"You are dead, little woman. Look around you. Your companions have fallen, like that last time we battled so many centuries ago. History repeats itself, and I see that you have failed to learn from it."
"I have learned enough, worm!"
Tolwyn launched herself at the dragon, slashing away with the saber. Her intensity drove the dragon backwards, but it would soon realize she was unable to truly hurt it. Then it would strike back.
Father Bryce desperately sought a solution to the problem of the Carredon when he heard the gentle song. He looked around and realized that the sound was coming from the blue and red stone.
"I hear you," he said. "I actually hear you."
132
Malcolm Kane held the young boy named Rat as a shield, daring the other boy to fire his rifle. Kane was impressed with the older youth so far, for he had not thrown the weapon away like Kane demanded, but instead made his own demand. But the game was still in the opening moves, and Kane would get his way. When he first saw the boys in front of the cave blocking his path of escape, he thought only to get past them and away as quickly as possible. But now that he was wrapped up in matters of death, he wanted to enjoy the experience.
"Very well, boy," Kane called, watching with satisfaction as the rifle shook in the youth's unsteady hands. "I'll tell you again. Drop the gun."
"Drop Rat," was the youth's response.
Kane merely smiled. Then he calmly jabbed the point of his knife into Rat's shoulder. The younger boy screamed.
"You bastard!" Coyote cried, aiming down the length of the rifle's barrel.
"Are you good enough to pick me off, child?" Kane taunted. "I don't think you've ever even fired one of
those. You could hit your friend. Or you could miss completely. Now drop the gun or I'll keeping cutting him until you do."
Kane smiled as the youth began to lower the rifle. As soon as the gun was out of his hands, Kane would kill the brat he held and go after the one called Coyote. He would leave both of them as evidence that this wasn't over yet. The priest still had to face him. He wanted the priest to remember that.
A noise on the ridge above them made Kane jerk his head. Something was crashing through the underbrush. He looked up to see a lizard man leap toward him. Instinctively, he dropped Rat and raised his knife. The lizard man smashed into him, and the two of them went sprawling. They landed dangerously close to the edge overlooking the river.
"Tal Tu!" Coyote yelled in relief. Then he saw that Tal Tu was still nursing his own wounds.
Kane struggled with the edeinos, trying to get his knife in position to stab. He noticed that the lizard had a wound that had been bandaged, but the dressing was soaked with the creature's blood.
"You should have stayed where they left you, lizard," Kane said, finally freeing his knife hand. He plunged the blade into Tal Tu's side, burying it as far as the hilt. The lizard was weak, and a few more stabs would bring it down. Kane slid the blade from the lizard, than plunged it in again.
"Die, lizard!" he screamed joyously, reveling in the blood and pain he inflicted.
He pulled the blade free again, and prepared to stab at the lizard's chest. But before he could deliver the killing blow, Kane heard a loud crack. Pain shot through his body, starting in his shoulder and radiating outward. He realized that he had been shot, and the power of the impact was carrying him over the edge and into the air. He was falling, and his vision was fading. But he saw the smoking barrel of the rifle as Coyote lowered it from his eye.
Then he saw nothing but blackness as the raging river reached up to claim him.
133
Tolwyn never knew such fear. She was actually battling the creature that had killed her once before, and she knew she had no hope of defeating it now. That other time she had her sword and armor, and even those magical items were not enough to stay the Carredon's claws. Now all she had was a dress saber and the images of her friends falling; Alder, Kurst, Mara, Decker. Only Christopher remained standing, and he would fall quickly once she had spent herself.
But she could not stand by and simply let the dragon kill her. Alder had shown her that it could be hurt. She just had to figure out how to inflict that hurt in turn.
"Enough of these games, Tolwyn!" the Carredon yelled. It swung back at her, driving her away step by
Knights
step with mighty swipes of its claws. "Lay down your weapon and I will make this death quick."
"Like you have for Decker?" she said, referring to the glowing rune staves jutting from his chest. But while it looked as though Decker should be dead, his chest continued to rise and fall with breath. "Never shall I simply surrender, monster!"
She fought on, intensifying her attack. She used every move she could think of, every half-remembered skill that her body could call upon, searching for an opening. But no matter her skill and daring, she knew she could only last as long as her strength held out.
