Angelslayer: The Winnowing War (77 page)

The explosion ended, though it seemed to leave a concussion reverberating through the air, like waves that rippled in and out of each other, but Eryian slowly came to his knees. He turned to see Cassium's mangled body lying in the dirt. It was as if all substance had been torn from her, even bone and organs, until she lay like a piece of bloodied linen, discarded, twisted to one side. He noticed her small finger twitch. Unbelievably, she was still breathing. Azazel was right; he had crafted the cruelest of deaths. Somehow, by some spell, she was still alive.

The Unchurian remained on his knees. His armor, his cloak, his flesh, everything had been torn from him and he was left only muscle and blood, his body glowing and fading in waves of red and white as if he were a fire still smoldering. There was no trace of Righel's sword; it had been consumed. Azazel's head was hanging, but he was clearly still alive, although stunned like a dazed bull. Blisters on his body oozed blood, but even then it was slowly beginning to heal. New veins were forming and snaking in and out of the burned muscle tissue, repairing it.

For a moment Eryian thought he heard the voice of Rhywder calling him. He slowly looked up. It
was
Rhywder, coming toward him at full gallop. He wore the garb of an Unchurian priest, a heavy axe spinning over his head, gaining momentum.

“Captain!” Rhywder screamed. “It is me! Rhywder! And you were right—they are Unchurians!”

Eryian gasped in disbelief, seeing the Little Fox flying toward him, and just behind Rhywder was a girl with long hair streaming back in the wind of her horse's gallop.

Rhywder dropped sideways in the saddle. Azazel may have only dropped to his knees, but Rhywder was going to guess his flesh was weakened, as well. It was a pretty fair gamble—that was one bastard of an explosion. He wouldn't have wanted to be at its center, even if he had been an angel. As Rhywder closed on him at full gallop, he saw Azazel slowly turn his head to look behind, to see what was coming. It was an oraculum axe and as Rhywder passed at full gallop, he sheared off the head with a resounding
chunk.
It spun high into the air, like a red ball. In Rhywder's memory, even high Uttuku found it difficult to live without heads, but the angel seemed little affected. He was still kneeling, his hands on his bloodied thighs. His body, apparently, was repairing itself. It just no longer had a head.

Rhywder pulled up sharply on the reins as his horse spun about, hooves digging against the dirt.

“Captain,” Rhywder said, his horse dancing, but Eryian didn't look up; he was staring the slain woman beside him. Surely she was dead, but then he realized her eyes were still in her face, though it was flattened. They blinked, these beautiful ice-eyes. She was alive!

Satrina had circled her mount at Rhywder's side.

Eryian crawled toward the woman. “Leave me, Little Fox,” he said, his voice weak.

“Rhywder,” Satrina whispered, alarmed. Rhywder looked up. She pointed to the hillocks of Hericlon's spurs. Unchurians—lots of them. They were left in confusion, but were slowly regrouping. There seemed an endless supply of these Unchurians. Even more were coming from Hericlon's passage to take up formation along the ridge, and others, highborn, were beginning to descend toward the plateau.

“And there,” Satrina whispered, even more alarmed. “Look!”

Rhywder glanced at the body that housed Azazel. Now he knew why the angel had taken on the body of a human. It was virtually invincible. A head of bone had already regrown on his shoulders, and muscle and veins were crawling across the white bone, groping, reforming. He was going to grow himself a new head.

“Elyon bless us,” Rhywder whispered. “All sanity is lost.” Rhywder turned in the saddle. “Captain!” he shouted, holding his spooked horse in tight rein, “we have mighty little time left, and damn it, I am getting you out of here!”

“Leave me!” Eryian said once more. “That is an order, Captain Rhywder.”

“You forget, but you told me those days are over now. You are coming with me, Eryian, like it or not.”

Rhywder scanned the ridge. Highborn. Lots of them, descending slowly as if they were putting on a show, but they were likely wary of another explosion.

“Damn it, Captain, I have followed you, fought for you, killed for you, but not today. Today, you are going to do what I tell you to do. We are getting out of here.”

“No, Rhywder. My place is here—with these fallen.”

“They are dead. I will grant they were damned noble, but it is over and they are dead, Captain. And you are not.”

Rhywder dropped from the saddle. Eryian was weakened, probably with a few bones broken, and blood seemed to have been sucked through the skin of his hands and arms so that when Rhywder grabbed his arm, he was slippery. So the Little Fox gripped tighter and since Eryian was weakened, he was wrenched to his feet. He stared at Rhywder. Those dark blue eyes of the warlord, Rhywder had never seen the will taken from them, but they were empty now. They were only sad and resigned to one things, and he guessed that was to die here.

“I know as well as you,” Rhywder said, “how there come times to die. But by Elyon's name, this is not one of them!”

The sound of hooves. The high-bloods were closing on them. And though Rhywder didn't look on Azazel directly, he knew that the muscle was in place now, the cheekbones and forehead were molding, even skin had begun to grow back in place. He was getting stronger by the moment.

“So the thing is, Captain, you can go with me willingly—or I can just take you. You are too weak to stop me. It is your choice, but you have got precious time to make it. What will it be?”

