Birch was flung back by the power of the blast, and he struck the far wall with enough force to indent several of the stones. He heard the snap of bones and agony raced through every part of his body, then he crumpled to the ground and lay still.
On the floor, a black, charred outline was the only evidence of Sal’s existence.
- 3 -
Garet blocked another of Wein’s wild swings, then lashed out with his own sword and left another small cut on the mad paladin’s arm. So far, Garet had avoided a killing stroke that would put his friend past mortal help. He was trying instead to incapacitate Wein by knocking him out or weakening him with blood loss. Garet didn’t know how Birch was faring inside, but he knew the Gray paladin would probably need Garet’s help to survive.
The two paladins fought on the battlements, with a courtyard below on one side and a sheer drop on the other.
“Lord Donnor warned me about you,” Wein said. His eyes still burned with insane fervor. “His assistant here helped me set this up, but I’m to receive the honor of cutting down that unholy monstrosity in there. The Gray demon must die, and you with him. Lord Donnor realized this was true when I told him, and he ordered me to stop you. You’ve been corrupted, and I have to stop it.”
Wein was babbling insanely, as he’d been doing the entire battle. In a regular fight, Garet would have had no difficulty in besting Wein, who was no slouch with a sword but nowhere near Garet’s class of swordsman. But Wein’s madness seemed to lend him extra speed and a mindless ferocity that Garet was having difficulty getting past. Garet had used up far too much time fighting him, and he worried that Birch might be in trouble.
Just then, he heard a loud screech of pain and saw Selti burst from the room where Birch was fighting the demons. The gray dakkan’s claws were smoking and horribly disfigured, and Garet saw him fly down toward the harbor.
Wein chose that moment to attack, while Garet was distracted, and the Violet paladin scored a painful cut across Garet’s right wrist. Garet’s body and upper arms were protected by his thick chainmail and the leather vest he wore, but his forearms were still vulnerable to a slash from Wein’s sword. Garet stepped back to recover, and Wein likewise retreated a step.
Before Garet could do more than catch his breath, the air behind him rippled with a concussive shockwave, knocking him flat. Wein was knocked to the side and he toppled over the battlements. Garet dropped his sword, pushed up off the ground, and leapt forward. He caught Wein’s hands just as the Violet paladin was about to slip free. The rocky ground was hundreds of feet below, and Garet’s instincts overrode his common sense that Wein was a paladin and could safely float to the ground below.
“Hold on, Wein,” Garet grunted. “I’ve got you.”
Wein stared wildly at the ground below him, and when he looked back at Garet, his eyes were free of their madness.
In the silence following the explosion, Garet heard Wein whisper, “What have I done?”
His fingers were gripped with Garet’s, but the Red paladin’s grip was slick with sweat and blood from the cut on his wrist. Almost immediately Wein started to slowly slip free. Wein locked his gaze with Garet, and his eyes seemed lost and terrified. He was scared, not of the promise of death lurking beneath him, but of what he had done in his madness. Wein closed his eyes, then Garet felt the Violet paladin’s fingers release their grasp, and he was powerless to stop it.
“No!” Garet screamed. “Wein!”
Garet watched helplessly as his brother paladin fell toward the ground. He hoped and prayed with every second that he’d see Wein’s descent slow. All it would take was the simple desire to no fall – to not die! – and the cloak would act to protect him. But the Violet paladin’s cloak wrapped uselessly around him as the air whipped past, and Garet saw an anguished look on his face before it was too small to make out. Garet forced himself to watch, then turned away at the last second before the violet speck stained the ground below.
With a sick feeling in his stomach, Garet stood and picked up his sword. Swallowing hard, he went to find Birch.
Chapter 33
How does one reconcile the omniscience and prescience of God with man’s free-willing ability to choose? God Himself has been strangely silent on this matter.”
- Orange Paladin Oneth de’Weiden,
“A Question of Fate” (967 AM)
- 1 -
Danner backed slowly away from the faerer-demon.
