by Phil Tucker
Erenthil’s eyes glittered, and then he smiled. “Very well. I am. Solemna, return to Haugabrjótr and tell the council that it must prepare for war. They will be aiding the Empire in this battle.”
“Yes, master,” Solemna said, ducking her head once more. “As you command.”
“Come, Magister,” Erenthil said, extending his hand. “Let us pay your Ascendant a visit. It’s been centuries since last I spoke with one. Let us hope this iteration proves more open-minded than the last.”
Audsley looked to his firecat. “Aedelbert, it’s time we depart. Could you please come?”
Aedelbert let out a chirp and glided down to land on Audsley’s shoulder, claws digging through the fabric of his robe.
Audsley took Erenthil’s hand. The man’s skin was paper-smooth, like a very old woman’s. To Solemna, Erenthil said, “Please tell my men to return to Aletheia immediately. I’ll be waiting for them there.”
She nodded as she climbed to her feet.
“ Now,” said Erenthil. “We go.”
And the world fell away as Audsley and Aedelbert were swept up into the dark.
CHAPTER 24
Asho
Asho felt a shiver run through him. Battle promised release, an end to confusion, frustration, pain, desolation, depression. It was a crucible into which he could throw himself and emerge purified, a means to avoid that which he could not resolve. Even if this battle meant his death, it was better than watching Kethe choose to support the Empire and live a lie.
“Listen up!” he barked, and he realized he sounded just like Tiron. “All those meals and baths and time to put your feet up and relax? They’re gone. The hordes of the Black Gate have come knocking, and you need to decide right now, what you’re going to do about it.”
It took effort, but he squared his shoulders and moved to where he’d deposited the chests and sacks he’d taken from the torture chamber.
One of the men, a wraith of bones and skin, stared at him with burning eyes. “I can’t stand, you jackass. How the hell am I going to fight?”
“Not by standing,” Asho said, pulling up one of the sacks. The pain and weakness were receding in the face of his battle fever. “You’re going to take one of these” – he pulled out a gatestone spike – “or one of these” – he pulled out a vial of black formula – “and fill yourself with power. And with that power, you’re going to burn demons with a flame that’ll come from deep inside your ruined souls.”
“Rot and black piss,” said Sigi. “We ain’t never thrown fire before.”
“Neither had I, till only a few months back.” Asho ignored Kethe’s beseeching stare. He took up the spike and examined its tip. “But you learn fast when your life’s at stake. Like it is now.”
“You want me to hammer that in?” asked Arnulf, the gaunt Ennoian giant.
“No need,” said Asho. “This should work.”
“Asho, don’t,” Kethe interrupted.
He placed the tip against the same spot where Athanasius had hammered it into him before, held it steady with both hands at the base, then knelt and fell forward onto the ground. The violence of his fall caused the spike to punch straight into him.
His whole body went rigid. The world fell away, a rushing roar filled his ears, and he felt everything shake as if the very fabric of the world were protesting his presence. Dimly, he was aware of rolling on the floor, drumming his heels and making choking sounds, but it was distant and unimportant. From the spike radiated pulses of pure power. They rushed through him, burning him like dry kindling, lifted him up and blasted him out of his mind. How long he lay there, he wasn’t sure, but when he opened his eyes at last, he was surrounded by concerned faces. Kethe was crouched beside him, holding him up.
“I’m fine,” he said, and rose up off the floor. He inhaled deeply and spun slowly in place, holding the energy in, though he wanted to release it, all of it, in a great torrent of fire. “That’s me. Who’s next?”
“You’re mad,” Elias said, his ravaged face open with wonder and disbelief.
“Perhaps. But it’s the kind of mad that’s going to send me out there to tear demons to pieces. Who’s coming?”
“Damn it,” Elias groaned.
He slid down off his friend and hobbled over to the sack. There, he pulled out a formula, popped the cork, raised the tube in a trembling hand, then downed the contents with convulsive fervor.
