Mazael nodded, still staring at the trees. “I’ve seen you use fire spells often, Timothy. Can you work something smaller?”
Timothy shrugged. “I can. My control over fire magic is not…precise, let us say. I can either conjure a lot of fire slowly or several smaller flames more quickly.”
“Excellent,” said Mazael, turning from the path. “Let’s go.”
“Where are we going?” said Adalar.
“We,” said Mazael, “are going to flush out some valgasts.”
###
Mazael moved from boulder to boulder, keeping low, his hand resting on Talon’s hilt. He wanted to draw the sword, but the occasional flicker of golden fire from the dark blade might draw unwelcome attention. The others followed him, weapons in hand – Sigaldra with her bow, Basjun with his axe and his ugly dog, Earnachar with his mace, Adalar with his Dark Elderborn sword, and Timothy with his spells.
Romaria still hadn’t returned. Mazael wasn’t worried about her, not exactly. Of everyone in the group, she was probably the single most dangerous one save for himself, and if a group of valgasts found her it would not go well for them.
Still, he was afraid for her. He always was afraid for her. He had seen her die once before, and he had no wish to repeat the experience.
Fortunately, there were foes at hand upon whom he could take out his fears.
He lifted his hand, and the others stopped.
“The western side of the trees,” said Mazael, pointing at the pines. “Timothy. Start the fire there. The wind should be right for what I want.”
Timothy nodded, took a deep breath, and cast a spell. Fire crackled around his fingers as he gestured. Earnachar gave the wizard an uneasy look and stepped back. Timothy shaped the fire into a wobbling sphere the size of Mazael’s fist, and then flung it.
The sphere soared through the air and landed on the ground amidst the pine trees. It erupted in a wash of flame two or three yards across, leaving burning pine needles in its wake. The fire spread up the trunk of the nearest pine tree, the sap catching flame. Timothy flung another sphere of fire, and another, his face tight with concentration. By the third sphere, a good-sized blaze was burning in the trees. By the sixth sphere, the entire thicket was in danger of going up in flames.
“That should be good enough,” said Mazael. “We need only…”
Right then the first valgast erupted from the trees, sprinting from the flames.
The creature stood only four feet tall, its limbs spindly, its ribs visible beneath its mottled green-and-yellow hide. Its ears were enormous, as large as Mazael’s hands, and its eyes were huge and black and unblinking. Needle-like teeth rose from its jutting jaw. It wore a peculiar armored shirt fashioned from plates of bone, and in its left hand, it carried a short sword fashioned from the same kind of strange bone. The creature’s nostrils flared as it ran, and it was coughing, trying to expel the smoke from its lungs.
A half-dozen more valgasts stumbled from the burning trees, all of them carrying short swords and blowguns.
“Now!” shouted Mazael, drawing Talon and running forward.
The others charged while Sigaldra stepped back, setting an arrow to her bowstring. The valgasts recovered from their shock and turned to defend themselves, letting out their rasping, gurgling battle cries. One of the valgasts lifted a blowgun to its fanged mouth and blew, and Mazael ducked. The dart clipped his shoulder and tumbled to the ground, the poisoned tip deflected by his armor. One of Sigaldra’s arrows pierced the valgast’s left forearm, and the creature stumbled. Before it recovered, Mazael attacked. Talon’s dark blade swept through the valgast’s skinny neck, and the creature collapsed in a heap to the ground.
He turned, cutting down another valgast. Adalar’s Dark Elderborn sword seemed to flicker in his hand as he swung and slashed. Earnachar brought his mace down onto a valgast’s head with a loud crunch. Basjun buried his axe blade in a valgast’s neck, and next to him Crouch snarled and snapped. The valgasts were frightened of the big dog and shied away from his approach. A valgast turned on Mazael, and he heard Timothy shout a spell. The valgast stumbled as invisible force struck it, and Mazael seized the moment of distraction to cut down the creature.
