Diablo: The Sin War Box Set: Birthright, Scales of the Serpent, and The Veiled Prophet

by Richard A. Knaak

  But, at that moment, the fire erupted, briefly bursting to a height greater than that of the cleric. Malic instinctively pulled back from the wild flames…and as he did, he also tore his gaze from Uldyssian.

  The farmer felt as if a blanket had been torn from over his head. It was as if he had been blind and could not see again…and only then did he understand that Malic had briefly mesmerized him.

  “Serry!” Uldyssian roared, his rage immediately swelling. “Come to me! Hurry!”

  There was a hesitation, as if at first she either did not hear him or for some reason could not obey. Then, with a violent shiver, the dark-tressed woman cried out and fled from Malic’s side. The cleric took a belated grab at her, then glared at Uldyssian.

  And no sooner had Serenthia escaped than the camp filled with hooded and armored figures either on horseback or on foot. Uldyssian had seen their like before, seen them and been repulsed by them as he had by the Cathedral’s Inquisitors. “Peace Warders” they might call themselves, but the warriors of the Triune were no better than the cutthroats commanded by the unlamented Brother Mikelius. All they sought was control of the minds and souls of the people. Those who did not kneel to them—those like Uldyssian—they found ways to condemn.

  In the blink of an eye, the farmer relived the calamity in Seram. He saw the hatred and heard once more the lies…

  “No!” he growled at the oncoming figures. “Not again!”

  The air rippled.

  As if struck by an invisible hand, the Peace Warders went flying back in every direction. Two crashed against the nearby trees, striking so hard that they wrapped around the trunks like vines. Another warrior flew up several yards above the ground, disappearing in the foliage. The rest lay scattered and stunned around the outskirts of the campsite.

  “Impressive,” declared Malic in the same fatherly voice. Unlike his minions, he stood untouched by whatever force had acted. “What you could be taught, with just a little conditioning. What you could be taught…” His eyes narrowed, once more the flames reflecting strong in them.

  A heavy weight all but crushed Uldyssian to his hands and knees. He felt as if it would soon bury him in the hard soil. Every muscle strained, every vein pounded. His head seemed ready to explode. The farmer turned his gaze aside, but still could not break free of whatever spell the cleric cast. He saw that Mendeln and Serenthia suffered worse than him, for they were already flattened against the earth. Of Lylia, Uldyssian could see nothing, but the thought of her also fighting to live gave him at last the impetus to push himself up on one knee.

  “A very strong will,” the robed figure remarked. “The master will savor breaking it further.”

  The force pushing at Uldyssian amplified. This time, his face smashed into the ground. A sharp pain exploded from the bridge of his nose and he had no doubt that it was broken, for blood already began dripping from the nostrils.

  “Bind him,” the cleric commanded. There was the scuffling of boots, Malic’s servants rushing to obey. “We have no need of the others.”

  No need of the others…

  With a pain-racked shout, Uldyssian forced himself up into a crouch. His head pounded and his heart strained, but a sense of triumph filled him. He found himself standing before two very startled Peace Warders. Before the pair could recover, the son of Diomedes reached out and seized both men by the throat.

  His fingers barely wrapped across, yet the cracking of bone was very audible. The Peace Warders twitched, then collapsed at his feet, their necks broken by something other than mere strength.

  Despite Uldyssian’s resurgence, Malic appeared only mildly impressed. He glanced at the fire that had broken his mesmerism, then looked again at Uldyssian. “This could have been handled with so much more pleasantry, my child. There is a place for you in the Temple. The Primus has sensed your power and would welcome you as a son…”

  “I want nothing to do with either you or him!”

  “A shortsighted choice, my child. The future of this land, of all lands, is the Temple of the Triune. Those who do not see the light shall fall forever in darkness…”

  But darkness was all that Uldyssian saw when he looked at the high priest. There was that surrounding Malic that by no manner could the harried farmer link to any noble “light.” In fact, Malic radiated a presence that repelled Uldyssian as nothing else ever had and he felt certain that it was the high priest’s nearness that had earlier forced him to waking.

