Mask of Spells (Mask of the Demonsouled #3)

by Jonathan Moeller

  Adalar nodded and joined Earnachar, Basjun, Crouch, Sigaldra, and Romaria. Timothy went to join Mazael, and the Lord of Castle Cravenlock and the wizard turned, walking along the lip of the valley towards the tumbling waterfall. Romaria’s scouting had revealed a narrow path that clung to the cliff’s face, threading its way behind the waterfall.

  “Follow me,” said Romaria, lifting her Elderborn bow. It was a large weapon, the staff nearly five feet tall, and sturdy enough that Adalar had seen her use it as a cudgel when necessary. He drew the Dark Elderborn sword from its scabbard over his shoulder and fell in next to Sigaldra, while Basjun and Earnachar brought up the back. Crouch walked at his master’s side in silence.

  “Now what?” said Adalar.

  “This way,” said Romaria, and she led the way in the opposite direction from the waterfall, circling to a path that led down to the valley. Another patch of pine trees stood on either bank of the stream. The remaining valgasts waited at the base of the waterfall, not far from the yawning mouth of a cavern in the cliff face. Adalar wasn’t sure why they had decided to wait until sundown to enter the underworld, but it looked as if they were arguing about what to do next. Maybe they hadn’t actually expected to capture the woman in the red coat.

  “Your dog is well-trained, young Basjun,” said Earnachar. For some reason, he always called Basjun “young Basjun,” but fortunately the Skuldari man did not mind. “He is quiet upon the hunt.”

  “Thank you, sir,” said Basjun. “It is necessary to train animals carefully in the vales of Skuldar. The smell of the hunting spiders of Weaver’s Vale upsets most animals, so the hounds must be trained not to fear the odor.”

  “Do not the priests and priestesses of Marazadra take offense?” said Sigaldra. “I thought those wretched spiders are sacred to Marazadra.”

  “They are,” said Basjun, “though fortunately, the priests take a practical view of such matters. If we slay a hunting spider in self-defense, then the spider was not a proper vessel of the goddess’s power.”

  “Practical indeed,” said Adalar in a dry voice.

  “It is different for the soliphages, though,” said Basjun, and he shook his head, his black beard scratching against his chest. “The priests say the soliphages are the messengers of the goddess, the angels of Marazadra, and to resist them is a crime.” He scowled. “When the soliphages emerge from their caverns in search of prey, most do not resist, and allow themselves to be taken to their death.”

  Adalar saw Sigaldra's expression tighten. No doubt she remembered her own ordeal at the hands of a soliphage in Weaver’s Vale. For a moment he felt the overwhelming urge to put his arm around her shoulders, but he suppressed it. They were in too much danger, and she would have been furious to show any weakness in front of Earnachar.

  “That is hard to imagine,” said Sigaldra. “To surrender meekly to such a terrible fate.”

  “That is why my father and I have joined the secret church, along with many others,” said Basjun. “The Amathavian gods are kinder. Perhaps in time all of Skuldar can be freed of the blight of the goddess and her soliphages.”

  “Perhaps,” Romaria called over her shoulder, “but if the valgasts kill us first, none of us will live to see it. Keep quiet. The valgasts have keen ears, and I do not want to be discovered.”

  Adalar nodded and kept walking, his eyes scanning the path for any sign of foes. He wondered if the valgasts had put out sentries, but it seemed the creatures had not done so. Perhaps they mistakenly believed themselves safe. Or perhaps they wanted to keep an eye on the woman in the red coat who had killed so many of them.

  They descended into the pine woods. Romaria moved like a silent shadow between the trees, her boots making no sounds against the pine needles covering the ground. Adalar envied her that. Basjun moved quietly enough, as did Crouch, but Adalar and Earnachar made more noise than he would have liked, thanks to the weight of their armor and weapons.

  Yet the valgasts still did not notice.

  They came to the edge of the trees, and Romaria gestured for them to take cover. Adalar ducked behind a mossy boulder wedged between a pair of pine trees, Sigaldra settling next to him. Her shoulder brushed his arm, and a little jolt went through him, and he took a deep breath. Sigaldra looked up at him, mouthing the word “sorry” in silence. Perhaps she thought that she had jostled him.