More valgasts stumbled from the burning woods, only to run right into the battle. Sigaldra loosed another arrow, and a valgast stumbled as the shaft pierced its stomach. Mazael killed down the valgast before it could recover. The Demonsouled rage thrummed through him, making him faster and stronger than he ought to have been, demanding that he kill until his sword ran red with blood and his arms and shoulders ached from the effort of it. Mazael had spent much of his life fighting against that rage, struggling to control it, but now he could release it.
Left unchecked, it would destroy him and everything he cared about.
Used and channeled, though, it could destroy his foes, the enemies who threatened to destroy the Grim Marches, and Mazael used that fury now, cutting down valgast after valgast without mercy.
If the creatures had wanted to live, they should not have threatened his lands and his people.
Mazael slew another valgast, ripping Talon’s blade free, and looked around for more enemies.
But there were none.
All the valgasts had been slain. Unable to retreat back into the burning woods, they had come to fight, and they had been slaughtered. Mazael turned to face the others, the Demonsouled rage burning through him, and for a wild moment, he wanted to attack his friends, to keep killing and killing until no one was left alive in the valley save for him.
He was ready for the impulse, and he crushed with a practiced effort. Not even the Old Demon himself had been able to induce Mazael to succumb to his demon-charged blood, and a fight with a ragged valgast band wouldn’t do it.
“Anyone hurt?” said Mazael.
The others shook their heads. Sigaldra was watching him a little warily, as if she feared he would grow fangs and attack them. She didn’t know that he was Demonsouled, but if she had, that would not have been an unreasonable fear.
“Timothy,” said Mazael. He cleaned off the valgast blood from Talon’s blade and sheathed the sword, which seemed to calm Sigaldra a little. “Any other valgasts nearby?”
Timothy wiped sweat from his forehead and drew out his crystal, working his sensing spell once more. “None, my lord. At least not within a few hundred yards.”
“Perhaps we should keep moving,” said Earnachar. “That fire generated a lot of smoke.” The harsh smell of burned pine wood filled Mazael’s nostrils. If he could smell it, the valgasts could, and the plume of smoke would be visible from a long distance off. “Someone will come to investigate the…”
He fell silent and flinched as a great black wolf loped past him, stopping before Mazael. The wolf melted and reformed back into Romaria, who looked at the burning trees with wide, alarmed eyes.
“Who did that?” she said. “Did you see who started the trees on fire?”
“I did, my lady,” said Timothy.
Romaria looked at him, and then back at Mazael.
“Valgasts in the trees,” Mazael said, puzzled at her reaction. “I needed to flush them out.”
“Oh,” said Romaria. “Good.”
“Why did you think,” said Mazael, “that something else had set the fire?”
Romaria frowned. “I found something that you should see.”
Chapter 2: The Prisoner
Mazael and the others followed Romaria as she led the way from the burning trees. Timothy said that his spell sensed the presenceof no other nearby valgasts, and Romaria thought that most of the valgasts had gone to the north, heading in the same direction as the Prophetess.
Nonetheless, Mazael did not lower his guard. Why were the valgasts swarming through the mountains during the daylight hours? Even after the Old Demon’s restrictions upon their raids had been broken, the valgasts still preferred to attack at night, launching ambushes from the shadows and retreating to the caverns of the underworld before the
sun rose again.
So why come out of their caverns and into the Skuldari mountains in such numbers? It didn’t make sense. Perhaps the Prophetess had summoned the valgasts, but if she had, why would the valgasts come to the surface here? Why not travel through the caverns of the underworld to the Heart of the Spider itself?
Unless something had drawn them out. Had the Prophetess commanded the valgasts to hunt down Mazael and his companions? If so, they had done a bad job of it so far.
“I don’t think,” said Romaria, “that those valgasts were waiting to ambush us.”
“So what were they doing there?” said Mazael. “Passing the time?”
“I think,” said Romaria, “they were hiding from something.”
“From what?” said Mazael.
She led them away from the path and towards a ring of rough boulders.
“From whatever did this,” said Romaria.
Mazael came to a startled halt, the stench of burned meat filling his nostrils.
###
Sigaldra looked around the ring of boulders with surprise, her hand itching to draw an arrow.
Not that she needed it. The valgasts here were already dead.
