Dark Vengeance (31 page)

“Oww! What're you—”

“Bite me,” she snapped, extending her forearm. “Draw blood.”

Oronkh stared at her for a moment, then lifted an incredulous eyebrow, drew her arm to his lips, and bit down.

A moment later, the world seemed to grow hushed and misty gray.

“We're sharing the cloak-shell now,” Nurnra hissed, tugging the arm he was holding so hard that his head slammed against a rock with dazing force. “But we've got to get out of these rocks, to where no one with a sword will run into us!”

Almost right overhead, a blackened and roaring gorkul sprang past, trailing wisps of smoke. He smashed aside an Ouvahlan blade with his own, drove his tusks viciously into that dark elf's neck, and kicked the warblade away, tearing the neck open and drenching the rocks around with Nifl lifeblood.

Steel rang on steel and clanged on rocks all around as gorkul crashed into Ouvahlan Nifl, and over it all a great bellow rolled, “Die at last, cruel Olone-teat-suckers! I am Grunt Tusks, and
I will be your doom!
”

“No,” Semmeira purred, “I do
not
think your place is down there hosting gorkul blades in your belly—though you may yet persuade me otherwise, Arothral, you may indeed.”

She climbed on in the wake of the veteran she was chiding, up the narrow and rock-strewn passage that led to the lofty ledge she'd spotted, and added, “I would prefer to overlook this first battle, to best learn how these untried blades fare against a tough but unnumbered foe. I can hardly do that while I'm risking my own neck in the bloody heart of the fray, can I? Nor does my paramount task of improving myself as commander preclude my wanting to see and enjoy my first real battle. Glowstone was barely a dispute, but
this
. . .”

Arothral wisely said nothing at all.

Nor did the other two veteran Ouvahlan warblades, Helbram and Lorrel, as they all came out on the ledge. Clutching the enchanted items from the plunder of Glowstone that she'd let them keep, they looked around alertly and kept their mouths shut.

They knew better than to dispute anything at all with the Exalted Daughter of the Ice by now.

The ledge was long and wide, narrowing some distance ahead as it met with a series of deep rents in the rock. It was high on the side wall of the cavern, overlooking the half of it that stretched away to Talonnorn—and the slope of waist-high rocks where gorkul were butchering scared and inexperienced Ouvahlan warblades as fast as they could.

“Aha,” Semmeira said with real pleasure, gazing down on that slaughter. “This was worth the climb.”

She pointed in Arothral's direction without looking at him and ordered, “Explore the ledge to its end, that way,” and then turned to point at Lorrel, and commanded him to do the same in the other direction. She ignored Helbram, who stood uncertainly just where he'd stopped when she started giving orders, and strode to the lip of the ledge to watch the battle better.

A breath later, he exploded into wetness and bones as a blast of magic tore out of the nearest of those rock clefts, vaporizing Arothral in a sighing instant, causing Helbram to burst, and smashing Lorrel far out into the cavern, to plummet with a despairing cry.

It was Lorrel's screaming fall that Semmeira stared at, astonished—which gave Maharla Evendoom time enough to stroll leisurely out of that rock cleft, wearing a crooked and mirthless smile, and approach the Exalted Daughter of the Ice.

“I've always wanted to feel the cold embrace of the other holiness,” she purred menacingly.

As the Ouvahlan whirled to face her, Maharla flung the crumbling holy scepter of Olone she'd just drained of magic with her slaying blast. It smashed aside Semmeira's fingers, intended to ruin any holy spell the priestess of the Ever-Ice might have tried to cast, but Semmeira was too astonished to have been that quick—as Maharla pounced on her, dagger drawn.

They struck the ledge together, hard, Maharla Evendoom on top, and grappled with each other. The priestess of Coldheart frantically lashed Maharla with a spell, or tried to—but the holy magic sang and twinkled around them both, only to be sucked into Maharla's dagger.

A moment later, that dagger had slashed open the Exalted Daughter's throat—and a panting breath after that, it had been plunged between Semmeira's ribs.

