Bladedancer

by Michael Wallace

  Miklos cupped his hands to his mouth. “Narina!” The others joined him, even Kozmer with his thin, aged voice.

  As if in response, a hot wind drove down from the heights and swept away their words, and the volcano rumbled beneath their feet, followed by a flash of light, and finally a delayed boom, as the trickle of smoke from the caldera became an explosion. Rock rained down on the slope, and it was all the companions could do to huddle, throw up a sowen shield, and let the stones bounce off it.

  Meanwhile, Narina continued racing across the escarpment above them, directly toward the monster. She would be upon it in seconds, and there was no way to warn her.

  Chapter Twelve

  A small collection of demons was waiting for Narina when she first reached the escarpment that stretched like a causeway toward the heights of Manet Tuzzia. The volcano had grown into a monster that towered over the lower peaks surrounding it. Such was the slope of the lava canals that she suspected the main reason for its growth had been simply to fuel the demonic works below. It was now so high that the lava could reach the interior of the range, not just flow down and destroy the plains below.

  The demons numbered roughly fifteen in all, with three overseers and a dozen slaves. Clearly they’d been warned, based on how they’d lined up with fiery clubs and whips in hand. Yet they no longer frightened her. Indeed, the way they braced themselves to fight, tentative in posture like they wanted to flee, told her everything she needed to know about the outcome of the battle.

  She couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled up, unbidden. She felt almost giddy from her run, from the battles against two-headed crocodile demons and other, lesser monsters. She’d been growing stronger with time, more confident, more sure of her powers. Demons that had once terrified her seemed predestined to impale themselves on her blades. Even the crocodiles, as dangerous as they were, presented only momentary obstacles.

  Her first impulse was to blast into this new mob of demons like she had the others. Such a battle might take several minutes to win, but would be another blow to weaken the demonic activity emanating from Manet Tuzzia. Once she’d dispatched them, she’d continue up the slope toward what she supposed would be their main encampment.

  Unfortunately, there were other demons in the canals, chipping away at congealed stone to get the lava flowing again after the setback caused by Lady Damanja’s death. They lifted their heads as she approached, hissing and belching smoke and fire. Some scrambled out with sledges and picks in hand, while others grabbed stone buckets and filled them with lava.

  There had to be at least fifty more of the creatures in total, and if given time to mass, they’d provide a serious obstacle. And what about the lava pits pocking the slopes of the volcano? More of the two-headed crocodiles, no doubt. She couldn’t afford to fight them all.

  Instead, she leaped over the top of the cluster of demons blocking her path. They gawked up at her, mouths open and tongues lolling as she sailed past, out of reach. She landed on the ground behind them with a thump that sent up a cloud of ash, and sprinted up the edge of the escarpment. The crown of the volcano lay ahead, and within, she was convinced, was whatever it was that drove these creatures.

  The ground rumbled, and Manet Tuzzia launched gas and rock into the sky. The heavier pieces came raining down moments later. She deflected some with her sowen and dodged other rocks that pounded the ground all around her. Soon, she had left the demons behind and was racing past glowing canals before those working within could climb out to face her. Just ahead lay her destination.

  A black hump of rock suddenly thrust out of the ground directly in front of her. It emerged with such violence, throwing off cinders and ash, that she thought the whole escarpment was about to collapse from the volcanic eruption shaking the mountainside.

  It was only when she saw two gleaming black orbs on eye stalks, the six-foot-long claws sweeping in at her from either side, and the huge, spider-like legs pushing the main carapace out of the ground that she realized what she was looking at. It was a giant demonic scorpion seemingly made of obsidian. She ducked and rolled away from the left claw, which slammed into the ground with such violence that it would have pulverized her.

  That only brought her within reach of the right claw, and she was still off balance from the sudden emergence of the creature. It seized her with a crushing grip, pinning one arm against her side. The sword in that hand fell away. There was a crack—one of her ribs snapping—and she groaned in pain. She couldn’t so much as draw a breath.

