and crying out to your father to save him – I cut him apart piece by piece, and whether he really was a whelp or not, that’s what he looked like when I was done humiliating him.”
Those reptilian eyes blinked only once, and suddenly the scowl turned to a fang-filled grin. “You don’t even realize it, do you? You fought Ressallk on your world, Vanador. You now stand in Sorelizar, in my realm, on my world. And this realm responds not only to the will of its king, but of his princes as well.”
He held a hand aloft, and Kari barely skipped free of the entangling roots that sprang from the ground, the grasping tendrils reaching hungrily for her and Seanada. The assassin hacked and slashed at them, giving up ground, but the road was fast becoming a quagmire of mud and lashing roots. Kari watched in alarm as the dead elestram and syrinthian bodies were wrapped up and pulled into the depths of the suddenly sodden earth. She glanced at the sides of the road, where the embankments might offer reprieve, and then also at the wagon.
Watching her wandering eyes, the sylinth set the cart ablaze with a gesture. The flame started off small, but caught quickly on the canvas covering. Kari started to run for the high ground, but then she remembered: Seanada had sensed a mallasti in the back of the cart. None had ever come forth, and Kari had to wonder if it was a hostage, vulkinastra or otherwise. Even with the immediate threat the road had become, Kari bounded gingerly from stinging grasp to stinging grasp, and hopped up into the rear of the wagon.
The sylinth’s bladed spear bit into the back of the wagon, narrowly missing Kari’s wings, and she recalled the damage Erik had done when Ressallk forced her to fight him. A thrust came in through the open rear, but Kari stepped on the weapon’s haft, momentarily jerking it from her enemy’s grasp. He withdrew it after a startled moment, but seemed hesitant to blindly strike at her again. Kari held her breath and scooped up the mallasti girl as quickly as she could. She wasn’t a vulkinastra, but unconscious as she was and lightly bound, Kari figured this wasn’t a servant of Sekassus.
The sylinth was waiting for Kari when she emerged onto the driver’s seat of the wagon, heavily laden with the densely-muscled mallasti. The creatures were much heavier than they appeared, even the females, and Kari had to strain to carry her like a child. Seanada cut off the sylinthian prince, though, drawing his attention long enough for Kari to get off the cart and put the mallasti girl safely on the embankment at the side of the road. A stray root grasped at Kari’s ankle as she lingered in one spot, but she hacked it off with her blade and found the entangled part quickly withered and fell away.
The road was still a sticky mess, though it seemed to have no effect on the prince. His long, serpentine body had to be heavy, yet it floated atop the muddy surface effortlessly, and the grasping weeds and roots paid him no mind. A shift of the wind sent the pall of smoke toward Kari and Seanada, and they were forced to relocate their battleground once again. Both moved to the rear of the cart, upwind, and hacked at any roots and snares that got too close.
The wagon went up in flames in a sudden conflagration, and then it exploded in the direction of the two women. Seanada deftly turned and rolled out of the way, but Kari was caught in the shoulder and right wing with burning pieces of the wreckage. Her cloak singed, and a burn on the membrane of her wing throbbed with an increasing ache. Kari turned and headed further east, escaping the smoky confines of the scattered wreckage. She glanced briefly at the plumes of smoke reaching skyward, and her earlier thoughts returned: would someone come to see what was going on? And if so, would they be friend or foe?
And then it hit her. She had forgotten just how powerful it was the first time, and now, coming from this much stronger prince, she staggered under its weight. The concussive force of the sylinth’s mental attack was not so much a wall of wind such as Ressallk’s had felt like, but a crushing weight, as of being buried alive under oppressive earth. Kari’s senses were rattled, but she shook free of the cobwebs as best she could and tried to focus on her approaching enemy. She had
tunnel vision, and her sight swam with stars, but the confusion and deceit that had been the staple of Ressallk’s mental intrusion was missing.
Kari staggered to and fro, letting her blades hang limply. The sylinthian prince slithered toward her, upright, arrogant, so confident in his power and his abilities. He was strong, to be sure, but with power so often came arrogance, which was ironic, since it was what he had said of her when they first stared each other down. Now, he was slithering near-heedless of danger right toward her, having already convinced himself that she couldn’t possibly stand against him.
