The Doom of Fallowhearth

by Robbie MacNiven

  Dezra didn’t argue. With a flurry of curses she summoned her balefire once more, spreading it in an arc around where Ariad was controlling her brood.

  “That will hold her,” she spat, before striding out towards Logan.

  • • •

  There were too many. Logan managed to hack into the compound eyes of one arachyura, stinking, gray jelly-like liquid spurting out of its ruined membrane. Blind, it grappled with him, ploughing its pincers into his stomach. He grunted and managed to reverse his sword, plunging it down into the monster’s midsection and nearly bisecting it. The thing fell away, suddenly limp, and he went down with it.

  Bodies pressed in around him, warm, stinking, bristling. Mandibles clacked and drooled. With a final burst of strength he struggled up, roaring, driving his ichor-slick blade into one unnatural body after another, drenched in their steaming viscera. This couldn’t be the end. It just couldn’t.

  He fell again. There was a dull ache in his stomach. Dimly, he remembered the arachyura he had blinded driving its pincers into his gut. He realized that the creature’s numbing, paralytic venom had dulled the sensation of being grievously wounded.

  “Ulma,” he groaned. The dwarf was still next to him. The arachyura hadn’t reached her. He managed to sit up, weakly knocking aside a questing leg, trying with all of his strength to get his sword back up.

  Fire broiled, sickly and cold, the flames of Nordros. The nearest arachyura squealed as they shriveled up, aged a century in a second by the sorcerous inferno.

  Dezra strode through the flames, untouched by them. She ran to Logan’s side and knelt, supporting him in a sitting position before he collapsed back.

  “Ulma,” was all he managed to choke, blood spilling from his mouth. Dezra placed her hand on the dwarf’s head, seeking out her soul flame. She found none.

  “Her spirit is gone, Logan,” she said, fighting a tremor in her voice. To even admit it felt like a betrayal. “Ulma’s dead.”

  Logan closed his eyes. Dezra pulled his bloody hands away from his stomach and immediately wished she hadn’t. Her mind raced, seeking out the words to the participes mortus, wondering how much she could channel, how much more pain she could take.

  “Don’t,” Logan said. She realized he was looking up at her again. “I know what you’re thinking. No magic.”

  The old rogue’s breathing was shallow. She could feel his flame guttering. Tears stung her eyes as she glanced over at Ulma’s body, lying still beside him.

  “I’m sorry,” he managed to say, his expression tight with pain as he followed her gaze. “She saved me, but I couldn’t manage the same for her. Without her, I’d already be dead.”

  “She’s given her life freely for us,” Dezra said. “As have you, Logan. You’re a good man. You always have been.” She almost expected some witty reply, something about it all making a pretty good story for the alehouses. But Logan said nothing. Dezra bowed her head.

  Her balefire was almost spent. The surrounding arachyura were coming again, clawing through the embers, limbs questing towards her. She laid Logan slowly down beside Ulma and stood.

  She didn’t need the words, not any more. The arachyura fell at her feet as she opened up to the rage and agony within her, the loss of Kathryn, Ulma and Logan reforming that shard of ice; bitter and unyielding. She grasped it, flinging it with all her strength into the realm of the arcana.

  The razor wind answered her cry. It ripped out from her like a shockwave, an invisible gale that struck the hundreds upon hundreds of spiders surrounding her head-on. Their screeches were torn away as the storm shredded them, ripping off exoskeletons. A wave of arachnid remains exploded across the cavern, the air misting with pulverized organic matter.

  Dezra staggered, pain suffusing her body. She looked down at the lacerations that had appeared across her skin. Summoning the razor wind for a second time had almost cut her to pieces. She was bleeding, and her body felt drained of energy.

  Focus. If she lost control, the manifestation of her own grief would destroy her utterly. Now was no time to dwell on loss – she had to use it to drive her, to reach Ariad before she grew any weaker. She looked down at Logan and Ulma, both lying still, their lifeflames nearly gone. The sight of them reawakened the pain that gave her power.

  Summoning her flames once more, she turned back towards the heart of the cavern.

