She tried to spring her crossbow lever, but her hand wouldn’t obey her thoughts. Gannon turned to regard her curiously, head tilted to the side, as if she were a bug.
Part of her, she realized, would not survive what was coming.
“There,” he said, “I almost lost you.”
He spoke a few words and her thoughts were blown away as if on a breeze. What had she been thinking? Kurio saw her crossbow was pointed at Gannon and lowered it guiltily. He smiled at her and she returned it, basking in his affection. He had come all this way just to rescue her.
From outside came a harsh chant from many throats: “Nar armathuk!” and again, “Nar armathuk! Aman-chalak!”
“What’s that?” Kurio said.
“Demons,” replied Gannon. “It seems the Dead-eyes have other problems.”
Someone hammered on the door.
“Open up!” screamed Valeria.
Gannon moved to the door and unbarred it. The priestess rushed inside, face glistening with sweat, eyes wide.
“Demons,” she said breathlessly. “There are demons out there slaughtering the Dead-eyes.”
“We know,” replied Gannon. “Come, help us gather all the gear. We’re getting out of here.”
Kurio ignored the priestess and checked her crossbow. She frowned. Had she already done that? No matter. Whether Dead-eyes or demons, she was certain she and Gannon could fight their way clear. Then they would be free of this primitive settlement for good and could head back to Caronath.
~ ~ ~
The Dead-eyes kept coming. It seemed there was no end to them, and they fought savagely until killed or maimed beyond hope. Aldric, Niklaus, Stray Dog, and Bryn were covered with their milky blood. Aldric wiped some from his face, spitting the rancid taste from his mouth. They couldn’t hold the Dead-eyes off much longer.
Some of the Dead-eyes were screeching and scrambling away from the settlement, appearing harried and agitated. Many glanced behind them. Looking for direction? For their leader? No. Their inhuman faces were … filled with fear. Aldric’s heart hammered in his chest. His pulse pounded in his ears. The Dead-eyes were fleeing for their lives.
“Aldric!” screamed Soki. “There’s something else out there.”
“Bloody hells,” Bryn snarled. “What next?”
A dismayed cry came from Priska.
Soki’s cants grew in volume and vigor. A cascade of fiery globes rained down from the sky and detonated, cracking and shaking the ground. A conflagration erupted, splashing trees with flaming goo, scorching their bark to black and their leaves to ash.
Barks and growls penetrated the gloom—not the Dead-eyes’ howling shrieks.
White globes from Soki and Priska arced into the night sky, illuminating the settlement.
A figure leaped atop an outer barricade, perched there—a wrinkled, ocher-colored, scaled body. It held a Dead-eye’s limb in one clawed hand. Its orange eyes punctuated the darkness, and fangs protruded from a gash of a mouth. Horns jutted from its head and back.
Aldric gaped. Was it … a demon? His knees almost buckled. It can’t be … But he remembered the illustrations from his training, recopied from history to history over the millennia.
Another joined it. Then five more. Seven pairs of glowing orange eyes stared at them, as if waiting for a signal. They brandished strange wavy blades that ended in a double tip.
Outside the barricades, claws scraped against wood and stone. A scratching that rose above all other sounds. More demons. Of those he could see through the gaps, many had erect phalluses, and the mad glint in their eyes showed they hungered for more than food. A foul reek pervaded the air, like rotted breath.
One among those perched on the barricade, slightly bigger and darker than the others, rose onto two feet. In one taloned hand it held a rod of polished stone wound with strips of orichalcum. It raised the artifact high above its head and uttered a guttural phrase.
Every other demon took up the chant in unison, their combined voices amplified over the Dead-eyes’ tumult: “Nar armathuk!”
The larger demon chanted again, slapping the rod into its other hand in time with its rasping voice.
“Nar armathuk!” chorused the demons in response, thumping their chests so hard the skin turned red.
“Nar armathuk! Aman-chalak!” they screamed.
Echoing chants came from all directions as more demons repeated the guttural words while waving their double-tipped swords above their heads.
“Blood and damnation. Demons,” said Niklaus, snapping Aldric from his fugue.
“Abominations,” Aldric said. His Church had taught him many secrets, but this was one he’d never thought to face.
Bryn flicked a glance at him. “Fight? Or retreat? They’re not attacking.”
“Yet,” replied Niklaus.