Eryian studied him carefully. He reached forward and suddenly wrenched Rhywder's short sword from his belt. Rhywder paused, not sure of the captain's intent, but then Eryian turned, dropped to his knees over the crushed woman. He met her eyes. Rhywder could not imagine the pain she was in. Eryian clutched the hilt of Rhywder's sword in both hands, then lifted it over her chest. Rhywder could not believe she still moved, but she did, she lifted her hand, a limp hand that seemed to have no bone, but still she spread her fingers in the sign of the word. She whispered something—Etlantian words, some manner of spell-binding. Rhywder felt something pass through them all, like a wind of light. It took his breath, clear and clean, a tender wind, like the touch of a warm, soft kiss.

The lady's small hand then dropped, and in the same moment, Eryian screamed and plunged the sword into her chest, though the heart. Her body jerked, and moments later Rhywder saw the light finally, mercifully slip from her eyes. Whoever she was, she had finally left for home.

“Godspeed, good woman,” whispered Rhywder.

Eryian stood and handed Rhywder back his sword.

“Thanks,” Rhywder said. “Now let us get out of here.” He glanced to Hericlon. The angel's high-bloods were coming at full gallop.

Rhywder suddenly realized it wasn't going to be easy outrunning them. “Time to leave, Captain,” he said, vaulting into the saddle of the horse. Only then did he realize something was different. The horse was white. He glanced to Satrina, who stared back amazed.

“She changed them,” Satrina whispered. “Her whisper, her last words—she changed the horses!”

Satrina's horse was white, as well, and more than that, Rhywder noticed—laid tightly against the flanks were the feathered humps of muscled wings.

Whoever she had been, she knew star knowledge. But even with these, time was thinning, the highborn were closing swiftly, screaming, weapons clearing, and the gossamer mesh of the Unchurian's eyes was knitting into place. Rhywder knew that once Azazel was whole, the mesh of those eyes would mold into the dark star of the universe—the might of his power. Rhywder sank his knees into the flanks and let the horse rear. He felt the wings unfold beneath his thighs. He gripped the reins in one fist and leaned in the saddle.

“Follow us, Satrina!” he screamed, then seized Eryian's wrist in a tight lock. With a shout he kneed the flanks, pulling hard up on the reins, and with a strong wing beat the animal soared, lifting into the darkening blue sky. There was a quick thunder beat of wings against the air, and with a surge they pressed into the wind of flight, wheeling ever higher. With the slightest twist of the reins, he was able to guide the mount toward the river. He glanced over his shoulder to see Satrina leaning forward, hugging the neck of her horse, concentrating as though she knew exactly how to do this, her bared legs tucked back to ride the muscles of the wing. With the next wing beat, they soared higher, so swiftly Rhywder could feel his stomach in his toes. He pulled Eryian upward, until the captain could grasp the horn of the saddle. Then they soared into the very clouds.

It was some moments before the body of the Unchurian stood, but finally the demon rose to his feet and looked up, watching the sky calmly. His wounds were still closing, meshing. The blood on his arms and face dried and fell away, ashen, into the wind. The highborn had reached his side, weapons drawn, and his armies, those deeper into the forests and high upon the fingers of Hericlon's spurs where they had survived the acid wind, began to gather toward him.

Staring at the sky, he smiled. “Still as lucky as ever,” he whispered.

E
ryian watched images dance among the flame of a hearth. He realized he was awake—but the afterimages of his dreams still burned in the lick of flames, and the far scream of combat seemed a faint echo. He didn't know where he was; only that he felt weak, and pain burned through him. Eryian slowly turned his head, a slight movement that spun the room unsteadily. He thought he saw Krysis, his wife, the light of the fire whispering off her golden hair and playing soft shadows along her high cheekbones. Her head was lowered.

“Krysis,” he whispered.

She glanced up with a start and her liquid blue eyes searched quickly, the mouth parting slightly. “Eryian!” she whispered back. She was real. Her hand entwined his fingers. She knelt from the chair and laid her head against his arm, her touch soft—the dampness of a tear. “You are alive,” she said quietly.

She lifted a cup of water to his lips and he drank.

“Krysis,” he whispered. “How did … where …”

“When we heard that you had moved for battle I made them bring me this far at least.”

“And this far?”

“We are in the port city of Ishmia. I was afraid I would never see you again. I could not bear that … never again to see your face. You can not die on me, Eryian.”

He stared back, numbed by the pain, and suddenly her image bled out through the white sun-flash of the aganon blade and he saw a shadow of Cassium, spinning, arms whipping outward as she was being lifted into the air—and her tight, small scream of pain. For her, a Star Walker Queen, to have been forced to scream in pain—it must have been unimaginable.

Eryian arched his back, slamming against the headboard, thinking he had to reach the hilt of the aganon blade. But then the visions paled and died, and the quiet of the room closed back in. He found Krysis watching him, frightened, almost as though she had seen what he had.

“Sorry,” he said, “dreams still spilling?”

“What happened to you up there, Eryian?”

He stared at her a moment, swallowed. “We died,” he answered.

He drew breath and tried to get up, but Krysis set her hand against his chest, laying him back.

“You are not going anywhere. For once, you have no choice. You stand up and you will just fall back down. You have not enough blood in you to keep a sparrow upright. The physician said it was as though they were draining you of blood. I have heard they capture humans, cut them, drain their blood to drink in celebration—but you are only half-human.”

“Apparently the half that bleeds.”

For another moment her face drifted away as though she were receding. Images fogged. Braemacht's voice echoed, screaming as he waded into them, hewing bodies to either side. A catapult missile roared overhead and Eryian jerked. He searched, desperate, then drew back, confused, seeing only Krysis's soft eyes.