  • • •

  Ronan heard Carys shout and spun with his sword raised. The pressure of the arachyura assault was less fierce near the edge of the cavern, but he was still having to hack and slash relentlessly to keep them at bay. Still more had gotten past him. As he turned, he saw a pair of the monstrosities grappling with Carys, their struggle lit by the witch fires taking hold across the cavern. The girl’s dagger was lodged in the torso of one, while Pico had been knocked from her shoulder. The familiar was laid out, unmoving, amidst the bodies.

  The northerner bellowed and lunged to Carys’s aid. His sword hacked down the first creature, and he kicked the second off the girl. She was bleeding from several gashes across her back.

  “I can’t feel them,” she said, almost in a panic as she reached behind and found her fingers bloody.

  “The venom,” Ronan surmised, ripping the dagger from the arachyura body and handing it back to her. This desperate, heart-racing slaughter in the near-darkness was testing every ounce of his skills. A part of him wanted to forge after Durik towards the melee at the heart of the cavern, but his first priority was Carys. He wouldn’t let them take her.

  The northerner turned in time to cleave open another giant spider as it sprang at him, before kneeling quickly at Pico’s side. He could see the little creature’s furry chest still rising and falling.

  “Try to wake him,” he told Carys as he stood back up and turned towards the swarm. “If you cannot, these creatures will overwhelm us.”

  • • •

  Durik fought harder than he had ever fought before. He stabbed and swung with his spear, using the haft to crack and parry hook-limbs and the base to pulverize eye clusters. He punched and kicked, headbutted and bit with his tusks. Every muscle in his body burned, a sharp counterpoint to the numbing effects of the dozens of bites and grazes that covered his body.

  Ariad was right ahead. The arachyura protecting her were huge, larger than Durik, but he waded in amongst them regardless, stabbing and thrusting them aside. He’d lost sight of Dezra in the press, and he didn’t have any time to turn and look for Ronan or Carys. That didn’t matter any more. Nothing did, beyond reaching the center of the cavern and plunging his spear into the arachyura queen.

  She came to meet him. She was already wounded, her mask cracked and much of her left side torn and oozing black ichor. Power still suffused her, though, the golden light of the Al-Kalim twilight she had been born under. She was the first of that desert realm’s daughters to sup of Arachne’s corrupting poison and fall under the sway of the spider goddess of Zanaga. She would not be denied her prey. She lunged at Durik.

  His spear blocked her claws, the black talons raking off the haft. He drove into her, seeking to use his greater size and power to force her back and open her guard. She pushed back, though, her spindly body at odds with her own unnatural strength. Durik felt her claws slash across his stomach and grunted as pain surged through his body, quickly turning numb. She didn’t have to kill him, he realized. She only had to leave him paralyzed.

  He tried to give ground, needing more space to use his spear, trying to focus on her wounded left side. She was too slow to avoid the ungainly jab, but Durik couldn’t do more than graze her flank. Then she was coming back in again, inside his guard, claws ripping at him. He cried out as they drew blood along his chest and thigh, making him stumble. The golden mask gazed at him with chilling indifference.

  He recovered once more, slamming the haft of his weapon up into that serene visage, further cracki
ng it. Something dark and hideous glittered behind the metal. Ariad hissed incomprehensibly and rained blows on Durik. He parried with the spear, using its sturdy ironroot timber. On the third strike it splintered and broke. The end spun away into the crush of arachnid bodies surrounding him, the tip still in his hand.

  He fell. Ariad was on him instantly, her talons tearing down his back as he tried to turn protectively away from her. He cried out, hunched over in the dirt, his bruised, bloody body finally refusing to answer to his will.

  “I could have killed you in the forest,” Ariad hissed, leaning forward over Durik, as if relishing his weakness as she drew a claw slowly down the back of his head. “Or in the castle. I am glad I waited. Your death will be the sweetest treat, pathfinder.”

  Durik closed his eyes, took a breath, and roared. He turned and rose as he did so, forcing his body to obey, forcing tired, aching limbs and muscles numbed by dozens of cuts and gashes to work one last time. With every ounce of his remaining strength he slammed his right fist forward, his broken spear still grasped in it.