  The demon lifted her overhead, and she looked up to see a tail rising, and on the end of it a stinger engorged with venom thrusting at her chest, the point as thick as a spearhead. The tip glowed red and oozed a thick, noxious liquid that caught fire as it dripped off the end.

  Narina got her remaining sword up just in time and deflected the stinger tip. The tail reared back a second time, and this time she gathered her sowen and pushed back. The stinger slowed as it stabbed. She swung just before it connected, striking it on the joint where the stinger connected to the tail. The stinger fell away, neatly severed.

  The scorpion demon shrieked in pain and writhed about, tossing her back and forth. She tried to pull free, but the claw was too strong, and she only managed to draw in a single, ragged breath before it tightened on her chest. Her bones groaned from the pressure, and the broken rib felt like a knife in her lung. And the monster was scalding hot; she was cooking alive just being grasped by its claw.

  She rammed her remaining sword into a gap in the claw in an attempt to pry herself free. The sword bit into the hardened shell, but the monster brought up its other claw and clamped on her legs. It pulled her in two directions, and there was a wrenching pain at her hips, like muscle or tendons tearing. Narina could barely think through the pain, but kept cutting at the claw. It wasn’t working.

  The monster had her twisted almost in two as its claws tried to tear her apart, and even with the power of her sowen, the extreme pain was making her vision go black. She looked down to see its mouth parts moving, chittering away as it stared at her with its gleaming black eyes on their stalks.

  Narina drew back her sword and threw it. The weapon turned end over end as it flew toward the creature’s face, such as it was. The blade neatly sliced off its eye stalks. The giant scorpion reared back with all its legs churning, tearing up the ground. It flung Narina away, and she struck the ground hard. The pain was excruciating. She couldn’t feel her legs, didn’t have her swords, and could scarcely draw a breath through the agony. Blood bubbled at her lips, coming up from her lungs, and she felt as though she were drowning.

  In spite of that, her sowen had grown so powerful that she could already feel it working at her body, stopping wounds, mending fractured bones, and repairing whatever had torn or broken when the demon tried to tear her apart between its claws. If only she could have a few minutes to concentrate her sowen.

  Even blinded, the scorpion demon was trying to kill her, swinging its claws back and forth and groping about with its front feet. It had turned away from her, sweeping about in a circle, seeming to know that its prey hadn’t gotten far. She could see one of her swords and feel the auras of the other, but neither were in reach, and she was incapable of moving toward them anyway.

  Worse still, the lesser demons, perhaps ten or more overseers and five or six times that many slaves, had amassed alongside the canals and were moving up the escarpment in a semi-organized mob. The mountain gave another mighty shake, which made the slave demons tremble in fear, but the whips of their masters drove them back into motion. One of the overseers spotted Narina lying on the ground, gripping her waist in agony, and screamed an unintelligible command to the rest, who surged forward as one.

  Narina tried to hide herself, but the instant she withdrew her sowen from the task of mending her broken body, the pain returned in all its excruciating force. She screamed and felt herself slipping, and had no choice but to return her sowen to its healing task, even if that lef
t her exposed and unarmed. The first of the overseers was nearly upon her, flicking its tongue and hissing with what sounded like delight. The blinded scorpion had turned in her direction again and was groping toward her as if finally sensing her presence.

  Suddenly, auras bent around her. One moment she was lying exposed on the surface, and the next it seemed that she’d been pulled underground, as everything dimmed and the sound of exploding rocks, venting gasses, and screaming demons faded.

  Familiar auras touched her. Katalinka. Kozmer. Miklos. Sarika.

  Her companions must have reached the mountain. They must have seen her fighting, how she’d been stretched, squeezed, and nearly killed by the scorpion demon, and sensed that she didn’t have enough sowen to heal her wounds and hide herself from the demons at the same time. They’d come to her aid just in time.

