Exile's Gamble_The Chronicles of Shadow_Book II

by Lee Dunning

  Chalice Renoir had heard a lifetime’s worth of screams of pain, anguish, and rage. Nothing compared to the heart-crushing wail of despair filling the halls of Castle Teres. The force of Lady Swiftbrook’s horror given voice threatened to shatter the walls. The throne room lay just beyond. Renoir didn’t know what pulled such a cry from the steel-eyed councilor but he would wait no longer.

  “Let me through!” he roared at the wall of red armor before him. His hands glowed with holy fire as he pushed and struggled against the soldiers. Those directly in front of him started when they noticed the magic pouring off him and he managed to squeeze between them.

  Lady Swiftbrook turned her grief-twisted face in his direction. She inhaled. “Let him pass!” she bellowed.

  The elves pressed themselves as best they could to either side of the hall, allowing Renoir to shoulder his way forward. He stumbled over bits of melting and scorched demons in his haste. Only Tyan kept him from a headlong spill. He broke free of the crush of bodies and pounded up to the front of the party. Something thin as parchment and black as the void writhed before them. What in the hells is that? No matter, it blocked the way to his family—it must die. “Brother and Sister aid me!” he shouted, more order than supplication.

  An outpouring of golden fire rushed from him. In all his days, Renoir could not recall such a torrent of power. His great-great-great grandparent’s handed-down lore depended on science and logic. They’d never fully understood magic but used what rules it did follow to help establish their church. All Renoir knew was he had need and enough emotion for ten men. The magic responded.

  The living curtain of night burst into motes of dust under the onslaught of his purity spell. As it dissipated, a figure tumbled from it as if through an opened doorway, grey and limp as death. Lord W’rath?

  Lady Swiftbrook sped to the fallen Shadow Elf. “Sweet Sister, he’s not breathing,” she said. “He’s like ice.”

  From the room beyond, cries for help and incoherent shrieking intermixed with the clash of weapons and the roar of combat magic. It pulled at Renoir. He met Lady Swiftbrook’s gaze and the depth of emotion, well beyond her usual bluster and anger, wrenched at him. He found himself dropping to his knees next to Lord W’rath.

  The Sky Elf spoke true. W’rath didn’t breathe. A finger to his neck confirmed the lack of a pulse. Renoir’s battle magic would do no good here but he’d spent years pouring over his ancestor’s meticulously recorded knowledge. There was a chance …

  “Can you help him?” Lady Swiftbrook asked.

  “I—maybe,” he said.

  Her stern exterior back in place, Lady Swiftbrook waved at the gawking soldiers. “Get in there! Save those people,” she ordered. All but Tyan, Lord Icewind and Lady Winterdawn surged past. Tyan hovered nearby, standing guard. Lord Icewind’s slim hands made a few passes and an iridescent bubble surrounded them. “We’re safe for the moment,” he said. He plopped to the floor, shutting his eyes in exhaustion. Lady Winterdawn knelt next to him and let him rest his head on her shoulder.

  Renoir swallowed. He’d only used his family’s lore once. It hadn’t worked but the man he’d tried to save was ancient and frail. “This may appear unconventional,” he said, “but keep an open mind.” He paused. “Your hearts are in the same place as ours, right?”

  “Yes, dammit, get to it,” Lady Swiftbrook snapped. She colored and in a milder tone added, “Please, Chalice.”

  Renoir placed his hands, one on top of the other, upon W’rath’s chest and started quick, powerful compressions. He paused, tilted the elf’s head back, pinched his nose and forced air into his lungs. That done, the priest started compressions again. As expected, Lady Swiftbrook and the others muttered in confusion. He ignored them. He counted to thirty and stopped once again to apply mouth-to-mouth.

  Despite his overall good condition, sweat soon popped out on Renoir’s forehead. His arms ached. “Do you see what I’m doing?” he asked Lady Swiftbrook.

  “Yes,” she said. “You’re forcing his heart to beat.”

  “Exactly. I need you to take over. I’ll keep giving him air.” Renoir pulled back and Lady Swiftbrook immediately started pressing on W’rath’s chest. “You must apply a lot of pressure. Don’t worry if you crack his ribs—it’s fairly common.”

