“I did what Liane told me to do,” said Sigaldra, her voice tight with grief and rage and wild hope. “I sounded the Horn when the moment came. It worked just as Azurvaltoria said. It called back the shades of the dead.”
“It did not work just as I said it would,” said Azurvaltoria. “It should have killed you when you attempted to bind the dead to your will.”
“Do you think we return by compulsion?” said the oldest of the five Jutai shades. He had a lordly look to him, the air of a man accustomed to command. “The Horn called us forth, but we are not slaves. We are Jutai. We fight for ties of blood and nation. No one shall threaten the children of the Jutai and live.”
Earnachar’s face twitched. Had Sigaldra’s father still been alive, Mazael doubted that Earnachar would have dared to harass the Jutai.
“You have strange companions, daughter,” said the Jutai lord. “A dragon bound in human form.” Azurvaltoria grinned and did that mocking little bow, gripping the skirts of her red coat. “A woman with an Elderborn soul.” Romaria looked at him without blinking. “A wizard and a Tervingi.” Earnachar stuck out his jaw belligerently, while Timothy only bowed, and the Jutai lord’s eyes turned to Mazael. “And this man…gods and ancestors. I see the shadows of his past upon him.”
“A dire sight, I fear,” said Mazael.
“He is the lord of war,” said the Jutai lord. “He has shattered many foes and cast them down in defeat.” For a moment a flicker of fear went over his face. “Who are you?”
“I am Mazael Cravenlock,” said Mazael, “Lord of the Grim Marches, and both the Tervingi nation and the Jutai nation have sworn to me as their hrould.”
“Truly?” said the Jutai lord, his surprise clear. Even the dead did not know everything, it seemed.
“He has kept faith with me, father,” said Sigaldra, looking at Mazael. “Even when I thought he would not.”
“Then I am Theodoric, a hrould of the Jutai nation,” said the Jutai lord, “and I am grateful that you have protected my people.”
“That is what I have been trying to do,” said Mazael.
Theodoric nodded, and the altar came into sight through the massed Jutai shades.
The Prophetess was ready for them.
###
Romaria had given Sigaldra another quiver of arrows, and she set a shaft to the string, preparing herself for the fight.
Liane still lay atop the altar, the Mask of Marazadra glowing with purple light against her face. The Prophetess stood behind the altar, red maethweisyr in hand, her face bloodied and bruised. Sigaldra felt a vicious satisfaction at the sight.
Nearly twenty Crimson Hunters waited in a ring around the altar, motionless as statues, their eight eyes and the crimson hourglass shapes upon their carapaces glowing. The sight of so many of the deadly creatures chilled Sigaldra. The Horn had called hundreds of the Jutai dead to the Heart of the Spider, but Sigaldra did not know if even those numbers could stand against that many Crimson Hunters.
“You slew Rigoric,” spat the Prophetess, her face twisting with hate.
“Actually, you killed him,” said Mazael. “If you had wanted him to live, you shouldn’t have let a metal spider eat his face.”
The Prophetess shuddered with rage. “And do you think your army of shadows will save you, Sigaldra of the Jutai? Your nation is dust, and the last remnants shall soon join them in the ashes of history.”
“Vile sorceress,” said Theodoric. “Harlot of a false goddess.” Earnachar snickered, and the Prophetess twitched with anger again. “You will perish for attempting this crime.”
“No,” said the Prophetess. “Sigaldra! It is well you summoned your dead kin to your side. For all shall bow before the power of Marazadra, even the dead. Behold! Marazadra returns!”
She raised the maethweisyr high over her head, the blade erupting into purple fire, and Sigaldra screamed and loosed an arrow. It struck the Prophetess in the chest and bounced away, deflected by her warding spells. Celina du Almaine tensed like a bowstring and brought the dagger plunging down.
But instead of Liane’s chest, she buried the maethweisyr in the altar.
Marazadra needed to return to a living vessel…and the hour of rebirth had come.
A thunderclap rang over the hill, and the rift seemed to shriek in triumph. The whips of purple lightning turned and latched onto the Mask of Marazadra, power pouring through the rift and into Liane. Even through the chaos, Sigaldra heard Liane’s scream, and her sister started to thrash against her bonds.
