by Pemry Janes
Leraine hesitated. There was still much she didn’t understand about Rock’s abilities, but she knew they had limits. Yet pointing that out to a fellow warrior on the eve of battle . . . it wasn’t done among her own people, and horse people were touchy as well. Rock was neither, but that did not mean he didn’t have his own pride. But what would trample on it?
“According to Irelith, battle is more exhausting than the toughest training and steel does not grow tired like flesh does.” She looked at him from out of the corner of her eye, but he did not look angry. On the contrary.
“Thank you,” Rock said, laying a hand on her forearm. “I should be fine as long as I can keep my connection with the ground, but I appreciate you looking out for me. And I’ll—” He stopped so abruptly she’d taken two more steps before she noticed he was missing. Looking back, she saw Rock looking past her with wide eyes.
Glancing over her shoulder, she couldn’t spot anything that would elicit such a reaction. Which meant he had sensed something with his other senses. “What is it?”
“I’m not sure . . . The earth chiri has been disturbed. It’s flowing away.”
“Flowing where?”
“Outside the walls. I think it’s where the besiegers have their camp. Hard to tell when everything’s in turmoil.” Rock closed his eyes and bowed his head. “And I can’t tell where it’s going. It’s disappearing down a hole in the world.”
Her first thought was that Deposed had begun to dig a tunnel, but would that have startled Rock like this? A hole in the world . . . No, they wouldn’t!
And yet, the Deposed’s strategy hadn’t made sense. A gamble that couldn’t pay out—but what if they took one more gamble? “They’re opening a portal.” The words fell like stones in the quiet hallway.
Rock had opened his eyes and met hers, frowning. “Isn’t that forbidden?”
“Very much so.”
His jaw set, he nodded. “Tell Rozenbruk I’m terribly sorry for his wall and I’ll repair it as soon as I can.” Rock didn’t give her the chance to ask what he meant. He ran straight past her, wood groaned and splintered, the wallpaper tore, and the wall at the end of the hallway lowered as if it were a drawbridge.
Leraine stared at the new hole for a moment longer, then she too raced away. Not after him, though; they were on the second floor and she couldn’t just jump down like that. And somebody needed to warn Mayor Rozenbruk.
***
Eurik used his fall to gather wind chiri and began to run for the wall in long, floating steps. More chiri built up, becoming more speed, which turned into more chiri. There was commotion behind him, shouting as the animals panicked, but Eurik had already crossed the square.
He squinted, his right eye tearing, his clothes snapping. The streets were packed, but he couldn’t let that slow him down. He was one with the wind; he went around, through, over. More people shouting words he couldn’t grasp. A team of horses whined as he flew over them.
Up ahead, the street split apart, going right and left, but he needed to go forward. There was little time to make a decision. Right, left, or up?
Too dangerous. One slip and he’d fall. Normally, that wouldn’t be a problem. But right now only wind chiri coursed through him, and he was as frail as any other human. Right or left? No time to think.
He went left. At the end of the street, he saw the wall and the armed men gathering upon it. Five steps later the distance had been halved. Eurik didn’t bother looking for stairs. He wasn’t going to risk a climb anyway.
Propelled by the wind, he started running up the wall. Speed bled away with every step, every blink of the eye, and so did the chiri. He scrambled for those last few feet, and his fingers reached for the lip. His nails scratched the brick as gravity finally won the battle and yanked him down, his arm protesting as all his weight hung on it.
He switched Ways, the strength of the Mountain filled his limbs, and Eurik pulled himself up and over with a single heave. He was confronted by a crowd of armed and armored men—or the backs of them anyway, for none had watched his little stunt.
A pillar of light pierced the heavens and things were snaking their way out. They swam through the air as if it were water, then quickly scattered as a limb made from something more substantial slammed into the ground and began to pull.
***
“A portal?” Mayor Rozenbruk’s eyes were wide, his mouth hung open for a moment. “No, surely not. Not even the Deposed would risk everything by using demons. Your companion must be mistaken.”
Leraine had found him and his guards in the stables, ready to mount their horses, and had managed to relay what Rock had sensed, between taking deep breaths. Very deep breaths.
“I agree, it is a big risk. But this entire strategy of theirs reeks of desperation. Only until now it didn’t make sense. Why split their forces, why try to lay siege with the part of their army least suited for it? Because they are the dependable ones, the ones who can be counted upon to keep their peace once the deed is done.”
“And Griffenhart to cover for them.” He spoke softly, his expression pinched. “Ariod’s balls.” Mayor Rozenbruk scrambled upon his horse and Leraine quickly followed suit. “I hope you are wrong, my lady.”
They rode out and around city hall, onto the square, and he looked over at his left. Leraine followed his gaze and saw the hole Rock had made. “My companion has promised to fix that once the crisis is over.”
“Has he? I’d rather he tell me how he did it in the first place. City Hall has the same wards as the city walls. No mage should be able to do that!”
Her reply was cut off by the horses suddenly rearing back as a pillar of blueish light shot into the clouds. It was far away, beyond the northern wall. Right where Rock had said the portal was.