  They continued like that, the passing minutes feeling like hours. Renoir barely registered Lady Winterdawn’s comments about W’rath’s improved color and warmth. It wasn’t until he bent to apply breath to the psion one last time the priest noted W’rath’s frightening red eyes had sprung open. “If you kiss me again, priest, I shall pull your tongue from your mouth and strangle you with it.”

  Renoir sat back far on his heels. He remembered quite clearly now why he’d harbored mixed emotions when he heard the Shadow Elf councilor survived the battle against Oblund.

  Lady Swiftbrook pressed her shaking hand to her face. Renoir thought her tearful smile looked foreign on her austere face. “He saved your life, little squirrel. A kiss is the least of what you owe him.”

  W’rath pushed himself up to a sitting position. He wiped furiously at his mouth. “Perhaps so,” he said, “however I intended to save myself for someone special.”

  Renoir’s jaw worked but no sound came out. He caught the grin as it crooked one side of W’rath’s lips. Mirth crinkled the elf’s eyes. “I owe you a debt, human,” he said, “Next time, though, consider wooing me with flowers first.”

  The arrival of Lady Culna’mo’s troops succeeded in disrupting the devil’s ear-shattering spell. By then hundreds of demons already swarmed the incapacitated elves on the field. K’hul’s ears popped and sound rushed in, nearly staggering him anew as a cacophony replaced complete silence.

  Lady Earthfire helped him gain his feet and he swung his shield in time to slam the gaping maw of a charging brute. It staggered, giving the soldier to K’hul’s right a chance to hack at it. Two of its four arms tumbled away into the melee. It bellowed and tried to launch a pair of roundhouses with its remaining arms. K’hul stepped in close and shoved his blade into its neck and up through its jaws, on into its brain. He heaved and pivoted on one heel, hauling the dying monster around, dumping it behind him and his companions.

  “Shields up and lock!” he ordered. The elves’ normal discipline and precise tactics had disintegrated with the chaos caused by the devil’s spell. K’hul saw far too many sets of green armor among his people. If they survived, they’d exchange it for the red of a veteran, but if they didn’t regain self-control and start acting as a unit, the only red they’d wear would be their lifeblood.

  “Yelling it won’t make it happen,” Lady Earthfire said. She had the look of someone who’d died and come back again, but she hefted a sword well enough. She’d dredged up a shield and managed to stuff her partially regenerated arm through the straps. “We at the back have to slip into the cracks, kill the demons and free up our folk. Those we save join our line. We keep at it until we gain enough numbers to surround the scum and finish them off.”

  The mage who’d provided the honeyed water took his place behind the fighters. “I’ll keep them from circling around and taking us in the back.” He opened a bag at his waist and released several tiny whirling bits of wind. They touched the earth and pulled dirt and stone into their embraces. They grew and spread, turning into lethal twisters of flesh flaying debris. “You two search out demons along our perimeter,” the mage ordered a pair of the elementals. They spun off, leaving furrows in the ground. “You three guard our backs.” He caught K’hul’s critical scowl. “I released twenty earlier, Warlord. I kept these back for an emergency.”

  “A wise decision,” K’hul forced out.

  “Forward,” Lady Earthfire said. She advanced, pressed her shield to the back of a struggling elf and slid her sword past his side, slashing at the keening creature facing him. K’hul and the soldier to his right followed suit.

  The world closed in. Before, K’hul fought alone, no worries that his sword migh
t cut into an ally. The confining nature of the melee meant too wide a sweep could fell an elf as easily as a demon. He spat in frustration and tried to stay focused. The clap of thunder and shriek of the dying kept pulling his eyes to where Lady Culna’mo’s people engaged the devils. First Father, surely a thousand elves can take two devils.

  K’hul grunted, arm working, blade sliding, shield shuddering on his arm as raking claws, serrated blades, and sharp-tipped tentacles slipped past those in front of him. He freed a soldier and pulled her back to take a position to his left. More joined the line. They fanned out, forming a pincer. K’hul lost sight of Lady Earthfire. Suddenly her voice rang out, loud and strong. A battle song.

