The Eye of the Chained God
Page 10
He recognized two figures standing close to the lord: an eladrin man and a human woman, both warriors by their weapons and bearing. They had ridden with his prey through the Cloak Wood. Allies of his enemies. He flexed his hands. He had his goal, the reason for his existence, but slaughtering these three would bring added distress to his true prey.
Beyond the trio, only two uneasy looking guards remained to watch over the counterweight that would lift the heavy bar from the gates. The defenders of Winterhaven had grown overeager and overconfident.
He hissed in anticipation and moved out from the shadows.
“What do you mean we’ve let a demon into the village?” said Tempest.
“Everyone’s up here fighting the horde. Who’s defending the gate? Who’s watching the other walls?” Albanon twisted away from the parapet, shoving through the villagers that had crowded in behind him. “Lord Padraig! Lord Padr—”
The warning died on his tongue as he reached the other edge of the walkway and the top of a flight of stairs back down into the village. Padraig was below, looking up, his attention drawn by Albanon’s shouts. Immeral and Belen stood with him. But perhaps twenty paces behind them another figure emerged from the shadows of the inn. Albanon heard Roghar, close behind him, draw a harsh breath of surprise. Their shock must have been plain on their faces because Immeral, Belen, and Padraig spun to look behind them as well.
The figure froze, just for an instant, but the sight of it burned into Albanon’s mind. It wasn’t quite like anything he had seen before. In rough shape, it was something like a dragonborn: draconic in feature but humanoid in body. The resemblance ended there. The creature was almost skeletally thin, its skull long and narrow. A whiplike tail lashed the air behind it and cruel talons extended from its hands and feet. It carried no weapons and wore no armor, but one of the talons on its right hand was enormous, as big as a shortsword and far heavier. The thing bore signs of the Voidharrow, too. Its talons and the straight, spiky horns on its head were red crystal. Crimson veins traced along its spine and concentrated in its tail, which also seemed made of crystal, splintering and reforming with every movement.
Its scales, while tinted with the red of the Voidharrow, were green, and there was a familiar, hateful intelligence in its eyes.
“Vestapalk,” said Albanon.
Somehow the creature heard him over the din of battle. It smiled cruelly. “This one is not Vestapalk,” it shouted back in a harsh male voice. “This one is Vestagix. This one will be your doom!”
He moved. In only heartbeats, faster than Albanon could call a spell to mind, Vestagix had closed the distance between him and the three standing below. The huge talon, completely out of proportion to the rest of his body, lashed out in a wide arc.
Belen grabbed Lord Padraig and dragged him to the ground, both of them rolling out of the way of the terrible claw. Immeral stood his ground. His sword already out, he parried Vestagix’s blow. Crystal rang against steel. Vestagix’s smile didn’t falter. His left hand, the talons smaller but still sharp, raked at Immeral’s belly. The eladrin swayed back to avoid them.
In that moment, the great talon thrust past his guard. It hooked into the flesh of his shoulder. Vestagix wrenched his arm back and the talon tore through flesh and leather armor, shoulder and throat. Blood gushed out. Immeral’s free hand went to his throat as if he could stop the flow, but his sword was already sliding from his grip.
Albanon felt like he was falling, just as he had under the nightmare demon’s attack, except that this was no illusion. The force of the blow had spun Immeral around. As he sank to his knees, his eyes rose. Albanon imagined that the hunter was looking at him, that his gaping mouth struggled to form words one last time. My prince …
Beside him, Roghar bellowed in fury. “Demon!” he roared. “Face me! Bahamut’s strength will drive you back where you came from!” He rushed down the stairs in a clatter of armor.
Vestagix looked from the charging paladin to where Padraig and Belen were rising warily, then bared white teeth and sprinted toward the wall—but not toward Roghar. Before Immeral’s body had collapsed onto its face, Vestagix had disappeared under the walkway above Winterhaven’s gate. Roghar roared again and disappeared after him.
The need to act forced focus upon Albanon’s mind. “Tempest, Uldane—get some people off the wall and back down to the gate!” He didn’t wait for their response, he just followed Roghar. His mind raced along with his feet. What in the three worlds was Vestagix? They’d all seen Vestapalk take control of and speak through plague demons, but Vestagix was different. He didn’t look like any other demon and he didn’t act like he was being controlled. He acted like Vestapalk himself.
