by Lee Dunning
“I didn’t recognize you without your ruffle collar, Baez,” W’rath said, fairly certain of his guess. “I’m shocked a demon of your stature would get caught up in a binding like this.”
The words enraged the demon. He ripped bloody gashes across his host’s body, and bellowed so fierce, the smoke cleared away from the area. W’rath thought his eardrums would burst, but ignored the pain and used the time to think. Baez had run the household. W’rath had ignored him as much as possible. Baez had presented himself as such a fussy, prissy little toad, W’rath had considered him mostly harmless. Yet another spectacularly poor judgment call to add to the list.
Baez regained control and took a menacing step toward the Shadow Elf. “You have Him to thank for your foppish manners, your education, and your skill with magic. He gave you everything, and then you destroyed him. When you did that, you brought me down too, reduced to me what you see here—a pathetic shadow.”
“Do stop, you’ll make me weep. If I hadn’t actually known the fellow, I would be aghast at my terrible betrayal,” W’rath said, wiping away a nonexistent tear. “Despite his fine table manners, I have never known a more vile, loathsome being. I only tolerated him as long as I did, because I had to learn from him in order to kill him. I’ve had a very long life, riddled with regrets and poor choices, but slaughtering Ruaz’Daem is one thing I look back on with pride.”
Predictably, Baez went berserk, and hurled himself at W’rath. W’rath smirked. One thing Baez had right, Ruaz’Daem had taught him how to harness his magical affinity, well beyond the parlor tricks he’d managed while still among the elves. At the time, he’d stung with disappointment when he’d learned his strengths lay in defensive casting rather than fire like his father. But now he was glad of it as he rattled off a series of syllables, and a shield flared up, ending Baez’s charge in a painful crunch. W’rath dropped the shield and launched himself at the demon, tumbling over its prone body, his blade seeking a vital organ so he could end things quickly.
Baez proved to have a few tricks of his own. Sacrificing one of his host’s arms, he spoiled W’rath’s killing blow. He rolled toward W’rath, his severed arm flopping away. When the elf spun to face him the demon blinded him with arterial spray.
W’rath gasped and staggered back, his weapon coming up in a defensive position while he dragged a sleeve across his eyes. The attack didn’t come from Baez, though, but from behind. Too late, W’rath tried to spin free, but two pairs of arms wrapped around him and held him fast. One attacker pinned his arms to his sides and lifted from the ground, while the other grappled his legs. Both demons crushed with all of their might, and W’rath felt his bones would shatter into dust. He tried desperately to break free, but he had neither the strength nor the leverage to do more than squirm.
Blinking through the stinging blood, W’rath glared murder at Baez. “You’re host is dying, you fool,” he snarled. “You’ll bleed to death in a minute, and your friends here shall be lost without your dubious leadership.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Baez said. His bloody smile made all the more obscene by the flopping lower lip. “I have enough time to get revenge on you, and that alone will sustain me for a millennia in the Abyss. You see, while I watched you fight earlier, I thought, how strange, a Shadow Elf male fighting without using psionics. Once I recognized your fighting style, I knew I had found you. Such a curiosity, though, the most powerful psion I’ve ever known relying entirely on his swordsmanship.
“I’m thinking all those years in the Abyss did something to you, and you can’t use your mind magic on this plane. You’re just a runt with a sharp stick now. No teleporting free of my minions, or making our heads explode. So, now you can watch while I kill something you love, and I can leave this place knowing I’ve done to you what you did to me.”
Love? What did a demon know of such things? For that matter, what did he understand about a concept foreign to the place he’d called home for the majority of his life? “I’m fairly certain I’m not capable of that emotion,” he told the demon.
Baez snorted his skepticism and turned toward Raven, Foxfire and the cluster of fallen humans. He staggered, blood still pumping from his terrible wound. With a word, fire danced along his fingertips and Baez scorched the stump of his arm to stop the bleeding. “You’re right, this body won’t last much longer. Humans are more fragile than I’d realized, so we’d best get this over with. Shall I simply drop acid fire on the whole lot of them? Or should I give some special attention to one in particular?”
