Demon Lord VI - Son of Chaos (18 page)

Drevarin
walked around the bed and clasped his shoulder. “Do it now.”

Jovan was able
to sew the wound, although he turned pale and gritted his teeth.
“Does he always make people sick when he has his power?”

Drevarin
chortled. “No. It is not leashed, for he lost consciousness while
he was purging, so it leaks from him still. Also, he carries far
more than he would normally choose to do, an aftermath of the
battle.”

“
He’s going to have horrible scars.”

“
When he wakes and casts out more of his power, I will heal
him.”

Jovan nodded,
and, when the injuries were stitched, Drevarin lifted Bane so Jovan
could bandage them. Jovan hooked up a number of monitors, shaking
his head in amazement at Bane’s impossibly low blood pressure and
high temperature, then wheeled his bed into a private room. Mirra
accompanied him and settled on a chair, gazing at her husband with
deep concern and adoration.

Drevarin went
to find Sarrin and the others, who waited on a bench near the
hospital entrance. They jumped up when he approached, and he made a
soothing gesture.

“
Bane is well enough; there is no need for concern.”

Mithran
slumped and Grem rubbed his brow, the rest relaxed.

Drevarin
turned to Sarrin. “Would you pray to Kayos, good priestess?”

“
Of course, Lord. What should I tell him?”

“
Just that all is well, and he may now emerge.”

“
Would he not know that?”

“
He should, yet he seems not to. Perhaps he has fallen into an
exhausted sleep.”

“
I will call to him, Lord.”

Drevarin swung
away and almost bumped into Nikira, who stepped back, looking
embarrassed.

“
Sorry, sir – Lord.”

“
What is it?”

“
I was just wondering, couldn’t we – you open the
sphere?”

Drevarin
chuckled. “Open a Grey God’s shield sphere? You jest!”

“
But you’re a creator, surely you can?”

“
No, I cannot. Only he can.”

“
But...” She looked worried. “Could he be injured?”

“
No. He must be resting. We just have to wait, and Sarrin will
pray.”

“
Will that wake him up?”

“
It might.”

Nikira chewed
her lip. “It’s just that we’re awfully vulnerable without our
stealth capabilities. What if another dra’voren comes along?”

“
The chances of that happening are extremely slight. Dra’voren
are not that common, even in the God Realm.”

“
But if it did, we’d be unable to reach the Grey God, and he’d
be in danger again.”

He tilted his
head. “A legitimate concern, but what are you suggesting we do
about it?”

“
We must wake him up. How do we even know he’s still inside
that thing?”

“
Because it is still there. Sarrin will wake him with her
prayers.”

“
How long will that take?”

Drevarin
raised his hands. “It will take as long as it takes.”

Nikira frowned
as he walked away, his refusal to co-operate frustrating her wish
to examine the shield sphere. Did she really need him? All that
remained outside were the two beast dra’voren, and how dangerous
were they? Were they even still there? Although formidable looking,
they seemed to be no more than servants used to hunt light
gods.

Would they
attack, and if so, could a squadron of soldiers keep them at bay
with light guns? The three dark beasts that had been with the
refugees when they had found them had been destroyed easily enough;
surely these demon hounds could not be so different? The lure of
examining the shield sphere was powerful, offering a unique
opportunity to add to their woefully inadequate data on creators.
The bureaucrats back at base would give her a medal. She considered
seeking Drontar’s advice, but discarded the notion. It was her ship
and crew, her decision. Her mind made up, she made her way down to
the observation room.

Montar looked
up when she walked in, his expression dazed. “Commander, you should
see this, it’s amazing.”

Nikira went
over and studied his scanner screen, her brow furrowing. A
recording of one of the battle scenes was frozen on it, Bane and
the dra’voren visible as black forms, one of Bane’s shields between
them. Montar touched his board, zooming in on the shield.