  The demons screamed in frustration, and though she didn’t understand their language, the meaning was clear enough. They struck the ground with their sledges and sloshed buckets of lava about them in an attempt to burn her out of her hiding place. The scorpion scuttled above her, even stepping on her at one point, but didn’t seem to notice her presence.

  Even so, they might have found Narina by sheer persistence if her companions hadn’t come scrambling up the slope to the escarpment. Katalinka was in the lead, climbing at a run, her stamina hard to believe until Narina remembered that she’d also been touched by the curse, and had emerged stronger from it.

  Sarika ran after her, struggling to keep up, but as soon as the firewalker reached the escarpment, she pulled up short, drew her sword, and shouted a challenge to the mass of demons trying to find Narina.

  Miklos was the last of the three sohns to arrive, but apparently not through any reluctance to join the battle. Instead, he was pushing Kozmer ahead of him with his sowen. The elder still clenched his staff, but was barely using it for balance, such was the strength given him by the warbrand. Miklos turned around to face downhill, waving his falchion, and it was then that Narina saw that they had attracted company on their ascent.

  A trio of crocodile demons slithered up the slope after them, still trailing lava from their pits. They hissed blue flames and snorted smoke through nose holes, and when it was clear Miklos meant to stand his ground, they redoubled their pace to close the distance. He’d come to a stop, apparently determined to fight them off long enough for the other three to reach the escarpment, but it would be a brief fight, if it slowed them at all. Narina had fought crocodile demons enough by now to know that three of them together would surely tear him apart.

  Miklos waited until they were nearly on top of him and gave a push with his sowen. It wasn’t against the crocodile demons, but against the hillside they were scrambling up. The ground was loose with cinders and ash and gave way at his touch. At first it was only a trickle, but soon a stretch of ground perhaps fifty feet across was slumping, falling, picking up speed and momentum as it collapsed. It sloughed away beneath the crocodile demons and dragged them flailing down the side of the mountain, where they disappeared among the dust and smoke. A brilliant maneuver.

  Narina’s other three companions paused at the top of the escarpment to gather their sowen against the mass of slaves and overseers rushing toward them. The blinded scorpion turned about, apparently following the noise, and went scuttling after, claws waving about. Even in the monster’s crippled state, its sheer size posed a risk.

  She had to get up. So far she’d concentrated on her waist and pelvis, and the searing pain had subsided to a dull ache. When she regained her feet, she tested to make sure her injured leg could bear her weight before she turned her sowen to her ribs. Her chest felt like it was on fire from burns and broken ribs.

  The dragon blades!

  Narina looked about desperately, but couldn’t see their gleaming edges anywhere. The flailing scorpion must have buried them in ash.

  Her sowen found them moments later by the strength of their auras, bright and glittering against the dull surroundings. She pulled out the first, feeling stronger just by its touch, and limped toward the other, kicking at the ground until she found it. Her sowen continued its work, and already she felt well enough to fight, incredible as that seemed. Only moments had passed since the scorpion nearly tore her in two. She stumbled into a run, the canals to her right and the edge of the escarpment to her left.

  Even so, she wouldn’t have reached her companions in time had not Manet Tuzzia given another terrific explosion. It was so violent that it threw Narina from her feet, and she had to brace herself against another pummeling of volcanic rock. The eruption knocked over the demons and confused the blind scorpion again. By the time they’d regained their balance, Narina was in their midst.

  She cut down two slave demons from behind before an overseer noticed the new threat and turned around to face her. She settled the monster with a blade through its throat, while her other sword moved to parry a sledge attack from one of its minions. The scorpion seemed to sense her presence and wheeled about.

  A claw struck her and sent her flying, fresh pain blooming in her chest. She landed flat on her back, and it tried to crush her skull with a second blow, but she rolled to the side, and the monster, blind, couldn’t adjust its attack to follow. She sprang to her feet and shoved her left dragon blade through the crack in its claw she’d created earlier. A terrific jerk broke the claw in two. The demon reared on its back legs, shrieking in fresh pain, and before it could recover, she ran up underneath, shoved both blades through its carapace, and leaped backward when it fell with a crash.