  To either side of him, K’hul’s people took up the song. He’d read about such things but never thought the tales of an army taking heart from a hymn of blood and death more than fanciful embellishments dreamed up by bards like Foxfire. The word’s brought new fire to the elves. Despite himself, K’hul found himself joining in, his mountain’s rumble of a voice adding a current of bass felt more than heard. The screech of steel provided a discordant melody.

  The line grew and so did the thunder of voices. As one, they found their rhythm. The earth shuddered as they stepped forward, the line of shields restored, the sweep of massive swords unstoppable by oozing demon or spell chattering devil. The pincer closed.

  The last demon wailed and died.

  It’s done! A jaw aching grin split across K’hul’s face. They’d done it. He’d done it. He turned to share his triumph with whoever held the space next to him now and froze.

  Horror, not joy suffused the face of every elf down the line. He followed their gazes, dread already twisting this guts. How could he have forgotten the two bloated devils?

  Around the creatures, elves sprawled and reeled as some monstrous spell overwhelmed them. Despite the gruesome wounds both fiends bore, they continued to thrash their thick tails and wave their arms about, delighting in the despair their spells sowed. A hundred feet above their heads, a black miasma, overlaid in mystic symbols revolved. Flying fiends spilled out of it like a black rain. Some dove toward the elves struggling around the bloated devils. Others split off and arrowed toward K'hul's group.They were just toying with us.

  One of the devils reached forth and plucked a still form from the pile of fallen surrounding it. K’hul had no idea who it was but when a scream of fury and despair cut the air, he realized who it must be. The devil had chosen the leader of those assaulting it.

  The devil turned its grinning head toward Lady Earthfire as she limped across the field in a futile to attempt to save her child. The elves on the field unleashed a barrage of spells that ripped into its mass. The surviving air elementals hurled themselves into it, leaving rents in its flesh. It seemed oblivious the damage it took. It only grinned wider and wider until its jaws cracked and gaped open. Its maw yawned.

  With a nonchalant flip of its wrist, the devil popped the limp body of Lady Culna’mo down its throat.

  Chalice Renoir burst through the shattered doorway of the throne room. Panicked people—noble, merchant and servant alike—crashed into him as they escaped out the newly cleared exit. He staggered as someone small barreled into him. He found he clasped his youngest daughter. “Where’s your mother and sisters?”

  An animal terror held her and she fought him as if he were one of the demons. Renoir crushed her to his chest, hoping the familiar scent and beat of his heart would calm the child. “Please, sweetheart, tell me where they are.” She answered with hysterical sobs.

  Survivors continued to buffet the priest as they fled. He scanned the room, eyes lingering nowhere for long, desperate for some brief glimpse of his family. Figures, some human, some elven, and far too many demonic, struggled in the flickering light of the few remaining candles and the dancing flames of the fireplace. The chandeliers swung crazily as long-armed, nimble creatures leapt among the twisting shadows. Renoir could discern no sign of his wife and daughters.

  Tyan pushed his way through the press of bodies to join Renoir. “What have you got there?” The elf plucked at Renoir’s arms. “Ancestors! Is that your little one? Here, give her to me.”

  “She’s terrified,” Renoir said, reluctant to hand over the shuddering girl.

  Tyan pointed back to the doorway. “It’s okay,” he said. “Lord Icewind is maintaining a sanctuary in the hallway. She’ll be safe, and free you up to fight.”

  A high-pitched scream decided Renoir. He shoved his daughter into Tyan’s arms, and ran toward the melee.

  Renoir tripped over the putrid remains of something gelatinous and stinking like the spilled entrails of a thousand orcs. He stumbled across its slippery blubber, and went to one knee. “Tarako!”

  “Here!” she called.

  He made his feet and spun toward her voice, only to find a melting, tumorous hill between him and his wife. Great dollops of it sloughed off to pool, gleaming like tar, on the floor. An acrid stench rolled off its dripping flesh, spilling onto the floor where it sizzled and smoked. A fallen demon lay in one of the small pools, rapidly dissolving. As Renoir made to move around the mess, the puddle quivered and engulfed the dead demon. “Beware!” Renoir shouted. “The puddles are alive.”

  The elves cursed and retreated from the living sludge. One soldier channeled fire down the length of his sword and set the pseudopod assaulting his boot alight. It jerked away, writhing.

