Icy tendrils slipped into Jyllith's lungs. Xel’s defiler sucked her consciousness away. Dark crept over her in a chilling wave.
The last sound she heard was Xel's throaty laugh.
XANDER KICKED HIS HEELS into Storm’s sides.“We're close!” he shouted down the line. “Be ready for anything!”
Only moonlight lit the muddy animal trail, but Kara was less than a league ahead. She was headed for the rainforests that covered the vast majority of Rain. Those were impossible to navigate without a native guide.
Had Anylus made a deal with the Children of the Forest? Did Anylus have a guide waiting for him? Where would he take Kara?
Storm thundered down the trail, tearing up ground both muddy and pungent. A tributary of the Layn flooded the land leading up to the forest, and this animal trail was the only hard ground in the bog for leagues.
The Children of the Forest called this place the Dead Bog, and Xander knew why. This sucking mud was where they dumped the bodies of criminals, exiles, and anyone else who displeased the tribes. This bog had swallowed countless dead people.
When only a shallow ridge separated them from Kara, Xander called a halt. He dismounted and ordered the others to do the same. He felt Kara on the far side of that ridge, and she might be able to feel him.
Now for the open question. Would Kara sing at him, as she had the night he fought Anylus? Had Anylus turned her, or had Kara simply not known who Xander was? Could he simply put her to sleep?
Dynara and her legionnaires, Mat and Zell, waited with Ona. Zell was a thick-nosed man with dark hair and dark eyes, and Mat was a wiry fellow who almost looked too small to be a legionnaire. Both were trained killers, and Xander dared not underestimate them.
Once they dealt with Anylus, Xander hoped he would have enough blood to put the legionnaires to sleep. One way or the other, he was leaving with his family. He would not return Kara to a gilded prison.
“Aryn, Tania, with me.” Xander delivered orders to his dyn through mindspeak. “Erius, remain with the legionnaires. Tell Ona to shoot anything that comes over that hill and isn’t us.”
Ona had been a champion archer in her younger days, progressing so far as to travel to Tarna and compete in a royal contest. That was where she had first met King Haven and his son. Ona's glyphed arrows could core even a davenger, and Xander had glyphed the legionnaire weapons as well.
“I understand,” Erius thought back. “Please be careful!”
Xander led Aryn and Tania up the muddy hill on a very silent night. Nothing buzzed in the bog, hundreds of frogs simply ceasing their croak. Anylus knew they were coming. Xander hoped he was afraid.
He took the dream world and scribed two powerful Hands of Land. A glimmering green form waited on the other side of the ridge, walking slowly toward the forest. It was not orange, nor was it alive. It also was not Kara.
Xander had just led everyone into a trap.
“Back to the horses!” Xander thought.
A sawblade howl pierced the night and the dark sky turned blood red. The darkened bog stirred all around them as mud writhed like the sea. The dead stirred within the bog, teeth chattering, animated by demon will.
Only Balazel had such vile power.
Xander did not know whether to laugh or scream. Anylus had lured them to a Mavoureen who could raise the dead, in the middle of a bog filled with corpses. Torn could not have crafted a more insidious trap.
“To arms!” Xander sprinted for the legionnaires, Aryn and Tania with him. “Ona! Behind you!” An ape davenger splashed from the bog.
Ona turned, drew her bow, and let fly. Her glyphed arrow took the demon in the leg, sending it tumbling head over heels. Then his wife put another glyphed arrow right through its head. The davenger dropped.
Another davenger loped up the animal trail. Dynara roared and charged it, longsword glowing green with Xander's glyphs. Mat and Zell spun and stepped even with each other, shields planted and glowing spears raised.
Xander immediately saw the futility of any defense. In units, phalanxes of twelve or more, Mynt legionnaires were a devastating force on the battlefield. Two men without heavy armor were not the same, and Xander almost wished he had brought more legionnaires. Almost.
“Tania!” Xander thought. “Raise a wall!”
He did not look back to see if she listened, but the earth soon rumbled. The path through the bog rose past Xander's height, forming a narrow plateau. Even for an experienced Earther, that was quality work.