And the strength of the Carredon was far greater.
134
Christopher Bryce stood before the stone that Decker called the Heart of Coyote and listened to its song. There were no words to the song, and he could not hum the melody, but he knew it as a song nonetheless. It was a song of life, like the song of nature you could hear in a breeze, in the babble of a running brook, in a peaceful forest. But this song, while akin to those others, was louder, more intense. It sang of possibilities, for that was what life was. As long as there was life, there were endless possibilities.
And suddenly the stone filled his mind with one possible outcome to the battle that raged behind him. He reached out and grasped the stone.
135
Tolwyn was covered with cuts and scratches. Blood ran down her body, mingling with her perspiration. None were serious yet, but the total effect was painful. She blocked out the pain and continued to hack and stab at the Carredon, slicing deep cuts into its armor but unable to get to the soft flesh beneath.
Then Tolwyn slipped on a splash of blood, hitting the chamber floor hard.
The Carredon rose over her, victory shining in its evil eyes. "And now this ends, Tolwyn," it sneered.
"Yes, demon, it does!" yelled a powerful voice from elsewhere in the chamber.
The Carredon looked up to see Bryce. The priest held the blue and red stone firmly in his hands, pointing it at the dragon.
"Please, God," Father Bryce called out, "make the image I was shown come true!"
A beam of pure light burst from the stone and struck the Carredon in the chest. The energy danced across the dragon's armor, bathing the creature in lightning. The Carredon screamed in pain, but the energy seemed unable to penetrate the beast's scales. However, a portion of the light had been deflected by the armor. It bounced clear and wrapped itself around Tolwyn's saber, drawn to it like lightning to the highest tree.
As the dragon writhed in the pain caused by the light, Tolwyn watched as her saber blade glowed with
the same power. She did not know what it meant, or why she wasn't being assaulted by the lighning as well. But she knew an opening when she saw one. The Carredon had dropped its defensive stance and forgotten about her as it vainly tried to brush away the crackling light.
With all the strength she had remaining, Tolwyn aimed her glowing blade at the Carredon's shoulder, at the spot where the creature had removed two of its scales. She screamed a war cry that rocked the chamber. Then she drove the blade home.
136
Quin Sebastian was on a plane heading for Houston, Texas. He wasn't sure why he had agreed to meet with the man he swore never to deal with again, but here he was. It had been a long time since Sebastian had last seen John Wells. It was when Quin had resigned from the agency, and Wells had accepted that resignation. Since then, Quin had been a freelancer, a soldier of fortune, using the skills the United States had taught him to help whoever could pay his fee. So why was he rushing to meet with newly-appointed President Wells?
"Because he asked you," Quin told himself.
He adjusted the airplane seat all the way back, closed his eyes, and tried to get some sleep before the plane touched down in Houston. That was a ritual with Sebastian —find sleep wherever you could, because it could be a long time before another opportunity presented itself.
When the stewardess came by with the complimentary dinner, Quin Sebastian was fast asleep.
137
Thratchen watched as the group boarded the helicopter. He saw that the man named Rick Alder was dead, for they sealed him in a black body bag. The others were in various states of pain, except for the priest and the boy named Coyote. Father Bryce was not hurt at all. But he did carry an eternity shard which he thought was safely hidden in his pack. Fool, Thratchen thought. You cannot hide an exposed shard from those who have come to rob them.
Of the others, Kurst, Mara, and Tal Tu had the worst wounds, but each would heal in time. The child named Rat had his arm in a sling and a bandage over the wound Kane had inflicted. Tolwyn was cut in a dozen places, but she had faced worse wounds over her career. Amazing that she had been able to take down the Carredon. The Gaunt Man would be very upset about that. Very upset.
Then Thratchen turned his attention to the still form of Andrew Decker. The magical rune staves were buried within his chest, their tops jutting out. Energy danced across the tops, jumping from one stave to the other and then into the air. Those were the runes of never life and never death, and that was the state they would leave Decker in until every possibility was drained from his body. Even now, the energy was flying to feed the Gaunt Man's machine in Orrorsh realm. It was too bad he had been removed from the experiment that Thratchen was conducting, for he appeared to be as powerful as Tolwyn and Mara.
