“I have my ways,” Rose said cheerfully. He then frowned. “Not that they’re particularly happy about their present circumstances. Another day in this place and I imagine they’d start going home.”
“Then your plan was ill conceived,” I said, staring at him and wondering about his loyalties. “You had no way of knowing I’d be here.”
Rose frowned. “You’ll have to bring it up with Gewain. It was his plan. He was going to handle the negotiations.”
Something about all of this wasn’t adding up. For all my talk about not attributing malice to what simple ignorance could cause, it seemed there was a set of invisible hands at work. But whose hands were they and what was their owner’s agenda?
“Now we will,” Regina said. “We will force them to obey.”
Kana smiled. “That, I would like to see.”
We passed through a second set of stone walls and entered the original Fire District. In a contrast from night and day, we were suddenly surrounded by beautiful gray stone buildings in pleasing, if simple, square shapes. The Fir Bolg hidab were stone buildings passed down on maternal lines from mother to daughter, meant to stand the test of time like the Fir Bolg themselves.
I saw many of their race wandering around in conservative heavy gray clothing that contrasted strongly to Kana and Captain Vass’s wardrobe. The six-foot-tall crackling Great Fire was burning heavily in the center of the district with more than a few Fir Bolg working on converting kitchen utensils and tools into weapons.
Whoever had been armed in this city was not the Fir Bolg it seemed.
Rose gestured to one of the larger stone buildings, which had a beautiful flower decor in the stone work. “The Jarls are there. They’re anxious to see you.”
“Good,” I muttered. “I’ll enjoy a chance to do some negotiating until we have to go storm the castle…”
That was when I collapsed to one knee.
Screaming in my head was a presence, a terrible malignant horrifying presence, one that felt like an animal driving its claws into my brain. The very reality around shimmered and twisted as an unnatural unearthly color not found in nature began to appear. I felt sick to my stomach, a sensation I hadn’t experienced in two and a half centuries followed by a terrible sense of wrongness to the universe. Regina, immediately, drew her sword. Serah started casting the strongest barrier she could. The others looked confused, but they couldn’t know the reason why. They weren’t gods.
The Great Fire froze over in an instance, the chemical reaction becoming a collection of icy crystals before it slowly began to produce a hideous miasma of darkness forming into the shape of a huge lumbering man-shaped thing. All around, the citizens of the old Fire District panicked and began running in all directions, the sense of unnaturalness now so powerful all could feel it. I recognized the energy as well, coming from one of the most terrible things I had encountered in my centuries of life.
Hellsword had summoned an Ice Demon.
One of the most powerful servants of the King Below.
A horror capable of killing even me.
Crap.
Chapter Twenty-Two
I was well and truly fucked.
If you are wondering what can make the God of Evil quake in his boots then one had to look no further than my present situation. The Ice Demons once numbered in the thousands before the First Great Shadow War when the sidhe had sacrificed nine out of ten to prevent them from spreading their evil across the universe. It had broken the sidhe race forever, but had ended the Ice Demons’ threat.
Until now.
Describing the true form of a greater demon like it was, in simple terms, impossible. They are not of this world, being made from magic and otherworldly matter that exists in multiple spheres simultaneously. The human eye cannot perceive them in their natural form, any more than it can see the various spectra of color available to the sidhe. When you look upon them, your mind fills in the blanks from your darkest nightmares.
For the sake of clarity, though, I shall attempt to describe something like what onlookers might have seen. It is not what I saw since I could perceive things mortals could not (and how I wish that were otherwise), but it is close enough for storytelling. In my mind’s eye, I perceived the creature standing twenty feet tall. It was composed of ice and shadow, absorbing light and shadow as if a hole in the world. Two enormous wing-like shadows stretched out from its back, reaching to the sky, even as a pair of witchfire pinpricks glowed from the endless void where its head should be. In the left of the creature’s hands was a demonsteel blade twice the size of a man, shaped like a cross between a broadsword and a scimitar. It resembled an oversized version of Chill’s Fury, though I recognized it to be an inferior copy created by Forgedemons. The runes inscribed to it, however, contained the souls of great warriors adding their strength to the Ice Demon’s power. In the Ice Demon’s right hand was a whip composed of horrific spiked tentacles, each slithering and writhing with an unholy life of its own. Chaos Whips were forged from the primal stuff of pre-universe, having no place in this reality but to warp and unmake it.