An eerie silence blanketed the city as everybody stopped and stared. But only a few recognized it for what it was. “No, no. Not my city, you don’t!” Mayor Rozenbruk forced his horse forward and drew his sword, pointing it toward the light. “To the wall! Defend your city! Follow me!”
***
It clawed its way into the world, wrapped in chains of bronze which were anchored to its skin in a number of places. It looked like a dragon, but the details were all off. It had two eyes on one side of its head, three on the other. It opened its jaw, revealing a second jaw with daggerlike teeth as it craned its long neck.
The monster continued to grow as more of it emerged from the portal, the chains shifting but never breaking as the demon swelled until its head could easily reach the parapets.
Behind the demon, the portal winked out and the lesser demons continued their flight, no doubt looking for a corpse to infest. Around Eurik, people started to talk, but he couldn’t follow the hushed voices in a language he barely spoke.
The emotion behind them, though, was easier to grasp. Fear, like what was clawing at his own stomach. He pressed a hand to his abdomen, where the scars itched and pulsed. That thing had been immune to the Ways, even though it had been merely a piece of a demon long dead. This one was very much alive.
The demonic dragon began to move. It didn’t fly; the wings on its back barely moved at all and dragged along the ground. The men on the section of the wall that appeared to be its target finally roused out of their stupor and launched an attack.
The distance was long, too far for the dwarven bows the soldiers here favored, but they fired anyway. There was also a mage among them, and his attack fared better. It rode the coattails of the volley of bolts, an orb made of rainbows that exploded at least ten feet in front of the demon’s head.
Eurik blinked, and the afterimage receded reluctantly. The demon appeared to have more trouble. Its advance had halted as it shook its head. One by one the eyes opened, then its jaws. A spear of lightning cracked against its neck and bounced off. The creature’s chest swelled.
Liquid green flame rolled over the ground as the demon exhaled, accompanied by the howling of a thousand tortured souls. Its foul breath did not spre
ad out much as it raced for the wall, and a pillar about the width of the draconic demon’s chest slammed into the stones. The flames spilled up and over the battlements and the cries of the men there joined by the howling of the demon.
Eurik could not see what happened to them, but the flames could not hide how the wall began to melt like hot wax. Brick and mortar sloughed inward and a house collapsed into itself at the first touch of the flame.
The fire vanished, the howling stopped, silence covered the wall like a blanket. It didn’t last, someone screamed, clearly in pain. When Eurik tore his gaze away from the hole in the wall and back to the demon, he swore he could see a gleam of delight in its mismatched eyes even from this distance.
Misthell moaned. “We’re about to go and fight that, aren’t we?”
Eurik let his hand rest on the parapet, the steady strength of the stone filling his soul. “I am. I won’t drag you into this battle.” One corner of his mouth lifted up. “Don’t think it will be much of a battle anyway. But I can buy these people time.” Time for what, he couldn’t say.
“Oh no, you aren’t doing this alone. But until Silver Fang is here, you’ll have to do with me.”
“Then let’s get to it.” The demon had resumed its advance. Eurik hopped onto the embrasure and looked down. Through the chiri he could feel the demon’s clawed foot slam into the ground, and a group of riders had reached the walls. They dismounted and were running up the stairs, one set of feet hitting the stone in a familiar pattern.
Eurik half-turned and peered over the heads of the soldiers toward the top of the stairs.
***
Leraine’s mind was on the sickly green glow that had illuminated the sky from below. She’d heard the howling, the screams, the crashing of masonry. She hadn’t seen what had happened, but she could guess.
Mother had seen to it she’d had a thorough education, and she knew what had been faced during the Rift War. Demons came in many forms and some were quite capable of tearing their way into and through this city all by themselves.
She reached the top of the stairs, the mayor and his men only a few steps behind her. Standing atop the battlement with his head and shoulders towering above everybody else, was, of course, Rock. And Leraine could guess what he was planning.
“Out of the way!” She had to use her elbow only once, and then she was looking up at him. Stepping up onto battlement herself reduced the difference in height to almost nothing and gave Leraine her first glimpse of the demon their enemy had summoned.
Its general body shape was that of a dragon, but the details were all wrong. Not a form the demon would have chosen for itself—she’d never heard of a demon who’d tried to look like a dragon, and she guessed the chains wrapped around it were the cause.
“Do you have an actual plan?”
“I go down there and break up the terrain, make it as impassable as I can and keep the demon’s attention on me rather than the city. And hope it doesn’t figure out how to fly,” Rock added.
“I’m coming with you.”
Rock didn’t protest, but his nod took a few moments to arrive. “Hold on to me.”
“Wait, wait,” the living sword said as they moved over to the ledge. “You’re supposed to ask me agaaaaaain!” They slid down the wall, Rock’s arm holding her close to him while his feet and other hand slowed their fall down by running through the solid stone like it was wet clay.
They parted right before hitting the ground, Leraine rolling to her feet while Rock simply rose up from his crouch. From down here, the demon looked a lot bigger. And it was getting closer.
“Here,” Rock said, presenting Misthell’s hilt. “I need my hands free for this anyway.”
“If we survive this,” Misthell said, “you are getting me two pockets.”
