But it seemed real. Plague demons were all around him. One howled and swiped at him with bloodstained claws. He ducked, kicked back at the creature out of instinct, and felt his foot connect with flesh. The demon doubled over but kept clawing at him. Albanon pressed up against the parapet and tried to focus his fear-wracked mind on the arcane patterns of a spell.
“Albanon, no!” Roghar’s voice echoed over the cries of the demons. Beyond the creature that menaced him, Albanon saw the paladin come charging up the stairs onto the wall. Roghar thrust his shield before him, the symbol of the platinum dragon shining on its surface. “Bahamut, free him from his fears!”
The power of Roghar’s faith was like a cool breeze. Albanon’s terror wavered, then dissipated entirely. The stone was once again solid beneath his feet and the gibbering demons were once more out of reach. Along the wall, many of Winterhaven’s defenders were struggling with each other while others simply curled up in fear. The creature that had clawed at him, that he had been on the verge of blasting with his spell, was Bairwin. The other man’s eyes were still wide and desperate. What had seemed like demonic howls resolved into frightened screams. “Somebody help me! They’re on the walls. They’re on the walls!”
He threw himself at Albanon once more, but this time Roghar was behind him. The big dragonborn reached out and grabbed his collar, hauling him back and slamming him down hard. The impact knocked the wind out of Bairwin and left him gasping for breath. Roghar stepped over him. “Are you all right?” he asked Albanon.
The eladrin nodded, then twisted around. “Tempest! Uldane!”
“Here.” Tempest crouched below the parapet. Her face was pale and her limbs were trembling, but she had resisted the worst of the nightmare demon’s power. Albanon took her hand and helped her stand. Uldane was a little further along the wall. It seemed he’d escaped the demon’s attack entirely-his face was taut but clear, and he held his own against three fear-crazed men.
But those who’d been affected by the demon’s attack were no longer the only ones on the wall. Other defenders followed Roghar’s example and rushed up from the courtyard to help their stricken friends. Albanon looked back out at the nightmare demon. It stood impassive, though the frenzied pack once more churned around it in a renewed assault on the gate. Its red eyes watched the activity on top of the wall. Albanon’s gut tensed. The nightmare demon was waiting, he realized. Waiting for more would-be saviors to reach the top of the wall before unleashing its terrifying gaze a second time.
“We have to stop that demon,” he said.
“It would be my pleasure,” said Tempest. She pulled away from Albanon and raised her rod high. A harsh and chilling invocation spilled from her lips. At the sound of it, the demon’s eyes snapped to her, but it wasn’t quick enough. A cold white light engulfed the rod-and the nightmare demon. For the first time, the shadowy creature let out a cry, a thin wail of anguish. It flailed its arms and focused its gaze intently on the trio standing on the wall. Albanon felt its power brush his mind, threatening to plunge him into terror once more, but Roghar growled and thrust his shield forward. The might of Bahamut curled around them protectively.
Tempest spun her rod in a tight circle. The light surrounding the demon spun as well, turning into a whirlwind of radiance. The demon’s cries grew higher, more pained, as the rushing light tore at its shadowy substance. It cringed and tried to shield itself, but to no effect. The light burned it, then whirled its ashes away. Tempest’s eyes narrowed. The rod spun more tightly. The swirling light picked up speed, killing the demon little by little. Along the walls, Winterhaven’s defenders emerged from their terror as the creature’s power faded. Down below, the demon horde redoubled their frenzy. They shied away from the radiance of Tempest’s spell but otherwise paid no attention to the nightmare demon as it screamed and fought its death. All of their fury was directed with single-minded intensity at the gates.
A nagging feeling tugged at Albanon. Something wasn’t right. The plague demons didn’t seem to care that they trampled and clawed at other members of their horde, so it shouldn’t have mattered that they ignored the brilliant death of the nightmare demon. Or should it? As the defenders of Winterhaven cheered-Roghar and Uldane among them and even Splendid emerging from whatever hiding spot she’d found to twirl overhead-Albanon tried to focus his thoughts over the chaos. They’d fought nightmare demons before, but never one that had been able to direct its power through its gaze. The creature was powerful and judging from the way the horde of plague demons had drawn back before it, it was powerful enough to command their respect. Powerful enough to be the leader of the horde, surely.