Aldric looked back at the settlement. Some Dead-eyes still tore at doors and smashed through windows. Men, women and children screamed. Inert shapes lay in the streets, Dead-eyes tearing at their flesh.
Soki chanted, casting sparkling illuminations, searing Dead-eyes with coruscating fire. Burning waves broke over the creatures, charring flesh and bone. Many dropped in their tracks, wailing in agony, thrashing wildly.
But Soki’s scourging fire wasn’t enough. She looked at Aldric, tears of anguish running down her face, and shook her head. The Dead-eyes had driven a wedge between them and the settlers. There was nothing they could do. And they still had to deal with the demons, a potent threat that required more skill than the butchering of Dead-eyes.
A specter of primal evil had arisen.
We’re surrounded, he thought. I’ve failed. My god put his faith in me, and I failed him.
The demons’ chanting had intensified; they were working themselves into a fury.
Why now? Aldric wondered. Why here? Someone must have summoned them. A follower of Nysrog? Fear gripped him, weakening his limbs. The Tainted Cabal were here.
Outside the barricades, Dead-eyes were being overwhelmed by the demons. Aldric guessed there were a few score of the infernal creatures, and the Dead-eyes either fled or were being slaughtered, though there was the odd pocket of resistance where Dead-eyes clumped together. Inside, some Dead-eyes milled around in confusion while others still ripped at the settlers’ houses in a frenzy.
Someone among them had to belong to the Tainted Cabal, Aldric thought. Was it Gannon? Or one of the others? Aldric realized he scarcely knew anyone around him, even Soki.
“The settlement’s lost,” Niklaus said. “But the demons have given us a chance. While they’re slaughtering the Dead-eyes, we’ll flee.”
Bryn was supporting Stray Dog, whose face was drawn. He hunched slightly so as not to stretch his wounds.
Priska lowered herself off the roof and came running up. Tears streaked her face. “Soki said you’d need help. Your sorcery isn’t—oh, sorry. It’s just that—”
“It’s fine,” Aldric said. “I’m sorry about Razmus. He was—”
“Aldric,” said Niklaus, “we don’t have time for this.”
Tears coursed down Priska’s face, and she hugged her waist.
“Where is Valeria?” Aldric said. “And Gannon and Kurio?”
Just then, Gannon burst out of the meeting hall, his sword swinging in wild arcs, slicing through any Dead-eyes in his way. Holy Menselas! The man had hidden inside and avoided most of the combat. So much for wanting to help them.
Behind Gannon came Kurio, aiming her crossbow with one hand, dagger gripped in the other. She put a bolt through one Dead-eye’s throat and stabbed a second as it dodged a blow from Gannon.
Valeria poked her head out the door, clutching her cloak tight around her body. Aldric wasn’t surprised she’d steered clear of the fighting.
“Bloody Dead-eyes,” said Gannon as he approached, trailed by Kurio and Valeria. “Those poor settlers.” His saddlebags were slung over his shoulder, and Kurio carried her backpack. “Are those ghouls? Why were they chanting?”
“They’re bloody demons!” Bryn snarled. “We should do the same—grab our stuff and hunker down somewhere defensible.”
Aldric shook his head. “No. We stay. They’re doing our work for us—look!” The demons were hunting the Dead-eyes and viciously killing them, but seemed to avoid their group. Why? “The demons aren’t interested in us. We can still save some of the settlers.”
“Stubborn fool!” Niklaus said. “We’ve done all we can here. Even if we had a score of soldiers, we couldn’t hold them off. Not the Dead-eyes, and certainly not these demons. The settlement is lost. All the settlers are as good as dead already.”
“What are the demons waiting for?” asked Gannon.
“I don’t know,” said Bryn. “And I don’t mean to find out.”
Aldric sensed deep wells of dawn-tide and dusk-tide approaching. Soki ran up to them, panting. “I couldn’t do any more,” she gasped. Tears ran down her face.
“I know. You did well,” Aldric said. It couldn’t be her. It just couldn’t.
“Let’s go, now!” Niklaus urged. “We have to punch a hole through their line before they turn their focus on us.”
Dead-eyes and demons. Aldric couldn’t have known there would be so many Dead-eyes, nor that demons would appear. Archbishop Hannus would make sure the destruction of Cherish would be held against him. As it should be, if they survived.
