by James Wyatt
Nodding a salute to Albanon, Immeral lowered his spear and charged the large demon. The other riders appeared behind him with a series of pops and engaged the smaller demons, slashing around them with long, slender swords.
They weren’t after us? Albanon thought, suddenly feeling very foolish.
He gestured to dismiss the thorn barriers where the hounds were still thrashing their way through, and the hounds surged forward, leaping at the demons with teeth bared. Albanon stared dumbly as a fierce battle erupted on all sides around him.
“Are you going to stand there like a statue while the priest dies?” Splendid chirped in his ear. The pseudodragon pushed off his shoulder and took flight, circling his head as she continued to speak. “Not that I would be terribly surprised. Or disappointed, come to think of it.”
The pseudodragon’s words jolted Albanon out of his stupor. Kri, still sagging with exhaustion, was surrounded by the smaller demons, which stood almost as tall as he was. They were built much like dwarves, and some part of Albanon’s mind wondered idly if these creatures had been dwarves that had been subjected to Vestapalk’s transformation. Kri looked as though he could barely lift his heavy mace, let alone swing it effectively, and the demons surrounding him were making the most of his exhaustion. Like wolves encircling a tired stag, they darted in from behind to slash with their four clawed arms while the demons in front of him concentrated on dodging and blocking the weak blows of his mace.
It took only an instant’s concentration for Albanon to work the same fey magic that had brought Immeral and the other hunters past his thorn barrier. He took a single step that carried him six long strides to Kri’s side. Demons growled in surprise all around him, but he stilled his mounting panic with a slow breath and extended his senses to feel the magic flowing all around him. As Kri had said, the magic was everywhere, and he found it easy to pinpoint the location of each demon, like an interruption in the flow, a snarl in the weave. With a short string of arcane syllables, he unleashed the merest fraction of the latent power in the weave of magic, causing the air around him to explode with fire. Searing flames engulfed each of the demons within five yards, but left Kri and the eladrin hunters untouched.
The injured demons raised a terrible keening cry of pain and shuffled back from Albanon. In that moment of respite, he put a hand on Kri’s shoulder.
“Gather your strength, my friend,” he said. “The fight’s not over yet.”
“I have no strength left,” Kri said.
“Call on Ioun’s strength, then. I can’t lose you now.”
A few of the demons fell still on the ground, flames smoldering on their bodies, and the others pulled together on one side of the fray, pinning Albanon and Kri between them and those that were locked in battle with the eladrin hunters. They crept forward cautiously, as if waiting for the next burst of fire to erupt around them.
“That’s right,” Albanon said. “You should be scared.”
He drew in his will as he lifted his staff above his head, then slammed the end of the staff down on the ground as hard as he could. The ground shook with the arcane power surging through it, and thunder pealed in front of him. The clump of demons was blasted back and scattered. When the rumbling ground settled, they all lay dead, leaving Kri and Albanon safely out of reach of any of the remaining demons.
Albanon turned to check on Kri. The old priest was clutching the stylized eye symbol of Ioun he wore around his neck, his eyes closed in fervent prayer. He looked a little stronger than he did before, but he was obviously not fully recovered. He drew a deep, shuddering breath and his eyes fluttered open.
“What’s wrong?” Albanon asked.
“It’s hard,” Kri said, shaking his head.
“Drawing on your magic?”
“No, the magic is fine. It’s harder to feel Ioun’s presence, though.”
“Can you fight?”
“I think so.”
The eladrin hunters and their hounds had surrounded the large demon, though a few of the smaller ones remained on their feet, mostly locked in deadly grapples with the hounds. A few hounds lay dying or dead, and as Albanon turned to look, the large demon struck a solid blow on one of the hunters, knocking him to the ground.
Albanon pointed the end of his staff at the towering demon, and a line of lightning joined him to the demon with a loud crack. Smaller bolts of lightning extended from the demon to strike two of the smaller demons nearby. Beside him, Kri stretched out both hands and bathed the demon and the downed man in brilliant white light. The demon writhed in pain from the twin assaults as the smaller demons collapsed. Immeral shot a smile over his shoulder at Albanon.