A dozen valgasts lay scattered across the scorched ground, or at least the charred husks of what had once been valgasts. Since the Prophetess had begun her plot, Sigaldra had seen a lot of dead valgasts.
She had not, however, ever seen a valgast burned to a blackened husk.
Come to think of it, she had never seen anyone burned to a blackened husk.
“Perhaps the valgasts burned their dead,” said Timothy.
“No,” said Sigaldra. “They take their dead with them when they can. They probably eat them.”
“They do,” said Romaria. “It is their custom. A funeral feast of the deceased.”
Sigaldra shuddered at the thought.
“Then they ran afoul of a powerful wizard,” said Earnachar. “Perhaps the valgasts have turned against the Prophetess.”
“We should be so fortunate,” said Mazael, “but I doubt it. The valgasts revere Marazadra as their goddess, and the Prophetess is going to bring back their goddess.”
“So who did this?” said Adalar.
“I don’t know,” said Romaria.
“It had to be a wizard,” said Sigaldra. “The Jutai burn our dead, so I know how much fuel it takes to burn a corpse to ashes. There is nothing nearby to burn, just barren stone and rock. If something else burned the valgasts, it would have left behind a great pile of ashes.”
“The salamanders,” said Adalar. “Azurvaltoria’s pet salamanders. Some of the creatures must have fled the caverns when her treasure vault collapsed. Maybe the valgasts tried to fight the salamanders and regretted it.”
Though given how thoroughly the valgasts had been burned, Sigaldra suspected they had not regretted it for long.
“A good thought, Lord Adalar,” said Romaria, “but you saw those dead soliphages outside the Veiled Mountain. They were burned the on parts of their bodies that touched the salamanders.” She nudged a dead valgast with the toe of her boot. The smell of burned meat flooded the air. “These ones…look at them. They looked as if they were cooked from the inside out.”
“A dragon’s fire could do it,” said Mazael, “but the Prophetess killed Azurvaltoria, and dragon fire would have turned the ground around us to slag.”
“Magic, then,” said Earnachar. “A witcher did this.”
“It would be a spell of great power and control,” said Timothy. “I couldn’t manage it. Someone like Lucan Mandragon or Malavost could have done so, but I could not.”
Sigaldra grimaced at the thought. Lucan Mandragon, the Dragon’s Shadow, had raised countless hordes of undead at his command. Generations from now, the men of the Grim Marches and the Tervingi and the Jutai would still speak of him as a figure of horror and dread. The thought of a wizard with Lucan Mandragon’s power stalking the Skuldari mountains was a grim one.
“The Prophetess?” she said. “Maybe this band of valgasts went rogue and tried to kill her.”
“You’ve seen the kind of spells the Prophetess uses,” said Romaria. “She summons up Crimson Hunters or uses blasts of psychokinetic force. We’ve never seen her use this kind of magical fire before.”
“She may still possess that power, my lady,” said Adalar. “A clever foe conceals her strength until it is needed, and the Prophetess has been damnably clever this entire time.”
“Maybe,” said Mazael, drawing Talon. He hooked the tip of the blade beneath one of the valgasts and flipped the creature over, leaving a greasy, charred stain upon the rock. The dead valgast’s back was just as charred as its front. “But I think Romaria is right. We pressed the dear Lady Celina hard at both Armalast and Azurvaltoria’s lair, and she never did anything like this. Unless…”
“What?” said Romaria.
“Unless the Mask of Marazadra gave her that power,” said Mazael.
“It is possible, my lord,” said Timothy.
It was a disquieting thought. The Prophetess needed the Mask to summon her goddess, and she had somehow used the Mask’s power to kill the mighty dragon Azurvaltoria. Sigaldra and the others had fought the Prophetess to a standstill twice before, but if the Mask gave the Prophetess additional powers, they might not be able to defeat her.
“If it did, sir,” said Basjun, “why would she use that power upon her own allies? If I was the Prophetess, I would send the valgasts to waylay us, and that seems to be what has happened.” Crouch waited by his master’s side, sniffing at the dead valgasts.
