Gasping for breath, Elade rolled to a knee and performed a cursory self-inspection. As expected, her barrier had protected her from the fall just fine, and a quick healing spell sealed up the gushing bite wound on her neck. The nobleman, sadly, hadn’t been so lucky. Tendrils of energy leaked out from the pores of his face, and after a few seconds another small demon materialized atop his caved-in chest, cackling with sadistic glee.
Elade didn’t waste any time. Extending her hand, she blasted the monster with a beam of searing light. Its squeals of laughter transformed into wails of agony, and burned away into a pile of fine dust.
“Gre’as wun oloth,” she whispered, brushing her hand against the nobleman’s cheek. “I’m sorry I didn’t arrive sooner…”
Closing her eyes, Elade took in a deep breath and stretched out with her paladin senses again. The third and largest demon was still here somewhere, and she was mildly surprised it hadn’t shown itself yet—
She had barely formed the thought when the nearby cellar door exploded outwards, showering the ground level in tiny splinters. A massive, eight-foot tall monster stepped through the wreckage, its long, dagger-shaped arms stretching out and looming above her. The disgusting, tooth-filled “mouth” at the center of its torso snarled threateningly, and Elade immediately tumbled away and re-summoned her shield onto her left arm.
Just as she’d feared, Ethan Moore had summoned a draeloth.
“Where is your master?” Elade asked, wishing desperately that she hadn’t dropped her sword. The technique she had used on the smaller demons wouldn’t work on a breed this size; she would need several seconds to channel sufficient power to banish it back into the Void, and it obviously had no intention of giving her that opportunity. Instead she would need to distract it long enough to locate her weapon, and so she quickly reached into the nearby shadows to try and teleport away—
The draeloth attacked. She barely had time to raise her shield before it smashed her with its powerful arms, and the sheer force of the impact hurled her backwards into the stairwell. Miraculously, she managed to keep her balance, and just as its talons scythed towards her head she teleported through the shadows and appeared on the upper balcony. The demon snarled in frustration even as it thrashed through the stairs and sprayed wooden chips across the floor. While it was distracted, Elade dove to her left and recovered her fallen blade.
Wretched female, it growled directly into her mind. I smell your fear. Come closer that I might taste it…
“Be careful what you wish for, demon,” she warned. “You just might get it.”
Summoning a pair of glimmering Aetheric wings onto her back, Elade lowered her sword and leapt from the balcony. The demon lurched forward, reveling at her seemingly foolish tactic. Its reach was much larger than hers, after all, and its talons viciously slashed through the air in an effort to cut her in half—
And then suddenly she was no longer there. Teleporting through the shadows again, Elade returned to her original position near the nobleman’s corpse. The demon sliced through the now-empty air and briefly lost its balance…at which point she made it pay. With a two-handed slice of her sabre, she cleaved off its right arm at the elbow. The demon recoiled in agony, and the severed limb splattered to the floor and began leaking a black, smoky vapor rather than blood.
The wound was temporary, of course. Demons were creatures of thought and energy given physical form, and in a few moments the draeloth would regenerate any wounds suffered in the mortal realm. But the pain they felt was very real, and there was always a chance this one would accept her offer for a quick banishment rather than an agonizing discorporation. Not a good chance—but a chance.
“I ask again, fiend,” Elade shouted. “Where is your master? Tell me, and I shall return you to your home without further suffering.”
The demon’s mouth pivoted back towards her, and for a moment she thought it might actually take her up on her offer. But then the mansion’s front door unexpectedly crashed inward, and a pair of shield-bearing soldiers leapt inside the opening and dropped protectively to a knee. Behind them, several crossbowman leaned into the entryway and leveled their weapons directly at her.
“Drop your weapon and get on your knees!” the men demanded in near unison. “Now!”
Not a single one of them even acknowledged the massive demon standing barely thirty feet in front of them. Like all of their kind, draeloth were invisible to the naked eye…but the soldiers could see the bloodied corpse of the house’s owner beneath Elade’s feet just fine.
“This isn’t what you think,” she said, wincing at how feeble the words sounded. “There’s a demon right here!”
“Drop your sword, vaeyn,” the lead soldier threatened. “Or we will kill you.”
“The moment I do, we’re all dead,” Elade replied. “You have to—”
A more cunning demon might have simply waited and allowed the Solarians to remove its only serious threat, while a particularly devious one might have simply possessed one of the soldiers and fired their crossbows itself. The draeloth was neither, however, and instead it simply reared back on its haunches and charged.
Out of pure instinct, Elade hoisted up her shield and braced herself, and she immediately knew she’d made a mistake. The trigger-happy crossbowmen fired the moment she flinched, and while one bolt whistled cleanly past her head, the second hit her squarely in her right shoulder. She miraculously managed to hold onto her sword despite the pain, but the damage was done…and the demon struck.
Its remaining talon slashed across her chest and would have killed her instantly if not for her Aetheric barrier and her armor. Even still it tore a wicked gash across her stomach and sent her flying backwards into the corner of the room. Her shield and barrier dissipated as her hold on the Aether waned, and she nearly lost consciousness altogether. But somehow she managed to hoist herself up into a defensible crouch, and she flipped her sabre into her good arm and waited for the demon to come at her again.