“Erius!” Xander thought. “Freeze the bog!”
“Yes sir,” Erius thought from atop their new plateau.
Xander leapt to grasp the edge and hauled himself up. He saw Erius scribing and though the mage seemed woefully slow, Xander dared not rush him. He turned to find Aryn huffing toward the raised path, Tania leaning against him. This narrow plateau had cost her a great deal of blood.
Xander grabbed Tania's hands and pulled her up as Aryn pushed from below. Xander then grabbed Aryn and dragged him up as well. A woman howled in the distance, and Xander looked up the trail to find Dynara hacking apart the davenger she had charged earlier.
“Dynara!” Xander shouted. “To us!”
Aryn walked to the edge of the plateau and ignited his staff. His flames cast shadows across the now raised plateau, but could not light the swamp beyond. Even flames would do little damage to damp bones.
Xander scribed Flaryen. He snapped his fingers and sent a brilliant light bursting skyward. His glyph illuminated the trail and the bog, revealing the risen dead. That was good, because everyone could now see them, but also bad, because there were hundreds of them.
Skeletal shapes shambled closer, covered in clinging muck and immersed waist deep. Bony legs and fleshless arms pulled spines, ribcages and skulls, yet in some places the bones were not connected at all. They simply moved, animated by Balazel's demonic will.
Fresh ice crackled across the bog, thousands of jagged lines spreading in all directions around Tania's raised plateau. That ice slowed the lumbering corpses, stuck in slush and mud. Erius dropped to his knees.
“Sir,” Erius thought, “I can't...”
One look at the man's pale, sweat-covered face told Xander Erius would be scribing no more glyphs tonight. Spending any more blood might kill him. This brave Lifewarden had done all he could.
“You did great.” Xander thumped Erius's shoulder. “Now don't die.”
Another davenger crested the rise that had hidden the fake Kara. It charged them like a galloping horse. This was one of the hound-shaped davengers, jaws wide and paws tearing up the ground. Ona put a glyphed arrow through its throat.
“Got one!” she shouted.
Xander really did love his wife.
The first of the dead reached the edge of Tania's plateau. They could not climb its sheer walls, but they could climb over each other. The massed dead clambered over each other like frenzied ants.
Zell and Mat stabbed with spears, knocking climbing dead down onto their fellows. Dynara clambered onto the plateau and turned to guard the other end, stabbing and grunting. Her glowing green blade slashed bone, and she howled in what Xander might mistake for genuine pleasure.
“What's happening?” Ona shouted. “Is it a harvenger?”
Xander grimaced as the top of a dark head crested the distant rise. “No, that's Balazel.”
The Mavoureen strode over the ridge at that very moment, all massive legs and outsized head. It sauntered down the animal trail toward Tania's plateau, sword teeth bared. It raised an arm and waved hello.
“Xander Honuron!” Balazel gnashed its sword-sized teeth. “I look forward to devouring your luscious—”
One of Ona's glyphed arrows pierced Balazel's eye, imbedding itself fletching deep in the Mavoureen's head. Balazel laughed, snatched the fletching, and ripped the arrow out. “Your delightful wife!”
The crush of dead bodies around the plateau grew. No matter how many Mat, Zell, and Dynara stabbed, more came. Aryn toss
ed flames as Tania caught her breath, holding herself in reserve until she recovered.
Xander scribed the Body of Air on his chest. He drew a deep breath. Then he blew that breath out of his body, a dome of air that boomed from the plateau and flung dead away like leaves. They splashed into the bog.
“Spectacular!” Balazel shouted. “Do that again!”
Even as dead things plopped into the bog all around the plateau, the corpses thrashed and righted themselves. These raised dead were without end and compelled by demonic will. Xander felt the others looking to him for orders, felt their desperation, but he had no orders left to give.
Every last one of them was going to die.
Chapter 25
JYLLITH OPENED HER EYES to utter darkness. She sat on hard rock and someone had bound her hands behind her. Her bent arms wrapped around a wooden post at her back.
Thick gloves covered her hands, even the broken one, so scribing anything was impossible. There was one bright spot. She did not taste any carrow root.