W’rath didn’t say a word. He’d hoped K’hul and Kiat would finally get reinforcements sent to them. While he wasn’t a caster of Kiat’s level, he felt certain the mage could divine their whereabouts now that the royal tent no longer blocked his spell. K’hul might rejoice at his death, but surely the great lout wouldn’t sacrifice Raven and Foxfire, as well? And while W’rath didn’t think K’hul cared for humans any more than he did, he didn’t think the First Born would throw away the opportunity to interrogate the mercenary mage.
The fact remained, no one had arrived to help them. The reasons didn’t matter. They had to survive on their own, and he was the only of one still in any condition to fight back. Baez was right, though. Ten thousand years spent in the Abyss had attuned him to that plane. His mind burned far stronger there than here, in the world of his birth. However, the demon’s hypothesis that W’rath could no longer use his powers at all, was wrong. Despite the injury he had given himself, he hadn’t burnt himself out like Raven. The power still coiled there, he could feel it. But he could also feel the sharp claws of pain, warning him of the price he would pay if he exerted himself before he fully recovered.
As Baez bent over to drag a filthy finger along Raven’s jaw, W’rath knew he could not heed those warnings. He might not have the capacity for love, but he understood loyalty to one’s comrades. Not once had he ever left one of his people behind during a mission. He would not start now.
The Shadow Elf’s two captors stared in confusion at their empty arms. They started to bellow a warning, but stopped, gawking. Baez still crouched over the female Shadow Elf, but instead of leering in anticipation, he gaped in horror at the small, dark figure who had appeared out of thin air in front of him. The Shadow Elf made a flicking gesture with his fingers and the demon’s head vaporized. He then turned back to his former captors and gave them a tight smile. “When next you see Baez, tell him I find his gloating in poor taste.”
That was all the warning W’rath gave them before their brains erupted, sending skull and gray matter into the filthy air. Their empty bodies collapsed, the evil spirits which had inhabited them, sent screaming back to the Abyss.
W’rath stood over Raven, barely able to think, pain tearing at his mind. Blood ran from ears and nose. The world reeled. He fell to his knees, his legs no longer able to hold him. Instead, he focused on the renewed fury of the wildfire, eating up the plains. Baez must have held back the fire so he could toy with his prey. With the demon gone, and fresh fuel to feed them, the flames came at them with deadly speed. If the lack of air didn’t kill them, the flames certainly would. Even with his father’s First Born blood running through him, W’rath didn’t think he could survive the sustained fury of the flames for long. Could nothing go right this day?
K’hul, wherever you are, I hope some demon rams a fist right up your tightly clenched ass.
He collapsed on top of Raven, and with the last of his strength, reached out to lay a hand on Foxfire. His mind burning as if the wildfire already had a grip on him, he pushed himself on last time, and they vanished from the field.
An explosion of displaced air and a vibrant cerulean light announced the opening of a portal. Through it poured fifty pure casters and chain-clad sword magi. “Get this damned fire out!” Lady Swiftbrook ordered, and a localized deluge of rain poured from the skies, drowning the fire for a half mile around.
Bodies littered the ground. “Find our people! Quickly!” she yelled over th
e roar of the rain. Her stomach twisted in dread. It had taken too long to get here.
“We have the mage!” someone called.
The Sky Elf councilor marched over to the voice. Lady Sera, one of their finest healers, knelt next to the human mage, the man writhing in agony, nothing left of his legs from the knees down. “Acid fire,” Lady Sera said by way of explaining the horrific injury. “Should I heal him?” Her tone implied she really had no desire to assist the man who had helped bring demons to the field.
“We still need to question him,” Lady Swiftbrook replied. “He’s the main reason Raven, W’rath and Foxfire,” she couldn’t finish. The healer grimaced but nodded.
Lady Swiftbrook turned away to continue searching for other survivors. Already the ground was turning into a quagmire. A large group of bodies lay up ahead and more healers worked, trying to revive them. She slogged in that direction, hoping for good news and nearly fell when she tripped over a mud-covered corpse.