The helicopter door was shut, and it lifted into the sky. Now the next phase of the experiment can begin, Thratchen thought. He only wished he had been able to find the body of Malcolm Kane, but the fast-moving river had claimed it. He wanted to make sure the youth's shot had done its job so that the Gaunt Man's agent could not interfere again. Ah well, the demon thought, I have other work to do and chances were Kane was dead. If he wasn't, then the stormers would have to deal with him themselves. As they had shown, they seemed quite capable of handling whatever was thrown at them.
With that thought, Thratchen spread his metal wings and flew out of the canyon.
138
Uthorion sat in his throne room, waiting for word from the Gaunt Man. He had to know if Tolwyn was dead yet, for he refused to set foot on Earth until that deed was accomplished. With him was Pope Jean Malraux, High Lord of Magna Verita. The false pope's realm had been established, as had Uthorion's, but neither had taken a personal hand in the conquest as yet. The false pope was waiting to make a grand entrance to play up the trappings of his theocratic reality. If it worked, many of the Earthers would flip over to his reality without the need for war.
And so the High Lords waited.
After a time, the wizard Delyndun entered the chamber. He was accompanied by a ravagon.
"My lord," Delyndun said, "this ravagon has brought a request from Baruk Kaah."
Uthorion rose to face the ravagon, moving Ardinay's body in a very male manner. "Speak, demon," he commanded with Ardinay's lips.
The ravagon looked from Uthorion to Malraux and back again. "The High Lord of Takta Ker has suffered a temporary setback. While he regains the strength he was forced to expend, he asks the powerful Uthorion to provide the assistance he once offered."
"What does the lizard want?" Uthorion demanded, hoping to cut through the protocol.
"He requests the Wild Hunt."
Uthorion smiled, twisting Ardinay's lips into an evil grin. "Tell the High Lord of Takta Ker that the Wild Hunt is his to use. It is on its way."
The ravagon bowed slightly, then left the throne room.
"Is that wise, Uthorion?" Malraux asked. "Do you really wish to put such destructive power in that savage's hands?"
"Of course, my friend," Uthorion laughed. "With this invitation I can send my greatest weapon into the land where Tolwyn roams. Let the Wild Hunt do Baruk Kaah's bidding. But when it finds Tolwyn, it will have special orders directly from me. Delyndun, call out the Hunt."
Epilogue
The storm has a name...
— Katrina Tovarish
The Gaunt Man stood on the deck of his ship, staring out at the sea off the coast of Christmas Island, above the Java Trench. Rising out of the churning water was a great spinning vortex that disappeared into the dark clouds overhead. The vortex was the key to the Gaunt Man's plans. It was his greatest creation. For the vortex was the physical evidence that his infernal machine that rested on the ocean floor was working. It was sucking in the Earth's own energy, slowing its spin. The energy was being stored for the Gaunt Man's use when he set the final stages of his plan to gain the power of Torg in motion. Until then, Earth would continue to slow down until its energy was completely tapped.
"A remarkable sight," Scythak said, looking out at the vortex. "Only the Gaunt Man would think to tap a world's own energy to use in its destruction."
The demon Gibberfat, standing upon the railing, was also subdued by the tremendous display. "Your plans go well, master."
"Yes, Gibberfat, and I have another job for you," the Gaunt Man said.
The demon turned to face his master. "As per our agreement, I am yours to command."
"Then listen well. The infernal machine below us must be protected at all costs. It is the key to my plans, and even the other High Lords are ignorant of its purpose. It has minor guards now, but they need someone to lead them. That is the job I place before you, Gibberfat."
The demon stammered. "But ... but, master. You want me to stay out here, in the ocean ...?"
"Yes." There was no further discussion necessary, so the Gaunt Man walked away.
Scythak, however, remained. His hearty laugh carried across the ship. "Well, little demon, have fun with the fishes! Be careful they don't mistake you for a guppy and swallow you whole!"
The little demon glared at the hunter, then began to change. He grew larger, becoming so big that he dwarfed Scythak with his size. He leaned close, and the hunter could smell the brimstone on the demon's breath.
"You have a problem with size, Scythak," he said in a low, threatening voice. "Remember, no matter the size of the fish, there is always something larger. And it usually has teeth."
Then, before Scythak could respond, Gibberfat dived into the ocean, disappearing beneath the churning waves.
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