A weight settled on his shoulder and needle-sharp claws gripped his skin before he reached the bottom of the stairs. “A wizard’s place is at a distance,” Splendid shrieked in his ear. “Stay on the wall. You’ll be safe there.”
“I can’t see what’s happening on the wall,” Albanon told her, “and I can’t help Roghar if I can’t see him.” He reached the bottom of the stairs and spun toward the gate. The sound of the demon horde outside was intensified below. The thick wood of the gate shook and thundered with every misshapen body that was flung against it. Two human bodies lay before the gate: the guards who had stayed at their posts had fared no better against Vestagix than Immeral.
Roghar had caught up to the intruder though, and it appeared that Vestagix had more respect for his new, heavily armored opponent. The two circled each other like weird reflections, Roghar bright and noble, Vestagix dark and savage. It seemed to Albanon that they knew it, too. There was a hatred in Roghar’s eyes that he wasn’t used to seeing.
“You mock the shape of dragonborn and dragon alike,” said the paladin.
Vestagix sneered at him. “And you,” he said, “have angered one greater than the gods.”
Roghar growled deep in his throat and lunged. Vestagix, still sneering, caught and turned the impulsive thrust with his outsized claw—leaving himself open to a powerful and fully controlled slam from Roghar’s shield. The blow threw him against the gate and Roghar closed in, his façade of anger replaced by deadly focus. The sneer vanished from Vestagix’s face, replaced by a snarl. He pushed off from the gate, slashing at Roghar in a frenzy that drove the dragonborn back pace by pace.
Albanon clenched his teeth and drew a spell close to the surface of his mind. Sliding sideways, he tried to find an opening to cast it, but Vestagix’s whirling attack was too quick. One moment he had a clear line, the next Roghar was between them. Splendid clung tight to his shoulder. “Back away,” she begged. “You can attack from a greater distance.”
He ignored her. Roghar was beginning to look harried. Vestagix had him on the defensive and Albanon knew in his gut he wasn’t going to get his opening. He’d have to risk throwing his spell, even if it meant catching Roghar by mistake. As Vestagix turned around the paladin again, Albanon exhaled, concentrated, and released the spell with a flick of his fingers and a whispered word. Two thin blue bolts streaked at the demon—who sprang back with the same lithe quickness that had been Immeral’s doom. As he leaped, he turned and his tail snaked around Roghar’s sword hand. The flexing, splintering crystal tightened, then jerked. Roghar cursed and clutched at his wrist as both his sword and his gauntlet were wrenched away. They went clattering across the ground. Vestagix glared at Albanon, his red eyes narrowed.
“Maybe you will die first after all, wizard,” he said. Albanon felt sudden fear race through him and groped for another spell. With Vestagix’s speed, it would take only an instant for him to bound across the distance between them.
But the demon didn’t come for him. Instead he turned—and Albanon’s heart dropped as he realized that Vestagix’s leap away from his magic had brought him right beside the counterweight for the gate.
Roghar saw it, too. He charged, his shield held in front of him like moving wall. Brilliant white light burst from the symbol of Bahamut.
Caught right in front of the gate, Roghar was engulfed by the surge. Bahamut’s light dimmed and disappeared among crimson crystal and demonic flesh.
“Roghar!” came a scream from above. Albanon caught a glimpse of Tempest on the stairs. Flame from her rod blasted into the mob, to no visible effect. She might have been swatting at a cloud of midges. Behind her, Winterhaven’s defenders rushed down from the wall, but like Roghar’s charge, they were too late. Even as the villagers reached the ground, the horde swarmed around Vestagix, hiding him, and spread out to meet them.
Albanon put his back to the nearest wall and tried to choke down his fear and dismay. First Immeral, now Roghar? He saw the plague demons take others, too. The man who had opened the gate for them earlier that day. A woman he had seen in the inn. Thair Coalstriker crushed the skull of one bestial demon with a heavy hammer—only to have another leap over its body and slam into him. The dwarf hit the ground with the demon tearing at his chest and throat. Someone wailed in anguish, the sound rising above shouts and screams and howls.