Decapitated. Her lip curled in revulsion even as the more analytical part of her brain noted there didn’t appear to be a head to go with the body. Nearby, sprawled two more corpses in the same condition. Damned peculiar, but they weren’t elves, so the mystery of their deaths would have to wait.
As she got close to the laboring healers, a smaller figure detached from them and approached Lady Swiftbrook. Kela.
“They’re not here,” she said.
“That’s impossible. The fire would have prevented any escape. They have to be here somewhere.”
Kela cocked a thumb toward the group of rescuers and rescued. “Those are all humans. The thrice-damned king is one of them. There’s a woman, a child, and four other men. That’s it.”
“Will they live?”
Kela made an unhappy grunt in reply. Lady Swiftbrook took that to mean ‘unfortunately’ in Wood Elf.
Lady Swiftbrook started toward the humans. “Only the yellow-haired man and the woman speak our tongue,” Kela called. “I already asked. They have no idea what happened to our people.”
Damn it! Lady Swiftbrook’s hands clenched. She was glad of the rain, certain she was about to weep from frustration and guilt.
“Councilor!” She turned toward the voice, and out of the gloom one of her sword magi rushed up to her. She couldn’t even recognize him, the mud coated him so thoroughly. “We’ve found them, ma’am.”
“Where?” She looked over his shoulder, expecting to see another cluster of Sky Elves dragging their smaller cousins from the mud.
“Lady,” the soldier said, touching her arm.
She gazed at him, suddenly full of dread, but found his muddy face full of wonder instead of despair. “Lady,” he said, “they’re safe. They found them back at First Home.”
Chapter 15
Standing in the dark, dank confines of Oblund’s throne room, Lady Swiftbrook contemplated her soldier’s earlier words to her on the sodden battlefield. Safe was a relative term, she told herself. Instead of dealing with the situation in front of her, her mind kept returning to W’rath and Raven. Foxfire had recovered quickly, thank the ancestors. Actually, thanks to W’rath. Certainly not thanks to K’hul. She’d run out of curse words for that one. She ground her teeth and fought the urge to have someone open a portal for home. She settled for pacing the grey stone room with its crude wall hangings—a caged and anxious animal.
The remnants of King Oblund’s court had aged beyond their years. They gathered at a long oaken table, surrounded by rough hewn chairs, huddled together like starlings on a winter’s day. The combination of the demon’s single-minded ferocity and the elves’ devastating magic had left them so broken, the majority did little more than weep or stare blankly at their conquerors. Unfortunately, a handful dealt with their defeat by pretending it hadn’t happened. Obnoxiously aggressive, they refused to make decisions regarding the welfare of their people.
She tried to feel empathy. The elves, too, had just survived a terrible defeat. The humans had lost family, friends, and nearly all of their subjects. Not only had an enemy, supposedly beneath them, risen up to crush them, they now faced the realization their king was both fallible and heinous enough to betray them without the slightest pang of conscience. Yes, she tried to take pity upon them, but after hours of their idiocy, all she had left in her was disgust.
And boredom. Lady Swiftbrook let her mind wander back to when they had marched into Teresland’s capital city. The citizens had lined the streets, bewildered and frightened, some clutching rocks or vegetables, intending to hurl them at the invaders. But the missiles remained in hands, or were quietly dropped to the ground. Perhaps the people of Teresland had expected an army of small, disheveled Wood Elves. Instead, hundreds of towering, armor-clad Sky Elves and First Born marched into their city, many surrounded by flaming auras.
Foxfire had suggested the auras. He felt a simple act of showmanship would intimidate the average citizen, preventing them from committing any foolish acts. While Lady Swiftbrook found it hard to comprehend that a people could spend their lives bereft of even the smallest of cantrips, Foxfire’s prediction proved accurate. The elves passed through the city unmolested. Even the small contingent of soldiers left to keep an eye on things during the king’s absence, gave them no trouble. They took one look at the magical host and either fled or surrendered. The fortified castle fell to the elves without a single arrow fired.
We have it—now what do we do with it?
Kela strode up to her and made one of her small, angry animal noises. “We wouldn’t have to deal with this mess if we had stuck to our original plan,” she groused.
