The Crystal Mountain

by Thomas M. Reid

  The winged glabrezu whipped one of its huge pincered limbs out and snagged a stunned archon in its grasp. The hound warrior struggled for a moment, pulling futilely at the razor-sharp claw encircling its neck. Then the powerful appendage flexed, and the archon’s head separated from its body in a single snip. The hound warrior collapsed and the glabrezu smiled at Garin. It brought the pincer up and ran its long, forked tongue along the blood, savoring it.

  “Let us dance, angel,” the beast said, advancing with its claws extended toward him.

  Garin adjusted the grip on his mace and motioned for the demon to come closer. “I have just the music for it.”

  Vhok levitated above his troops, glaring toward the front of the column. The scorching, acrid wind buffeted him as he hovered, and the impatient shouts and growls rising from the morass of demons grated on his ears. He could see a great archway ahead in the distance, a monolithic stone structure rising from the broken plain. Fiery red lightning spider-webbed across the surface of the stone, but in the center, where the foremost demon troops passed through it, he could see a writhing darkness that flickered with pulsing blue light.

  The arch stood as one among many, a cluster of half a dozen portals arranged in a circle. Demons surrounded the clump of arcane doorways, a sea of bodies stretching all across the desiccated, gravel-strewn plain of Lord Axithar’s domain.

  The hordes of the balor’s army marched toward the arches in fat, disorderly columns that wound through the islands of jagged stone and thorny brambles. Lord Axithar’s hulking black keep loomed in the distance, and Vhok could feel the balor’s eyes on the proceedings.

  And this army is just one of many, Vhok mused with a grin. Mighty Orcus commands great power. The angels will fall this day.

  The cambion began counting the number of legions ahead of his, but each time he started, he lost track of where one ended and another began, as the demons could not stay in coherent groups. Already, dretches in his own unit pushed and shoved one another, chafing at being forced to wait their turn.

  We’ll never get there! Vhok fumed. I will lose control of them if this goes on much longer.

  But the line crawled relentlessly forward, and Vhok passed the time cowing his charges with threats of painful, languishing deaths if they did not behave.

  When they were second in line to pass through, he began to hear a strange whistling emanating from the arch, and he got a better look as the demons stepped into it. The darkness sucked them in, yanking them forward off their feet the moment a part of their bodies grazed against its surface.

  Vhok felt a momentary worry. I hope they go where Lord Axithar says they do, he thought. If not … well then, too late for us.

  He was just about to return to his own troops when an imp arrived with a message. “Vhissilka would speak with you,” it said in a whiny voice, then it tittered as it raced away to continue its business.

  What does she want now? Vhok wondered, disgusted.

  The cambion unfurled his magical cloak and surged upward. He circled around and followed the column of troops back until he spotted the marilith’s vanguard and angled toward it. The snake demon towered over the rest of her forces.

  The cambion settled to the ground next to Vhissilka. “You summoned me?” he asked, trying to keep his tone deferential.

  “Remember,” the marilith said, “you have my right flank. Do not allow your troops to advance too far ahead. I do not want to pass through the gate to find myself surrounded by angry angels. Only when I give the signal may you commence with your charge.”

  “Of course,” Vhok said. It’s only the fifth time you’ve told me, you bitch.

  “You have the item?” she asked.

  Vhok suppressed a sigh and pulled a glass rod from within a pocket in his tunic. The tube, sealed at both ends, was not much longer than his index finger, and slightly fatter than his thumb. Like the arch, the inside of the rod swirled with a darkness shot through with blue flecks of light. He held the thing up for Vhissilka to see clearly, then returned it to the safety of his tunic.

  “Very good,” the marilith said. “Be ready. Watch for my signal.”

  “Of course.”

  “Go,” Vhissilka said. “Return to your place. Rain death upon the enemy!”

  Vhok gave her a casual salute and took to the air again, returning to his own unit. They were almost to the arch. The last ranks of the legion ahead of them were passing through the portal, drawn into the swirling black mists. He settled to the ground beside a lieutenant, a ram-headed demon corralling dretches with his polearm. The cambion was fairly certain it was the same one he had been crossing paths with lately.