But if it was the leader, the key demon that kept all the others focused on their goal, why wasn’t the horde’s attack falling apart?
Even as he thought it, Tempest’s spell crushed in on the demon. Its shriek rose and broke, then vanished entirely along with the light. A scarred husk collapsed to the ground. Tempest lowered her rod and turned around. Her teeth flashed white. “One demon stopped,” she said.
“No.” Albanon bent down and snatched up the staff he had dropped, gripping it tight. “We’re not done. There’s another demon somewhere, one more powerful than the nightmare demon. It’s the one commanding the horde.”
Roghar let out a curse unbecoming of a paladin. “Where is it, then? It seems like we already have the entire pack right here.”
Albanon stared out into the darkness. Beyond the churning melee before the gates, nothing moved. If another demon lurked in the shadows, it was well-hidden. He searched the horde as it hammered at the gates and scrabbled at the walls, but none of the demons seemed powerful enough to dominate the others. Another of the great juggernauts had appeared, yet this one, though towering tall and lanky, wasn’t as massive as the other that had charged the gates. In fact, the defenders of Winterhaven appeared to be gaining the upper hand. The wall was crowded with men and women thrusting down with long pikes and leaning out over the parapets to loose arrows and bolts into the massed creatures below. Albanon could hear Lord Padraig calling for people to return to the defense of the gate. It was so crowded that, when a lithe demon jumped up onto the tall juggernaut and swung itself high, three pikes clashed together as their wielders tried to skewer it. The demon fell short anyway, but it might have made the wall if the pikemen had not been there, or if the towering juggernaut had offered it actual assistance.
A sudden sickening certainty made the tips of his ears crawl. Where had the second juggernaut come from? What had it been doing during the first part of the attack? “Mercy of the gods,” he whispered. “The lead demon isn’t outside. We’ve let it get inside the village.”
If he’d had wings, he would have flown high and simply dropped into the middle of Winterhaven. But he didn’t-though sometimes his memories of the sensation were so vivid he might have fooled himself into believing that he did-so he built his plan around the next best alternative. Among the minions he had gathered was a demon of particular height and strength. Not so strong as others of its kind or so tall as to be able to reach the top of Winterhaven’s walls directly, but both strong and tall enough to enable another to reach the parapets.
It had only been a matter of waiting until the right moment, when the moon broke through the scudding clouds. Not because the demons needed light to see, but because those on the wall would be sure to see their attackers. The moonlight came and it only took a whisper through the connection of the Voidharrow to launch the attack. On the other side of Winterhaven, howling demons rushed the gate. He’d waited the few moments it took the humans patrolling his stretch of wall to rush away, then ordered his tall minion into position against the stones. His pride wouldn’t permit him to be lifted or carried, so he scaled the demon like a tree, his talons gouging its tough hide. A leap from its shoulder and he had caught the parapet, then swung himself over.
The walls of Winterhaven had been breached.
He dismissed his minion below with a gesture and it m
oved away. From the direction of the gates came the shouts of villagers and the howls of demons. He guessed the massive creature he had set to lead the attack by ramming the gates had failed. He wasn’t surprised. His prey was in Winterhaven. He had seen the eladrin, Albanon, on the walls. The others would be close to him. Those who had slain Raid and Nu Alin wouldn’t fall to any lesser demon.
“This one prepares,” he growled to the night.
This one is eager, came the reply through the Voidharrow.
He bared his teeth and dropped lightly into the shadows below the wall. His goal lay across the village-not his prey, but the gate. It was possible that the small horde he had assembled would be able to break it down from outside, but not likely. He wanted them inside Winterhaven’s walls. The warning he had delivered earlier would keep them from his prey, but their presence, their slaughter of the villagers, would be a distraction. He’d learned from the destruction of Nu Alin and Raid. He would not allow his prey the advantage of numbers. He would divide them and take them one by one.