  The main mass went berserk. It vomited out human-sized chunk of quivering sludge in every direction. The creatures dancing among the chandeliers tumbled to the ground, wrapped in slime, squealing in agony. The smaller puddles shot off the floor to wrap around legs and arms. Renoir managed to turn his face away as a burning blanket of ooze slapped onto him. To his right a scream cut off. The soldier with the flaming sword had gotten a searing face full of the acidic slime.

  From what seemed a great distance, Renoir heard Tarako and his daughters shrieking. His family had no armor. His wife possessed no power beyond healing. Renoir snarled with fury and despair. He was failing them.

  The blanket of slime pulsed and burned. It’s trying to digest me. With his thoughts muddied by pain and self-doubt, the power he’d called upon with ease just minutes before, failed him. His limbs fell slack and the sword clattered from his grip.

  “Burn you fuck!” Harry’s voice rang out.

  The piece of demon eating Renoir wrenched itself free of him, thrashing as flames coursed across its undulating surface. The priest dropped to his knees. Tyan hauled him to his feet and steadied him.

  “A demon that burns!” Harry whooped. He leapt by, swinging a torch.

  The monster lashed out at the pirate king but he dodged, hooting at the thing in derision. Two First Born sent a twin-headed serpent of flame to wrap it in burning coils. Green, oily fumes billowed out. Contorted mouths and roiling eyes formed all over the fiend’s convulsing skin. Appalling wails issued from its thousand throats. Even Harry fell back though he continued to brandish his torch with abandon.

  Tyan pulled Renoir away from the conflagration and the abomination’s death song. The priest fought but the elf was five, six times stronger and easily overpowered him. “You can’t help them,” Tyan said as if somehow that was a comfort.

  “I know,” Renoir choked. “I know.” He cursed himself.

  Chapter 25

  Raven clutched the ruff of the great gryphon with one hand as she plummeted through the portal. The mage who summoned the doorway thought it highly irregular to open a door a thousand feet up and horizontal to the ground. It provided a tactical advantage she needed, though. No one expected elves to fly out of the sun.

  The rest of the gryphons poured through the portal, each with a bow wielding Wood Elf astride it. The moment Kela's people had understood the gryphons chose to participate as equals in the attack, the elves scrambled onto the backs of the creatures without hesitation. They circled now, taking in the battle below.

  First Queen dove and Raven’s hai
r whipped out behind her. First Queen’s pride followed suit, dropping through the air like spears. Raven squinted at the scene below as the wind pulled tears from her eyes. It didn’t take long to spy the huge devils holding court on the remains of a shattered elemental. Surrounding the creatures, the bodies of elves lay in a jumble like wind-tossed leaves. A black doorway churned in the sky and bat-like monsters flew from it. Most fell upon the fallen elves, while others formed a chaotic cloud and flowed toward a smaller unit of elves on the open field.

  Tell Kela—

  She knows, First Queen interjected. The gryphon adjusted her trajectory, slowing so Raven could better scrutinize the situation. Her pride shot past. Within a heartbeat, the Wood Elves filled the sky with their glowing arrows. A hundred devils died, speared by shafts of light. Some turned in midair and took the fight to the gryphons. Talons, beaks and claws met them without fear. The deadly magic arrows continued to cut through the plague of monsters.

  Across the field, perhaps a quarter of a mile away, the smaller unit of elves hurled spells. Even so, more horrors continued to fill the sky, entering from the gateway. The elves couldn't make headway against an enemy who could replenish their numbers without end. Raven swallowed.We can't win if we don't close that doorway.

  Then that is what we must do, replied First Queen. Decide how, and I will help.

  A lone figure hobbled across the field ahead of the army, drawing Raven’s eye. Her heart lurched. The single warrior could be no other than Lady Earthfire. The Shadow Elf squinted, trying to see more clearly through all the watering. One of the devils held up what looked like a broken doll.

  A scream bubbled up Raven’s throat. She didn’t know if it grew out of her or Linden’s horror. The devils were of the same ilk as the one she’d killed in Second Home. She knew only too well what the creature intended for the elf it held. What it intended for Arien Culna’mo.