Then Maharla tried to spring clear, but Semmeira's arms were locked tight around her as she spurted blood in all directions, and her last spell awakened flames out of the empty air all around them.

The dagger tried to snatch the fire into itself, but was overwhelmed, and started melting. In the heart of those lessened flames Maharla twisted in pain, gasping, as she fought her way free of those failing arms—and almost rolled off the ledge.

Almost. She lay there gasping, as the flames died away beside her, and then rolled back atop her victim and used the last of her strength and will to work the spell that would shift her body into a duplicate of Semmeira's. Should any Ouvahlan come charging up here, they would find a living priestess of Coldheart sprawled atop a dead one . . .

In the throes of that thought, darkness claimed Maharla Evendoom.

 

Grunt Tusks was dying. A dozen Ouvahlan blades had marked him, and he could feel his strength flowing out of him along with his blood. Surrounded by hard-breathing, glaring Nifl warblades intent on grimly hacking him apart, there was no one to aid him. All of his fellow gorkul were dead already.

So the many-times-cursed Nifl were going to win, in the end, after all.

“Niflghar enslaved me,” he spat, lurching forward to rain sword blows down on the dark elf whose face he liked the least, ignoring the thrusting blades sliding home in his back and sides. “And now Niflghar have slain me!” He spat blood into the face of the Nifl he was fencing with, then bent his head to slam the dark elf's jaw with his tusks. As his foe staggered backward, fighting for balance, Grunt Tusks sliced open his throat with a mighty slash that carried his heavy sword right on and into the next Nifl along, smashing aside a parrying blade as it went.

“What price your army
now
?” he roared, choking on his own blood. “A few raiders are all you are now, with fear in your eyes and gorkul blood on your faces! Die, all of you,
die!
”

Three blades pierced him deeply during that last roar, but he had the satisfaction of sinking his teeth through a Nifl throat a moment later.

Then he was falling, red and roiling agony searing his innards like fire as swords slid into him again and again, and everything was darkening.

Yet even as another Nifl blade smashed his sword from his numbed hands, taking a finger or two with it, Grunt Tusks knew another satisfaction.

He smiled or tried to, as he crashed down among the rocks. Darkwings were diving out of the cavern overhead, with Nifl
riders who were even now unleashing speeding bolts of fiery magic that slashed down among the rocks, sending screaming Nifl flying.

The flying Hunt of Talonnorn!

With battle-scepters in hand, they were cooking Ouvahlans as fast as they could, the darkwings wheeling like carrion-things.

The last thing Grunt Tusks saw, as the long cold darkness dragged him down forever, was scepter after scepter crumbling to dust, and their Nifl wielders casting them aside and drawing their whipswords.

He wasn't going to die unavenged . . .

One will come unlooked-for
One of us yet not of us
To dare the unthinkable
And do the impossible
And that one shall be known
As the Dark Warrior.

—
old Niflghar prophecy

T
he raudren was dying under him.

Sluggish and failing, it sank ever-lower; Orivon knew it wouldn't even try to evade or fight the swooping darkwings of the Hunt.

Which meant it was now a platter, displaying him as its tempting morsel. The high-nosed Nifl riders would probably not even try to resist spearing him, purely for sport, as they flew by.

So Orivon gathered himself into a crouch over the sword hilt he was using as a handle to keep himself on the raudren—his favorite sword, buried so deeply in its flesh that blood was still welling out in a steadily pumping flow—and watched the Hunt rush down on him.

He tried to look wounded and despairing, hunched and
helpless—but in truth he was watching the oncoming Talonar alertly, to know which way he'd have to leap, and when.

The leader of the Hunt did not try to resist. Hefting his whipsword with a sneer, he guided his mount into a dive that would let him carve the raudren's unwanted rider in twain as he swept past.

The dying raudren did not even notice; it was slumping into its last glide, drifting toward a waiting stony grave.