  The tip, along with the remaining foot of splintered haft, plunged through the crack in Ariad’s golden eye and punched out through the back of her skull. Viscous black liquid squirted from the exit wound. The arachyura queen staggered back, her body rigid, her spine arching horribly. A keening noise rose from her throat. Then, abruptly, her head exploded, the mask shattering, its golden luster drenched in black ichor and foul gray matter. Durik took a step back.

  “That’s twice I’ve killed you, monster,” he panted.

  A chilling wail rose throughout the cavern, reverberating back from the jagged stone. The arachyura were screaming and twitching, seemingly in pain.

  Ariad’s headless body, still frozen in its agonized death-stance, remained standing. One of the nearest fat arachyura threw itself on her, latching itself against her bent back. Another clamped itself to her left leg, and another her right. Durik staggered and fell to his knees as more arachyura rushed all around him, every single living spider in the cavern swarming towards their queen.

  Within seconds, Ariad’s body had been lost from sight, buried beneath the swarm. Durik could only stare, his strength spent, as hundreds upon hundreds of arachnids piled one on top of the other, a writhing, ugly mass that swelled with each passing second. Gradually, underlit by the fires that still burned across the cavern, the churning mound began to resolve itself into a shape. Like a cruel joke, the swarm was merging together into a gigantic spider, a vast creature that grew to such a height it seemed as though it would brush the ceiling. It towered over him, a thrashing mound of limbs that swept down, as though to look at him.

  “Fool,” shrieked an inhuman voice, issued from the maws of a thousand chittering, melded arachyura. “No orc savage can kill me!”

  Durik had no more weapons and no more strength. Just defiance. He glared up at the composite monstrosity and spat. It wouldn’t win. With the certainty of finality, he knew Dezra would beat it.

  Then, with a howl, the creature swept down and engulfed him.

  • • •

  Dezra saw Durik’s death, buried by the insect mass. She had been forcing her way towards him, but faltered as the reborn Ariad rose up and screeched in triumph.

  Despair filled her. She slumped to her knees while around her the balefire died away, doused by her exhaustion and grief. She had lost everything. Everyone she had cared about, who had cared about her. Despair gripped her thoughts, draining and paralyzing her. It was over. Ariad had triumphed utterly. The great mass of arachyura seemed to sense her sudden weakness. It turned and began to drag itself towards her, a roiling, sentient wave of bristling limbs, mandibles and eye clusters.

  She bowed her head, searching for strength, trying to harness her pain. One final incantation. One more act of resistance. But she couldn’t find the words. She was alone, and she had nothing left to give.

  Dezra.

  At first, she thought the voice was her own. It came again, soft but insistent, like someone trying to coax her out of a sleep riven by nightmares. Finally, she recognized it, and when she did, the guttering flames surrounding her began to rise again.

  It was Logan. He was with her. She looked up, into the approaching morass of wicked bodies that was sweeping across the cavern. Right before her, three deadlights had blinked into existence. She knew them instantly, knew their energy. Had known them almost all of her life. Despite the pain, despite the exhaustion, she smiled.

  You should know better than anyone, you’re never alone.

  She was standing. Power arced from the three orbs, earthing into her body. She felt her strength returning, the cuts healing, the exhaustion burning up. Their spirits were rejuvenating her, lending strength from beyond the realm of the living. The tangible, conscious energies they possessed gave them a potency she could use. She raised her hands, fires bright once more. She looked at the souls of her old friends, still bright and coherent around her sorcerous aura.

  “Destroy her,” she said.

  Like hounds unleashed to the hunt, the pale energy shot away, meeting the onrushing swarm head-on. They slammed into Ariad, arachyura exploding from the triple points of impact. The malformed giant juddered, its momentum slowing as the deadlights tore all the way through and came back around, hammering it from three sides.

  The sense of exultation Dezra felt didn’t last for long. A glow began to shine from deep within the swarm, that cursed, golden light, an echo of the sun that Ariad had been born to bind into darkness. It grew more powerful, and when the deadlights next smashed into the chirring horde, they rebounded with enough force to shake soil and loose rock from the cavern ceiling. Dezra felt the force of the blow in her core, making her stumble.