Whatever he lacked in humility, he made up for in reflexes. That snake-like agility allowed him to bring his bladed spear up to intercept Kari’s sudden lunge, and he fought her off easily. Kari instead nearly found herself the one besieged, as he stealthily coiled his tail around her in a circle, forcing her to leap backwards with a flap of her wings to escape his attempt to grasp her. She was pointedly reminded of the burn on the membrane, but soldiered on.
Seanada approached again, free of any effects she may have suffered from his mental attack. In the blink of an eye, the sylinth’s long tail swung the other way and slammed the half-syrinthian woman to the ground. Seanada looked positively stunned, and Kari could understand all too well: that strike had come quicker than the mind could even register. But it was that minor precognition and experience that allowed Kari to dodge left and avoid being caught by the return strike of the tail.
The demonhunter swung at the tip of the tail, off-balance but with true aim. She sliced into the scaly tip, for all the good that would ultimately do, but she had drawn blood. Now the fight was truly underway; any senses of taunting or arrogance were going to quickly evaporate at the sight of blood. The weeds and roots resumed their grasping with renewed vigor, and Kari had to constantly hop and dance about to avoid getting pinned down. What she really needed was an arcanist to come and counter the sylinth’s magical trickery and bring this back to being a contest of blades.
The blue glow of Zalkar’s symbol shone through her breastplate then, and she felt his power roil through her blood. She pushed it outward, extending it the same way she normally did her faith, and the roots and snares withered and sank back into the ground. What had been muddy roadway just moments before now solidified again into solid ground, and Kari’s clawed toes dug in to find purchase and her center of gravity. Across the way, Seanada still had to deal with the lingering effects of the sylinth’s will, but Kari’s – synergized with Zalkar’s – was able to overpower her enemy’s.
The sylinth showed the barest of a fang-filled smile, and lifted his hand. He made a short gesture, but nothing happened. Kari smiled back; his arcane power wasn’t strong enough to overpower her will. But then he pointed westward. Kari glanced quickly, her blades before her defensively. A short distance away, the weeds and roots were dragging the mallasti woman down to the road and into the entrapping, entombing mud. Kari dashed in her direction without a second thought.
She expected to be attacked, turning to intercept the sylinth’s bladed spear. But it wasn’t his weapon proper that she needed to worry about. He was upon her in moments, and that long, serpentine body coiled around her and began to squeeze. Kari had a flashback to when Triela had gripped her in an arcane fist, thinking she was an enemy, and how she’d barely been able to suck in enough breath to speak. Here, in the sylinth’s grasp, Kari’s paluric armor was suddenly a liability, its supple form allowing the demon prince to crush her more easily.
Seanada joined the fray again, but the demon prince’s body was long enough that he could keep Kari coiled up and still fight the half-syrinthian effectively. With her arms and blades pinned uselessly to her sides, there wasn’t much Kari could do to try to free herself. The strength of the sylinth was incredible against her own; there was no hope of muscling her way free, not even enough to turn a sword and try to cut him. It only left her with one option aside from hoping Seanada could save her.
It was something Kari had never done before, not even in the heat of combat. She found the choicest spot she could reach, and she buried her small but sharp rir teeth into the scaly flesh of the demon prince. She couldn’t get very deep or cause any considerable damage, but the bite shocked him enough that Kari soon heard the satisfying squelch of a blade sinking into flesh. She hoped it was Seanada scoring the strike and not the sylinth, and from the position of his dual-bladed spear, she knew it was the former.
His coils loosened just enough for Kari to yank her arms free, and he had to throw her to the ground and then slither away a bit to keep her from slicing up his lower body. Seanada had landed a good stab, leaving an oozing wound behind, but so low on his body as to not be much of a threat to his fighting ability or life just yet. Kari got back to her feet and made her way toward the mallasti woman again, this time backing up and keeping her blades before her defensively. It was prudent but unnecessary: having scored a solid hit against him had earned Seanada the demon prince’s full attention.