~ ~ ~
All about them, demons roared and snarled. Niklaus ducked and weaved between their flashing fangs and inhuman faces, laughing as the infernal creatures fell to his steel. Her steel. Blue sparks sprayed from his blade as he parried and knocked aside the demons’ weapons. With each death, he moved farther away from the settlement. It was over; Cherish was lost. All that was left to do was to flee and survive. He realized he was shouting in Skanuric, his native tongue. Words of challenge, of defiance. Words of adoration and sacrifice to his goddess, Sylva Kalisia.
It mattered not if Aldric or Sokhelle understood him. They were insignificant.
One demon evaded his thrust, quicker than the others. A claw ripped Niklaus’s arm, slicing his flesh. He punched the hilt of his short blade into its face, causing it to stagger, then sliced its throat. Purple blood spilled like wine from the gash and from its mouth.
Niklaus heard the grunts and shouts of his companions as they fought behind him. No doubt this was their first encounter with creatures summoned from the hells. Demons howled as they fell to Bryn’s sword, to Stray Dog’s axes, and Aldric’s curious curved blade. He sensed bursts of sorcery from Soki, dawn-tide power commingled with dusk-tide. If an arcane attack had been aimed at him, her sword would have responded in kind.
He lunged, stabbing another demon in the gut. Its orange eyes clouded, but still its face snarled in rage. He kicked it and yanked her sword free. The demon’s blood steamed and hissed, vanishing from the steel in an instant.
Suddenly the demons were gone, retreating into the darkness. The way ahead was clear. It was strange how quickly they’d withdrawn, but Niklaus wasn’t one to spurn a gift. He could ponder why later. He sheathed his goddess’s sword and wiped demon blood from his face. It tasted foul and left a purple smear across the back of his hand. He spat and looked behind him to assess his companions.
Sokhelle and Priska continued to throw sorcery at the demons as they withdrew. White and gold light carved through the darkness, and those it touched twisted and wailed, falling in burning heaps. Apart from a sheen of sweat from their exertions, both sorcerers seemed uninjured, though harried and ragged, close to exhaustion. Priska more so than Soki.
Stray Dog was down on one knee, panting like his namesake. His thigh was a mass of raw sliced meat. Bryn sported many cuts, but stood defiantly, staring at the mass of retreating demons. Sokhelle glanced at Aldric and smiled, while Priska licked her lips and gazed at Sokhelle in adoration. Gannon stood with Valeria and the girl, Kurio. His blade was unsheathed, but neither its steel nor his clothes bore the stain of demon blood. Someone had to protect the women, Niklaus supposed.
Aldric stood a dozen paces to the side, a sphere of dawn-tide sorcery shielding him. A demon lay dead at his feet, but his curved blade was clean. It was made from star-metal, Niklaus realized. Why would a priest of Menselas have a star-metal-forged blade? The only reason was to fight demons. Priest, sorcerer, warrior … Aldric wasn’t here merely to protect the settlement. His presence was ordained, like Niklaus’s. Aldric’s god wanted him here. Niklaus wondered if Aldric realized it yet. Probably not.
Sweat mingled with blood trickled down Niklaus’s face. He wiped it away and nodded at Aldric. In the distance, a dancing shadowy horde ravaged the settlement. He didn’t care. It was obvious now why the goddess had drawn him here. Not just to examine the ruin, but to find out who, or what, commanded the Dead-eyes and the demons.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Ruin
NIKLAUS HEARD THE OCCASIONAL curse as his companions stumbled over the uneven ground and protruding roots. They were running along a beaten path toward the walls of the valley. The fetid stench of the demons had been replaced by loam and pine, and he breathed deeply, glad to be rid of their presence. He hadn’t seen this many demons since the fall of Onsheruul, the Tainted Cabal stronghold, which he’d helped destroy many centuries ago.
They were the same as the ones he’d poisoned at the mansion. Matriarch Adeline had known about them too. Had more been summoned and followed Niklaus’s trail to Cherish? Had he brought them here and doomed the settlers? Then again, he’d destroyed many a town in his time, so what was one more to add to his tally?
In the distance, screams sounded, despairing wails and shrieks of pain. Dead-eyes who hadn’t been slaughtered yet. Captured by the demons, victims of their perverted cravings. These people thought the sight of Dead-eyes eating flesh and drinking blood was horrifying. Wait until the demons had their way with the settlers, copulating with women and men alike, alive or dead. Their hungers were hard to sate, and they had no conscience. The lower demons anyway. The demon lords and their ilk were mercurial, though mostly amoral. Nysrog himself was a twisted caricature of a demon, driven insane by a summoning gone awry. But his power was still felt millennia after he had been defeated and sent back to the hells.
