A strangled cry drew her attention below. Rand had jerked awake from a nightmare. He sat up, head in hands. She was impressed at how well he was holding up, considering he was barely older than a boy.
Rand withdrew something from his pocket and began working at it with his dagger.
After one last glance around to ensure nothing was approaching, Nera hopped down from the basalt ridge. She walked over toward Rand, curious as to what he was up to.
He was carving a small block of wood. The head of a bear was slowly being revealed, but she doubted he’d do anything but harm it in his current state. The dagger was shaking in his hand as he tried to shape the wood.
She knelt before him, gently lowering his hand with the dagger. “Easy, you’re as like to carve a piece out of your finger as the wood, lad.”
Rand’s face was pale, and his wide eyes reminded her of Wyat when he had followed her and Arron home like a stray puppy all those years ago.
“Does it get any easier?” he asked in a thin voice.
“Easier? You mean all of this?” She waved vaguely around them. “There is no easy when it comes to the Abyss.”
He shook his head and looked away in shame. “I meant the fear. I regret how I nearly froze up earlier. Those… things are horrifying.” He shuddered.
“The drolnac? Aye, they’re a bunch of ugly bastards. Don’t be ashamed. You’ve made it this far—alive—in the bloody Abyss! How many others, even veterans of the Rage, can say that? And at such a young age. Even Wyat barely knew how to swing a sword at your age. You’ve acquitted yourself well in my book, Rand.”
He flushed in pleasure at the compliment. “That’s kind of you to say, Lady Nera.”
She laughed. “There’s no lady here—just Nera, all right? I grew up on the streets of Nexus as an orphan.”
“And now you’re the Chosen of a goddess,” he said, voice filled with awe.
She smiled at him. “Aye, the ways of the gods are mysteries to us mortals. Just wait till you get back to the Rage—those other oafs’ stories won’t hold a candle to yours. You’ve done well—keep home in your heart, and you’ll be fine.” She patted him on the thigh and got back to her feet, stretching her back.
Rand nodded. “Thanks, Nera. I can stand watch for a time if you’d like to rest.”
“That sounds good—I think I will lie down for a bit. Wake me in a couple hours—we’d best not tarry longer than that.”
Rand agreed and got to his feet, looking relieved at having a task to occupy his time. He put the block of wood back in his pocket and sheathed the dagger before clambering up the basalt ridge.
Nera lay down and curled up beside Malek, wrapping her arm around his chest. He unconsciously gripped her arm in his sleep.
She surprised herself by getting some much-needed rest, swiftly sinking into the sleep of exhaustion.
Chapter 16
Their destination appeared without warning, thoroughly unnerving the companions. One moment, Nera was glancing over her shoulder to make sure the others were keeping pace, and the next, she turned around to find the wall before her. Startled oaths and signs of warding from the rest of her companions told her she wasn’t alone in her surprise.
The Wall of Lost Souls spanned the blasted wasteland of the Abyss to the horizon in both directions. The crushed bones of countless damned souls formed the bricks, their blood the mortar. At irregular intervals, wasted figures were chained to the wall, ranging from fairly fresh in appearance to little more than skeletons covered in desiccated flesh.
“Oh, gods,” Malek breathed beside her. “Finally, we enter Achronia.”
“Aye,” Nera replied, eyes scanning the length of the wall as far as she could see. “Yet this is not where I saw him in my dreams. We’ll have to continue onward.”
“There’s got to be thousands or more, lass. How will we know where to look?” Waresh’s normally imperturbable face looked haunted as he studied the damned.
The nearest figure was staring right at them and rasped something in a tongue Nera couldn’t understand.
“We go this way.” She pointed to the left. “I don’t know how, but I know he is there somewhere.”
“Fair enough. Let’s move, then,” Malek said. “Our goal is near.” The mage looked weary, and the strip of cloth tied around his left arm was dark with dried blood. The others weren’t much better off, but the much-needed rest had done them all some good.