Screams from the wall heralded the attack of the nightmare demon and the second wave of the horde’s assault. He paused to look for his prey. The wizard reeled on the wall, the tiefling and the halfling alongside him, as the dragonborn paladin rushed to their aid. All of his enemies accounted for, but all in one place. His eyes narrowed. They would need to be separated.
A door in the building behind him opened.
He turned instantly and caught a glimpse of an old human woman peering out, her urge for safety probably overcome by curiosity at the screams. Her eyes went wide at the sight of him, then he was on her. The great talon on his right hand stabbed up through the woman’s belly and under her ribs. Her wide eyes grew wider. A dry croak emerged from the woman’s throat.
He felt disgust. “This one was made to kill greater creatures than you,” he said and twisted his hand. Life shuddered from the woman’s body. He let her fall inside the door and listened for the noise of others in the house. There was only silence. Stealth was not his primary concern, but the closer he was able to get to Winterhaven’s gate without being detected, the better.
The screams of villagers were replaced by the wail of a demon before he had passed two more houses. On the wall, the tiefling warlock stood with her rod raised and glowing, her attention fixed on a cold, white light that lit the darkness beyond. He felt the dying of the nightmare demon through the Voidharrow and quickened his pace. The creature had done its work, both with its attack and with its destruction. Almost all of Winterhaven’s defenders had rushed up onto the wall to battle the demons on the other side. A man in better armor than most was trying to call some of them back. The lord of the village, perhaps. The commander of its forces, certainly.
He recognized two figures standing close to the lord: an eladrin man and a human woman, both warriors by their weapons and bearing. They had ridden with his prey through the Cloak Wood. Allies of his enemies. He flexed his hands. He had his goal, the reason for his existence, but slaughtering these three would bring added distress to his true prey.
Beyond the trio, only two uneasy looking guards remained to watch over the counterweight that would lift the heavy bar from the gates. The defenders of Winterhaven had grown overeager and overconfident.
He hissed in anticipation and moved out from the shadows.
“What do you mean we’ve let a demon into the village?” said Tempest.
“Everyone’s up here fighting the horde. Who’s defending the gate? Who’s watching the other walls?” Albanon twisted away from the parapet, shoving through the villagers that had crowded in behind him. “Lord Padraig! Lord Padr-”
The warning died on his tongue as he reached the other edge of the walkway and the top of a flight of stairs back down into the village. Padraig was below, looking up, his attention drawn by Albanon’s shouts. Immeral and Belen stood with him. But perhaps twenty paces behind them another figure emerged from the shadows of the inn. Albanon heard Roghar, close behind him, draw a harsh breath of surprise. Their shock must have been plain on their faces because Immeral, Belen, and Padraig spun to look behind them as well.
The figure froze, just for an instant, but the sight of it burned into Albanon’s mind. It wasn’t quite like anything he had seen before. In rough shape, it was something like a dragonborn: draconic in feature but humanoid in body. The resemblance ended there. The creature was almost skeletally thin, its skull long and narrow. A whiplike tail lashed the air behind it and cruel talons extended from its hands and feet. It carried no weapons and wore no armor, but one of the talons on its right hand was enormous, as big as a shortsword and far heavier. The thing bore signs of the Voidharrow, too. Its talons and the straight, spiky horns on its head were red crystal. Crimson veins traced along its spine and concentrated in its tail, which also seemed made of crystal, splintering and reforming with every movement.
Its scales, while tinted with the red of the Voidharrow, were green, and there was a familiar, hateful intelligence in its eyes.
“Vestapalk,” said Albanon.
Somehow the creature heard him over the din of battle. It smiled cruelly. “This one is not Vestapalk,” it shouted back in a harsh male voice. “This one is Vestagix. This one will be your doom!”
He moved. In only heartbeats, faster than Albanon could call a spell to mind, Vestagix had closed the distance between him and the three standing below. The huge talon, completely out of proportion to the rest of his body, lashed out in a wide arc.
Belen grabbed Lord Padraig and dragged him to the ground, both of them rolling out of the way of the terrible claw. Immeral stood his ground. His sword already out, he parried Vestagix’s blow. Crystal rang against steel. Vestagix’s smile didn’t falter. His left hand, the talons smaller but still sharp, raked at Immeral’s belly. The eladrin swayed back to avoid them.