He glanced back as Stray Dog stumbled, and Aldric and Bryn steadied him. They groaned as they supported his weight, but maintained the steady pace Niklaus had set.
As they drew closer to the cliffs, more and more rocks littered the trail. Their pace slowed; no one wanted a turned ankle or worse.
Sokhelle launched more of her burnished globes into the sky, their brightness sending the stars into hiding and blanketing the landscape behind them with a pure white radiance. And illuminating innumerable orange eyes.
Demons flitted between trees and rocks; and now they were closer, their infernal growls and shrieks became audible.
Priska looked like she was about to throw up. Her mouth twisted in horror and revulsion.
“Run!” Niklaus exhorted them all.
They urged themselves to greater speed, risking injury, desperate to make the ruin unscathed. Sokhelle and Priska sent faintly glowing spheres ahead to light their path.
“Where are we going?” Bryn said. “There’s nothing out here.”
“There’s a ruin close by, isn’t there?” Gannon said. “Does it offer sorcerous protection? It’s certain death out here unless we find somewhere defensible.”
“Gannon’s right,” Soki said. “But we have to get inside. These old ruins are notoriously difficult to enter. There are arcane locks and traps and possibly guardians to deal with. It could take hours.”
“I can get us inside,” Aldric said. “My Church … we know a few tricks. And I have some knowledge of the guardians that inhabit such ruins. With three sorcerers, especially Soki, we shouldn’t have any problem dealing with them.”
Sylva Kalisia’s words came to Niklaus: Beware the ruin. Th
e Tainted Cabal seek to bring forth a final cataclysm. But was she being truthful or attempting to prevent him from realizing his utmost desire? Eckart had sensed a presence to the north, similar to the mask. Could it be inside the ruin?
A banshee wail split the night as Soki immolated one of the leather-skinned demons that came too close. Gannon flinched at the sound. For a tough-looking warrior, it was a strange reaction, Niklaus thought. Priska, immersing herself in her sorcery, also flung bolts behind and around them as the do-gooder priest Aldric hustled the others to a greater pace.
The path narrowed, and granite rocks underfoot gave way to sharp-edged boulders. Niklaus noted that Aldric, Bryn, and Stray Dog seemed to breathe easier now they had a modicum of protection on either side. But Aldric’s face still held a stern, worried expression, while Sokhelle kept biting her lip and glancing behind them.
“There!” shouted Aldric. “Neb said the fifth cave to the left.”
The hole was irregular, but nothing marked it as different to the others.
“Yes,” Sokhelle said. “I can feel it. It draws me … calls me almost.”
We’ve been herded here, realized Niklaus.
What was inside the ruin? The goddess had sent him here, hadn’t she, so she must know. Did Matriarch Adeline also know? She was the one who’d told him about the ruin. Had the goddess prodded the old crone? But he didn’t like the idea of holing up inside some ancient ruin, hoping the Dead-eyes and demons couldn’t get inside, and waiting until they left.
What were the chances the demons would leave? They had to be here for a reason. Nothing else made sense.
Inside, the cave was pitch black. Sokhelle’s spheres of light seemed to struggle against the weighted darkness. She chanted, and the entrance filled with a nebulous, glowing shroud. Sparkles drifted over its surface like leaves blowing in a courtyard.
“That should stop the demons for a while,” she said.
Aldric spoke a few harsh Skanuric words, sorcerous, so their meaning was lost to Niklaus, and another globe appeared, illuminating stone and revealing a wall of worked orichalcum farther inside the cave. Massive double doors stood twice the height of a man, polished to mirror brightness, unweathered by time. The walls to either side were banded with intricate carvings that showed almost lifelike mailed figures bearing swords and spears and shields, their hair rendered strand by strand, minute teeth in gaping mouths. There were demons too, with mottled skin and jutting horns, patchy hair and wicked limbs. An entire host of the creatures, some of which loomed over the rest, in battle with the armored men and women. And above them all, a brooding presence, a muscled giant with hard-scaled skin, taloned hands, and a spiked tail. Leathery wings jutted from its sinewy shoulders; twisted horns protruded from a ravenous head. Niklaus recognized the scene: a terrible battle from long, long ago.
Revenant Winds (The Tainted Cabal Book 1) Page 42