The foremost Hunt rider was a young and handsome rampant—a standout even among the bred-for-beauty Talonar—and he struck a pose for the rest of the Hunt, leaning out from his saddle to dramatically cleave this lone Hairy One.

His whipsword swept in—and Orivon struck it aside with one bracer-clad forearm, and then moved like lightning.

The end of the blade, whipping around the obstacle that had parried it, sliced only empty air; the forgefist was already bounding up to catch hold of the Hunt leader's elbow.

Driving iron-hard fingers into that elbow and swinging himself up in a great heave, Orivon came crashing down on the Nifl's torso and legs, breaking them. The shrieking dark elf lost his blade, spasming and writhing in helpless pain—and the forgefist ruthlessly shoved him out of the saddle and took his place, hauling on the reins to bring the hissing darkwings around and up, just as the second Hunt rider came hurtling down to hack at him.

The two darkwings crashed together in midair with teeth-jarring force, becoming in an instant a tangled chaos of wings, claws, and necks.

Together the beasts and their riders tumbled into the cavern wall, Orivon snarling in pain as wild wings buffeted him and he clung grimly to the saddle's high cantle so hard he thought his fingers would sink into its metal.

The force of smiting the unyielding stone rebounded the two darkwings out into the air again, flapping and calling wildly. Still tangled together, they fell like a cavern rock—straight down, to collide with the third onrushing darkwings of the Hunt in a bone-shattering
smash.

Orivon had a brief glimpse of a snarling Nifl face, eyes glittering with hatred. Then the bracer on his arm quivered once—and that face burst into flames and started howling in astonished agony.

Yes.

Yathla Evendoom sounded deeply satisfied as she made the bracer on Orivon's arm spit fire into the face of the other Hunt rider, who tried to scream but managed only to vocalize a loud sizzling as that tongue of flame slammed into his open mouth and out the back of his head, with force enough to drive him out of his saddle. The rider Yathla had attacked first, now a flopping corpse beheaded with fire, toppled from his saddle, too.

Shorn of their riders, two of the three entangled darkwings started to flap and claw in earnest, seeking only to win free. One was too badly broken to fly on its own, and tumbled helplessly toward the cavern floor—falling free of Orivon's struggling mount.

That darkwings suddenly soared high and far, seeking only to get far away from entanglements. Finding itself about to smash into a hard and endless rock ceiling, it panicked, frantically rolled onto its side to turn as sharply as any darkwings can, and hurled itself back toward Talonnorn, diving fast.

Which took it behind the rest of the Hunt, shielding Orivon from the sudden volley of magic that then erupted, as the fearful, shouting Ouvahlan survivors unleashed all of the plundered Glowstone magic they had.

The priestess who'd led them and her three veterans, their commanders, had borne the best magic, but even strong Nifl can wear only so many scepters—and one of the veterans, Lorrel, had fallen from on high to land dead and bloodily broken behind their ranks; some of his scepters had survived the fall that had slain him.

None of the surviving Ouvahlans believed they'd be allowed to keep any magic they'd gained if they returned to Ouvahlor—and if they didn't call on that magic now, they'd never make it home in the first place. So anything that looked as if they might
be able to awaken it, and if its magic could be used as a weapon, saw use.

The cavern blazed with a dozen vivid magical fires. One hapless Ouvahlan was propelled screaming into the midst of the Hunt, riding a jet of scepter-born flame that sent him smashing into the belly of a darkwings and then tumbling, broken-limbed, to the cavern floor far below.

All the rest, however, unleashed battle-magic with passable aim, desperately sending a volley of bright-lancing spells that burned and blasted the Hunt, reducing it to spinning, flaming chunks of darkwings and Niflghar.

Not a Talonar-ridden darkwings survived.

By then, beyond that conflagration, Orivon's terrified mount was roaring out its terror of all the magic bursting in the air or racing past it in bright, deadly beams. Its dive almost brought it crashing into the cavern floor, but it soared wildly aloft at the last instant to avoid doing so—and slammed full-tilt into a very hard and jagged cave sidewall.