“Too late!” crowed the Prophetess. “Witness the return of Marazadra. Witness her return in the final moment of your lives! Kill them!”
The Crimson Hunters blurred forward. Theodoric roared a battle cry, and the shades of the Jutai rushed to meet the giant spiders, ghostly swords and axes clashing against razor-edged legs and dripping mandibles.
###
Mazael sprinted into the chaos, striking with Talon as he hewed his way into the melee.
He had to reach Liane. A cold feeling settled around Mazael’s heart as he realized that he would likely have to kill the girl. If he did not kill Liane now, then Marazadra would rise, and thousands would perish. Better than one girl died instead of thousands.
Except there might be another way.
The Mask of Marazadra was the key. The Prophetess had needed a vessel for the power, which was why she had kidnapped Liane, and she needed a catalyst for the spell, which was why she had stolen some of his blood, but the Mask was central to all of it.
Mazael had defeated Rigoric by ripping off the Mask of the Champion, and he had defeated Basracus by destroying his talisman.
So what would happen if he pulled the Mask of Marazadra off Liane before it was too late?
Mazael didn’t know, but he wanted to find out.
He hewed at a Crimson Hunter, hammering at one of its legs with Talon. At last, he hacked through the joint and the giant spider lost its balance, its belly bouncing off the ground as it tried to stand back up. Three of the Jutai shades sprang upon its back, their axes rising and falling. Mazael kept running, dodging past the attack of another Crimson Hunter. Around him, fire flashed and cracked as Timothy and Azurvaltoria threw their spells into the fray, but there were too many Crimson Hunters for their magic to reach the Prophetess.
Mazael dodged the attack of a Crimson Hunter, rolled under another giant spider, and came to his feet before the altar.
Liane thrashed and screamed, silent lightning pouring into the Mask of Marazadra. The Prophetess took three quick steps back behind the altar, watching Mazael with narrowed eyes as shadow and fire gathered in her fists.
“I’ve been looking forward to this,” she spat. “I look forward to presenting the goddess with the corpse of the son of her greatest enemy. Perish, Mazael Cravenlock.”
She raised her hands, and Mazael threw Talon at her.
It was a stupid move.
The curved sword had not been balanced for throwing, and the spinning blade came nowhere near hitting the Prophetess. Yet she flinched away, raising her arms to cover her face, and she lost the spell.
Her instant of hesitation gave Mazael his last chance.
He sprinted forward, leaped on the altar, and came to his knees next to Liane. The harsh purple light filled his vision, and he felt the terrible power radiating from the Mask of Marazadra, power enough to crack the world in half.
Mazael thrust his hands into that power, his fingers grasping the edge of the Mask.
The Prophetess staggered up and saw what he was doing.
“No!” she shouted, starting her spell again. “Stop! Stop at once!”
Liane shuddered beneath Mazael’s grasp, pain flaring up his arms from touching the Mask. In a single desperate motion, he got his legs beneath him and stood, pulling the Mask up with him. For a moment he pulled Liane’s head up, and then the Mask tore free with a splash of blood. Mazael feared that removing the Mask had destroyed Liane’s face the way it had ripped apart Rigor
ic, but he saw Liane’s wide blue eyes staring at him, her mouth hanging open in a scream, and only shallow cuts marked the side of her jaw and cheek where the Mask’s claws had grasped her.
Still the silent ribbons of lightning poured into the Mask, the power of Marazadra trying to find a mortal vessel.
The power tried to enter Mazael, power as vast as the ocean and as unyielding as the mountains.
Pain erupted through him, and he screamed as every fiber of his body and every part of his soul rejected the power with an explosion of rage.
He was Demonsouled, the last child of the Old Demon, and the power of Marazadra loathed everything about him. Mazael staggered, gripping the blazing Mask in his fists, and for a moment he glimpsed Marazadra’s spirit staring at him from the rift with malignant hunger, seeming to appear as a spider the size of Mount Armyar. He felt her loathing and contempt for him and knew that if he had been foolish enough to accept her offers, she would have destroyed him at the first opportunity out of simple spite.