The Ice Demon’s demonic form formed a mouth and breathed out a tidal wave of living death down upon us, embodying all the killing power of the Hundred Hells. It washed over us, striking us with enough entropic energy to kill a small army. It continued breathing out this horror for almost a minute. Seconds later, the storm cleared, and the six of us stood there.
Unharmed.
Ketra stared up as if this was some sort of nightmare she might wake from, Kana struggled to find her strength, and Rose looked like he’d somehow wandered into the kind of stories he wrote. Regina and Serah, however, prepared for battle.
“One would think you would be wise enough not to attack the World Below’s ruler with his own realm’s substance,” I said, surprised it had done so.
The Ice Demon let out a low rumbling chuckle. “I had not intended to harm you. Instead, I’d intended to kill your companions so that you might suffer. I am surprised they yet live.”
“I gave them a portion of my strength,” I said, unimpressed. “Regina and Serah are gods as well.”
“Then you are a fool. Only madmen share power.” The Ice Demon’s tone was mocking and I wondered if it was truly here on Hellsword’s behalf. It was possible Ethinu had sent it instead. If so, then I would have to have a long talk with her before figuring out what sort of torture-cage to throw her in.
“Only fools do not seek allies,” Regina said, raising her blade. “Depart this land, foul lord of carrion and leave the people here in peace and you may yet survive this. We have exterminated all those who do not bow before the Three Thrones of Everfrost. Join us, renounce evil, and pledge yourself to our cause, then you may yet find millennia of life to come. Fail and I will smite thee, scatter thy soul’s essence, and leave you but half a shade across a million worlds.”
The Ice Demon let forth a hideous roar that sounded, vaguely, like a laugh.
“I don’t think you’re persuading it, cousin,” Ketra said, the sound of fear in her voice but tempered with strength of will. My estimation of the young woman went up significantly for countless seasoned warriors would have fled in terror at the sight before such a beast.
“I am Drol-Bethir, Lord of Serpents, spawn of Balor and grandspawn of Caorthannach. I was the hammer that broke Tiarnanon and ended Annwn. My name is accursed on a thousand worlds. Your party contains petty gods but I am the lord of ten thousand demons. You do not frighten me.”
“I fear no monster,” Regina said, still addressing it. “Merely for those around us. Can we not move this battle to less populated territories?”
“It is not you I am here to kill.”
That was an interesting revelation. “We do not speak with the puppet but the hand that pulls its strings,” I said, my voice low. Guessing at who was its summoner, I said, “Hellsword, know we are coming for you. Serah, erect a barrier, I suspect we’ll be getting company soon—we can deal with this pathetic
thing easily enough.”
Serah pulled back and deprived us of one of our chief advantages, even as Drol-Bethir howled and attacked.
Which is what I’d been counting on.
Drol-Bethir brought around his sword to cut me in half only for me to draw Chill’s Fury and block it. The actual difference in our strengths was immaterial as he was not attacking me with his physical body but his mind, which was potent enough. Pushing up with my blade against the massive sword held inches away from the top of my head, I lifted my left hand up and aimed it at his face before whispering a spell. The words were in high celestial rather than demonspeak, which caught Drol-Bethir off-guard, if his sudden jerking motion back was any indictaion.
A ball of golden flame burst from my gauntlet and sailed forth into the Ice Demon’s face. Drol-Bethir roared back in surprise, stepping back, and I didn’t blame him. I’d altered my gloves to be able to summon energy from the World Below and purify it the same way as Regina’s sword could, despite both of us being the avowed enemies of it.
“You dare!?” Drol-Bethir screamed, only to let forth another roar as Starlight was stabbed into his back repeatedly. Regina had used this opportunity to fly up behind the Ice Demon with Kana’s wind sprites. She slashed, cut, and stabbed like a madwoman, channeling the power of light magic repeatedly into each blow.