  The Peace Warders had quickly regrouped and now surrounded the area. Serenthia stood near Mendeln, who seemed lost in thought. Uldyssian finally located Lylia near his left. She appeared as calm as Malic, but her calm evidently came from confidence in her lover. The noblewoman’s face was filled with utter trust…trust in Uldyssian’s ability to save them.

  Strengthened by that, he looked from her to his brother and the trader’s daughter before finally facing the cleric again. “I said I don’t want anything to do with the Temple. Leave now or else.”

  “I truly regret the course you force me to, my child,” Malic returned, glancing past his quarry. “That the others must suffer more than they need to because of your recalcitrance is so sad.” The eyes narrowed dangerously. “So sad…and entirely your doing.”

  The Peace Warders moved. At the same time, several pieces of burning wood leapt out of the fire. They fell to the ground just before Uldyssian, where they immediately grew longer and thicker. Flames still surrounded them, but did not appear to burn them any longer.

  Now several times their original size, the gathered sticks took on a new shape…a shape that mocked that of a man. Two lengthier branches for legs, two shorter ones for arms, and the knob of a broken piece acting as the head.

  It stood as tall as the farmer, a stick figure from nightmare. The knob turned toward Malic.

  “Take him,” the cleric dispassionately ordered.

  The fiery golem lunged at Uldyssian, its searing arms wrapping around his own in a hold worthy of a hangman’s noose.

  The heat was unbearable. The flames all but blinded him. He shut his eyes, but the light of the fire seemed to cut right through the lids. Uldyssian gasped for air, but all he received for his efforts was a searing sensation throughout his lungs.

  Yet, for all the agony, it should have been far worse. Uldyssian should have been burned to death by now, his flesh melted away and his bones blackened…

  But Malic did not want him dead, Uldyssian slowly recalled. Malic wanted him pliable, a willing convert to bring before his master…the Primus. He might torture the farmer, might bring him to the edge of despair, but the high priest would not dare chance killing the one for whom he had been hunting.

  That knowledge turned the struggle for Uldyssian. Doing his utmost to push the pain from his mind, he let out a defiant roar and tore himself free of the golem’s grip.

  There was a sudden, intense chill, followed by a great clatter. Uldyssian shook. As his eyesight cleared, it was to see a pile of smoldering sticks in front of him, all that remained of Malic’s creation.

  That was not all, though. As Uldyssian looked at his scorched arms, the burnt areas started healing. The skin quickly turned from a horrific black and crimson to a fresh pink unmarred by even a freckle. Even his garments no longer showed any sign of smoke, much less fire.

  Uldyssian’s pleasure at overcoming the high priest’s latest trick faded as his fear for Lylia and the others once again overtook him. Unprotected, they could hardly have stood against the trained and bloodthirsty Peace Warders.

  But all three were untouched. Warriors of the Triune did indeed surround them, but that was as much as the villains could manage. All else ended in futility. Uldyssian saw one blade come at his brother, only to bounce away several inches from its target. A Peace Warder sought to seize Achilios, only to nearly break his hands against the very air near the hunter’s neck. The same was the case for Serenthia, whose gaze at that moment caught his own. She understood, even if her attackers did not. E
yes round, Cyrus’s daughter nodded in acknowledgment to Uldyssian’s power.

  And as for Lylia…the noblewoman stood just behind him, also under a furious but futile onslaught of weapons by the zealous servants of the Temple. She stood in their midst, her expression one of calm, of expectation, and, as with Serenthia, Lylia looked at Uldyssian with the understanding that he would keep her from harm.

  It was enough to make him smile despite the circumstances, and that smile remained in place as he focused his attention on the cause of their troubles.

  For the first time, Malic no longer smiled or even acted disinterested. A frown cut across his face and in his dark, dark eyes Uldyssian read a barely held fury. The high priest held in his gloved hands a small, jeweled box whose lid was turned so as to open toward his oafish adversary.

  “You bring this upon yourself. The master will have you alive, if only it is your barely beating heart I present to him, my child.”