In that moment, the great talon thrust past his guard. It hooked into the flesh of his shoulder. Vestagix wrenched his arm back and the talon tore through flesh and leather armor, shoulder and throat. Blood gushed out. Immeral’s free hand went to his throat as if he could stop the flow, but his sword was already sliding from his grip.
Albanon felt like he was falling, just as he had under the nightmare demon’s attack, except that this was no illusion. The force of the blow had spun Immeral around. As he sank to his knees, his eyes rose. Albanon imagined that the hunter was looking at him, that his gaping mouth struggled to form words one last time. My prince…
Beside him, Roghar bellowed in fury. “Demon!” he roared. “Face me! Bahamut’s strength will drive you back where you came from!” He rushed down the stairs in a clatter of armor.
Vestagix looked from the charging paladin to where Padraig and Belen were rising warily, then bared white teeth and sprinted toward the wall-but not toward Roghar. Before Immeral’s body had collapsed onto its face, Vestagix had disappeared under the walkway above Winterhaven’s gate. Roghar roared again and disappeared after him.
The need to act forced focus upon Albanon’s mind. “Tempest, Uldane-get some people off the wall and back down to the gate!” He didn’t wait for their response, he just followed Roghar. His mind raced along with his feet. What in the three worlds was Vestagix? They’d all seen Vestapalk take control of and speak through plague demons, but Vestagix was different. He didn’t look like any other demon and he didn’t act like he was being controlled. He acted like Vestapalk himself.
A weight settled on his shoulder and needle-sharp claws gripped his skin before he reached the bottom of the stairs. “A wizard’s place is at a distance,” Splendid shrieked in his ear. “Stay on the wall. You’ll be safe there.”
“I can’t see what’s happening on the wall,” Albanon told her, “and I can’t help Roghar if I can’t see him.” He reached the bottom of the stairs and spun toward the gate. The sound of the demon horde outside was intensified below. The thick wood of the gate shook and thundered with every misshapen body that was flung against it. Two human
bodies lay before the gate: the guards who had stayed at their posts had fared no better against Vestagix than Immeral.
Roghar had caught up to the intruder though, and it appeared that Vestagix had more respect for his new, heavily armored opponent. The two circled each other like weird reflections, Roghar bright and noble, Vestagix dark and savage. It seemed to Albanon that they knew it, too. There was a hatred in Roghar’s eyes that he wasn’t used to seeing.
“You mock the shape of dragonborn and dragon alike,” said the paladin.
Vestagix sneered at him. “And you,” he said, “have angered one greater than the gods.”
Roghar growled deep in his throat and lunged. Vestagix, still sneering, caught and turned the impulsive thrust with his outsized claw-leaving himself open to a powerful and fully controlled slam from Roghar’s shield. The blow threw him against the gate and Roghar closed in, his facade of anger replaced by deadly focus. The sneer vanished from Vestagix’s face, replaced by a snarl. He pushed off from the gate, slashing at Roghar in a frenzy that drove the dragonborn back pace by pace.
Albanon clenched his teeth and drew a spell close to the surface of his mind. Sliding sideways, he tried to find an opening to cast it, but Vestagix’s whirling attack was too quick. One moment he had a clear line, the next Roghar was between them. Splendid clung tight to his shoulder. “Back away,” she begged. “You can attack from a greater distance.”
He ignored her. Roghar was beginning to look harried. Vestagix had him on the defensive and Albanon knew in his gut he wasn’t going to get his opening. He’d have to risk throwing his spell, even if it meant catching Roghar by mistake. As Vestagix turned around the paladin again, Albanon exhaled, concentrated, and released the spell with a flick of his fingers and a whispered word. Two thin blue bolts streaked at the demon-who sprang back with the same lithe quickness that had been Immeral’s doom. As he leaped, he turned and his tail snaked around Roghar’s sword hand. The flexing, splintering crystal tightened, then jerked. Roghar cursed and clutched at his wrist as both his sword and his gauntlet were wrenched away. They went clattering across the ground. Vestagix glared at Albanon, his red eyes narrowed.
The Eye of the Chained God tap-3 Page 9