There was a suicidal fury, a berserk rage, in her blows that struck ten times harder than a normal woman in her position and twice as fast. It was not like her, even as I charged at the Ice Demon’s legs, slashing with Chill’s Fury. The god-killing sword’s runes of Hope and Redemption glowed as I struck the monster again and again. Even so, I was doing far less damage than our battle plan had depended on.
Drol-Bethir lashed back with his Chaos Whip, forcing Regina to block them with her shield. The shield shattered when struck, the Chaos Whip’s thorned tentacles wrapping around her armor and biting deeply. If not for the fact her platemail was composed of star metal, she would have been sliced to pieces. Instead, the tendrils wrapped tighter and attempted to squeeze her body into paste.
Regina let out a cry and a brilliant white energy flew out from her, causing the Chaos Whip to explode and her body to fall to the ground. Starlight was still buried in the back of the hideous monster, burning away its extra-dimensional substance even as Drol-Bethir cast aside its useless thorned weapon and reached for Regina’s blade.
Above our heads, storm clouds passed over as Kana chanted, a bolt of lightning striking down from them into Starlight as the weapon enhanced and blessed the electricity. The shamaness’s lightning sent ripples throughout the Ice Demon’s body as a second bolt struck it, then a third, then finally a fourth. The Gods Between were dead, for a hundred ages at the least, but it seemed their ghosts had favored the terrorist beside us with great power.
Ketra, who had been silent during much of this battle, finished her own spell that produced an incandescent bow of light. Around Regina, the light magic enhanced to a level a dozen times stronger as Ketra pulled forth a shaft of living flame and fired it forth into the side of the Ice Demon. It struck with the force of a dozen master magicians, even as the creature’s mighty barrier might as well have been hit by raindrops. Ketra did not hesitate to pour every bit of her mortal’s strength and life into her magic, though, and she immediately crafted another bolt then another, despite the fact that a single one would exhaust most mages. She fought for family and had no fear of death. There was no sign of Rose.
I continued striking at Drol-Bethir’s thick demonic flesh, cutting away at the body of a being that was probably the size of a small town occupying the space of large building. That was when Drol-Bethir’s giant foot kicked me in the chest and sent me skidding thirty feet across the ground. A few brave but foolish Fir Bolg souls took their own blessed weapons and sought to strike at the creature but were killed almost instantly by the intense cold aura that passed over them. One heroic soul, however, managed to live long enough to jam a silver ceremonial sword for the sacrifice of animals into the monstrous beast’s foot.
Drol-Bethir seemed to feel that attack keenest of all, yowling in pain before crushing the man and unleashing yet another blast of his hideous icy breath onto a collection of nearby buildings. Their roof collapsed, their inhabitants died, be they adult or child, and terrible witchfire flames emerged from its end. I could hear Hellsword chuckling and knew his presence had necessitated the act.
“Murderer!” Regina screamed at the top of her lungs, charging. She conjured forth a shield made of light, which blocked a bolt of blackish lightning that shot from the creature’s eyes then slammed herself into the chest of the Ice Demon. The monster fell backwards, smashing into the Great Fire’s altar and crushing it. This, as much as the massacre just performed, caused a wailing of grief and horror from the onlookers.
“Is all of our time together going to be like this?” Kana shouted, diverting herself from attacking the Ice Demon to conjure forth a storm of purifying rain that put out the witchfire beside us, preventing it from spreading to other houses.
Perhaps a costly mistake in battle.
But which made me think there was perhaps something redeemable in the revolutionary after all.
“Yes,” I said, drawing back to strike again. “Almost certainly.”
“Good!” Kana said. “I had forgotten what it was like to battle opponents who could fight back!”
Before I could comment, the skies above our heads darkened and I heard the roar of a dozen dragons. The sounds of trumpets and war horns signaled the arrival of the Empress’s Rapine at the gates behind us. The second part of Hellsword’s attack had begun. The Ice Demon looked annoyed and its movements slowed ever so slightly as if it was preparing to die after it killed us.