“A great deal changed when we learned we faced Riders instead of mundane humans,” Lady Swiftbrook said. She didn’t know why she bothered trying to explain. Kela seethed, full of anger since the battle. She was understandably furious at K’hul and Kiat for failing to evacuate their people, but her ire did not stop there. The wildfire itself had sent her on a verbal rampage. When Lady Swiftbrook pointed out nearly every spell cast by a First Born or a Sky Elf in combat involved fire, lava, wind or lightning, Kela’s face went purple with rage. Reminding her that the Wood Elves had asked for the help of their fiery cousins only added to her anger.
For a moment, Lady Swiftbrook had thought Kela would savage her like a wolverine. In the end, she spun herself up into a foaming fury and punched one of the unfortunate human nobles blocking the path she chose for her exit.
“Yes, I know,” Kela grunted, more civilly this time around. She tracked Foxfire as he approached the priest, Ungren, and Oblund’s queen, and started a conversation with them. “Too much jabber.”
“On that we can both agree.” Lady Swiftbrook sighed. Originally, she’d thought to step in and handle negotiations with the humans. A few breaths into the conversation she’d realized she was ill-equipped to do anything constructive with them. She didn’t understand them in the least. Kiat’s language spell made their words understandable, but still, as a people, she found them utterly incomprehensible.
“I heard a strange rumor about you and one of theirs. Some form of alliance?”
Lady Swiftbrook made some sputtering sounds of her own. “As best I could understand, he expected me to cleave myself to one of their nobles for the sake of a political treaty. He seemed under the impression I came here to present myself as chattel for one of these alliances.”
“He thought you wanted to enslave yourself to one of them?” Kela gaped. Her eyes, normally large anyway, grew to the size of robin’s eggs.
“I don’t think what I wanted interested him. He directed all of his words to K’hul. When I had the audacity to insert myself into the conversation, he sputtered like a broken gnome clockwork.”
“Did you kill him?”
“What? No! Of course not. I did realize we don’t have enough in common for me to work with them on restructuring their kingdom. I didn’t want to give K’hul a chance to make progress with them, but his angry bellowing means more to them than anything I’
ve tried.”
“If you’d killed the human, those who still lived would have seen things your way,” Kela said, thrusting her chin out.
“Yes, probably,” the Sky Elf conceded. “As angry as it made me, though, I didn’t feel it warranted murder.”
“If it had moved things along, it would have been worth it.”
That brought a small smile to Lady Swiftbrook’s lips. She watched the animated conversation between Foxfire and the two humans. For the life of her, she couldn’t understand how Foxfire could stand to deal with them. Perhaps, after the events on the battlefield, he had good reason to seek out the humans. His own people had certainly let him down.
Unfortunately, that reminder dredged up the grisly imagery Foxfire had described. The thought of Raven’s terrible wounds made it difficult for Lady Swiftbrook to draw breath. Foxfire said he’d woken to find Raven’s right leg completely skeletonized, the flesh from her right hip and hands mostly dissolved as well. Nothing but bone and a few tendons remained. The same acid fire that had eaten away the mage’s legs was to blame, and while it no longer actively consumed Raven’s flesh, it interfered with her ability to heal. It took a team of healers to remove remnants of the foul stuff so she could begin to regenerate.
Despite the appalling extent of Raven’s wounds, no major internal organs had suffered damage. As an elf, she could regenerate all she’d lost. Of far greater concern was W’rath’s condition. When Foxfire had left the infirmary, to return to the mainland, the psion still lay unconscious, bleeding from his nose, ears, and eyes. Of all the injuries an elf could sustain, those to the brain or heart had the greatest chance of proving fatal.
Once Lady Sera, First Home’s finest healer, had done what she could for the captured mercenary’s injuries, she left him in the care of two subordinates and returned home to tend to W’rath. As much as they hoped to get information from the mage concerning the attack on Second Home, they had to face the possibility he possessed no such knowledge. W’rath’s welfare came first, and Lady Sera understood the delicate nature of the brain. Lady Swiftbrook prayed it would be enough. Once again she found herself wishing she could simply flee Teresland, go back home, and somehow will W’rath to come back to them.