Where are you… Father? She still didn’t know if she believed his claims but was ready to lay to rest all her anxiety and fear over the impending encounter. Sabyl, let us find him soon, for it’s doubtful we’ll survive another battle.
They walked past the damned souls chained to the wall. Some of the wretched souls pled to the group to free them. Many more simply wished to be put out of their misery. The companions steadfastly ignored them—they had learned their lesson after the near catastrophe with Jovas.
As if to spite Nera’s wishes—and she wouldn’t have been surprised if Shaol himself took pleasure at the irony—they had barely traveled more than a few hundred paces when Rand spotted a number of dark avian shapes in the sky behind them. They swarmed around the top of a peak in the near distance, spiraling upward and seeming to assemble into formation. Nera counted roughly a dozen of the creatures. The companions’ luck continued to sour when the creatures soared straight toward them.
“Erinys—winged furies,” Yosrick said, a tone of wonder in his voice.
Nera had heard the legend of the erinys before. They had once been celestials who had turned and rebelled against Sol, jealous of his love for mortals and coveting more autonomy and power of their own. Their wickedness had been their downfall—Sol had cast them down into the Abyss, where they lived eternally in the service of a new master, Shaol.
The erinys swiftly gained on the companions, diving toward them as if to attack before swooping back high into the air. Rand nervously loosed an arrow, but it flew short. The erinys circled around above them, making no immediate move to attack.
They were all humanoid and female, slim and graceful. They wore dark armor, and from their backs grew sable-feathered wings. Where the knee-length armor ended, their legs were avian, golden-scaled feet ending in sharp black talons. One of them raised a silver trumpet to her mouth and blew a long, clarion note, which shimmered through the air as if it had a palpable force.
Nera felt a wave of magic wash over the group. As if a veil had been lifted from her eyes, she realized the erinys were not the foul demons they were made out to be, but fair and beautiful creatures. She absently wondered if Idrimel had the blood of such noble beings in her veins. They must make peace with the erinys, she decided.
“Nera! It’s some type of charm magic—resist it!” The voice came from far away, beneath the ground perhaps, seeking to sway her perceptions.
Someone shook her roughly, and Nera blinked, seeing Malek shouting in her face and gripping her shoulders. Her skin tingled from a protective sphere encapsulating him as it flowed across and enveloped her as well.
A voice was shouting a warning elsewhere, but she ignored it, striving to push Malek out of her line of sight, that she might witness the majestic creatures. Perhaps she would even be blessed enough to have one of them speak to her. Even then, she could see the leader had landed gracefully, with several others hovering in the air a few paces away. The woman was so striking in appearance that Nera wished—
A jolt of electricity burst from Malek’s hands, literally shocking her from her trance. His face swam and then snapped into clarity before her eyes. When he saw her reaction, he visibly relaxed.
“It’s a mass charm spell they’re using,” he explained urgently, turning around to face the erinys. “I read some lore from the tome that erinys charm mortal men then carry them off to mate. After capturing their seed, they kill and consume them.”
Yosrick was trying to roust Waresh, Rand, and Jannik, who all stood petrified, staring open-mouthed in dumb fascination. Ner
a felt a rush of embarrassment at the realization that she had been a slack-jawed fool herself, just a moment earlier.
“Release them from your spell, you damned harpy!” Yosrick shouted. He shook his hammer at the lead erinys.
The demoness tilted her head, regarding him as an owl might a mouse before it snatches it from the field. Her large, almond-shaped eyes were an entrancing mix of gold flecks suspended in pitch. The armor she wore looked ancient, finely detailed, yet it had been charred black as if burned in a devastating fire. She spoke something in a language Nera didn’t understand, her voice low and throaty.
The two winged women hovering in the air over her shoulders raised their unstrung bows before them. They made motions as if drawing the strings back, and suddenly orange flames ignited, swirling over the bows, forming strings and arrows of magical fire when their arms drew back.
