by Lee Dunning
“I can’t usurp the throne,” he said. “As Her Majesty stated, we have a council of nobles who would need to convene and consider whether His Majesty’s crimes warrant his removal, and if so then put forth possible candidates as his replacement. The church would provide input as well. The nobles won’t move against the king if the church upholds his divine sanction. We have scholars who can attest to the various merits of an individual’s lineage. We adhere to a strict set of protocols.”
“Surely, no one would continue to follow someone so clearly unbalanced?” Raven sounded as vexed as W’rath felt.
Ungren started to object, but W’rath interrupted him. “Before you reply with some stupidly misplaced declaration of loyalty to this … man, remember he bears the responsibility for turning at least half your army into a demonic horde.”
“Only the peasants!” The King had managed to wriggle his head free enough so he could speak again.
“Peasants …?” W’rath tried the word, but even the magic ring wasn’t able to find an exact translation that made sense to the elf. From the king’s tone, he intended it as an insult, an indication he viewed said peasants as a lower life form. That did W’rath little good, since in his opinion, all humans qualified as such.
The Queen seemed to realize his dilemma. “The peasants are the common folk who serve on a lord’s land, growing our crops and raising our livestock. In addition, the men and boys must come to their lord’s aid when he requires additional military service in response to the demands made by the crown.”
“Is demonic possession, followed by a gruesome death part of that pact as well?” Raven asked, drawing herself up to glower at the woman.
“No, of course not,” the Queen said, going pink with shame. A trickle of blood escaped her nose and she wiped at it without thinking, and a flare of pain pulled a gasp from her.
Another thought occurred to W’rath. “If these peasants of yours keep your population fed, what will happen now that several thousand of them will not survive to return to their hovels?”
The queen dropped her eyes in shame. “We may struggle some this winter,” Ungren finally said. That seemed as close to a criticism of the king as he would commit to—at least in front of elves.
Another seeming earthquake nearly knocked them all to the ground. The royal pavilion groaned and started to tilt. K’hul and company’s attention grabbing attack had kept the demon’s focus away from the tent, but eventually a demon or three would tear through, assuming it didn’t collapse first. Regardless, they needed to leave now. Despite the uproar outside, none of the commotion reached their ears. The magi had cast a powerful divination spell upon the tent. It would play havoc with Kiat’s attempts to locate them. They couldn’t afford to wait while the humans continued to make excuses for not ousting their king.
Foxfire burst into the pavilion, artfully dancing over the fallen guards and skirting around the lad still dangling from Raven’s hand. “Bloody hells, what are you people doing?” He said. “The world is ending out there, and you’re having tea?”
The Wood Elf chattered in the human’s native tongue as if it were his first language and not his second, third or even hundredth. Even without psionics, the fellow had a talent for languages and accents W’rath had to admire.
“We’ve been attempting a bit of negotiation, but I fear I haven’t the talent for such things,” W’rath said. “What seems logical and prudent to Raven and me, the humans find completely unworkable.”
“Shocking,” Foxfire managed. He couldn’t stand still, his desire to flee reflected in every twitch of his muscles. “In case you haven’t noticed, K’hul decided to follow through on the attack, so getting out of here comes before whatever passes for negotiations in your world.”
W’rath purposely gave Foxfire a blank stare, and was rewarded with a magnificent view of scarlet racing up the Wood Elf’s skin as he moved to a state of apoplexy. “Seriously? I have to explain why standard negotiations don’t usually include holding a sword to the head cleric’s throat, and crushing the sovereign’s windpipe?”
With a small pang of regret, W’rath removed his foot from Oblund’s throat. He hauled the human to his feet and shoved him in Foxfire’s direction. Oblund massaged his bruised throat, glaring murder at the Shadow Elf. “Don’t forget he’s still the enemy, lad,” W’rath said to Foxfire. “We’re here because he brought an army to your forest to claim it for his own. If I had my way, we wouldn’t negotiate at all. We’d kill him and anyone foolish enough to protest.” He hesitated to make his point clear. “This is me playing nice.”