“That’s it!” Immeral cried. “It doesn’t have much fight left in it!”
The demon’s writhing stopped abruptly, and it fixed its small, gleaming eyes on Albanon. Its mouth opened and a voice came out—or two voices, rather. One was a bellowing roar befitting the body it issued from, and the other was powerful but strangely distant and alien … and familiar.
“So you appear again to disrupt this one’s plans,” the voice said.
Vestapalk! Albanon took an involuntary couple of steps back.
“Know this,” the voice continued. “You strive in vain against this one. The Plaguedeep is planted, and its touch spreads to all the worlds. You are far too late to stop what has already begun.”
Kri stepped forward, surrounded by a faint nimbus of holy light. “We will stop you, dragon,” he declared, and his voice carried the ring of divine authority.
“Foolish priest. You do not know what you are doing, and you know nothing of this one. No mere dragon is this, though Vestapalk was mighty among dragons. This one is now mightier still.”
“Keep it talking,” Albanon muttered, hoping Kri could hear. The hunters had backed away from the large demon and were carving through the remaining smaller ones. Albanon closed his eyes and extended his other senses to feel the pattern of magic around him.
As before, he felt the power coursing through the air and the ground, and experienced the demons as dark tangles in that weave. The eladrin warriors and their hounds were bright threads, part of the same fabric as the Feywild itself, shining with life and their own magical power. Kri was a different sort of brightness, something foreign to the weave but congruent with it, shining with tremendous power of a different kind. The priest was speaking to the dragon-demon again, but Albanon paid no attention to the words. His attention was focused on the dark tangle of magic where the large demon stood.
A lot of power was packed into its four-armed frame, power that was both alien to the Feywild’s weave of magic and antithetical to it—the magic of chaos and destruction. But there was more, something else occupying the same space. It was a faint presence, like an image in a mirror, similar to the demonic tangle. Albanon also noticed a churning undercurrent of elemental power, pointing to Vestapalk’s draconic nature.
“Have you seen what you wanted to see, wizard?” Vestapalk’s voice seemed to ring in his mind as much as in his ears, and Albanon’s eyes popped open.
“You’re projecting your consciousness through this demon, somehow,” Albanon answered.
“And what have you seen of this one?”
Albanon frowned, trying to make sense of what he had seen. “You’re not just a dragon any more,” he said.
“This one is a dragon, the Voidharrow, and the Plaguedeep. This one is the plague that will consume you.”
The demon’s mouth opened wide, and a cloud of vapor billowed out. Tiny red crystals shimmered in the air and spread slowly out from the hulking creature.
As Kri jumped back from the spreading cloud, Albanon hurled a blast of fire at the demon. It roared its pain and lurched forward, sending the scarlet cloud eddying around it. Kri called down a column of light that sent the demon sprawling to the ground and also dissipated the portions of the cloud that it touched.
A lingering wisp of cloud touched one of the fey hounds, seeped in through its
nostrils, and immediately started to alter the poor beast. Jagged crystal protrusions sprouted from its back as it howled its agony. Its forequarters flattened, its legs splayed to the sides, and its head curled in on itself.
Careful not to get too close to the remaining wisps of the toxic cloud, Immeral cut the hound-demon’s head from its broad shoulders with a single swing of his sword. With a gesture, the huntmaster ordered the other eladrin and their hounds away from the tower, back to where their horses waited.
Albanon followed, forming a clearing among the thorns for the eladrin to sit comfortably. Kri threw himself down on the ground, still short of breath from the exertion of their long flight across the plain. Albanon settled with the others, enjoying a moment of quiet after all the chaos of the battle.
“Well,” Immeral said after a moment, “had I known at Moonstair that I was speaking to the son of the Prince of Thorns, I would have offered to escort you to your father’s palace.”