Water dripped nearby and that reminded Jyllith of her trip with Divad beneath Knoll Point, into the network of old mining tunnels. Where they confronted Hecata. Hecata's too-perfect face and inky black eyes filled Jyllith's thoughts. She trembled violently.
Divad had said no other demons could come through the portal beneath Knoll Point, that it would take a great deal of magesand to send even one demon — but could Jyllith trust that? Did she dare? Footsteps approached before she could decide. The dark became less dark.
A faint light filled the small, rocky chamber in which Jyllith was bound. She did not see the wall of inky black or the Mavoureen portal beyond it, and that made her breathe easier. Someone was coming with a lantern.
Jyllith closed her eyes and slumped against the post despite the pains screaming through her shoulders and back. She could not let whoever was coming know she was awake. She had to catch them unaware.
She took the dream world inside her closed lids and watched a single tall figure stride from the tunnel, holding the black stick of a torch. It had to be Xel. The question was, where was his defiler?
She spotted the defiler after a struggle, hovering paces away with inky green tendrils withdrawn. The only way the defiler would withdraw its tendrils is if Xel had ordered it to do so. Why would he do that?
Xel walked close — close enough to kick — and knelt before her, dream world face staring. Jyllith kept her breathing slow and even. What was Xel doing here, and how could Jyllith murder him?
“Open your eyes,” Xel said.
Jyllith didn't move.
“I know you're awake. You repelled my defiler, and I'm going to know how you did that.” Xel raised one dream world hand. “Open your eyes.”
Repelled his defiler? What was he talking about? Jyllith had done nothing, yet Xel's defiler hovered nearby, not forcing her to sleep. If Xel had not ordered it do that, then who could possibly...
Xel pressed the end of his torch to Jyllith's bare arm. White hot agony seared her flesh and shocked her eyes open. She howled in pain and fury. Xel smiled and stood, holding his torch aloft.
“It hurts, doesn't it?” Xel beamed down at her. “I can't say I've ever met anyone who doesn't find their tongue once they've tasted the flames. I burn, they talk, and then they burn some more.”
Agony pulsed through Jyllith's blistered arm. “What do you want?”
“Tell me how you did that.” Xel pointed at his quiescent defiler. “How did you make my defiler release you? How have you made it refuse my commands?”
“I don't know what you're talking about.”
Xel brought his torch close enough that Jyllith flinched away, craning her neck in a desperate attempt to escape the searing heat. What if he set her hair on fire?
“Will you tell me once I burn that beautiful face?” Xel’s voice grew taut with excitement.
“Wait!” Jyllith would endure any agony to stop Divad's cult and save her world, but having her face burned off would make it harder to do that. “I'll tell you how I did it!” Yet what could she say?
Xel's defiler had released her, allowed her to wake, and stopped responding to Xel’s commands. Moreover, Xel had not made his defiler do that. So what was going on? Had Jyllith's davengers every disobeyed her?
Hecata's inky black eyes filled her vision. Once again, the demon queen's terrible beauty filled her with longing. Hecata controlled defilers. She was the demoness to whom Demonkin mages traded children's souls. Hecata hated the Alcedi and everyone who served them. Was it possible...?
“I'll show you the glyph I used.” Jyllith focused on Xel's torch and trembled as if she were afraid. “But I can't do that with my hands tied.”
Xel chuckled. “You really think me so stupid?”
Jyllith knew better than to answer that. “Just tell me what you want, please! How can I show you what I did with my hands tied?”
Xel set down his torch and knelt behind her. “If you do anything I don't like, I'll paralyze you with one stroke. I know how to do that. Then I’ll show you what’s possible with a heated knife. You won’t like it.”
He drew the knife he had used to murder Calun. Jyllith wondered how Xel would look when she shoved that knife through his neck. He sawed through her bonds and her gloved hands fell free.
“Do you understand me?” Xel asked.
“I won't defy you.” Jyllith made herself as small and weak as possible. “Please, don't hurt me anymore.”
“Scribe the glyph.”
“I can't with these gloves on.”
“Honestly,” Xel said, as he slid a glove off her broken hand. “Women.”