“Yeah, I know,” Foxfire said. With shaking hands he pulled a slender cord from his pack. When the king proved belligerent toward the idea of having his arms trussed behind his back, W’rath stepped in and quickly brought the man to his knees.
The psion watched as Foxfire fumbled with the cord and nearly dropped it. The lad had no business returning to hostile territory. Clearly, their current situation terrified him, and yet, he had left the safety of the Elven camp and come back to aid his new allies. The boy had more honor in one pointed ear than K’hul had in his entire hulking body. W’rath slipped in close to Foxfire so he could whisper to him. “Are you all right, lad?”
“No, I’m not. I’m scared shitless. I came back because I was worried about you two. Kiat hasn’t managed to locate you. I assume it has something to do with this tent, there’s some magic on it deflecting his powers. So I get here, and you’re just standing around acting like you have all day. I have no idea how you can stay so calm.”
A memory of demonic armies closing in on one another in the Abyss came unbidden to W’rath’s mind. An entire mountain range had turned to rubble when the two met and clashed. He gave Foxfire a reassuring pat on the arm and nodded his approval at the Wood Elf’s work on the king’s tether. “As long as it stands, the magic on this tent shields us from the noise and the magic firestorm. I expect we’ll be suitably shaken once we leave this place.”
He turned back toward the front of the tent. The queen and the boy had joined Ungren. Raven released the messenger and he knelt, attempting to revive the young guards lying insensate upon the ground. W’rath doubted the two would make it. Raven had yet to learn the extent of her strength. She’d probably given the chaps matching skull fractures. In his experience, humans didn’t recover readily from such things. Perhaps this more evolved version of human had sturdier heads. Not likely.
“Very well,” W’rath said. “We shall leave this place. Once free of the tent’s enchantments, our colleague should provide us a means of escape. It may take a few minutes for him to locate us, so in the meantime protect your queen and yourselves, but raise no weapon against an elf. We shall endeavor to keep you alive, but if you do anything foolish, we will leave you to the mercies of your king’s horde, and worry about the political backlash later. Agreed?”
For the first time no one protested or argued. Even Oblund had finally quieted down. The guards had come to, though they swayed, unsteady. W’rath still doubted they would survive without a healer. The messenger tried to explain the situation to them. Their unfocused eyes darted about in fear, but at last they nodded. At least they weren’t so far gone they couldn’t understand.
Raven pulled her sword from Ungren’s neck and allowed him to take up his war sledge. They sized one another up for a time and came to a silent agreement. Only then did Ungren’s eyes move to one of the young, unsteady nobles. “Lord Castle,” he said, “make yourself useful and carry the mage for Lady Raven. She’ll need to fight, and I think she’ll do better without a man’s dead weight dragging on her.”
“Hypocrite,” Oblund said.
“Sire, they don’t follow our beliefs,” he said, sounding weary. W’rath noted he didn’t bother to point out that Raven was bigger and stronger than any of them. From what the queen had said, their doctrines didn’t take that into account. But, despite his religious beliefs, Ungren had a soldier’s practical view of survival. He
used what tools he had available.
If the battered young man had any inclination to argue, years of instilled respect for one’s superiors won out, and he began to pull at the limp mage. “Of course, Your Eminence.” With some help from the messenger, he got the unconscious man slung across his back. The messenger and other guards clustered around him for protection.
A flaming missile tore through the pavilion, taking one of the unfortunate young men with it. The queen screamed as the tent came apart, disintegrating in a concussion of wind and fire. As the magic of the pavilion came undone, the roar of the outside world crashed in upon them.
Chapter 14
The last remnants of the royal pavilion whirled away into the maelstrom. “So much for the tent’s magic,” W’rath said. “Lord Icewind should have a much easier time finding us now.”
“Now do you see what I mean?” Foxfire said. Even his bard’s trained voice could barely carry over the cacophony.
“Gods!” Raven gasped, her instinct to duck and hide nearly overwhelming. Then she saw the boy cowering against his queen, and remembered how she had clung to Linden during the attack on Second Home. He’d probably felt then like she did now, but he had dug deep and found his courage for her sake. Now she had to do the same for everyone here. Linden’s soul rumbled his approval inside her. His fire and combat instincts sung through her veins. She turned with a snarl, searching for the enemy.