For a moment, nothing happened, and then his shoulders hitched, his head snapped back, and he exhaled a cloud of black mist. He hacked a terrible cough, then moaned deeply, a sensual, ecstatic sound that caused Asho to grin.
“That’s it,” Asho said. “Feel that burn. Feel it scouring your innards, setting your blood on fire. Hold it in, and when you see your first demon, let it out and melt his face off.”
“Yes,” said Elias, and without help he climbed to his feet. He stood with his shoulders hunched and his hair hanging over his face, a dangerous grin on his cracked lips. “Oh, yes.”
Others stepped up. Asho knew he should stay with them, guide them, guard them, shepherd them into battle, but that was asking too much. He had to release this energy. He had to blaze like a star.
“Asho,” said Kethe.
He looked at her and felt nothing. A tremendous amount of dark energy was pulsing through their conduit into her. Asho reached out and severed their connection.
“There,” he said. “Now you can focus on what you’ve got to do. Good luck.”
“Good luck?” Her voice was faint, but rising to outrage. “Good luck?”
“It’s all we can hope for,” he replied. He began to float backwards. “It’s all we’ve got left.”
He spun around and streaked out of the chamber, flying with such terrible speed down the corridor that he burst out into the open air like a bolt from a crossbow. Arms at his sides, eyes slitted, he flew out over the plaza and into the void.
A thousand demons were hanging in the sky in front of him, dragons slicing through their ranks and disappearing every few seconds only to reappear in completely different positions.
Asho’s eyes widened at the sight. The sky was darkening, and was made even darker by the mass of leathery hides and wings that were coming his way. Demons of all shapes and sizes were flying toward Aletheia, ranging from lithe, sexless creatures the size of a child to vast, brutal monstrosities with porcine heads. Here and there, he saw majestic men with wings of fire and recognized them for what they were: demons of the same ilk as those he’d fought outside Mythgræfen.
He was going to die here. He was going to die any second, but he didn’t care. The pain that had nearly broken him burst out of him accompanied by a wild laugh, and he extended his sword before him and enclosed it in black flame.
“For the Black Wolves!”
Demons popped into view all around him, materializing out of nothing. Asho speared straight down as the space where he’d been filled with flame, and then flipped over onto his back and unleashed hell.
Fire cauterized the sky, a great swath a dozen yards long, flaring up three or four times that far. The roar was shocking, and he saw scores of demons twist and burn in its black-hot center.
Asho laughed, intoxicated with power. More demons were appearing around him, clawing toward him, their open maws spewing flame. Asho rose into the sky, spinning rapidly with his sword extended so that it blurred in circles around him, and where it passed he unleashed a whirlwind of ebon flame.
The screams of the demons followed him up. Their ruined bodies fell to the cloud cover below, and then a huge demon appeared before him, easily some ten yards tall, a wall of muscle and scarred hide, each clawed hand large enough to close around his chest. Its head was that of a wolf, blistered and cut by the ragged wires that had been bound around its skull. It extended a palm and poured flame all over him.
Asho screamed and punched through the center of the fire, gritting his teeth against the pain and hurling himself right at the demon. The tip of his blade
punctured its hide, then the whole of his sword slid home and Asho himself collided with its chest, his whole body flickering and encased in flame.
He felt the demon’s essence raging around him, as wild and fierce as a forest fire. Asho reached into its core, grasped the demon’s energy, and inhaled it violently into himself. There was a roar of defiance that bled into panic, and then the demon’s power sluiced into him and the monster was gone.
Asho screamed his defiance, his body pulsing and burning with the surfeit of power, and then more demons were upon him. All thought went away. He was nothing but an instrument to be wielded by his power. Flame extended from the tip of his blade like a whip, lashing across the sky and bisecting the demons that were within its reach.
Attacks came from both sides, from behind, from above and below. Asho reacted, adjusted, but up and down ceased to have meaning. Sometimes Aletheia was to his side, then above him, then down. The clouds swirled, and some of his foes were upside down; others were facing him laterally as if they were standing on a wall of air.