But the power was still pouring into him. It had to go somewhere. The Prophetess had summoned the power, but Mazael was an unsuitable vessel.
Celina du Almaine glared at him, her expression caught between horror and rage.
Mazael was not a suitable vessel for the Mask’s power…but in a flash of insight, he realized that the Prophetess was also not suitable. Else why had she not tried to take the power for herself? She would have exulted in becoming Marazadra reborn.
The power had to go somewhere.
Mazael hurled the blazing Mask at the Prophetess’s face.
She just had time to realize what he had done, and her face went slack with horror. The Mask hit her in the neck, and at once the metallic legs unfurled, stabbing into her throat and shoulder, the fangs biting her jaw.
“No!” she screamed. “No, not me! Not me!”
A furious howl came from the rift, and the ground shook. Mazael yanked the dagger from his belt and cut the ropes from Liane’s wrists and ankles. The girl had the presence of mind to help him, kicking away the torn ropes.
The Prophetess kept screaming, and as she did, she began to transform. Her skin changed, becoming gray and sallow. Metal creaked, and cloth tore as her body swelled, bursting free from her armor. There were wet tearing sounds as extra eyes appeared on her face, glowing with purple light, and a thick, misshapen spider leg burst from her hip, stroking her side. The Prophetess screamed and screamed, clawing at the Mask on her neck, but she could not pull it free.
“We must go, hrould!” shouted Liane. “She cannot hold the power! It will destroy her…and the explosion…”
“Damn it!” snarled Mazael, grabbing the girl and slinging her over his shoulder.
He jumped from the altar and ran as fast as he could. The Prophetess’s agonized shrieks rose from behind him but were drowned out by the howling roar coming from the rift. The entire hill shuddered, and Mazael had the suspicion that the mountain was trembling with the released energies.
He ran as fast as he could, heading towards Romaria and Timothy and the others. Perhaps Timothy could work some sort of warding spell to blunt the force of the explosion, or maybe Azurvaltoria had a spell that could protect them.
The rift exploded, and purple light filled the world.
The hot wind knocked Mazael from his feet and flung him to the ground, Liane rolling from his shoulder.
###
The gale threw Sigaldra to the ground, the roar filling her ears.
Perhaps they had failed, and Marazadra had been reborn, ripping apart the world in her birth like a lizard tearing its way free from an egg. Or perhaps the Prophetess had failed, and the collapse of her spell had doomed them all.
Slowly the terrible roar faded, and the wind subsided.
Sigaldra blinked her eyes open.
The first thing she saw was Adalar. He had dropped to the ground next to her, shielding her from the explosion with his armored body. She feared he had been burned or killed, but he did not look any more injured than he had been already. He grunted and started to stand, and Sigaldra helped him up. Or she tried to, anyway. They wound up leaning on each other as they stood.
Mazael groaned and sat up a dozen yards away.
“Sigaldra?”
She turned at the familiar voice.
Liane got to her feet next to Mazael. She had some bleeding cuts on her jaw, but she looked otherwise unhurt.
“Liane?” said Sigaldra, unable to believe her eyes.
Liane sprinted forward and leaped into Sigaldra’s arms, and the impact nearly knocked her to the ground. Only Adalar’s presence kept them both from falling.
“It’s over,” said Liane, weeping, “it’s over, all the destinies changed when he took the Mask off me, when…”
“Look out!” cracked Mazael’s voice.
Sigaldra turned as two Crimson Hunters raced towards them. She cursed and looked around for a weapon, while Adalar shoved Sigaldra and Liane behind him, raising the talchweisyr. The Crimson Hunters surged forward, raising up on their hind legs to spear him with their front legs.
Then both Crimson Hunters disappeared in a line of brilliant orange-white flame, vanishing in an instant as the fire consumed them.
Sigaldra raised her hand to shield her face from the heat, and a thunderous roar boomed overhead.
She looked up as the dragon soared past, breathing another lance of flame that consumed a trio of Crimson Hunters. The dragon was nearly a hundred feet long from snout to tail, her sleek form armored in scales of electric blue. Her forelimbs and hind legs were tipped with claws like sword blades, and her great black wings opened behind her like vast sails. Her huge eyes were a pale shade of blue, and her dagger-like teeth were very white and very sharp.