The demons obliged, rushing forward when they sensed her and the others. Raven spun and cut one down as it hurled itself at them. “Chalice, have your men protect the queen and the child!” she said, and tore into her next victim, body checking the demon and beheading it as it crashed to the ground.
Ungren ordered the guards into position. They dumped the mage onto the ground near the queen and the servant boy. The Wood Elf prodded King Oblund into the protective ring of fighters. Four swords and one mace faced outwards, hoping for the promised means of escape, but not expecting it to come in time. In all his days, Ungren had never witnessed anything like the maelstrom of death surrounding them. He’d fought in battles against fellow humans numerous times. The Ten Day War pitted them against the orcs of Dire Mountain. What a terrible, bloody time that had been. The orc shamans killed with poisonous insect swarms and a horror the men called blood rain. He almost missed the orcs now. If he didn’t know better, he’d swear the Abyss itself had opened its maw and swallowed them.
Fire and lightning fell all around them. Flaming meteors screamed from the sky, and arcing bolts of lightning consumed all they touched. Great chunks of earth exploded around them, lava shooting out of the fissures. Riders and humans alike turned to ash, ignited by the superheated death. Shrapnel tore through flesh, leaving torn bodies scattered upon the ground, filling the air with the stench of spilled blood and entrails. Bowel loosening bellows and roars echoed across the field. A choking bank of smoke cut off visibility, but a breeze cleared the distance enough that, for a brief moment, Ungren glimpsed an enormous stone and lava creature, nearly two hundred feet high, eclipsing the battlefield. It took a slow, ponderous step and more tremors shook the ground, rippling it like water. Bodies went tumbling, and the screams of the terrified and dying added to the discordance whirling around the priest and his group.
It was almost too much, even for a brave man. Only the priest’s sense of duty to those who needed his protection gave him the courage to stand firm in the maelstrom. “My Queen, stay close,” he said. His voice sounded small to his ears. Brother and Sister, what had they awoken by angering the elves?
As a huddled group, they awaited the inevitable. King Oblund staggered up alongside Chalice Renoir. His eyes huge with horror, mouth gaping like a carp, the king didn’t seem to notice his arms were still trussed tightly. Foxfire clung tightly to the thong attached to the King’s bindings. “How can this be?” Oblund said. “The magi swore First Home would never commit to a conflict on the mainland.”
No one answered him. Foxfire certainly had no interest in enlightening the bastard. If someone hadn’t attacked Second Home using demons, and then also used them against the Wood Elves, Foxfire doubted K’hul would have agreed to come to their aid. K’hul wanted someone to pay for Second Home, and getting his hands on one of the mercenary magi from Tassilia offered the best chance he had of gaining the information he needed.
The breeze died and the smoke closed back in around them, leaving them isolated, unable to keep track of Raven and W’rath. Without direction, they continue to huddle in a circle, senses stretched, trying to glimpse death before it came for them.
A pack of Riders burst in upon them. Foxfire heard them a moment before they sprang, and barked out a warning. Ungren swung around to sweep them with his sledge. The weapon smashed into the torso of the first possessed man. Ribs shattered, and blood gushed from the man’s mouth as bone fragments pierced the lungs, and the heart ripped from its anchors. Even so, the demon inhabiting the body shrugged off the pain, and forced its dying host to close with the priest. His companions spread out to surround and overwhelm the party.
Ungren cursed himself loudly, the enormity of his mistake all too obvious. You couldn’t fight Riders as if they were still men. Anything that didn’t outright kill them wouldn’t stop them. The priest threw his free hand up and called upon his faith. “Begone!” he roared. A bright golden light shot out from his gesturing hand to hit the dying Rider and two of its companions. Immediately, the demons were banished from their hosts and the bodies collapsed, lifeless. Even the two unharmed by the sledge perished. Too long under the influence of the demons, the men’s bodies shriveled into fetal positions, nothing more than spent husks.