Asho spun, ducked, darted forward, hurled himself back. When the demons became too concentrated, he broke free and turned to cover his retreat with fire.
There was no end to them. Demons continued to appear all around him, unleashing flames of their own, diving in to claw at him from all angles. A blast of demonic fire threatened to engulf him, and he threw up his hand and flung fire right back at it, neutralizing the attack and then burning the demon to ashes.
With his whole body aching, he fought on, ignoring the wounds, the exhaustion and growing nausea. Then the onslaught parted, falling back, and Asho saw one of the mightier demons flying toward him with great, ponderous beatings of its wings of fire. Its wingspan had to be a dozen yards across, and the sight was both terrible and beautiful to behold.
Asho knew this creature, this demon. It was a brother to the one he’d killed with Kethe and Audsley outside Mythgræfen, the lord of the Black Shriving. Its body was that of an aristocratic man cloaked in elegant robes of black and silver.
Asho floated back as the great demon closed on him. He put his hand over the spike in his chest and felt a jolt of cold fear. It was nearly gone.
Entertaining, said the demon, its voice echoing like boulders shifting with the depths of a ravine. Try your tricks on me, human.
“I’ve killed your kind before,” Asho said, panting for breath.
The demon arched a brow. Its burning wings filled the sky, blotted out the clouds. Unlikely. But if that is so, I welcome the challenge all the more. Come: let us rain your blood upon the land below.
Then it opened its mouth and spewed a geyser of livid white fire that shot toward Asho with horrific speed. Even with his enhanced reflexes, he was only able to partially turn away, and the flame tore across his chest and shoulder, knocking him away.
Asho screamed, then bit down on the pain. The last of his power quickly went to mending his body; he looked at his shoulder and saw gray, seared flesh and the white glint of bone. All feeling was gone from that arm.
He exerted his will and arrested his fall, turning to see the great wings of flame come closer as the demon plunged down after him, trailed by its laughter.
Asho screamed again and threw up a hand, unleashing a blast of his fire, but the demon batted it aside as if he’d thrown a fistful of sand instead.
A dozen shapes fell upon the demon from above, descending with haphazard grace. Asho’s eyes flared open with shock at the sight of the ragged attackers: the Sin Casters. Their cries of terror and determination were carried to him by the howling wind. Many of them fell with cartwheeling arms, kicking their legs, while a few others descended with more aplomb.
The demon didn’t see them coming. It snapped its wings open wide, sending a shower of sparks out into the twilight, and opened its maw to spew fresh hell upon Asho’s upturned face.
The Sin Casters extended their arms and threw fire at the demon. At least, they tried; half of them were unable to do more than cause flickers of black fire to wreath their hands as they fell past their foe. The others lambasted it with short whips of flame, scoring its hide and opening furrows in its flesh. Then they were past it, some of them yelling in panic as they sought to arrest their fall, others managing to slow and then wobble off to the sides as if they were balancing on barrels.
The demon was clawing at the side of its face where an errant flame had blinded an eye. Asho summoned the last of his reserves and threw his blade at the demon, imbuing it with everything he had left. It flew like a bolt of black lightning and smote the demon in the neck. It sheared halfway through and there it stuck, eliciting a howl of pain that quickly became a gurgle. The demon clutched at its throat and then was gone.
Asho fought for air, fought to fly, but he had nothing left to give. Had he used the spike so quickly? What of the energy he’d stolen from that demon? For a moment he hung there, and then his vision began to darken. He clawed at the air, fighting for purchase as terror filled his belly with ice, and then the last of his power gave out and he fell.
CHAPTER 25
Tiron
YOUR FRIEND IS IN NEED, rumbled Draumronin.
“What?” Tiron cast around, saw flashes of flame far below. A dozen or more people were assailing a demon with black fire. One of them, a man with white hair, cast his sword at their foe, nearly slaying it, then fell.
“There!”