“Flasch, go,” he said. “It’s after me. Get away and get Trebor and the others here as fast as you can. Bring paladins if you can, but hurry.”
“Are you crazy?” Flasch asked in disbelief.
“Probably, but I’m also fast. I may not be able to outrun a faerer, but I’ve got incentive to try,” Danner said with surprising calm. “If you can get back here quickly enough, I might even still be alive.”
“But…”
“This is not a discussion, Flasch,” Danner said crisply. “Just go.”
Flasch gave him a searching look, then nodded. He darted off down a side trail, glancing behind him to see if the faerer bothered with him, but it was as Danner said: the demon wasn’t interested in Flasch, only Danner.
He waited until Flasch disappeared behind some rocks, just in case he was wrong, then Danner turned and sprinted up the mountain path. He heard a loud growl behind him as the demon gave chase. Danner had never been more glad that he’d inherited his father’s speed and reflexes and not his size. He raced along the narrow path, darting around obstacles that would have slowed a larger man down. The footing was treacherous at best, but Danner’s reflexes saved him whenever his ankle threatened to turn on a loose or protruding rock.
When he reached a relatively safe stretch, Danner glanced back and saw his pursuer was slowly gaining ground, its lithe feline body navigating the obstacles just as easily as Danner. Only the sizable lead Danner had on the demon was keeping him alive now. He knew it was only a matter of time, however, before he began to tire, and then the demon would catch up to him.
Then I’m shnieked, he thought grimly.
Danner had no weapon on him except his bowkur, which he knew would be nothing short of useless against the demon. The point wasn’t even close to being sharp, and the edge of the wooden blade was more likely to give the demon a splinter than to cut it in any way. Danner glanced around earnestly, looking for a sharp rock or something that would be more effective against his hunter.
Looking to each side for a rock, he missed seeing the fist-sized one that lay in his path. Danner’s toe struck the rock, and he went sprawling. The trail was narrow, and he nearly fell off the edge. The slope below him was impossibly steep and promised a painful death if he fell.
He felt the wind as the faerer-demon leapt over him, and sharp claws dug into his back. There was a sharp ripping sound, and Danner felt his training cloak torn from his body. Danner pushed himself quickly to his feet, ignoring the stinging in his shoulders, but he was alone on the pathway.
Danner looked everywhere, but the only thing he found was the remains of his cloak drifting in the wind. The tattered cloth was several yards below him, then a gust of wind caught it and ripped it away from the mountainside and beyond hope of recovery.
Danner flattened himself against the solid wall of the mountain, staying well away from the edge of the path. Without his cloak, even the mad idea of leaping from the mountain was taken away from him. He couldn’t see the demon and had no avenue of escape. He prayed fervently that Flasch was faster than Danner thought he was.
“Lord, if you get me out of this, I promise I’ll never pick another pocket or steal anything for myself ever again,” Danner swore, staring at the sky. “I’ll work hard to become a paladin, and I’ll do everything I can to be a good person.”
The crackle of rocks alerted him, and Danner spun away from the rock face just as something huge and leathery crashed down the mountain. Clutching the slab of rock, Danner looked and saw a yellow dakkan push off from the stone
toward the air. The dakkan turned and glared with loathing at Danner, who saw that the reptile’s eyes were glowing red with Hellish fury.
Before Danner could think twice about it, he leapt from the mountain path and landed on one of the dakkan’s lemon-colored wings. The flying demon banked slightly, then adjusted to compensate for his weight. Danner scrambled to get a decent handhold, then crawled forward to the spot normally reserved for a flying harness on a tame dakkan. The enormous beasts were perfectly suited for serving as flying mounts for paladins, who had long since discovered the best ways of riding with and without gear. While flying without a harness was ill-advised, there were places on the dakkan’s neck where a rider could stay mounted in relative safety, using the topography of the beast itself to stay in place.
Well this is about the stupidest thing I’ve ever done, Danner thought to himself. The demon-dakkan screeched in fury and spun sideways, trying to dislodge him. Danner clung tightly with his hands and legs and was able to hang on.