  Ariad’s advance resumed, the ticking of the hundreds of arachyura redoubling. It sounded as though they were laughing. The light within them burned, repelling the orbs whenever they approached. They were growing dimmer and weaker with each passing moment. Dezra held her hand back, drawing them to her once more.

  “Go,” she said, her voice shaking. “All three of you. You can do no more for me.”

  “But I can,” said a voice next to her. She closed her eyes, and Kathryn was standing before her. She was full, corporeal, her eyes shining brightly in the dying firelight, traveling cloak wafting in a phantom wind, unblemished by blood. In her hands she was carrying the Cadaveribus, its pages opened. Dezra stared at her as Kathryn gave her the book. She was smiling.

  The sight shook her more deeply than anything she’d witnessed before. A swelling of hope crashed against the cold sea of her misery, shame and uncertainty at war within her. Kathryn was still with her, but her presence only reminded Dezra that she was lost.

  “I’ve failed,” Dezra said, her voice raw and broken. “Cross over while you still can, with the others. Don’t wait for me. Ariad will not relinquish my soul.” Kathryn shook her head.

  “I told you,” she said. “Death is only a beginning.”

  Ariad screeched once more, arching above them both. Dezra flinched instinctively and in that instant, Kathryn was gone. She looked down at the Cadaveribus, confused, riven with regret. The book lay open at its foremost incantation, the first and last act of dark magic performed by each and every necromancer. The Black Invocation.

  Realization struck her, and in an instant her mind was free. The fear, pain, doubt and sorrow fell away as she picked up the heavy tome. The words flowed easily from the page, uninhibited by the mind-aching presence of the arachyura queen. The Cadaveribus propped open against the crook of her elbow, Dezra extended her right arm, her voice rising with each syllable, riven with the power of death.

  In the far corner of the cavern, one of the arachyura twitched. It had been hideously burned by Ulma’s flames, but now it began to move once again, jerking round onto its fleet. It started to scurry towards the center of the chamber. One by ones, other
s joined it. Spiders that had been hacked down by Logan, Ronan and Carys, run through by Durik, burned by Ulma, started to rise up and move. Greatest of all was the phalanx of arachyura that had been ripped apart by Dezra’s razor wind. Hundreds strong, their shattered limbs and carapaces reformed as they poured towards Ariad, the balefire burning in the many sockets of their eyes.

  Dezra finished the incantation, drawing the final word out into a hard, echoing scream. The sheer force of it halted Ariad, throwing her swarm into confusion. Seconds later, the tide of reanimated spiders crashed into it, like two opposing waves. Hundreds upon hundreds of resurrected monsters assailed Ariad’s melded horde. Some of them were wreathed in Dezra’s fires, carrying them to the heart of the brood. They ripped and tore and stabbed, swarming down the maw of the great composite monstrosity Ariad had crafted, choking her, burying her, crushing her, tearing her apart from the inside.

  “You left your children hungry, Ariad,” Dezra snarled. “Now, they feed.”

  The deadlights struck once more, resurgent as the golden power within the brood flickered. They crashed through the arachyura, both the living and the dead, their fury pulverizing them relentlessly. Dezra’s body shook as she channeled their energy, her whole body ablaze, corpse light shining from her eyes and her open mouth.

  The deadlights spun over the chaos and coalesced, a single, crackling orb of dark magic that slammed down with the force of a meteorite. It plunged directly into Ariad’s core. The golden light went out, and the mass exploded. Dezra was thrown to the cavern floor as broken, burning arachyura rained down around her. Her consciousness faltered. By the time she had recovered, silence and darkness had fallen in the great cavern, the contrast utterly shocking.

  It was over.

  • • •

  Dezra picked her way through the great mountain of carcasses, the deadlights illuminating the thousands of broken monstrosities surrounding her. She let her mind quest about, hunting through the cavern for any trace of that cursed golden light, any hint that Ariad had survived. But there was nothing. The place was empty, but for the dead.