Azurvaltoria had resumed her true form and poured out her burning vengeance on the surviving Crimson Hunters.
“I think,” said Adalar, his voice shaky, “I think she’s a little angry at the Prophetess’s servants.”
“This is so,” agreed Liane, her calm returned once more.
Sigaldra blinked, catching her breath, and saw her father staring at her.
###
“Mazael,” said Romaria, grabbing his shoulders. “You’re not hurt?”
“I’ve been better,” said Mazael, watching Azurvaltoria’s flight overhead, “but I’ve been much worse.” Timothy, Earnachar, and Basjun joined them, Crouch gazing at the sky, his fur matted with blood and soliphage ichor. The big dog seemed unsure what to make of the dragon.
“Then we are victorious?” said Earnachar.
“Almost,” said Mazael. “There is one thing left to do. Witness it if you wish.”
He walked towards the empty altar, Romaria, Earnachar, Timothy, and Basjun following him. Mazael retrieved his dagger from the altar. Talon lay in the dirt near the altar’s side, and Mazael lifted the sword, the symbols on the blade flashing.
A wet slurping sound came from the other side of the altar, followed by a hideous moaning.
Mazael circled the altar and looked at the twisted thing that had been the Prophetess of Marazadra.
Celina du Almaine had been a woman of remarkable beauty, but there was no trace of that beauty now. Her torso had swollen into a massive bag of gray flesh in imitation of a spider’s abdomen, glistening with slime, and her arms and legs seemed almost comically small contrasted against the bulk. Spider legs had erupted almost at random from her sides, twisted and useless, twitching as they tried to lift her. Eight more glowing, misshapen eyes dotted her forehead and her temples, and her body jerked and heaved as she struggled to breathe. The soliphages had their own dark grace, but the Prophetess looked like a hideous hybrid of human and spider, the worst qualities of both fused together at random.
The stench coming from her was hideous.
“Gods,” said Timothy.
Liane had been right. The Prophetess had not been a suitable vessel for the power.
The Prophetess’s face turned towards Mazael,
almost lost in the growths of corrupted flesh that had sprouted from her shoulders. The Mask clung to the space that had been her neck, but it looked twisted and blackened, like a branch thrust into the fire.
“No,” croaked the Prophetess. “No. The goddess will come. I am her messenger, I am her herald. I shall teach the world virtue through her fear. I shall…”
“No. She was never a goddess. Merely another predator looking for prey. And it is probably a mercy,” said Mazael, “that you cannot see yourself.”
He lifted Talon and hacked through her thick neck in four blows. She screamed on the first blow, black slime spurting from her veins, and fell silent at the second. The misshapen head rolled away, trailing a greasy curtain of red hair, and the Mask of Marazadra fell from her neck and crumbled into ash.
“Now,” said Mazael, straightening up, “now we are victorious.”
“Let us be away from here, then,” said Earnachar. He seemed almost subdued for once. “The smell is…unpleasant.”
“Truly,” said Mazael.
He walked around the altar, Azurvaltoria’s triumphant roars ringing over the Heart of the Spider, and stopped in surprise.
The Jutai shades were still there, hundreds of them.
Except they seemed more solid than he remembered.
###
“Father?” whispered Sigaldra.
Theodoric stared at her, blinking in confusion, and her brothers stood around her father. The outline of golden light had vanished from him and the other Jutai, and the curtains of mist had departed.
Yet the Jutai dead were still here.
More, they were solid. She could no longer see through them. In fact, she thought they were breathing, and she could smell them, smell the familiar smells of sweat and oil and leather.
“Sigaldra?” said Theodoric. “Liane? I…do not understand.” He shook his head, still blinking. “It is like I have awakened from a dream.”
Sigaldra walked towards him, feeling as if she was in a dream herself, Adalar on her right and Liane upon her left. Liane stared at Theodoric for a moment and then smiled to herself.
Mask of Spells (Mask of the Demonsouled #3) Page 28