The four surviving demons let loose hideous, slobbering screams. Their jaws appeared to unhinge, the bones groaning and snapping, their faces contorting. One of the young men shrieked like a child and broke from the party. The Riders pounced, preferring easy prey over the chance of banishment from the priest.
Chalice Ungren leapt to the soldier’s defense, but came to a halt as one of the boy’s arms landed at his feet. Grimacing, he backtracked, rejoining the group. Foxfire swallowed, nerves fraying further. He took stock of those who still lived. Much to his surprise, the queen still stood, shielding the youngster clinging to her. The rest of the guards weren’t in much better shape than the child. Oblund had been straining at his thong, trying to flee, but the sight of the Riders tearing the soldier to pieces brought a halt to his escape attempts. Now he leaned against his captor, shuddering and panting in fear.
“We have to hold firm,” Foxfire called. “It won’t take long for those bastards to finish their meal, and then they’ll come for us. They’ll forget they’re afraid of your magic, or they’ll find some friends to help them out. Even demons will cooperate if they have enough incentive. The minute one of us lets our guard down, or breaks, we’re all doomed.” He wondered at the firmness of his voice. His legs certainly weren’t steady. They trembled so violently, it was a wonder he could stand. He drew his knife, for all the good it would do him. The demons would probably laugh when they saw it.
A dark shadow bounded out of the smoke, and Foxfire nearly fell trying to backpedal. The shadow resolved itself into W’rath. Even Oblund blew out a relieved sigh upon seeing the Shadow Elf. “We’ve lost track of Raven in the smoke. And one of the guards panicked …” Foxfire gestured at the feeding Riders.
“Lovely,” W’rath said in disgust. He pointed in the direction he’d exited the smoke. “Head in that direction. I have serious doubts Lord Icewind will open a portal for us. While we’re moving, I’ll teach you how to fight these beasties.” His words sounded neutral enough, but Foxfire knew a scolding when he heard one. Only because of his determination to see the mission succeed, did the Shadow Elf tolerate their immense stupidity.
They retrieved the unconscious mage, and forced their reluctant muscles to drag them forward, only to come to a startled halt as Raven materialized before them. They cringed at the sight of her. Her battles ha
d left her ice white hair dyed scarlet with blood, and her leathers gore-encrusted. She’d found a tower shield, and from its battered condition, Foxfire surmised she’d used it to smash down the enemy before finishing them off with her sword. Though only separated from her for a few minutes, she’d been busy sending numerous Riders back to the Abyss. Her shoulders sagged though, and the sword dragged at her arm. Her chest heaved as she drank down the foul air. Acting the part of a one-elf army took its toll.
W’rath laid a concerned hand on her trembling sword arm. “Easy lass, you need to pace yourself. We’re still on the wrong side of the lines, and I fear we may be on our own in making our escape.”
“Right,” she said, voice rough. “Tell that to the demons.”
Something not human screamed in the distance and explosions shook the area. Time to go. The Shadow Elves led the way, Raven keeping a straight, steady pace, while W’rath popped in and out of the smoke, his own blade gleaming crimson.
As he skipped in and out of their presence, W’rath dropped tidbits of information. “Because they’re now demon-possessed, pain has little affect on them. They use their hosts without regard for their well-being, so they’ll think nothing of employing the bodies themselves as weapons. They’re stronger now, burning bright with power as they feed on the life force of their host. Those demons able to cast magic in their normal form can do so as humans, also.”
Foxfire saw the young guards and messenger exchange frightened glances. They couldn’t understand a word the Shadow Elf spoke. He translated for them in the hopes of making them feel better. If anything their expressions grew more hopeless. “Surely, the human bodies make them somewhat vulnerable?” he prompted, hoping to raise their spirits.
W’rath appeared again, spinning through the smoke. Two Riders collapsed before them, hamstrings neatly severed. W’rath quickly slit their throats. “Most certainly,” he said, pointing at the corpses. “Pain or no, they can’t walk if they’re hamstrung. Hit a major vessel and they’ll bleed out. Taking off the head works too. That is how you fight them.”