  “We will crush them,” the demon said. “They are weak, puny things that love impotent gods.”

  Vhok snorted. “Do not underestimate them, fool,” he said. “We fight on their lands today. They draw on powerful magic there, and if we are not careful, they will scatter us to the winds.”

  The ram demon gave Vhok a rheumy stare. “Bah!” it said. “If you fear them so much, perhaps you should hide here while the rest of us make sport with their heads.”

  Vhok smirked. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  It was their turn. The front row of his column of demons stood before the arch, on the verge of passing through it. The lead rank hesitated until the ram demon rushed forward and encouraged them with liberal use of his weapon. “Move it, you craven worms! Into the arch! Find the enemy! Slay them all! Go! Go!”

  The demons shuffled forward and vanished through the portal. More followed.

  Vhok shot into the air. He swung around and made his way back to the end of his command. His elite cavalry force waited there.

  Unlike the craven lesser demons, the lanky winged beasts stood proud and tall, disdainful of the rabble around them. The fiends reminded the cambion of lithe, wiry gargoyles, though they had no skin. Their dark, purplish-black flesh and muscles glistened wetly, bound together by violet sinew. Black horns curved up and back from atop gaunt, skeletal ebony skulls in which red eyes glittered with fury. Their mouths hung agape, revealing rows of black, needlelike teeth and darting, forked tongues. Each one carried a slender, double-headed spear.

  “We must taste the blood of angels!” one of them screamed.

  The others clamored in agreement.

  “Let us rend their flesh!” another cried.

  “You will sate yourselves upon celestial meat soon enough,” Vhok called out. “But first, we have another task to attend to.”

  The skinless creatures howled and gnashed their teeth. The cambion was not sure if it was in frustration or glee. He motioned them up, into the air.

  “With me!” he shouted and flew toward the archway. As he neared its surface, he thought again of whether it would lead him to glory or oblivion.

  Only one way to find out, he thought, diving through the portal.

  Garin dodged to his left as the glabrezu snapped a pincer at his head. He swung his mace down hard upon the bony outer casing of his foe’s limb. The blow drove the arm away from him, but his mace bounced off harmlessly.

  Must find a way to crack this nut, Garin thought, shaking his hand to alleviate the tingling sensation.

  Archons and fiends battled around the two combatants. Two hound warriors tried to join Garin and engage the glabrezu, but after the demon sliced the head from one, Garin motioned the other way.

  “Just keep those other fiends off me!” he shouted. Garin channeled divine energy into his body and opened his mouth to drive the demon to its knees with a holy word. The glabrezu, perhaps sensing what the angel was about to do, kicked out with its taloned foot and struck a glancing blow against Garin’s wounded shoulder. Stabbing pain shot through the angel and he cried out. The glabrezu followed with another pincer attack, which Garin barely swatted away with his mace. The demon motioned, and swarming, ricocheting bursts of multicolored energy inundated the angel and struck him from every angle. Where the explosions touched his body, disrupti
ve energy made Garin’s muscles convulse.

  Garin arched his back in pain. The glabrezu bounded forward, its pincers snapping. The deadly claws stretched toward his neck. Garin flung himself backward and rolled across the ground, heedless of the blood and flesh beneath him. He gestured at the oncoming demon, summoning a wall of magical flying blades as a barrier between the two of them.

  The demon stepped into the whirling cloud of razor-sharp weaponry before it realized what was happening. The sound of steel ringing on bone echoed from the spot as a dozen wounds opened on the fiend’s tough skin. It roared in pain and jumped back out of harm’s way.

  The distraction gave Garin enough time to regain his footing and recover his wits. Stay focused, he admonished himself. Don’t let it get that close to you.

  He backed up a step or two and cast a quick glance around.