  He opened the box.

  Uldyssian instinctively flinched…only to see that the box merely contained three glittering gems. Despite the flickering light of the campfire and the distance between the two men, Uldyssian was somehow able to identify them individually as a blue, oval stone, a gold, rectangular one, and—largest of all—a teardrop-shaped white diamond. The manner in which the gems were situated also indicated that there should have been a fourth, but that slot was empty.

  “Do you think to bribe me into becoming a convert?” he finally asked, curious.

  In answer, Malic ran a finger over each stone. “No. I think to make you beg me to let you.”

  Without warning, the Peace Warders abandoned their efforts, fleeing in the direction of the cleric. Malic paid them no mind, more interested in the open area between Uldyssian and him.

  An area now filling with noxious smoke unlinked to the campfire…or any other source that could be seen.

  Uldyssian had faced mesmerism, crushing force, and animated flame. He was not afraid of smoke. Taking a deep breath, he stepped forward. Once he was through the smoke, it would be a short distance to the cleric’s throat…

  But from behind came an uncharacteristically shrill and worried cry from Lylia. “No, Uldyssian! Not like that! Beware the lurkers!”

  No sooner had she called out than a macabre shape formed just before the farmer. Uldyssian caught glimpses of razorlike appendages above what passed for three arms and a bulbous head that looked too heavy to be supported by any natural body. Four glistening orbs burned a sinister ivory. The thing took a step toward Uldyssian—

  And then, in the blink of an eye, a silver aura shone around the monstrous form. The creature raised its various appendages high and gave out a low, gasping sound…then simply faded away.

  But even as Uldyssian was somehow relieved of that horrific adversary, two more shapes coalesced in the smoke, in their own ways more grotesque than the one that had just vanished. One was a thing whose body looked to have been freshly flayed, a body consisting of two legs ending in clawed hands and a sinewy, spiked tail attached to a tube-like body. There was no head, just a gaping hole atop, out of which nightmarish, toothy projections snatched at the air just before Uldyssian.

  Its hellish companion was a skeletal figure with the face of a hungry bird of prey. Two leathery, vestigial wings thrust up from its shoulders. Its arms ended not in hands or claws, but in multiple suckers, and its legs were bent backward, like those of a grasshopper.

  From somewhere farther back, somewhere beyond the smoke, Malic uttered a single word. “Lucion.”

  The avian leapt forward with a swiftness unbelievable. One second, it stood before Uldyssian and the next it was upon him. Even as he fell under the force of its jump, he heard a deep grinding sound from the direction of the second beast.

  The suckered appendages sought for the human’s chest and throat and it was all Uldyssian could do to prevent them from reaching their targets. With his hands, he held the creature’s horrific limbs by the wrist, shoving the upper part of the beast up as high as he could.

  Above the sounds of the struggle, Malic almost nonchalantly commented, “They will keep enough of you left alive, my child, for the Primus to work with. Just enough.”

  Uldyssian tried to dismiss them the way he had the fire golem, but these were creatures more like the hunter in the forest. No, they were even more than that. Without understanding how, Uldyssian was certain that the fiend he had previously destroyed had been far inferior to these vicious horrors.

  The long, sharp beak poised above Uldyssian’s head. He expected the creature to snap at him or even try to spear him in the skull…but instead it opened wide and let out an ear-piercing shriek that rattled every bone in the farmer’s body, a shriek without end or even respite.

  It was all he could do just to keep from passing out under the intense onslaught. Ears pounding, Uldyssian finally released one of the avian’s arms and went for the beak. However, as he did, the suckers dropped down across his chest.

  A ghastly, gnawing sensation arose wherever the creature’s suckers touched, but Uldyssian could not let that pain stop him any more than the previous. Straining, he seized the beak and, screaming himself, clamped it tightly shut. The avian shook its head, seeking release even as it continued to absorb what the human could only assume his life force.

  Still feeling light-headed, Uldyssian attempted to shove his adversary off. Only then, though, did he realize that something now had hold of his feet, something that began dragging him…and the avian, in the process…toward where he last recalled the other demon to be.