“And had I known you were my father’s huntmaster,” Albanon said, then paused. “I don’t know what I would have done, actually.”
Immeral laughed, the clear, musical sound of the fey’s wild delight. Just like the smells on this side of the Moon Door, that laugh stirred up Albanon’s memories of home, of feasts in secluded glades and races along woodland trails.
“Why did you come to the tower?” Albanon asked.
“As soon as you left the Palace of Thorns, your father turned his attention to the Whitethorn Spire. He had paid it little heed for decades, and it had almost faded from his consciousness entirely. When he cast his gaze this way again, he discovered that the tower was breached—something was here that shouldn’t be. Well, we saw what that was.”
“And he sent you here, to …?”
“To protect you, yes.”
“And we thought you were chasing us.”
Immeral laughed again, but without mockery. “Oh, my friend,” he said through his laughter, “if we had been chasing you, you would not have reached the tower.”
“Although your command of the thorns was impressive,” another one of the hunters added.
“Indeed,” Immeral said. “You gave us a worthy chase—better than we’ve had in years.” The smile faded from his face. “Of course, that left us all more tired once we arrived than we might have been. Probably cost us a couple of hounds.”
“I know I’m lucky to be alive,” another hunter—the one Kri had healed—said. He nodded to the priest. “Thank you.”
“Without your help in that battle, Albanon and I would be dead for certain,” Kri said. “We owe you our gratitude and our lives.”
“You are the son of my lord and master,” Immeral said to Albanon. “You need only to ask my help, and I will give it. Whatever the circumstances.”
“Thank you.”
Albanon sat back and looked up at Sherinna’s tower. Splendid, the last legacy of his apprenticeship with Moorin, was perched atop the arch over the open door. Everything else around him was a part of his life that was new and at the same time old. Kri, his new mentor, was passing on to him a tradition that came from his own grandmother, whose tower this had been. His father’s huntmaster had just promised Albanon his aid, and the very brambles of the Plain of Thorns acknowledged his noble birthright.
This is who I am, he thought. A prince of the Feywild, heir to the legacy of the Order of Vigilance. His eyes found Splendid again. Not some bumbling apprentice. Not anymore.
And not ever again.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Is it the dragon?” Shara whispered.
“I can’t tell,” Uldane replied. “It’s dark down there, and … foggy?”
Shara’s vision cleared enough to show her what the halfling was talking about. Eddies of mist billowed up the stairs from the chamber at the bottom. She took Quarhaun’s hand and got to her feet, as slowly and quietly as she could manage.
“Should I take a look around down there?” Uldane asked.
“No. Whatever it is, it knows we’re here. You’re not going to sneak past it. The first one down is going to be the first one attacked. And that’s going to be me.”
“We should send some lizardfolk warriors down first,” Quarhaun said. “Get a sense of what we’re up against. Force the dragon to reveal itself, if it is him.”
Shara looked for any hint of humor in the drow’s face and saw none. “What?” she asked.
“They’re expendable, Shara. You’re not.”
“I don’t send anyone into danger I’m not willing to face myself.”
“Officers with that attitude rarely live long enough to get promoted.”
“I’m not an officer, Quarhaun. I’m an adventurer. I’m not here because some baron or general sent me here to achieve some military objective.”
“Why are you here?”
“I’m here because that dragon killed almost everyone in the world that ever meant anything to me. And after I killed him once, he didn’t have the decency to stay dead, which means I get the pleasure of killing him again. Maybe if I’m lucky I’ll get to kill him a third time—once for Borojon, once for Cliffside, and once for Jarren.”
“And so you’re going to walk boldly into what’s probably a death trap, not even knowing if whatever is down there is the dragon or not. You can’t kill the dragon if you’re dead.”
“I have no intention of dying. Tell the warriors to come down with me, if you want. We’ll face it together, whatever it is.” With one hand on the wall to make sure she didn’t slip again, she started down the stairs into the darkness and the mist.