Rage closed like a fist around Albanon’s heart. He stabbed his staff toward the demon crouched over Thair and a silvery bolt of magical force sent it sprawling. Thair didn’t rise, but Albanon knew there were others he could still fight for. He shook Splendid off his shoulder. “Find somewhere safe,” he told her, then he spread the fingers of his free hand and hissed a word. A wave of flame rolled over a trio of demons, leaving two of them rolling and shrieking as fire consumed them.
Unfortunately the third, though scorched and smoking, remained sufficiently alive to snarl and lunge at Albanon. The wizard brought a column of golden flame rushing up around it, but the damage was done. He’d drawn the attention of the demons. A pack broke free from the horde and raced for him. Albanon clenched his jaw. He blew across the palm of his hand and an icy mist streamed from it, billowing up into a thick cloud around the demons. Yelps of surprise emerged from the mist as the creatures reacted to the cold.
The cloud wouldn’t last long, but it would distract the demons. Quickly, Albanon slid along the wall, trying to get closer to one of the knots of fighting villagers. He wouldn’t last long on his own in an open melee. When the first shape came out of the fading mist, he was ready for it. Another silver bolt darted from his staff.
But the shape that emerged was not one of the demons that had gone in. It twitched to the side with unlikely speed and Albanon’s bolt flickered harmlessly past Vestagix’s skull.
The narrow muzzle twisted in a sharp-toothed grin. “Vestagix claims you.”
Albanon froze, a rabbit before a coiled serpent. Suddenly, he was back among the ruins of the Temple of Yellow Skulls, a captive of Vestapalk as the Voidharrow-transformed dragon inspected him, stroking a claw like smoky red glass across his belly. His death hung over him. Vestapalk had spared him with the intent of infecting him with the Voidharrow. Vestagix seemed to have no such intention. For a moment, everything seemed to slow. A perfect image burned itself into Albanon’s mind of Vestagix as the strange creature—both dragon and plague demon and yet more than either—raised his great talon.
A talon that, Albanon saw, was identical to the one that had stroked his belly. A talon that seemed older, more nicked and worn, than the rest of Vestagix’s bright-scaled body, almost as if that body had been grown from the talon rather than the other way around. A fragment of a long-ago lesson with Moorin rose in Albanon’s mind: the Draconic word for “claw” was gix.
Then the moment shattered as something swept past him and darted straight at Vestagix. Shrieking like a boiling kettle, Splendid swirled around the creature. Vestagix stabbed at her, but the pseudodragon was an agile flyer. “Master, run!” she spat, then dived past Vestagix’s talon. Her tail lashed out and the stinger on its tip sank into his flesh. Vestagix howled, probably more with shock than actual pain. He grabbed for Splendid again, but once more she slipped away from his grasp. She stung him a second time, then beat her wings and climbed away from his claws.
But not from his tail. It snapped up in a blur almost faster than Albanon could follow. Suddenly Splendid was tumbling down, stunned. Vestagix snatched her out of the air. He looked at Albanon and his eyes narrowed.
Then he snapped Splendid’s neck.
He might as well have snapped Albanon’s. The wizard watched Splendid’s broken body slip to the ground. He felt paralyzed, his thoughts and emotions tumbling too fast to make sense. Vestagix coiled to spring. The great talon reached out for Albanon.
Brilliant white light erupted behind him as the horde of demons parted like storm clouds before the sun. Vestagix half-turned to face this new threat—and a glowing shield emblazoned with the crest of Bahamut slammed him to the ground.
Roghar stood over his fallen foe, shining like the Platinum Dragon incarnate. He gave Vestagix no more chance to recover than the demon had given Splendid. Wrenching his shield off his arm, the paladin raised it in both hands.
“Your existence,” he growled, “offends the gods.” The white glow shifted to the shield’s rim as Roghar drove it down across Vestagix’s throat. The shield bit through flesh like the edge of a sword blade. Vestagix’s head rolled away, his eyes wide in surprise.