When the creature leveled off, Danner glanced up to see a massive head reaching back for him. He resisted the urge to release his hold, and was rewarded by the dakkan’s jaws snapping only a few inches from his legs. Danner was too close to its neck, and the demon couldn’t stretch back far enough to get him.
Danner reached over with one hand and drew his bowkur. The wooden saber was nearly ripped from his grasp by the wind, but he tightened his grip and stabbed the bowkur into the demon’s snapping jaws. Sharp teeth sliced half of the blade off the weapon, leaving a jagged wooden tip. More importantly, though, it left a jagged edge on the metal rod that was within the wooden shell.
Just then, Danner heard Trebor’s voice inside his head.
“Danner, we’re here! Where are you?”
“I’m riding the thing’s back someplace overhead, and I lost my cloak,” Danner thought in reply. “The demon shifted into a yellow dakkan. Look for me.”
There was a second of silence.
“Found you,” Trebor kythed. “But if this is a shapeshifter, what happens when he changes to a gnat and you with no cloak?” On any other day, Danner might have found that idea amusing.
“I didn’t think that far ahead,” Danner admitted. “Let’s hope he doesn’t either.”
“We’ve got paladins coming, so just hang on. They’ll be here any second, with dakkans to catch you when and if you fall.”
“Well they’d better bloody well hurry,” Danner said, clenching his teeth as the demon spun upside down and hung that way for a moment. Danner clung to it long enough that the dakkan was forced to either right itself or risk dropping from the skies. The demon righted itself, then climbed higher into the sky, screeching in fury.
Danner glanced over his shoulder and saw three dakkans racing over the trees, armed paladins on their backs. Danner figured they were close enough that he would be safe. Before he left, there was the matter of his bowkur.
“I can’t kill you, but…” Danner growled as he stabbed downward with the broken weapon and made a foot-long cut in the yellow scales in front of him. The cut was shallow and did little more than scratch the beast’s hide, but if his instructors knew what they were talking about, he really didn’t need to cause much damage. During their classes, the trainees had been taught that demons and other creatures from Hell couldn’t stand the Tricrus. Its presence was an anathema to them, and touching a holy symbol would cause intense agony. In most demons, carving the symbol on their flesh would be enough to destroy them if made by a soldier of God: a paladin. Danner only hoped to sting the demon and distract it long enough for him to get free unmolested.
He made two more cuts, perpendicular to the first, completing the holy symbol. He then released his legs as the dakkan shrieked and screamed in terror and agony beneath him. Before he could leap free, though, the dakkan started to shrink. Danner instinctively clutched the diminishing body beneath him, and he soon found himself clinging to a child-sized creature with smooth, brown skin. The back of its neck was marked with a Tricrus that glowed with an azure fire.
Then suddenly the world seemed to turn inside out, and Danner found himself flung from the creature as it exploded in a concussive shockwave. Danner flew through the air, barely maintaining consciousness. He saw that the blast had thrown him down and too far in the opposite direction from his would-be rescuers, and the dakkans would never reach him in time.
With startling clarity, Danner realized he was going to die.
He turned in the air and watched with a sort of detachment as the ground rushed closer and closer. In a way, it almost felt like his cloak training, which left him strangely calm. The side of the mountain passed by him, and Danner fell past a sheer cliff face. His vision began to fade, and pain erupted from his shoulder blades, as if something were trying to burst from him, rather than rocks tearing into his body.
Danner clenched his eyes shut and screamed in desperation – “God!” – as his world burst into blue flames.
- 2 -
Moreen stared over the bow of the ship, watching the bump of the dwarven capital become slowly larger on the horizon. The lookout had spotted the island hours ago, but it was only recently visible to those on the deck of the ship. A favorable wind had sped their journey considerably, shaving nearly a full day off the captain’s three-day estimate the day before. Now he was certain they would reach Den-Furral late that day or early the next.
Brit trundled up slowly beside Moreen and joined her at the rail. The gruff dwarf was silent for a time.