Damned dragon probably heard every word of that, she thought. She smiled to herself. Good.
Quarhaun hissed instructions to the lizardfolk, and Uldane trailed behind her with a fresh sunrod. The sound of water dripping on stone and plinking into pools echoed up the stairway. Mist billowed around her feet as she reached the bottom of the stairs, and she peered ahead into a large, open chamber.
Water poured down slime-covered walls as the swamp worked slowly to absorb the ancient building. As it splashed to the ground it rose in fine droplets of mist that draped the floor of the room and rose in eddying clouds above it. Streamers of moss hung from jutting stones in the worn walls, waving in the water coursing over them. A gurgling sound came from somewhere near the center of the room, suggesting that the water was draining out before it could fill the room entirely.
Shara didn’t see the dragon. It was hard to imagine the mist cloaking something that large, but not inconceivable—and there were corners of the room she couldn’t see without stepping fully into the archway. She glanced over her shoulder and saw the lizardfolk warriors arrayed behind her, clubs and maces held at the ready, shields ready to block, and their eyes fixed on her.
Maybe Quarhaun was right, she thought. Maybe I am an officer.
One of the lizardfolk nodded its head at her in a gesture she interpreted as respect. She returned the gesture, then met each one’s eyes in turn, excitement building in her chest.
No, she thought, they follow me because I’m willing to lead them into battle. I’ve earned their respect.
Eager for a fight, she turned back to the archway and took the last few steps that opened the entire chamber to her view. A large, sleek figure moved in the mist to her right, incredibly fast, snaking toward her to attack.
It wasn’t the dragon. In its basic outline, it was identical to the demons they’d been fighting—vaguely pantherlike, with low forequarters but longer hind legs, a flattened head and torso that suggested the head of a cobra. This one was covered in red crystal protrusions that glittered in the light of Uldane’s sunrod, jutting from its back, its hips, and the joints of its legs and forming horns and spikes around its eyes and mouth. And it was enormous, towering over her as it pounced, even its low-slung head far enough off the ground to let her pass underneath without ducking her head.
It slammed into her before she had time to do more than turn to face it, knocking her off her fe
et and sending her splashing into a puddle. Shara’s ears rang as her helmet clanged against the stone floor again, and her shoulder burned where the demon’s claws had raked her. Then the demon darted away, vanishing into the billowing mist.
The lizardfolk warriors gave a gurgling shout and charged into the chamber, fanning out as they passed through the archway, clattering their clubs and maces against their shields as if they were flushing game out from the reeds of the swamp. Uldane appeared in the archway next; he tossed the sunrod into the room and then slunk into the mist and shadows.
“This is no time for a nap, Shara,” Quarhaun called as he stepped into the arch.
Shara stood up, scowling. “Listen, demon,” she announced to the room. “I’ve spent enough time flat on my back in the last hour. No more.”
Uldane’s laugh betrayed his position, already almost a quarter of the way around the edge of the chamber. But the demon didn’t reveal itself.
“Everyone get ready to hit it as soon as it shows itself,” Shara said. “Hit it hard.”
Keeping her center of gravity low, she stalked toward the middle of the room. The mist swirled around her feet and rose in clouds around her as she moved, and her feet splashed in shallow pools of water.
“It shouldn’t be so easy to hide in here,” she said. She stopped walking and listened. The lizardfolk were quieter than she was, but their feet made noise in the water as well, and the mist revealed the signs of their passage. But no such signs betrayed the movement of the demon, which meant it was either standing still or—
She looked up, and saw the demon slinking along the ceiling almost directly overhead.
“Up! Up!” she shouted. “It’s on the ceiling!”
With a yowl that chilled her blood, the demon dropped down onto her, twisting as it fell so its ruby-tipped claws led the way down. Shara lifted her shield and crouched down, and as the demon hit she blocked its claws and drove her sword deep into its shoulder. Its yowl turned into a hideous, screeching scream as it crashed to the floor on its side, scrambling to get its feet beneath it again.