“We’re arguing in circles,” said Mazael, sheathing Talon. “If the Prophetess did this, well and good. It means the valgasts have turned on her. If someone else did this, that also works to our advantage. If some wizard with a grudge against valgasts is rampaging through the mountains of Skuldar, we’ll stay out of his way.”
“Perhaps this wizard would be an ally,” said Adalar.
“Maybe,” said Mazael. “But he could have his own game. Or he’s someone like Malavost, a renegade who heard of the Prophetess’s plan and wants to seize the power of a dead goddess for himself. Until we know better, we’ll mind our own affairs and let this wizard burn as many valgasts as he wishes. Timothy. The maethweisyr?”
Timothy nodded and drew the dagger from its sheath. The blade of the Dark Elderborn weapon had once been silver, but it had turned crimson with the Prophetess’s blood. Timothy cast a spell, and pale blue light flickered around the weapon.
“She is north of us still, my lord,” said Timothy, returning the dagger to his coat. “And not very far ahead of us. Maybe a day’s march. If we had been able to follow her through that cavern in the Veiled Mountain, we would have caught her by now.”
“Instead we had to circle around the mountain to the south,” said Sigaldra, shaking her head with frustration.
“Better than being buried alive,” said Adalar.
He had a point.
“Valgasts or not, let’s keep moving,” said Mazael. “Romaria, scout the path ahead. The rest of you, keep an eye out for valgasts…or for a mad wizard running around burning valgasts to death.”
They continued, following the path deeper into the maze of mountain valleys.
###
Five hours later, Adalar saw the fifth dead valgast.
This time, the dead valgast lay in the middle of the rocky path, the air heavy with the stink of its burned flesh. As with all the other dead valgasts they had seen, this one had been burned by the same magic, charred from the inside out. A short sword of bone lay next to the blackened claw of its right hand, and the creature’s bone armor had warped and cracked in the heat of the fire.
“This one was running,” said Romaria. “Look. There and there.” At first, Adalar could not see anything, but then he saw the charred spots. The valgast had managed to take three or four steps as it burned, and then it had collapsed.
“Seems like our renegade wizard is still on th
e rampage,” said Mazael.
Crouch moved forward, sniffed the dead valgast, and barked several times. Romaria frowned at the dog, squatted, and tapped the dead valgast with a finger.
“Mazael,” said Romaria. “It’s still warm. Hot, even.” She gave the valgast a sharp poke, and Adalar grimaced at the crackling sound it made. “I think this one was burned only a few minutes ago.”
Mazael nodded. “We’re about to walk into a battle, aren’t we?”
“I think so,” said Romaria, straightening up. “It seems…”
Her voice trailed off. Adalar looked around. Save for the dead valgast, he saw nothing amiss in their immediate surroundings. The path wound through a rocky mountain valley, little different than the ones they had already passed. Gray mountains rose around them, grim and silent, crowned with blankets of white snow. Boulders lay strewn across the valley, hidden here and there in stands of tough little pine trees.
A flicker of movement caught his eye.
A valgast came into sight around a boulder, clad in bone armor, a short sword in its clawed hand.
“The enemy comes!” shouted Adalar, reaching for his sword hilt.
Even as he spoke, a dozen valgasts boiled out from behind the boulders and charged towards them.
Romaria reacted first, raising her bow and putting an arrow into the air. The shaft plunged through the valgast’s throat, spinning it around and throwing the creature to the ground. She shot down a second valgast, and by then Adalar had drawn his Dark Elderborn sword. It was shorter than his old sword but lighter, and the double-edged blade came to a slight curve.
The sword was steady in his grip, but nonetheless, it gave off the peculiar sensation that it was vibrating.
“Take them!” said Mazael, running forward with Talon in his right hand as Romaria sent another arrow over his shoulder. Adalar ran after the Lord of Castle Cravenlock, Basjun and Earnachar joining him, while Sigaldra stepped next to Timothy, raising her own bow. Timothy began casting a spell, gesturing and whispering under his breath. Crouch bounded next to Basjun, the dog’s furious barks ringing over the valley. Crouch seemed to hate valgasts, which was just as well since the big dog terrified the valgasts.
Mask of Spells (Mask of the Demonsouled #3) Page 2