  Adalar smiled at her, and then regarded the valgasts.

  They had not bothered to form a proper camp and stood in clumps around the stream flowing from the waterfall. Adalar had the impression they were tired, and some of them looked a little scorched. The four valgast wizards stood around the bound woman, who sat upon the ground with her wrists and ankles tied. One of the valgast wizards held her leash, gesturing with its free hand as it snarled and hissed in the valgast tongue. Adalar wasn’t sure, but it looked as if the four wizards were having an argument.

  There were fifty valgast warriors around the wizards. Maybe, Adalar thought, with the aid of Mazael and the others, they might have been able to take the warriors. But when the four wizards threw their powers into the fray, they would quickly decide the course of the battle.

  “Ah,” breathed Romaria.

  There was satisfaction in her voice.

  She squatted next to Adalar and Sigaldra. “Most of the wizards’ power is going in a ward around the woman, a spell to hold her power at bay. They won’t be able to bring their magic to bear against us without releasing the ward.”

  “Lord Mazael was right, then,” said Adalar. “We can take them.”

  “He’s usually right about this kind of thing,” said Romaria, her blue eyes flashing as she smiled. They often flashed that way when she talked about Mazael. Adalar remembered Earnachar’s mutters about the she-wolf of Castle Cravenlock, and maybe someone like Mazael Cravenlock was the only kind of man who could tame a woman like Romaria.

  “What now?” said Earnachar, gripping his mace.

  “We wait,” said Romaria. “We’ll know when to act.”

  ###

  Mazael made his way along the narrow path, the roar of the waterfall growing louder. Timothy followed him, using the black valgast staff as a walking stick. As they drew closer, the rock path became damp and slick, and he felt the spray from the waterfall on his face. He took care with his footsteps. It would be grimly amusing to have escaped Armalast and the Veiled Mountain only to lose his balance and fall to his death on a wet path.

  Below them, the stream churned its way through the valley. The valgasts huddled on one side of the stream, surrounding their wizards and the bound woman. From this height, they looked almost like toys. To the south, Mazael saw the patch of pine trees. With luck, Romaria and the others were in position and had not run into any valgasts.

  Mazael stopped at last, the waterfall a few yards to his left, the waters churning in the stream a hundred feet below him. The mass of valgasts huddled along the stream bank, and from this height, they looked like a leprous yellow-green growth upon the ground. He drew Talon from its scabbard, memories flickering through him. Years ago, the Demonsouled Amalric Galbraith had tried to assassinate Lord Malden Roland with the aid of the San-keth archpriest Straganis, though all of them had danced upon the strings of Morebeth Galbraith. Lord Malden was dead now, and so were Lucan Mandragon and Morebeth and Amalric and so many others who had been at Knightcastle that day.

  Adalar was still alive, though, and so was Timothy…and Timothy’s spells had helped win their victory at Knightcastle.

  Perhaps they would do so again.

  “Ready?” said Mazael.

  Timothy nodded. “When I give the word, my lord.” He took a deep breath and began casting a spell, holding a crystal and a large feather with his free hand. Blue light flashed around his fingers, and a hazy blue light wrapped around Mazael.

  Suddenly he felt lighter.

  “Now,” said Timothy.

  Mazael nodded, took a deep breath, and jumped off the ledge.

  He should ha
ve plummeted to a messy death against the rocky ground below. His Demonsouled blood could heal many things, but it couldn’t heal everything, and he suspected it would fail to heal a fall from such a height. Fortunately, it didn’t matter. As it had during that long-ago battle at Knightcastle, Timothy’s magic coiled around Mazael, slowing his fall from a plummeting descent to a swift glide. He hit the ground running and sprinted forward, the stream churning to his left, the valgasts looming before him.

  It took the valgasts longer than he expected to react.

  Fortunately, by then, he was already among them.

  Talon blurred in his fist, the dark blade flashing with golden fire, and Mazael took off the head of a valgast, and then another, striding through their midst and killing with every step. The valgasts had been focused on the argument between the four wizards guarding the red-coated woman and hadn’t even noticed Mazael until he had already killed several of them.