Kari wrested the unconscious mallasti woman free of the entrapping bonds not a moment too soon. She carried the woman safely up into the woods a bit – she hoped – but really had little choice but to leave her there. If the sylinthian prince wanted to command the woods themselves to kill the woman, there wasn’t much Kari could do. But she’d done her part to save the woman, and now she had a more pressing matter before her. She made her way quickly back to the road and the fight.
Seanada was fighting a mostly defensive battle. While she could counter much of the sylinth’s power with her own arcane skills, he was more practiced and innately powerful than she was, and it showed. She was being battered and singed by his trickery, and without Kari nearby, the road, the roots, the weeds, and now even the nearby tree branches were becoming Seanada’s enemies. She was in danger of being completely overwhelmed even before the sylinth’s martial prowess was taken into account.
A root caught Seanada, and though she was able to pull free, it tripped her up enough that the sylinth laid her flat with a crushing blow. Unlike most of the arrogant warriors Kari had ever dealt with before, he wasted no time in thrusting his blade under the half-syrinthian’s ribs. Kari thought she yelled something, but she never even registered what it was as silence fell over the entirety of her life.
The sylinth readied his blades for Kari’s charge, but with her sure footing – her willpower continued to neutralize his arcane trickery – and the sinuous grace of her fighting style, Kari slipped inside his defensive range in moments. He matched her stroke for stroke, but she danced around him, coiling him upon himself and limiting his mobility before he knew what was happening. Kari then feigned a high chop, slid under his whirling parry, and landed the same double cut on his lower body that she had when she fought Ressallk. Now, though, with her blades glowing that furious gold, she ripped through scales and flesh, and the first thing she heard through that deafening silence was his scream of pain.
Something was threatening to come out through that wound; was it intestines? Whatever the case, it did little to slow his speed, and the prince slithered to the other side of the road, where he assumed a defensive posture as he took stock of his wound. He scowled fiercely at Kari and reached down to push whatever part of his guts it was back inside, and then it appeared as though he singed the wound closed with his arcane power. Kari stared him down, wanting to check on Seanada’s still form, but she was unable to take her eyes from him; he was too fast, and far too dangerous to turn her back on again.
She thought perhaps it was a trick of distance, but even from across the width of the road, she suspected he wasn’t looking directly at her. Kari turned on instinct, her blade coming around at neck level, and the elestram’s head fell silently to the ground in a spray of blood. Kari ignored the crumpling body, whipping around quickly to keep the prince in her sights. He hadn’t moved, but at the same time, the expression on his face betrayed utter surprise. Now all his servants lay dead, and possibly Seanada with them, leavin
g only him to face Kari. And he was wounded.
“Well now, it seems you are faced with a choice: try to stop me from delivering news of your presence to my father, or try to save the life of your companion,” he hissed.
Kari backed up a step and dropped to a knee, and she put her hand to Seanada’s chest. Her heart was still beating, but her breathing was raspy and wet, as though a lung may have been punctured. Kari stared down the demon prince, but he was correct: if she wanted to aid Seanada – not to mention the mallasti woman – Kari couldn’t waste any more time fighting him if he was going to give her reprieve of any kind. She got back to her feet, crossed her blades before her chest, and titled her head.
“What’s your name?” she asked him.
He cocked his head in kind. “Prince Fesarri,” he answered.
“I’ll remember it.”
“As I will remember you, Vanador. Though your fate is ultimately sealed, you have proven yourself capable of justifying your arrogance. You have my respect for that, at least.”
He started to slither away. Though Kari had the urge to chase him down and try to kill him, she hopped over Seanada and crouched beside her instead. She kept her gaze partially to the west, watching for any return or trickery from the sylinth, but he picked up his speed and disappeared from sight rapidly. Kari regarded the final elestram lying decapitated beside her friend, and undid the straps of Seanada’s armor to get to work.
The wound was deep but didn’t seem to have caught anything immediately vital. He may have nicked her diaphragm or even a lung – things Kari knew just enough about to understand their importance – and Kari wasn’t sure her limited healing power was strong enough to help. She realized then that Seanada’s eyes were open, and the half-syrinthian was drowsy and in a good deal of pain, no matter how well she tried to hide it.