On the periphery of his attention, Albanon saw a change come over the horde with the loss of their leader. Their charge into Winterhaven seemed to fall apart. Whatever control Vestagix had over the plague demons gave way to sheer blood lust. The demons’ attention flitted from one target to the next. They started fighting each other as much as the defenders of the village. The battle didn’t get any easier for the Winterhaveners, but the tide had turned. The tall juggernaut came sprawling down, hamstrung by a squad of defenders led by Padraig and Belen. Uldane went dancing among the demons, crippling any he could, killing any that fell wounded.
The only thing on Albanon’s mind, though, was Splendid. He went over to where Splendid lay by Vestagix’s outstretched hand. The light that shone around Roghar had faded. The dragonborn jerked his shield out of the ground—there was little blood from Vestagix’s corpse, as if the holy light had seared the stump of his neck. “I’m sorry I wasn’t quicker,” Roghar said. “The demons swarmed over me, but they didn’t even try to attack, even when I fought free of them. It was as if I was just in their way.”
Albanon felt nothing at Roghar’s strange escape. He kneeled and gently picked up Splendid’s body. Her bright eyes were dim. Her delicate wings hung limp. The scales on her chest were torn where Vestagix’s lashing tail had struck.
“She called me ‘master,’ ” he said.
“Bahamut will welcome her spirit,” said Roghar.
The fury that Albanon felt when he thought Roghar was dead reignited inside him, even hotter than before. He dropped his staff so he could cradle Splendid in one arm and still have a hand free. “Step back, Roghar.”
“What?” The paladin looked startled.
“Step back!” The spell was already in Albanon’s mind. As Roghar moved away from him, he let it flow onto his tongue and into his fingers. Lightning chased his gestures. The jagged lines formed a glowing image in the air: a small, sleeping serpent, no bigger than Splendid. Albanon ground his teeth. When the serpent woke, it would strike, but no more than once. That was no aid to the defense of Winterhaven. That was no tribute to Immeral or Splendid.
The solution rose out of the darkness of his anger and grief. You know the way. Kri showed you.
He’d controlled himself, and for what? Splendid and Immeral were dead. Vestapalk’s plague demons might still overrun the rest of them. There was nothing fair or heroic in that. Why control himself any longer?
Madness received him with an embrace both warm and terrifying. The eye of Tharizdun gazed upon him.
The world opened into flows of magic and numbers, th
e promise of unlimited power if only Albanon could expand his mind to encompass it. The power to burn all of Winterhaven if that was what he desired.
It wasn’t. He pulled back. Fire would grow to fill any volume he permitted, but lightning was different. It needed focus. Squeezing his eyes shut, he twisted the numbers in his mind. He forced himself to conceive of the magic as growing not by squares or cubes, but in linear progression.
Glowing lines and crackling angles sprang to life in his imagination, as if a whole plane of magic had lain dormant there, just waiting for him to discover it. He could have reached across the world. He could have touched the Astral Sea and the domains of the gods! If his manipulation of fire spells showed the power of a spell expanded, this spell showed the power of a spell grown and focused. Albanon’s body trembled with it.
His ears itched at some sensation he couldn’t immediately identify. The sound of fighting had stopped, he realized, though something new had taken its place. Something that wasn’t quite a noise and wasn’t quite a touch, but that licked along his skin like a cat’s tongue. He opened his eyes.
The sound and sensation he’d felt was the crackling play of little arcs of lightning across his body. The serpent of his spell had grown. It surrounded him, towering over the entire village of awed people and staring plague demons. It had sprouted more heads, too, making it more hydra than serpent—and each head looked like Splendid. Harsh laughter, half-strangled by tears, bubbled up from Albanon’s throat. He twitched the fingers of his free hand, plucking at the flows of power. The hydra woke.
And struck.
It was as if a thunderstorm had erupted within Winterhaven’s walls. Bolts of lightning smashed down into the horde, scattering the demons and leaving bright lines seared across Albanon’s vision. Thunder shook the ground. Albanon could hear nothing else, not even the sound of his own voice as he screamed his rage. The lightning fell again and again, reducing some demons to smoking cinders and knocking others back. One bolt, as thick as his thigh, fell on Vestagix’s decapitated body. It clung to the corpse as if it had been hooked into the flesh, making the dead limbs twitch and dance.