Draumronin wheeled wildly, narrowly averting a collision with a wall of talons, then put on a burst of speed and dove under a phalanx only to roll and slip away from the maelstrom.
A second later, they were plummeting after Asho’s limp form. Tiron clutched with his thighs and leaned out, searching the Bythian’s body for signs of wounds, anything that could have knocked him from the sky in such a manner.
He found nothing.
Draumronin extended a great claw and plucked Asho from the air.
A scream sounded close by, growing fainter by the second. A man was trying to climb the wind, his mouth a gaping void, his eyes rolling in terror.
“What the hell?” Tiron whispered, then nudged Draumronin with his mind.
The black dragon wheeled, slipped through space, appeared above the falling man and snatching him up in turn.
Two more men were falling just beyond the first, so Draumronin flickered through the air and caught them in turn with its rear claws. Tiron saw others, each of them looking as if they should be begging on a streetcorner in Ennoia instead of flying among demons, but they were working their way back up, flying back to Aletheia in fits and starts.
A second later, the howling wind was silenced as they appeared over the Ascendant’s palace, curving down in a dangerous glide to skim over the abandoned refugee camp. When they were close to the ground, Draumronin released the men. As one, they fell and rolled and came to a stop.
“Damn it,” hissed Tiron. He wanted to leap down and check the Bythian, but he couldn’t abandon the fight. “Can you tell if he’s alive?”
HE LIVES, said the dragon, gliding over the camp toward the palace. WE HAVE GREATER CONCERNS.
“What?”
A tall, elegant form of black sinew rose into view from behind the palace, devoid of wings and with fire raging within its exposed ribcage. Its huge bone horns swept up imperiously toward the sky, and its smooth carapace of a face was lit only by the hellholes that were its eyes. Flutes of black bone extended from its shoulders and back, looking like nothing so much as giant blades embedded in its body, seared to ebon by the fire that spat and streamed in its wake.
SHE IS THERE, said Draumronin.
“What?” Tiron was hurriedly drawing a lance. “Who? Where?”
THE MISTRESS OF THE CIRCLET.
Tiron leaned forward as he swung the lance around and stared at the demon.
There.
Hovering in the heart of the flames, deep within that impossible inferno, hung a silhouette, slender, almost insignificant, but assuredly there. Zephyr was encased
within the ur-destraas’ chest, bathed in flame, protected and shielded by the great demon’s body.
“Shite,” Tiron said, sitting back. “How the hell we supposed to get the circlet off her now?”
The ur-destraas floated up over the palace, one knee slightly raised, arms extended out to the sides. Though it was featureless, Tiron felt a sense of malevolent delight coming off the demon in waves.
“Bastard thinks it’s going to win,” said Tiron.
YES.
“Let’s wipe that grin off its face, then. Better yet, let’s crack its head open and give it one.”
Draumronin’s response was to rear its head up high and open its huge maw so that a vast and shattering roar issued forth. Tiron felt the dragon’s body shake from the force of the challenge, saw tents sway before them, saw several topple. Draumronin powered forward, each wingbeat thrusting it a score of yards through the air.
The ur-destraas turned its palms toward the sky, and a dozen snakes of flame burst out of its chest. Tiron threw an arm up reflexively, but the rivers of fire didn’t shoot toward him and the dragon; instead, they played across the palace roof, incinerating the building as they scored horrific wounds across its structure. The roof collapsed wherever the flames touched down, and horrified screams rose like mist from the building’s interior.
A massive, dark-skinned kragh emerged onto the rooftop, wielding a blade of white fire. To Tiron’s disbelief, the kragh began to race toward the demon.
“Tharok? What the hell is he –”
The kragh warlord leaped, blade held with both hands behind his head, his roar audible even at this remove. The ur-destraas didn’t turn to him. Instead, a snake of flame came whipping around and smashed into Tharok’s side. Tiron winced, expecting the brave kragh to be incinerated, but at the last moment a sphere of white light encased the warlord. The serpent of flame smashed into the sphere and sent the kragh smashing back down onto the roof and out of sight.