Jyllith whimpered and cried out, not because of the pain — though that was excruciating — but because she knew it would relax Xel. He liked his women weak. He liked being in control.
Xel pressed against her from behind and touched the cold edge of his knife to her throat. “Now,” his husky voice whispered in her ear. “Scribe the glyph you used. Do it well, and I might even leave you an ear.”
“I can't scribe with a broken hand.”
“I think you can.” The cool edge of Xel’s knife bit into her neck as he relaxed, comfortable in his domination. “If you try—”
Jyllith slammed the back of her head into Xel's nose hard enough that a crack filled the chamber. The knife fell from her neck and she rolled away from the post, rising despite her bound feet. Xel gasped paces away, on the ground, clutching his broken nose. Blood poured through his fingers.
“You bitch!” Xel stumbled to his feet and brandished his knife. He charged her like a surly drunk, out of his mind with pain.
Jyllith couldn't kick him — not with her feet still bound — but he was frantic and furious and clumsy. As Xel charged Jyllith dived into him shoulder first, right past his glittering blade. Xel exhaled everything as Jyllith's shoulder smashed into his gut.
They went down together, Xel's knife clattering into the darkness. Jyllith batted his strike away and wrapped her thighs around Xel's neck. She choked the life out of him and glared as she did it. She needed to make him hurt.
Xel struggled, batting at her legs and gasping orders, but his defiler didn't respond. It didn't move. Xel's eyes grew wide and his gasps became pleas, but without orders, Xel's defiler simply watched its master die.
When Xel breathed no longer, when Jyllith had choked him so thoroughly his eyes bulged from his skull, she unclenched her aching legs. Xel's defiler vanished, called back to the Underside. Good riddance.
Jyllith fumbled at her remaining glove with her broken hand, each movement sending pain screaming through her shattered fingers. She endured, pushed, and removed the glove. A moment after that she had Xel's knife, and a moment after that she freed her bound feet.
She stood and kicked Xel hard enough to make his body jerk. Yet as she stared at this man who had planned to cut her, burn her, murder her, she remembered bodies could be useful. Xel's body was barely dead.
Jyllith knelt, slice
d all four fingers on her single working hand, and scribed Davazet on Xel's forehead. His corpse rose and purple blood ivy grew. She felt her blood thin as the gruesome process finished, but the hound davenger she created looked as healthy as those made from the living.
She wondered if she would have been able to do that to Xel if he was still alive. She hoped she would have killed him first. She hoped she had grown.
A quiet voice emerged from the tunnel. “So you're Demonkin too.”
Jyllith spun and snatched up Xel's torch.
“HOLD OFF THE DEAD AS LONG as you can,” Xander ordered his dyn. He turned on Ona and drank in every part of her. “I love you.”
Her eyes widened. “You can't.”
“Don't want to.” He took the dream world before lying to his wife one last time. “I'll be fine.”
Xander launched himself into the air with a single Hand of Breath. He sailed over the gathered dead in a controlled arc, hurtling right for Balazel.
“Xander Honuron!” Balazel raised its arms in a welcoming gesture. “Your blood smells wonderful!”
Xander's heart thumped in his ears as he stared at a demon straight from the Underside, an immortal of unmatched power. He visualized his father, Varyn, and Varyn's hard eyes the night he took Ona away. He channeled all the anger he felt at his father into his next glyph.
Xander ignited his Hand of Earth on his way down. A boulder smashed into Balazel hard enough to bat the demon off the trail and into the bog. The Mavoureen splashed into mud headfirst and sank, thrashing.
Xander moved his Hand of Breath to cushion his fall, landing on the muddy path intact. “Get ready to fight back the way we came,” he thought to Aryn and Tania. “Take Ona and don't stop for anything.”
Xander had no illusions his attacks had done anything significant, but removing Balazel from this fight was the only way to save the others. That army of dead would not stop coming until Balazel was gone. Xander thought he could get rid of the demon, but only if he got close. Very close.
Balazel broke from the bog and rose with a sawblade shriek. “You dare challenge me?” the Mavoureen roared.
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