“Has been many a year since I did come home,” Brit said in quiet voice. “I donna know how this is t’ feel.”
“What do you mean?” Moreen asked.
Brit sighed.
“Well, lass, my brother does live here, and he do be a bit on the unforgiving side,” the dwarf explained. “He and I did have one argument too many, and I did leave before we talked again. I do love the man, though he do be a pompous ass. I havena heard from him in near a decade, and I do worry ‘bout him.”
Moreen patted the dwarf’s stocky shoulder.
“I’m sure things will work out fine, Brit,” she said reassuringly. “Families and loved ones are a blessing, and I’m sure he misses you, too. You’ll see.”
Before she could continue, Moreen saw a dark speck rise into the air from the island, then immediately plummet toward the ground. She was too far away to see what it was, but at that distance it would have to be something enormous to show up against the sky. Perhaps a dakkan.
A feeling of dread stole over her, and Moreen was suddenly terrified for Birch’s life. She stood still, rendered mute and motionless by her fear. Then the air above the island seemed to ripple, followed several seconds later by the sound of a tremendous explosion.
Moreen staggered more in shock than for any other reason, and she leaned heavily on Brit. The stocky dwarf planted his feet and held her upright, his face echoing her fear and worry.
“We’ll be there soon, lass,” Brit said softly, not taking his eyes from the island. “We’ll be there soon.”
- 3 -
Garnet watched in horror as Danner was thrown away from the demon by its destructive blast. A puff of black powder, just barely visible, was blown away and dissipated by the wind. And there, too far away for the dakkans to reach him, Danner fell unchecked toward the ground.
Without any sure reason why, Garnet and Trebor ran toward the edge of the cliff where Danner had just disappeared. Hoping beyond hope for some kind of miracle, Garnet was nonetheless prepared to see his friend’s body dashed on the rocks below. But before they reached the edge, Trebor pulled up short and Garnet nearly bowled him over.
“What the…” Trebor said to himself. “I lost him, and I thought he was dead already, but then I had him again. Now he’s gone once more,” Trebor said in confusion.
“What are you saying?”
Trebor shook his head. “I don’t know. It’s as if…”
“Look!” Flasch yelled from behind them, a
nd suddenly he was at Garnet’s shoulder, turning the larger man’s head to look at the cliff where Danner had fallen.
“Sin, San, and holy Lord!” Garnet whispered.
Rising from beyond the precipice was Danner, his face strangely vacant as he stared at them without recognition. He looked terrified and overawed at the same time, which was much the same as his friends felt as they saw him. Sprouting from the back of Danner’s shoulders were two glowing blue shapes that beat in a slow, rhythmic motion, holding him aloft.
“What the Hell are those?” Flasch asked, his voice strained. “Wings?”
Garnet opened and closed his mouth absently. “Um, yeah,” he said at last with surprising calmness.
The wings on Danner’s back each had a thick tendril of glowing blue light from which a lighter blue haze hung suspended. Garnet thought he saw the faint outline of feathers, but it was always just beyond his ability to focus clearly enough to be sure.
Danner rose in the air until his feet were at the level of Garnet’s shoulders, then he slowly settled to the ground.
“Danner?” Trebor asked.
“Help me,” Danner said, his voice a hoarse, pleading whisper. “What do you see? What’s happening?”
Trebor hesitated. Garnet was silent. The air hung suspended with tension until Flasch blurted, “You’ve got glowing wings, for San’s sake!”
Danner nodded, his eyes wild. His eyes closed as though exhausted, and the wings suddenly winked out of existence. In the air where they’d been, Garnet still saw their shape, much as if he’d stared at a fire and then looked quickly away.
With a sigh, Danner crumpled to the ground. When Garnet reached down to check on him, his friend was blissfully unconscious.
Chapter 34
The art of healing is the art of love – this is our true virtue. The best healers are those who not only have a deep, abiding love for their fellow man, but also a firm, complete love and acceptance of themselves.
Hunting The Three (The Barrier War) Page 40