It was only then she realized the draeloth had already lost interest in her. The creature’s maw turned towards the hapless soldiers in the doorway, and its jagged teeth clattered together in anticipation of an easy meal. The demon could easily kill them before they even figured out what was happening; the men were clearly just regular city watchman, and Void creatures were well beyond their area of expertise. They had probably heard the noise outside and come to investigate, and now they were about to die for their vigilance.
Elade knew she had only one option left. Reaching out to the Aether, she teleported directly in front of the soldiers, and with a desperate warning cry she thrust out her sword to meet the charging creature.
The demon plowed her over easily, but her sabre slid into its gaping mouth all the way down to the hilt. Empowered by the taste of demonic flesh, the blade erupted in a blinding burst of energy, and soon the entire draeloth was engulfed in a blazing pyre of pure white flame. The creature was dead before it even realized what had happened, but that didn’t prevent its entire weight from crushing down atop its killer. Elade’s right wrist shattered almost immediately, and the air vacated her lungs with a final agonized wheeze.
The last thing she saw before falling into darkness was the creature’s mouth writhing in pain, its teeth only a breath away from her face.
***
Belek Talroy let out yet another tired sigh as his paladin senses yet again failed to detect any demons. He really needed to get back to the temple soon, if for no other reason than to assure Lord Alric he actually was doing something productive with his days. The newly minted Highlord was typically so distracted and overburdened by his other tasks that he seemed to have forgotten about his squire completely, but right now that was a boon. Talroy would rather help Dame Devarath—Elade—than run some mundane errands for his mentor, of course. He only wished he could find some way to shield her from the Conclave’s ire…
The thought was fresh in his mind as a small patrol of city guardsmen approached hi
s position. They were all on foot, and two of the men were lugging along a wrapped-up body in their arms. It only took Talroy a few seconds to figure out who it was.
“Sir Knight,” one of the men called out. “Thank Sol we found you. We found the woman you’ve been looking for. She’s…she’s badly hurt.”
Talroy vaulted off his horse and dove towards them in a single motion. Elade was badly wounded—her breastplate had nearly been shredded in half, leaving behind a gray patch of skin mottled with crimson blood. He could tell that she was breathing, and he nearly screamed at the watchmen for being so stupid. Even a first year acolyte would know that someone in her condition shouldn’t be moved around unless it was absolutely necessary…but then he reminded himself that these men were just regular men-at-arms serving in a city with virtually no crime.
“What the hell happened?” Talroy asked as he channeled his healing magic into her.
“We heard noise inside one of the mansions three blocks over,” the man explained. “It sounded like some kind of break-in, so we moved up to the door to check it out and found her.”
Talroy grimaced when he noticed that she’d also suffered a shoulder wound—likely from a crossbow bolt that had since been removed. “You shot her?”
“Yes…yes, sir,” another of the men stammered.
“Lord Alric was very clear that she was not to be harmed!”
“We thought she was going to attack us!” another of the men protested. “But then there was a…”
“A demon,” Talroy finished for him.
“Yes, sir. We couldn’t even see the creature at first, but then she threw herself in front of it just before it…well, before it killed us.”
“She saved us,” another of the men breathed. “She saved us even after we shot her.”
“She’s a Knight of the Last Dawn,” Talroy told them. “Whatever else you hear about her, remember what she did for you today.”
He might have been a young man, but Talroy could still see the quiet reverence on the men’s faces. He had seen similar looks ever since he had first arrived in Celenest; he might have only been a squire, but the moment any Solarian citizen saw his blue and silver cape, they instantly respected him. The Knights of the Last Dawn were heroes in Solaria, and it sickened him to think of how Lord Alric would sully their reputation if given the chance. Talroy guaranteed these men had heard the name Tevek Dracian before, and they undoubtedly thought of him as a force for righteousness in the world. But would they feel the same in ten years? In twenty?
“We can help you get her to the Temple of Sol,” one of the men offered. “The priests will be able to save her.”
Talroy grimaced. He had managed to stop most of the bleeding, but at this point there was nothing else he could do for her. He was far from a master healer, and if he couldn’t get her to a real priest soon, she could still very easily die.
The problem was that the moment he brought her back to the temple, Lord Alric would have her put in shackles. She would never raise her sword again, at least not while wearing the Last Dawn uniform. Talroy wouldn’t have been surprised if Alric locked her away for good...
But the only other choice was to sit here and let her die. He was out of time and out of options.
“I’ll carry her to the temple,” Talroy said, hoisting her up in his arms. “I’ll contact the other knights in the city and instruct them to meet you at that mansion just in case there are more demons. But don’t approach until reinforcements arrive—do you understand?”
“Yes, sir,” the lead watchman said with a nod. His eyes fastened on Elade once more. “Do you…do you think she’ll live?”
Talroy swallowed heavily. “I don’t know.”
Chapter Seventeen
“Do what you must to get the vaeyn’s attention. It’s time to finally learn how far our priestess is willing to go.”