“
Look at the density of that shield.” He pointed at the numbers
on the side of the screen. “That’s denser than lead. You know those
red sparkles we saw in his shields? I analysed them. They’re tiny
explosions. He condensed the dark power to such an extent that it
was actually destroying itself. I analysed the dra’voren’s shields,
and they’re nowhere near as dense.”

Nikira nodded.
“Incredible. I guess that’s why he won.”

“
Yeah. Did you want something?”

“
I want to have a look at that shield sphere. I’ve told the
pilot to move the ship as close to it as we can get.”

Montar touched
his control board and routed a real-time scanner image to his
screen. The sphere was a shimmering orb of rainbow light, like a
pearl. “What’s to see? It’s white power.”

“
I want to examine it and get a sample, if I can.”

“
What about that?” Montar pointed at a lupine form sitting a
few yards from the shield sphere.

Nikira eyed
it. “That must be the one Bane summoned. I guess the other one ran
off or dispersed or something when Torvaran was destroyed.”

“
Maybe, but that one’s still there, and I reckon it’s
dangerous.”

“
Bane ordered it not to harm anything.”

“
Isn’t he unconscious?” Montar asked.

“
Yeah, but I don’t think that makes a difference.”

Montar shook
his head. “That’s a lot of guesswork, Commander. What if you’re
wrong?”

“
I’ll take a squadron of soldiers with me.”

“
That’s still a hell of a risk.”

Nikira
straightened, shrugging. “But it’s mine to take. The ship will be
close by.”

“
So what did you come here for?”

“
I want you to take the samples.”

Montar’s brows
shot up. “I’m an obstech; you need contechs.”

“
That’s an artefact, not a dra’voren, so this is an observer
mission, not containment.”

“
I guess so.” He rose. “I’ll get my equipment.”

While he was
busy, Nikira called the barracks and ordered a squadron of soldiers
to meet her at the outer door. The men were waiting when she and
Montar arrived, and Nikira tapped in the code. The door slid open,
admitting a blast of smoky air. The sphere sat on the rocks only a
couple of hundred yards away, shimmering in the dull light, and
Nikira strode towards it.

The soldiers
ranged themselves around her and Montar, forming an armoured wall.
As she approached the sphere, a deep sense of awe filled her. It
stood more than ten feet in circumference, and gave off soft pearly
light. The wolf-like dra’voren Bane had summoned watched them with
glowing red eyes, its baleful gaze making her shudder. The sphere’s
surface flowed like quicksilver, iridescent patterns swirling
across it, like oil on silver water. Montar set down his metal
equipment case and stared at it, looking dazed again.

“
No reflections. Look at that, it’s not reflecting anything.”
He ran his fingertips along the glimmering surface, flinching at
first, and then smiling. “It’s warm... friendly. That’s amazing. It
feels like glass.”

Nikira
hesitated, and then reached out to stroke the sphere. “It’s
smoother than glass.”

“
Virtually frictionless, I think. Commander, this feels
wrong.”

“
I know, but we’re not going to harm it.”

Montar shook
his head and opened his case, extracted an instrument and pointed
it at the sphere. “No radiation, but a low-grade emission of some
sort, like a wave pattern. Similar to the one the dra’voren gives
off.”

“
Tar’merin. It’s the translation field, or whatever they call
it.”

Montar drew
another, smaller instrument from the case and held it against the
sphere, reading its tiny screen. “This is also denser than lead. A
lot denser. Yet according to this, it’s a liquid.” He frowned.
“That makes no sense at all. It has a tensile strength that’s off
the scale, but its mass is almost zero. It’s like... solid
light.”

“
Well that stands to reason,” Nikira murmured, caressing the
sphere. “It’s white power, which is light, isn’t it?”

“
Yeah, but you don’t get solid light.”

“
Unless you’re a creator, in which case, you can make
anything.”

Montar put the
instrument away and selected another. “No one will believe these
readings, Commander.”

“
That’s their loss then.”

The officer in
charge of the squad looked around. “Commander, that thing’s coming
towards us.”