  The battle seethed around them, though the fighting had retreated as archons and demons alike avoided getting too close to the whirling, slashing pair. Demons by the score lay piled on the field, interspersed with the occasional archon. The hound warriors might have been the superior fighters, but the demons balanced that in terms of sheer numbers.

  Garin cast a quick glance at the edge of the clearing and saw fiends still churning out of the slash in the earth. They rushed to join their allies, clambering over one another to get to enemies.

  They just won’t stop coming, Garin thought with growing dismay. We won’t be able to hold them back.

  He returned his attention to the hulking winged demon before him. The glabrezu had retreated from the whirling cloud of blades and was performing a little dance of pain as it rubbed its injuries with the smaller hands protruding from its chest. It snarled at Garin and vanished.

  Not waiting to see what the demon had had in mind, Garin launched himself skyward, taking wing over the battlefield. He felt a faint touch against his wing as he shot out of reach. Just as he had suspected and feared, the glabrezu had teleported directly behind him. He glided in a tight circle, scanning the ground below. The fiend was up in the air too, coming after him.

  Garin wasted no time. He channeled the power of Torm. When the glabrezu drew close enough, the angel shouted the holy word. The rippling energy of the focused blast struck the demon squarely, knocking it back. Its wings fluttered, but it quickly regained its balance.

  The demon grinned. “Your words are useless against my superior power,” it rumbled. The thing vanished again, and Garin was forced into freefall to evade its powerful pincers.

  This thing is tricky, Garin thought, worried. How do I kill it?

  He spun in place and smashed at the onrushing demon with his mace. The weapon whisked through empty space as the glabrezu vanished yet again. Garin dived away as the demon reappeared behind him.

  I must out-clever it, he decided. Anticipate its tactic and counter it.

  Garin swooped around and came at the glabrezu once more. That time, when the creature vanished, Garin did not dart away. Instead, he drew on his holy might to produce a powerful, blinding aura of goodness, a tiny bit of Torm’s essence. The aura burst all around the angel, and he heard the glabrezu grunt in surprise and pain.

  Garin spun and struck rapidly. The demon, blinded by the divine aura, did not see the strike coming in time and took the brunt of the blow on the side of its head. Garin hit it again, hard in the chest.

  A deafening boom erupted from the point of contact, and the demon was driven back by preternatural energy. It flailed in the air, stunned, and plummeted.

  Garin followed the fiend down, and when the demon struck the ground and sprawled there, the angel hammered it again with his mace. The blow landed on one of the thick pincer arms, and it cracked.

  He drew his mace back for another strike, but the demon vanished and his weapon thunked into the mud.

  Garin spun and swung, expecting to find the fiend there, but it had not reappeared nearby.

  It wants no part of me, the angel thought with no small amount of relief.

  He surveyed the battle for a moment while catching his breath. The archons had inflicted unbelievable casualties upon the demons, but they were so badly outnumbered that they had begun to succumb to the overwhelming numbers of the fiends. In many places, the hound warriors had been reduced to isolated pockets of defenders surrounded by a sea of demons.

  The reinforcements! Garin thought with a panic. Nilsa!

  Garin turned to find his companion. He spotted her halfway to him, her forces already on their way.

  Garin sighed in relief and smiled at her as she reached him.

  “I couldn’t wait any longer,” she said apologetically as she landed beside him. “If I didn’t order the charge, all would have been lost.”

  “I was a fool to get so caught up with that glabrezu. Keep an eye out for him. He’s tricky and bound to be lurking nearby.”

  “Look,” Nilsa said, pointing toward the open wound in the ground where the demons poured forth.

  Garin turned his gaze that direction and spotted a group of figures flying out of the crevice. They did not race toward the fight before them, but instead took to the air and flew off in another direction.

  Garin shook his head. “We can’t do anything about that,” he muttered. “The solars will have to catch them.”

  Then he got a better look at the lead figure. It was Kaanyr Vhok.

  “Oh no,” he murmured. “We have to—”

  Garin’s words were drowned out by Nilsa’s scream. He spun to find her flailing in agony beside him, the glabrezu right behind her with a baleful grin upon its face. Blood spattered the ground and dripped from the fiend’s pincer.