—Ethan Moore to his demons shortly before releasing them
The basement door burst open, but Ethan Moore didn’t bother to glance up from the maps sprawled across the table in front of him. “Knocking might draw less suspicion.”
Krystia didn’t reply. She didn’t even move for several long, awkward moments, and eventually Ethan sighed and looked up. She stood there stiffly, glaring at him, apparently waiting for him to do something.
“You ran into trouble, I take it?” he prompted.
“You promised me that you would be subtle,” she hissed through clenched teeth.
“Ah,” he grunted. “Yes, your paladin friend finally tracked down my minions, but there’s nothing to worry about. She killed all of them.”
“Do you know what they did?”
Ethan shrugged. “Not precisely, no. It takes a great deal of effort for me to share their senses, and I usually don’t bother.”
“They murdered an entire family!” Krystia nearly screamed. “They even butchered a child—the guards found him filleted inside a closet.”
“That must be what finally got the vaeyn’s attention,” he mused. “Regrettable, but they are demons. You can’t expect—”
Ethan never finished the sentence. In one moment he was speaking, and in the next an invisible hand of force wrapped around his waist and flung him out of his chair. He slammed hard into the opposite wall, but he never hit the ground—the hand of force closed around his ankles and held him upside down.
“You murdered a child!” Krystia screamed. “And you don’t even care!”
Reflexively, Ethan tried to clutch at his chest, but every part of his body was locked in a telekinetic vise. She could probably crush him with a thought if she’d really wanted to, and for a moment he was tempted to taunt her until she finished the job. He didn’t fear death—in his darkest hours, he welcomed it. He was old and tired and sickly, and at least in the Void he might know some measure of peace.
But no, he couldn’t afford to think that way, not until Galvia was free. Then, perhaps, he would finally join Elissa and his lost comrades in oblivion.
“Do you have any idea how many children are going to die when you kill Areekan?” he managed between gasps of air. “The Crell will rape and pillage their way through dozens of villages before you can stop them.”
“That’s not the same thing and you know it,” Krystia protested.
“You’re right—it’s far worse. My demons only killed one family, but the death of an Ascendant will destroys thousands. Villagers in the rural areas of Solaria will have to go without priests for months. People will die from simple infections and easily curable diseases.”
Her lip twitched, but she remained silent. Ethan knew he had to be careful not to push her too far, but at the same time he desperately needed to harden her resolve. She couldn’t afford to live in a fantasy world where she was a great liberator slaying an evil king.
“You truly are a wretched man,” Krystia snarled. “I will make you suffer for what you’ve done.”
Ethan’s arms abruptly wrenched behind his back. He yelped in shock, but she didn’t stop. She twisted his limbs slowly, meticulously, until he heard the sickening pop of tendons and ligaments snapping. He howled in agony and nearly passed out from the pain, but he could feel her reaching into his mind and keeping him conscious.
“I should kill you right now,” Krystia whispered. “I would be doing the world a favor.”
“More…will die,” he managed. “You must learn to accept it.”
She twirled his body about until he was right-side up again, and he forced himself to match her gaze even through the pain-induced haze. “Elade is missing,” she told him. “A watch patrol found her inside the house and handed her over to one of the knights. Neither of them has been seen since.”
“Then she must be alive.”
“You had better hope so, for your sake,” Krystia said coldly. He could feel her probing around his head again, and for a moment he wondered distantly if she might actually be furious enough to finish him off. “If Elade dies, I will take everything from you. I won�
�t kill you—that would be too easy. But you need to realize that the only reason you’re capable of scheming—the only reason you’re capable of thinking—is because I allow it. I could turn you into a mindless, drooling wretch in a heartbeat, and there isn’t a damn thing you could do about it.”
“Except that you need me, and you know it,” Ethan reminded her. “Hate me all you want, Krystia, but you still need my help. We are the only people in Torsia who can free the Unbound and win this war against the Crell.”
“I needed you once, but not anymore,” she told him. “You’ve already arranged everything, and since we aren’t using your demons, your usefulness is spent. You’re just an old, pathetic sadist.”
“Maybe,” he whispered, “but the whole reason you chose to ally with me in the first place is because of my experience. I know war, and I know insurrection. You can’t do this alone, and you won’t be able to convince anyone else to help you.”
Her cheek flinched. “I could take anything I need from your mind. I can force others to help me whether they want to or not. You underestimate my power.”
“If you really believed that, you would have already done it,” Ethan said, forcing his voice to remain calm. “Stealing memories isn’t the same thing as living them. You’re also smart enough to realize that a willing ally is far more valuable than a subjugated one.” He forced himself to take a deep breath. “Now if you’re quite finished, put me down. We still have details to work out, and we’re running out of time.”
Krystia glared at him for a moment longer, but he could tell that the bulk of her anger was spent. Eventually she released her spell and dropped him unceremoniously to the floor, and Ethan yelped at the pain shooting through his now useless arms. For several minutes, the only thing he could see was her leather boot in front of his face, but finally she knelt over him and channeled a healing spell into him.
The Godswar Saga (Omnibus) Page 71