  Not at all wanting to know what horror the second creature offered, Uldyssian doubled his struggles, but could not free himself of his initial foe. The force that had so far protected him well now failed utterly and he could only guess that it was because he was not used to wielding it for so long in such a desperate manner. Given time, Uldyssian had no doubt that he could have learned how to easily overcome either abomination, but that time was now not his.

  He did not fear death, for, again, he knew that Malic wanted him alive, but the high priest no longer cared what condition Uldyssian was in otherwise. A ragged, bloody stump that still breathed apparently would suffice to please the mysterious and clearly not so compassionate Primus.

  The avian’s vampiric suckers began to have a debilitating effect. Uldyssian feared what would happen to the others if he failed. Lylia’s trusting face in particular burned in his memory. They would all be slaughtered…if they had not already been. He had no idea if any of the three were still protected or, for that matter, what had happened to Achilios, who had never returned from his hunt. It was likely that the archer had been the first to die, slain by the Peace Warders while in the woods.

  A numbness began to spread from his feet up, a chilling numbness that Uldyssian knew was not the result of what the avian was doing. So, both demons had him now. Surely he was done for.

  “L-Lylia…” he murmured. “Lyl—”

  His body suddenly shook, but not because of anything that his monstrous foes were doing. A tremendous, glorious strength filled the son of Diomedes. In an instant, he felt not only refreshed, but more powerful than ever before. The combined might of the two creatures seemed so utterly insignificant now. It made Uldyssian laugh that he had been so worried about being defeated by the likes of them.

  Invigorated, Uldyssian tightened his grip on the first demon’s beak. This time, though, he had no intention of merely trying to turn it to the side.

  One squeeze was all it took to crush the beak. The demon let out a garbled sound and sought to rip itself free. Dark, green ichor flowed from its shattered maw, dripping all over Uldyssian. He ignored the burning caused by each rancid drop, eager to see what else he could do. The power surged through him like a roaring river, feeding him continuously. He felt his body swell. He was a giant in comparison to his foes, a titan.

  A god, even…

  Malic frowned as, not for the first time, he sensed something am
iss. First there had been the nigh instantaneous attack by the fool just as the demons had first been materializing. Uldyssian’s destruction of the razorlike pyrioh, the most foul of the servants given into his service by the master, had stunned the high priest more than he had let on. He had not even sensed the farmer’s power rise up, so immediate had been the results.

  But the other two demons had acted according to his desires and had looked ready to make short work of the prey. Malic had kept his own heightened senses at their peak in order to make certain that the creatures did not get carried away—as demons were wont to do—and kill Uldyssian. Indeed, the high priest had almost been as much a part of the struggle as if he had been physically involved…and that was why he, too, noticed the astounding and impossible surge of power abruptly coursing through what, a breath before, had been a flailing, lost buffoon.

  Noticed that surge…and could not comprehend just how it had come about. It almost seemed to Malic as if it had been fed to Uldyssian from another source…

  Tearing himself from the struggle, he glanced at the three other figures. The cleric immediately dismissed Serenthia, who barely sensed the force growing within her, and the perplexed-looking fool, next to the girl, whom he had determined to be Uldyssian’s brother. There was something peculiar about the brother, but he was not the source.

  And then Malic looked at the only person left, the one he had taken at first to be the least of interest to him. He looked at her very close, seeing her as only one of his skill could.

  Seeing something that he could never have guessed that he would see.

  “Great Lucion!” he blurted, for once unable to maintain the appearance of complete confidence and disdain. One hand came up to point and the words of a spell formed on his lips—

  A sharp pain struck him in the back next to the left shoulder blade. Well-versed in the human body and the various points of lingering or instant death, Malic’s mind routinely calculated that if what had hit him—an arrow, he surmised—had gone an inch more to the center, then even his power might not have been enough to save him. As it was, he immediately set about using the gifts of his master to keep himself from not only bleeding to death, but passing out as well.