  Meanwhile, the main force of demons had fallen upon her companions. Katalinka was a blur of flashing swords, each blow seeming to gut a new demon. Miklos used his massive falchion to crush legs and arms, while Sarika stood in front and absorbed the fiery whiplashes of a pair of overseers until Katalinka appeared and slid her blades into their bellies.

  As the three sohns fought, Kozmer cloaked himself to one side and used his powerful sowen to shore up their strength. He slowed one attacking demon, quickened Katalinka’s reflexes as she cut the throat of another, and then pushed back a demon getting ready to skewer Miklos from behind with a flaming spear.

  Unfortunately, a pair of crocodile demons had freed themselves from the landslide and were scrambling once more up the smoking hillside. They would be at the escarpment in moments. More demons came rushing from the canals, adding to a force of dozens of enemies still strung out, but gathering quickly. The momentary victory looked certain to collapse into defeat.

  Another explosion erupted from the volcano, and a black cloud of what looked like enormous flakes of ash burst through the resulting column of smoke. The ash swirled in strange patterns and was suddenly diving at the escarpment in an enormous, concentrated cloud. Crows. An entire flock of them, hundreds strong.

  Narina had been fighting her way past the dying scorpion demon, through the overseers and slaves, and toward her companions. The lead crocodile had already arrived, with the second close behind, and a third now emerged from the smoke and haze. She saw at once that her friends were in no position to fight the crows, so she lifted her sowen in an attempt to drive them off before they swarmed Kozmer.

  But the crows weren’t flying at the elder this time. Instead, they flew over his head and struck the escarpment a few feet from the still-flailing scorpion demon. They kept pouring down in such numbers that they had shortly covered the width of the escarpment and blocked Narina’s view of the other temple warriors and their battle.

  Something roared at the middle of the swirling mass of crows with a deep, earth-shaking sound that rattled her chest and vibrated in her bones. A slave demon ran past Narina in terror, fleeing whatever was happening within the black cloud.

  “Narina!” It was Katalinka, somewhere to Narina’s left.

  She tried to grope toward her sister, but the crows blocked her sowen. She felt nothing within the cloud but a void, like when she’d stumbled upon the giant scorpion demon, but bigger th
is time. Much bigger.

  The mass of crows began to coalesce, flying in tighter and tighter circles. Then suddenly, they were gone, dissolved into a cloud of smoke. Something shifted within the cloud, and a giant figure reared above her. Narina stared up at it in terror, unable to believe what she was seeing.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Standing before Narina was a giant demon, twenty feet tall, with four arms and massive clawed legs. Its body was roughly humanoid until she saw the giant crow’s head, complete with a thick, curved beak. What looked at first like feathers were armored scales that extended down its chest and along its arms and legs. It was midnight black, except for a pair of red eyes that peered down at her with a baleful glare.

  Flaming maces appeared in each of its four clawed hands. Smoke wreathed its body, and as it encircled the monster’s head, a red crown of fire formed at its brow. Some of the lesser demons cowered or fled in terror, but the overseers let out exultant cries, and the crocodile demons shrieked in what sounded like triumph.

  The monster threw back its head and cried to the heavens. The sound was so terrible that Narina could only gape, and she saw the others through the clearing smoke, humans and demons alike, doing the same, every one of them frozen in terror. Finally, the monster cast its malevolent gaze about until it spotted Narina, whose sowen had collapsed in shock at its appearance. She stood exposed in the center of the escarpment. Its eyes seemed to bore into her, and its voice chewed through her head like a hand drill turning in soft pine.

  I see you, Sword Saint. I sense your fear.

  “Who are you?” she cried. The shaking ground, the hot, smokey wind, and the shrieks of demons drowned out her voice, but the monster seemed to hear her all the same.