Nikira tore
her attention from the sphere and glanced over at the beast
dra’voren, which padded towards them, its gaze malevolent.

Montar waved
the next instrument over the sphere. “It has some sort of structure
in it, like a sort of web.”

The beast
dra’voren turned and walked around them, away from the ship. Nikira
toyed with the idea of ordering the soldiers to shoot it, but
decided to wait and see if it did anything first. Montar rummaged
in a case and drew out a container and a sharp instrument, which he
scraped against the sphere. The black monster moved away and sat
down again, yawned and blinked. Nikira turned back to Montar, who
scratched at the sphere with a frown.

“
I’m not getting anything off this, which isn’t surprising,” he
muttered.

“
Try a diamond blade,” Nikira suggested.

“
I reckon this stuff is diamond’s older brother.” Montar dug in
another bag, took out a diamond blade and tried it.
“Nothing.”

“
What about a phosphine cutter? Maybe it will melt.”

Montar
shrugged and put away the blade. “I doubt that.”

“
Keep trying until something works.”

“
Maybe nothing will.” Montar pulled out a phosphine cutter and
lighted it, pressing the white-hot tip to the sphere.

“
Then we’ll know that much, won’t we? I still want to recover
one of those swords Bane discarded, and that shining thing Torvaran
dropped.”

Montar shot
her a scandalised look. “Those are far from here, Commander.”

She shrugged.
“It doesn’t look like that beast’s a threat to us.”

The officer’s
comunit beeped and the tinny voice of an obstech shouted, “Get out
of there! The other creature is heading straight for you! It’s
coming from the direction of the ship and it’s moving really
fast!”

Montar cursed
and switched off the cutter, throwing it into the bag as the
soldiers trotted towards the ship. Nikira grabbed the other bag and
ran, Montar at her heels, a few soldiers hanging back to form a
rear guard. They sprinted towards the ramp, and the dark beast came
into sight under the ship, racing towards them. The soldiers opened
fire, strafing it with lances of blue light, but although the light
guns burnt holes through its dark form, it did not slow down.

It ploughed
into them, moving too fast to evade as it sank its teeth into
torsos and limbs and tore chunks of flesh from its screaming
victims with vicious jerks of its head. It tossed each man aside as
he died, spraying blood on those around it. Some of the men shot it
in a useless frenzy, others fled, shouting in horror. Squad leaders
yelled useless orders at men too panicked to heed them, and it
would have done no good if they had. In the few seconds that had
passed since the start of the attack, it had become all too clear
that there was no way to fight a demon hound and little chance of
escaping its brutal power and savage speed. Nikira’s heart hammered
in her throat, almost choking her as she dragged Montar around the
embattled men.

The soldiers
followed in a full scale rout, abandoning all attempts to fight the
Hellhound, which chased them down and ripped them apart.
Blood-chilling screams and gurgling cries rang in Nikira’s ears,
underscored by the sickening crunch of breaking bones. The second
dark beast emerged from the shadows under the ship, blocking their
way.

Montar cursed,
shooting a glance back at the beast that pursued them. The soldiers
stopped and opened fire, pouring beams of hot blue light into the
Hellhound in their path, which only made it twitch and snarl.

“
Keep going!” Nikira shouted, goaded by the screams behind
her.

The soldiers
surged forward, then scattered as the beast lunged at them, its
claws scraping on the rocks. It came within a couple of feet of the
foremost men, baring long crimson fangs. The men regrouped around
Nikira, pointing their useless light guns at the growling
beast.

Nikira pushed
the men in front of her. “Go! Go! It won’t harm us!”

They walked
forward, their faces stiff with trepidation as the demon hound
charged at them, making them leap aside with yells of fright. The
men behind her gave panicked shouts and scattered, firing wildly.
Nikira glanced back, and her heart froze. The first dark beast
caught a fleeing soldier and ripped off his leg, spraying blood.
She had not thought it was possible to literally tear a man limb
from limb, but apparently it was, with enough strength and
speed.