Before anyone could react, they released their arrows. Nera flinched back as one lanced toward her and Malek. The bolt struck the mage’s shield and burst into an explosion of fiery sparks. She was reminded of a pyrotechnics show the Mages’ Guild had once put on in Nexus.
The second arrow had flown in the other direction. She glanced over and gasped in shock when Yosrick fell to his knees, a sizzling hole in his breastplate. His hammer fell from slack fingers, and he toppled over without a cry.
A moment of astonished silence stretched out, then Nera screamed in fury. She leaped at the lead demoness, daggers poised to strike her down. The erinys simply bent her knees and shot up into the air out of reach, wings snapping out once she was well above them.
The other erinys were all drawing their magical bows. Malek unleashed a blast of force, sweeping them away like leaves in a gale. A few fiery arrows rained down among the companions but missed their targets, lodging into the ground and extinguishing with an angry hiss.
The erinys seemed to recover after a few moments, soaring high into the sky, where they regrouped.
Waresh and the others were coming to their senses while Nera knelt beside Yosrick.
“What the shite happened?” Waresh demanded, Heartsbane in hand as he looked around suspiciously for whatever had felled the gnome.
Nera ignored the rest of them. She lifted Yosrick’s visor and could see he was turning pale. The hole in the side of his breastplate sizzled as if an ember had been thrust inside.
Damn it, that must’ve pierced his lung. She clutched his gauntleted hand. “Easy there—you’re gonna be fine,” she said, convincingly she hoped. The wound seemed to have self-cauterized, for it hardly bled.
“Leave me… Find the Engineer. He’s close now.” The gnome sputtered, having great difficulty drawing breath. “Watch over… Qixi and the younguns, will you?” His brown eyes rolled back in his head.
“Nonsense—you’ll be watching over them yourself when you get back home. Jannik! Get your arse over here!”
The priest ran over and dropped to his knees, eyes wide when he saw Yosrick’s wound.
“Help him,” she ordered. “Please. We’ve lost enough of our friends here.”
Jannik immediately began praying to Anhur, gripping his holy symbol, a metal disc shaped like a gauntleted fist. A blue glow exuded from his hand after a moment, and he gently reached into Yosrick’s wound.
Distantly, Nera was aware of Malek and the others shouting as the erinys came back around to attack again. She paid them no mind, trying to will Yosrick’s wound to close. She had come to value the gnome’s wisdom and friendship greatly.
I still need your wise counsel, Yosrick. You’re gonna make it home to see your family again.
***
Nesnys soared high into the red sky, observing the mortals her father had charged her with welcoming. One had apparently fallen in battle with the erinys, as evidenced by a pair kneeling over their comrade. The others sought to fight off the erinys, which were harrying them. A flight of a dozen furies swooped and clawed and fired arrows into the group, although their flaming arrows were brushed aside by a magical ward that she found impressive by mortal standards.
She cared not for the fate of the mortals, but the fact that her father wished them unharmed caused a twinge of concern. He would not be pleased if any were to die while under her protection.
As she watched, the mage in the group snared one of the erinys with a rope of force, crushing her wings to her body until she plummeted from the sky. The demoness had barely slammed into the ground before a pair of warriors—a dwarf and a young human—swiftly ended her with axe and sword.
Occupied as they were with the mortals, the erinys didn’t notice Nesnys’s approach until too late.
Nesnys unlimbered Willbreaker. She smiled when she recognized Sirath, the leader of this flight of erinys and a hated rival. They should know better than to intrude so far into my territory—it would seem they need to be forcibly reminded of their proper place.
Sirath pulled up, her back exposed to Nesnys, as she drew her bow. Nesnys lashed out with Willbreaker. The whip snaked around the base of one of Sirath’s black feathered wings and cinched tight. The demoness cried out, her wings beating wildly to keep her aloft, but the entangled wing was hindered. Sirath spun and fell, and the whip went taut.
Nesnys yanked on Willbreaker, causing its sharp laksaar teeth to tear through the sinew of Sirath’s wing, ripping it off in a burst of black blood. The demoness went into an uncontrolled spin and slammed hard into the ground, a fair distance from the mortals on the other side of the Wall.