  He wondered what the wizards had been discussing, and then forgot about it as the Demonsouled rage boiled up in his blood, filling him with strength and power. The valgasts started to recover from their surprise, and Mazael met their attack. He ducked under a volley of poisoned darts, killing another valgast as he did so, and straightened up in time to deflect the thrust of a short sword. The valgast wizards turned, starting to cast spells, and dozens of the creatures rushed at Mazael. No matter how fast or how strong his Demonsouled blood could make him, he couldn’t fight that many at once.

  A searing blast of white-hot fire shot over his shoulder and slammed into one of the valgasts. The creature ignited, fire consuming its flesh, and it went into a frantic, flailing dance before it collapsed, the stench of burnt valgast flesh filling Mazael’s nostrils. A second bolt killed another valgast, and a third clipped still another, setting its arm aflame.

  Timothy had put the staff of the slain valgast wizard to good use.

  A ripple of fear went through the valgast warriors, and they glanced in the direction of the wizards and the bound woman. As Mazael guessed, the blasts of fire had frightened them. The woman had killed dozens of them with her fire magic, a fact no doubt at the forefront of their minds. Mazael killed two more valgasts as they hesitated, and the warriors began to recover their courage as Timothy rained down more bolts of fire from the cliff.

  The arrows started to fall among the valgasts then.

  ###

  “Now,” said Romaria, raising her bow.

  Sigaldra followed suit while Adalar, Earnachar, Basjun and Crouch charged forward, Earnachar bellowing a Tervingi battle hymn at the top of his lungs while Crouch loosed a steady stream of barks. Sigaldra released one arrow, then another, and then still a third. All three of her shafts found targets, the wounded valgasts staggering back.

  She wasn’t nearly as effective as Romaria. The half-Elderborn woman shot twice as many arrows as Sigaldra, her hands a blur, her face an icy mask of concentration. Every one one of her arrows killed a valgast, even as Adalar and Earnachar and Basjun attacked. On the other side of the valgasts, Sigaldra saw Mazael cutting down their opponents, while Timothy flung blasts of fire from the ledge. The staff he had claimed must have used its power to guide the blasts because the bolts of fire never missed or went astray. Every burst of fire set a valgast alight, and that seemed to terrify the creatures more than anything else.

  Sigaldra pulled back her bow and released.

  ###

  Mazael cut down another valgast and found himself face to face with the wizards.

  The four pale creatures turned to face him, the air around their claws rippling and flickering with magic. They stood in a loose ring, and the woman sat in the center of the ring, the hood still pulled over her head. A flicker of recognition went through Mazael. For an instant, he was sure that he had seen her somewhere before, but he could not place it.

  Then the valgast wizards flung out their hands, and his full attention turned to his enemies.

  The bulk of the wizards’ power might have gone to keeping their prisoner restrained, but they still had enough strength to hit him with a blast of invisible force. The spell struck Mazael and flung him to the ground with enough force to break bones. Gray mist swirled at the valgast wizards’ feet, and a creature of the spirit world leaped forth. It looked somewhat like a cougar, albeit a cougar sheathed in bony armor plates with barbed tentacles rising from its shoulders. The creature sprang from the mist and came right at Mazael, jaws yawning wide, barbed tentacles snapping back and forth like whips.

  Mazael rolled and came to his feet, dodging the snap of the creature’s jaws and sweeping Talon before him. A sword of normal steel had a hard time wounding summoned creatures of the spirit world, but a blade of enspelled dragon talon had no such difficulty. Talon sliced off the end of the cougar’s tentacles, and the creature reared back with a scream. Mazael thrust, the tip of his sword sinking into the cougar’s throat, and again the creature stumbled. That gave him the time he needed to surge to his feet, and he drove Talon down, splitting the creature’s skull.

  It dissolved into mist, vanishing back into the spirit world.

  He whirled to face the wizards as they began another spell. This time, Mazael had the advantage, and he lashed Talon down, carving a gash that opened the nearest wizard from shoulder to hip. The valgast wizard groaned and fell as its innards fell loose, and Mazael spun to attack the next foe. The valgast wizard hopped back in a pale blur to avoid Talon’s edge, but the light vanished from its talons. The other two wizards continued their spells, drawing more power to themselves.

