Chapter Sixteen
The Sixth Ward
Bane entered the tent and stopped. Dorel lay on the bed, naked, voluptuous and inviting, her red lips smiling. She raised her arms, beckoning to him. Bane unclipped his cloak and dropped it, then unfastened his shirt. Dorel licked her lips, her expression eager. He stripped off his shirt, sat on the bed and started to remove his boots. Dorel sat up and wriggled closer to run her hands over the rune scars.
Bane watched her, part of his mind urging him to do what he had done so many times before, with her, and others. She was not real, another part of him protested. No blood coursed in her veins; no pulse throbbed at her throat. Her invitation was tempting, but she was not alive. Not human, like the healer, like him. Even if his father had created his soul, his body was human, while she was truly a creature of the Underworld. Strangely, the healer repelled him, perhaps because she was his opposite, yet now Dorel did not appeal to him either. No surge of the lust she had awakened in him so often in the past arose. If anything, her lewdness disgusted him.
Dorel was pressed to his chest, her hands sliding over his shoulders, caressing him, tracing the runes of power. Bane gripped her long hair and pulled her head back to stare into her hot brown eyes that glowed red in their depths. He thrust her away, sickened by her touch. She smiled and started back towards him, licking her lips again.
Bane stood up. “The bed is too small, and I am tired. You can sleep on the floor. Since you chased the girl out, you can take her place.”
Dorel eyed him. “You don’t want me?”
“No.”
Her mouth twisted in a sneer. “You’d rather jump on that dirty little human, wouldn’t you?”
Anger boiled in him at the thought. “If I did, I would have by now.”
“She’s trash, human filth!”
“Like you once were?”
She glared at him. “At least I’m not that anymore. You’re letting your human body rule your soul. You never were human.”
Bane gripped her arm and yanked her off the bed. “This has nothing to do with the girl. I am tired, and you are starting to annoy me.”
The droge settled on the floor, glaring at Bane as he removed his boots and lay down. For a long time, he lay awake, staring into the darkness, wondering why he no longer desired the droge, and grew angry at the thought of ravishing the healer. Indeed, no human woman had awakened any desire in him, yet he had not objected to his soldiers having their way with them.
Why had he not given them the healer to play with? He put the thought aside, unwilling to delve any deeper into the possibilities. He listened for the soft sounds of breathing, then remembered that droges did not breathe. He thought about the girl who lay beside the fire outside, and stretched out his senses to assure himself that she was all right. With a soft grunt of disgust at his concern, he rolled onto his side and forced himself to sleep.
In the morning, a smiling Dorel served him breakfast, polished his boots and cleaned the tent. Bane sent Mord back to his fellows in the army, not needing him anymore. Dorel chattered incessantly about nothing, and he tuned her out, brooding. It was good of his father to send a droge. It must have taken a great deal of power with two wards still in place. At least now he had someone apart from the girl who was not afraid to touch him, should he need something done. He suffered her to brush his hair, but shook her off when she started to get intimate again.
The girl joined a group of trolls at a fire, and he watched her, not knowing why he did. Perhaps his father had sent the droge to break her spell. He shrugged it off. Dorel would be useful, anyway.
When it came time to travel on, he allowed Dorel to ride behind him, her arms tight around his waist. He could have made her follow on foot, since droges were tireless, but she might have caused trouble. Dorel pressed herself against his back all day, and he was glad when the journey ended at mid-afternoon.
They arrived at the lip of a huge canyon that a swift river had carved in the mountains’ bedrock. The soaring, snow-clad peaks stabbed the sky to one side, the birthplace of the river that ran down through the foothills the army traversed. Further upstream, the spate ran a normal course between rocky banks, bubbling over a stony bed softened by green moss. Here, soft rock had given way to the water’s endless eroding power, and the torrent plunged into a massive gorge, digging it deeper as it crashed against the rocks far below.
The mighty falls thundered, and mist hung in the chasm, hiding its depths. Stunted trees, dewed with droplets, clung to the cliffs like desperate mountaineers. Near the gorge’s edge, the forest thinned, the trees vying for soil in the rocky ground, their roots snaking across it in search of sustenance. On the far side, the forest continued, a mass of green stretching away into the hazy distance.
Bane gazed at the waterfall, but he did not see the hurtling white water or the drifting vapour. His eyes were fixed on the ward that hung in front of the falls. Despite the day’s dullness, a rainbow streaked the mist with vibrant, glowing colour, and trapped within it, the faint lines of the sixth ward shone. He cursed the mage who had set it, for the ward was far out of reach, hanging a hundred feet from any solid ground. Sheer cliffs rose on either side, black and wet with spray.
Dismounting, he let the demon steed retreat. Vapour settled on his skin with a cool, feather-light touch. Dorel, standing beside him, grimaced at the falls.
“I’d forgotten how wet this damned place is.”
Bane looked over at the girl, who sat on the grey horse, both apparently enjoying the falling mist. Her eyes sparkled as she gazed at the waterfall, as if she found it a thing of great beauty. He looked at it again, trying to see the wonder of it, but to him it was just a lot of cold water.
He turned to the droge. “Set up my tent.”