  One of Nilsa’s wings, severed at the shoulder, lay on the muddy ground at her feet.

  “Look there,” Aliisza said, pointing at the horizon.

  Tauran and the others turned and peered that way. A cluster of dark shapes, visible in contrast to the gray, blowing clouds, hovered in the sky.

  “What is that?” Kael asked.

  “Whatever it is, it’s coming this way,” Pharaun said, rising to his feet.

  Tauran saw that the black specks had become a host of small figures winging their way in the direction of the Lifespring.

  “It’s them,” Eirwyn said. “I can feel it.”

  “I can, too,” Aliisza said beside her.

  Tauran shoved aside the worry he felt for his companions and said, “He’s brought friends, as I suspected he might. He’s probably going to try to use them to distract us while he attempts to get to the pool. That’s what I’d do if I were in his position. So concentrate on keeping between him and the Lifespring. He’s crafty, so be ready.”

  He took flight then, sensed his companions shoving aloft beside and behind him and, along with them, winged his way toward the horde of figures.

  Already, he could see their fiendish features, from their foul, skinless black bodies to their baleful grins. There were perhaps three dozen of them, and each one carried a double-tipped spear in both hands.

  Tauran aimed for Vhok, who flew near the front of the pack. He increased his speed in order to reach the cambion as far out from the Lifespring as possible. The angel gripped his mace, nervous energy coursing through him.

  Today, we settle the score once and for all, Vhok. One of us dies today. By Torm’s—and Tyr’s—grace, may it be you.

  Vhok spotted the group coming toward him and slowed. He motioned for his escort to continue onward, and Tauran heard him command them in Abyssal to slay the defenders. As the demons shot past the cambion, he slipped his sword free, and Tauran could see it crackle with that same malevolent energy that Vhok had used against Micus and Garin before.

  Just before Tauran and the others reached the onrushing demons, the angel received a bit of inspiration. He cloaked himself with invisibility and altered his course. A pair of the underlings that had been targeting him faltered in midnight.

  Tauran channeled Torm’s divine power. The surge of energy washed over Vhok, and T
auran became visible.

  The angel’s hopes faded when Vhok only shuddered once and then straightened, laughing. It was only then that Tauran could see the faint, malevolent darkness enveloping the cambion.

  “I thought you might try that, fool,” Vhok said. “I came prepared this time. A little gift from Lord Axithar.”

  “It will not save you,” Tauran said.

  Vhok laughed.

  The pair circled one another, hanging in midair, sizing one another up. In the distance, black, gaunt demons swarmed the small force defending the Lifespring, clashing in a violent cacophony of blades and shouts. Tauran delivered a couple of feints, which Vhok easily dodged. The cambion did the same, grinning the entire time.

  Then the two were at each other, and Tauran had to swing his mace full force in order to parry the first real strikes of Vhok’s blade.

  “You should not have come back here,” Tauran said, swiping repeatedly with his mace and driving Vhok back. “Turn back now and return from whence you came, or we will destroy you.”

  Vhok fanned his cloak hard to put some space between them. He howled with laughter. “Is that the best delivery you’ve got, after all this time? I really thought you’d learned to be a little more clever, after spending so much time with me.” He made a show of wiping a tear of mirth from his eye. “You disappoint me, Tauran.”

  Tauran shrugged. “It had to be said. You know I had to offer you that chance. But I know you won’t heed the warning, if for no other reason than it’s coming from me. You’d stay inside a burning building just because I told you to get to safety.”

  Vhok lunged at Tauran. The angel gave ground until he realized what the cambion was trying to do. Tauran spun out of the way, narrowly avoiding getting cleaved in twain by one of Vhok’s lackeys. He channeled divine power through the holy word and stunned the creature, then turned back to Vhok.

  The cambion smirked. “I’m surprised Tyr let you come sniveling home to the nest, much less granted you your power again.”