Leraine inclined her head before accepting the living sword. “I will wait for your distraction.” She switched to Thelauk. “Fight well.”
He placed a hand on his chest. “Fight well.”
Not looking back, Leraine jogged away from the wall, keeping the demon to her right. And don’t die, she added silently.
Chapter 17
Fall
Eurik did not move from where he’d landed; there was no immediate need. Instead, he let his awareness sink into the soil beneath his feet and listened to what the chiri told him.
Today, the moat had been filled up and grass, grain, cabbages, beets, and a dozen other crops he couldn’t identify that grew in fields stretching out to the north. But it had not always been so. He couldn’t tell how long ago, the chiri was not a book to be read, but once there had been a village where now he could only see farmland.
Much of it was gone, perhaps even in people’s memory, but the roots of the settlement still littered the earth. Cellars, foundations, floors of packed earth or shaped stone, the last evidence of a history Eurik didn’t know. Had they fallen to some enemy, as the people behind him might fall now, or had its inhabitants simply moved away?
It didn’t matter. What mattered was today and the use Eurik could put these remnants to. Sinking into his stance, his arms splayed wide and low, he and the world joined. With the portal closed, the chiri had quieted but there were still disturbances, occasional eddies plucking his mental fingers away from what he was trying to grasp.
Every step of the demon sent more ripples through the chiri, warning him like the bells of Glinfell that it was time. Eurik’s arms rose, the earth hissed and growled as it moved with him, and the past rose up to bask in the light of day before and below the draconic demon.
One of its feet got lifted up by the corner of a low wall, another became enclosed within a root cellar. Its advance halted once again and Eurik had just enough awareness to see it crane its neck to look at the obstacles now in its path.
The demon pulled the trapped foot out, dirt and stone raining from it as it arced through the air and was carefully placed. The monster’s advance resumed, but it took care with every step, its attention on its own feet rather than the city. Not good enough.
Eurik ran forward and flared his arms out once more and two spires of earth and stone held together only by his will jutted from the ground on either side of the demon. They were pointed away from the monster as they emerged, but the points swung toward each other as they followed the motions of Eurik’s arms, slamming together with the demonic dragon in the middle.
The spires broke apart on impact, Eurik didn’t even try to hold their shape. He also held no illusion on doing any damage to the thing with that, but the demon had stopped in its tracks once more to batter away the debris now covering it.
Eurik was already focused on the next obstacle, his arms circling above his head while his senses were aimed on the ground before him. It was important that there be no sign of this trap before the demon stepped onto it.
The demon flared its wings, sending stones flying; Eurik felt them crashing and rolling over the grass through his feet. Yet it did not resume its advance and when Eurik looked up, he found himself meeting its gaze. “Oh, salt.”
Eurik moved even as the demon’s jaws opened wide. The ground beneath his feet swallowed him up and he plunged downward, the earth filling back up above his head. He didn’t stop with a foot of dirt above him, but kept descending while the demon’s breath melted earth and evaporated chiri.
***
Leraine had kept her distance while Rock opened the battle by changing the battlefield, and had gone around the demon to approach it from behind. But this meant Rock had to face the demon alone and he’d gotten the creature’s attention.
She’d seen him sink into the ground before the demon flame engulfed the area. The tales told that it melted without heat, leaving no ash in its wake. Truly, it only resembled flame superficially; like the demon’s own appearance only resembled that of a dragon.
“On second thought, maybe running up to it and hitting it with me is not a good idea,” the living sword said. “Those scales look awfully thick.”
“You should worry more about the demon’s breath.” Shifting her grip and lowering the blade, Leraine began to jog toward the demon. “Even your enchanted metal might not survive contact with it.”
“You’re supposed to reassure me!”
“I’m not letting you go.” The demon had lowered its head and was sniffing at the spot where Rock had stood. Leraine ducked behind a low wall Rock had dug up from the ground, and around a broken chimney.
“Bett—Woah, watch that drop,” Misthell said as Leraine skidded to a halt, a flat rock falling into the hole. It was too wide to jump across, so she had to run around it.
The demon roared, and markings on the chains flared up as it searched. Those markings only got brighter as it tried to ignore them and only dulled when the creature dragged its attention away from the ground and back to the city. Apparently, whoever was in control was getting impatient.
The hole had delayed her, but not by much as she finally got her own strike in. She swung at the back of the demon’s ankle as she ran past. Leraine had no intention of staying in one place and making herself an easy target. She, for one, could not sink into the ground like some others.
Scales parted, and a spray of foul-smelling blood nearly soaked her. The strike sent a quiver running through the demon as it froze, then twisted around with a new roar. But Leraine had anticipated just such a reaction and jumped to the left; staying underneath the fake dragon, she swung the complaining blade once more at the demon’s belly.
Another shallow cut that spurted ichor all over her. Leraine kept running, kept slashing, since it was only a matter of time before the creature would come up with the obvious plan. The only warning was a slight lifting up of the body, but not in some effort to escape her reach.
The demon’s belly crashed into the ground and would have crushed her if she hadn’t jumped and rolled out from in between its forelegs. That, however, left her vulnerable to both its claws and its fearsome breath.