  As they did, the bound woman surged to her feet.

  Flames erupted from her hands, burning away the ropes around her wrists. Mazael realized that the valgast wizards had been concentrating on the spell to keep her powers at bay, and his attack had disrupted that spell.

  Now she was free to strike back.

  She thrust her right hand, and a bolt of fire erupted from her palm to strike the valgast wizard trying to evade Mazael. The heat of the spell was so intense Mazael had to take a step back, and the wizard let out a wailing scream that ended a half-second later when the fire seared the flesh from its skeleton, leaving charred bones to collapse to the ground. The remaining two wizards began new spells, but the woman attacked again, another bolt of white-hot flame turning a valgast wizard to ash.

  That was the breaking point.

  The remaining valgasts fled as one for the cave entrance below the waterfall, some of them throwing down their spears for greater speed. Romaria and Sigaldra kept shooting arrows at the retreating valgasts. Mazael expected the red-coated woman to cast another spell, but she wobbled and fell to one knee, breathing hard. Evidently burning a valgast wizard alive was hard work.

  Mazael crossed to her, reached down, and pulled away the hood.

  For a moment, pure astonishment froze him.

  He had seen this woman before, recently.

  She was about twenty-five, with black eyes, slicked-back black hair, and white teeth. Her face was remarkably beautiful, which was not surprising since she had given it to herself. The woman had called herself Mother Volaria when she had spoken with Mazael in the common room of the Guesthouse in Armalast, but “Mother Volaria” had only been the human guise of the ancient dragon Azurvaltoria, the guardian of the Veiled Mountain and the Mask of Marazadra.

  Which meant that the dragon Azurvaltoria was kneeling before him in human form.

  “You,” said Mazael, too surprised to say anything else.

  “Indeed,” said Azurvaltoria.

  “You’re dead,” said Mazael.

  “Plainly not,” said Azurvaltoria. “Your father was much more observant.”

  “My father,” said Mazael.

  His brain started to catch up with his surprise.

  He had seen the Prophetess kill Azurvaltoria in the caverns of the Veiled Mountain. Except…he hadn’t, had he? He had just assumed her death. The Prophetess’s spell had twisted Azurvaltoria’s form, causing her to shift from th
e shape of a great blue dragon, an old woman, and a young woman, cycling through the different shapes over and over again in a matter of seconds. Then the roof had started collapsing, and Mazael and the others fled for their lives. He assumed that Azurvaltoria had been killed by the Prophetess’s magic or entombed when the roof collapsed.

  Apparently, something else had happened. Why was Azurvaltoria wandering through the Skuldari mountains in human form? For that matter, how had the valgasts even captured her?

  She grimaced. “Would you…help me up? I’m afraid I have exhausted myself.”

  Mazael blinked, gripped her hand, and pulled her up. Even through the leather of his gauntlet, he felt the heat radiating from her skin.

  “All right,” said Mazael. “I think we need to talk.”

  “Plainly,” said Azurvaltoria.

  “Not here, though,” said Mazael. “Let’s be gone before the valgasts recover their nerve.”

  Azurvaltoria nodded and followed Mazael as he headed towards the pine trees.

  ###

  Timothy returned first.

  Sigaldra lowered her bow, watching as the wizard jogged to join them, the black staff in his right hand. Smoke rose from the length of the staff, though he seemed to hold it without discomfort.

  “That was an impressive light show,” said Romaria.

  “Thank you, my lady,” said Timothy. “The staff is a useful weapon. I can think of a few others times when it might have…”

  “Lord Mazael,” said Adalar, lowering his Dark Elderborn sword.

  Mazael hurried towards them, Talon in his right hand, the woman in the red coat following him. The hood had been removed, and…

  Sigaldra felt her jaw fall open. She had seen that woman before.

  “Mother Volaria?” said Basjun, astonished.

  “No,” said Romaria. “Azurvaltoria.”

  “Indeed,” said the dragon in the form of a human woman. “We meet again.”