She took a moment to savor her rival’s fall. The demoness would survive but likely wouldn’t be able to regenerate another wing, due to Willbreaker’s enchantment. The erinys would fight amongst themselves to choose a new leader now that Sirath had been crippled.
Nesnys beat her metallic wings and soared upward before diving into the midst of the other erinys, scattering them as a falcon diving into a flock of sparrows. The others, with their keen eyes, had witnessed Sirath’s fate, and they hovered warily out of range of Willbreaker. They regarded her with hatred but were wise to not challenge her, for she had her father’s favor.
“These mortals are under my protection now!” Nesnys cried. “Begone!”
The erinys decided not to tempt her wrath and winged away back to their roost atop the nearest peak, whence they had come.
Nesnys watched the mortals, who were regarding her with a mix of terror and hopefulness. To her irritation, her father hadn’t shared his reasons for wanting them protected, but she knew better than to question him. She hoped that soon she would get to see their optimism crushed out, their bodies lifeless while their salty blood filled her mouth.
But first, she had to carry out her father’s commands.
She swooped down and landed before the mage, whom she assumed was the leader. Instead, a mixed-blood plane-cursed got to her feet from where she had knelt beside her fallen companion and stepped forward to confront Nesnys, hands resting on the pommels of two daggers. Her eyes gleamed like embers, and Nesnys was surprised to find no fear there.
She forced herself to smile reassuringly at the mortals. “The Lord of Achronia welcomes you to his demesne, mortals. You are under my protection now and will accompany me to meet him.”
***
Nera exchanged nervous glances with the others when the demoness addressed them. She had not expected any type of a welcome, and considering where they were, it was likely dire news.
This Lord of Achronia is undoubtedly extremely powerful and cruel—no good can come of his interest in us.
For the moment, however, they were safe—the newcomer had driven off the erinys, although she smiled at them with all the reassurance of a starving wolf.
Seeing her own confusion and wariness mirrored in her friends’ faces, Nera turned back to regard the demoness before them. She looked similar in appearance to the erinys but had a warrior’s physique. The fiend was tall and lithe, her height on par with Idrimel. Dark feathered wings folded neatly behind her back. She was cruelly beautiful
, with long ashen hair and eyes that shone like silver crowns. Her limbs were long and muscular, her skin a deep bronze color a couple shades darker than Nera’s. Intricate patterns were tattooed on her skin, running from her thighs up her flanks. She wore very little, her nakedness barely concealed by a revealing garment of black metal scales. The hard muscles of her abdomen rippled when she moved.
The demoness’s gaze swept over the group dismissively, with the exception of Malek, who she seemed to regard with respect for his power. When her gaze fell back on Nera, it was that of a predatory beast.
“Is your companion unwell?” she asked, her tone flat and unconcerned, but her eyes darted to where Yosrick lay, Jannik sitting beside him wearily.
“He was wounded by the erinys but will recover,” Nera replied, deeply relieved that Jannik had been able to heal Yosrick although both of them were fatigued and needed rest.
The demoness nodded curtly, and before Nera could speak further, she spread her hands and incanted a spell. The air shimmered around the entire group, much like she remembered from the heat of the great furnace in the foundry. Without any sensation of movement, the scenery abruptly flowed past them. Mountains and ridges slid past in the distance, and the Wall was a blur of motion.
Then they were elsewhere.
The red sky and distant volcanos and storms were the same, but the nearby landscape had changed.
The first things Nera saw were the links of thick black chain secured to the Wall, the shackles open and lying empty upon the ground before them.
“This is the place I have seen in my dreams.” Nera’s excitement swiftly turned to consternation.
The Engineer was gone—and with him, their hopes of saving Nexus.
Chapter 17
Idrimel and Wyat stepped out into the scorching heat, the air reeking of sulfur. She nearly wept in relief—even though they were still in the Abyss, they were no longer underground with the horrors that dwelt in the eternal darkness.
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