Dorel pouted and walked off, swinging her hips. Droges were extremely strong. She had none of the female frailties she had possessed when alive. Bane contemplated the ward, his eyes constantly straying to the healer, who had released her horse and stood at the edge, the breeze from the cascading water ruffling her hair. He frowned, remembering when he had thought her weak and pathetic. Now he realised that she was beautiful, especially when compared to Dorel, whose outward loveliness masked a dark and savage soul. The spark of life that burnt within the healer was pure and untarnished, and if she died her soul would fly to her goddess as a white light like that of the blue mage on the Isle of Lume, not the red glow of the souls that were sent to the Underworld.
The same dull red light that glowed only in Dorel’s eyes, while the healer’s soul was still a part of her flesh, shining all through her. He tore his eyes from her and studied the ward again as Dorel’s heavy tread approached. After this, only one more ward remained, then the healer and all the Overworld’s people would be at his father’s mercy. This ward would take a great deal of power to break, more than the last, as that had taken more than the one before. Still, he could do it. He had to, for his father. He would endure the pain that followed, for his father had trained him well.
He looked down at Dorel. “Prepare Mealle’s potion. I will need it when this is over.”
The droge flounced off again, managing to make all her assets bounce. Bane jerked around at a touch on his elbow. The healer gazed up at him with clear eyes so full of sorrow and fear that a pain shot through his chest. The power of her spell angered him, and he snapped, “What do you want?”
“Please do not break the ward.” Her voice was almost a whisper, barely audible over the thunder of the falls. “You condemn an entire world and all its people to a horrible death.”
“Do you think I care?” Bane sneered. “Why should I feel anything for this world? It is not mine. My father will make it mine, and his, then it will be worth living in.”
“But it is yours. You were stolen from your mother when you were born. You are human, Bane.”
Rage bubbled up in him at her insolence. Anyone else, he would have roasted on the spot for such slander, but her spell protected her
. “I will not listen to any more of your lies, witch. I am my father’s son. He might have given me a human body, but he created my soul. If I am not his son in flesh, I am in spirit.”
Mirra touched his arm, but he jerked away. “Please listen to me -”
“No. I have listened to you enough. You stay away from me, and keep your pious opinions to yourself. I have no wish to hear them. Do you understand?”
Pushing her away, he strode along the edge of the canyon, his cloak flaring. She gazed after him, a hand still lifted in a gesture of pleading.
Bane raised his arms and invoked the power, which rushed through him in a sickening tide. How good it would be to shuck this frail body when his father rose. His anger at the girl’s suggestions fuelled his longing for that day, when she would pay for her audacity and lies. Unleashing the burgeoning fire, he sent it downward, rising on a pillar of black flame. He drifted out over the yawning abyss, secure in his ability, the magic thrumming through him.
The rainbow shone in the mist, shimmering as the vapour swirled through it. Elusive, as rainbows were, it retreated as he neared, then faded, taking the ward with it. He turned, finding it behind him, tantalisingly close, yet out of reach. Again he tried to move closer, and the soft, vivid colours vanished. He found it again, to the side, but even as he turned, it faded, leaving only cold, damp mist. Already water dewed his face and his cloak grew wet. A dull throbbing started in his head, a mild reminder of the pain to come. Power rushed through him, holding him in the air, being expended at a terrific rate and wreaking its unnatural havoc on him as it did so.
Bane swung about again, and the rainbow slid into his vision, close now, a faint smear of colour. Raising an arm, he blasted the ward that hung in its glowing arch. The fire burnt away the mist, and the rainbow vanished. Satisfied, Bane searched the black cliffs for the solid ward, carved somewhere in this chasm. As he turned, he found the rainbow glowing beside him, the ward safe in its shining stripes. Angered, he blasted it again, burning it away, but as he turned it appeared once more, hanging unharmed behind him, the ward still there.
Bane’s power ebbed, his stores depleting rapidly and the headache increasing with every moment, becoming agonising. Air walking required even more power than rock walking, and he could not maintain it for long. Already he had been airborne for too long, and he burnt with the black fire, which drained his strength as it poured forth to sustain his flight. The rainbow mocked him with its fragile, indestructible beauty, and he rose towards the edge of the ravine, the runes on his chest igniting to supply the power he needed, without which he would plunge to his death on the slippery rocks below.
Excruciating pain pounded his temples, and his eyes burnt as if hot pokers resided in them. Water, mingled with sweat, ran down his skin. Floating over the rim, he leashed the power and dropped to the ground. His legs buckled, and he fell to his knees, clasping his throbbing temples. The strain had been too much, and he burnt all over. Footsteps approached, then Dorel’s hard voice spoke in his ear.
“You didn’t break it.”
“I know that, imbecile!” He thrust her away. “Where is the potion?”
Dorel placed a cup in his hand, and he gulped the familiar sour liquid, almost gagging. Pain lanced his eyeballs, hammering on the inside of his skull like an earth demon trying to get out. He sagged, his vision dim, a roaring in his ears. Not wishing to pass out in the open, where the army could see him, he forced himself to his feet and staggered towards the blurry tent. Hands helped him, and he did not care whose they were, intent only on reaching his bed and collapsing on it. This major feat he achieved, then blackness closed in, shutting off the pain and consigning him to oblivion.
Demon Lord Page 64