The realization of what was going on struck me all at once and if not for the dire nature of our circumstances, I would have let out a gallows laugh. The Ice Demon wasn’t here for us as it had said. Hells, it was here to kill the people in the Fire District and then be slain by the forces coming inside. Like idiots, we’d stumbled into a false-flag operation designed to make Redhand’s insane charges of black magic and demon-worship look credulous.
“I understand what is going on now,” I whispered.
“Fools, you have missed the avalanche for the rocks,” Drol-Bethir said, somehow hearing me. It was entering a more cautious combat stance as Regina drew her sword to her with a beam of glowing light. “Each death this day shall feed the horrors to come. You, who imagined yourselves as masters of creation, are merely like me, creatures created to be targets and slain by the Lawgiver’s champions. Trophy beasts that shall be mounted and stuffed as well as serving as fodder for ballads in taverns.”
I did not have time to contemplate its words before an explosion of mystical power washed over me. I felt a terrible number of deaths, a hundred or more in an instant then, just as a shadowy dome began to form above our heads, blocking out all sunlight and leaving the Fire District as dark as midnight. The night held no mysteries to my undead eyes and I knew what the dome meant: Serah had created a barrier with blood magic.
The darkest of arts worked for a desperate cause. Perhaps too late. I had no idea how many dragons had managed to get underneath the barrier first but even a few would be enough to kill the entire population. We had, perhaps, thwarted the Ice Demon, but if the army did not destroy it then they would certainly do the same to the people inside the Fire Districts. The Usurpers were not going to let the nonhumans of this region live no matter what. We needed to separate their forces from this place and deal with them one at a time. Serah’s magic, however black its origins, was what we needed right now.
“I am no man’s trophy,” Regina said, soaked in sweat, her eyes blazing with a murderous, almost sexual fury. “But you will be mine.”
“Know loss and ruin,” Drol Bethir said, spreading out its wings and holding its tiny hands up to the sky as witchfire poured from the dome’s bottom, landing indiscriminately on the crow
ds and houses around us, exploding against my own erected shields and blowing up the ground beneath me. Regina was thrown to the side. Kana and Ketra, as well. It was possible the latter two were dead.
“Ketra!” Regina shouted, running to her side and abandoning her position in battle. I, stupidly, joined her in a defensive position.
Which gave the monster a moment to begin conjuring a spell I knew all too well. The Doom of Karnath, a forbidden spell and one of the Terrible Weapons I’d unleashed during the Fourth Great War. It would kill everyone in the Fire Districts.
Myself, Regina, and Serah included.
The Ice Demons as well.
But it was not in command of itself, Hellsword was.
He had outplayed us all.
Not quite, the Trickster said. It seems your allies are a greater advantage than I would have given them credit for.
What?
That when the final member of our party returned, taking advantage of the distraction we’d provided. Riding on Smoke, Serah struck at our foe. The dragon breathed down a torrent of golden flame a thousand times hotter than normal flame and additionally blessed by the same spells woven into my glove.
The fiery assault wrapped itself around the Ice Demon, burning it horrifically. Drol-Bethir’s magic aura struggled to suppress the flames with its own aura of supernatural cold, the two powerful magics battling for existence. The Doom of Karnath dissipated, its energy gathered failing under the assault. All the while, Serah cast words of demonspeak that invoked powers even I had no knowledge of. I, myself, joined the attack to make sure he could not regain control of the spell. At the end, just as the flames died out, black light poured from Serah’s staff and enveloped Drol-Bethir. It was a spell I did not recognize but seemed to warp the entire fabric of reality around us.
Setting it aright.
Drol-Bethir fell to its knees and screamed out a cry no Between World creature could make. It raised up its now-useless wings in an expression of agony, shaking with outrage. The hellish aura surrounding Drol-Bethir, its near-infinite source of power, was gone now. Hellsword’s presence was equally absent, the evil wizard banished along with whatever aid he’d been lending the Ice Demon. The monster was isolated now, and little more than a blight on the face of Creation.
Wraith Lord Page 19