Demonbane (Book 4) (33 page)

There.

“Her!” he screamed, pointing at a bound maiden by the side of the altar. “Bring her here
now
!”

“But sir,” the cultist blathered, fearfully eying the fighting, “shouldn’t we—?”

Dannon grabbed the man and pulled him close. “
Now
!”

Kendril whirled and blocked a poorly-aimed blow. He stabbed back viciously, and was rewarded by his sword cutting flesh.

The cultist opposite him screamed in pain.

Kendril grinned, the heat of battle on him. He turned away and parried another blow, then cut off a cultist’s hand.

It was frenzied, frantic fighting. Gunshots were plopping all around them, crossbows hissing into soft bodies. There was no way to know who was getting the better or worst of it.

He turned, and caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of his eye.

There, in the middle of the plaza. A man, drenched in blood, standing by some kind of improvised altar.

And behind it,
bodies
….

Kendril froze for a moment, realization hitting him for the first time.

The cultists were still chanting.

Even while fighting, even with the screaming fury of combat all around, their voices were still mouthing the terrible words that man was not meant to know.

With a snarl Kendril dodged and ducked, battling through the morass of bodies in an effort to break out of the melee.

He had to get to that altar.

Dannon snapped his head up.

A man in black had disentangled himself from the raging battle and was running towards the altar.

A Ghostwalker.

The cultist turned to grab the woman.

Dannon was out of time. The veil between the two worlds was ready to be torn. It only needed a slight nudge, a gentle push.

He grabbed the cultist by the neck.

The man choked, surprised and panicked.

“Blood is blood,” Dannon said. He yanked back hard on the man’s neck and threw the struggling cultist onto the altar.

Kendril could see he wasn’t going to make it in time.

The air around the altar was shimmering, whipping and waving as if it was a patch of storm clouds. Colors flashed and sparkled through the air, sickening hues that made Kendril’s stomach churn and his head swim just to look at them.

He saw the blood-smeared man raise a knife, ready to strike a victim on the altar.

There was barely time to think, much less to act.

Kendril threw down his sword and pulled out a pistol.

The range was too great. He knew that even before he fired. It would take a miracle to hit at this distance with a smoothbore flintlock pistol. Anything beyond about thirty feet was almost random, making careful aim almost useless.

So Kendril didn’t even try. He raised the pistol and fired in one smooth motion.

And prayed.

“But I serve the gods!” the panicked cultist screamed, writhing on the blood soaked altar.

Dannon tightened the grip with the hand around the man’s neck. “And now in death!” he shrieked.

Something punched into his shoulder, a tearing pain in his arm.

Dannon staggered back and almost dropped the knife, blood flowing from the wound.

He had been shot.

Kendril grabbed his sword as he ran, barreling through the cloud of smoke left from his pistol.

By some miracle he had hit.

Perhaps Eru really
was
with him.

He leapt forward, both swords at the ready, the screaming and clanging of combat behind him.

The cultist saw his chance and took it. He leapt up from the altar, slipping on the blood that covered its surface.

Dannon roared in fury, then launched himself forward and stabbed the knife into the back of the man’s neck.

He laughed, stabbing again and again.

The air around him grew suddenly hot, like a furnace.

Dannon threw his head back. The pain in his shoulder seemed to evaporate.

“
Despair
!” he shrieked.

Kendril stopped in his tracks.

The man standing at the altar lifted both his hands, then began to rise into the air.

Kendril struggled to think, to breathe, but he couldn’t get his body to move.

The man gave one final scream, then his body burst into flames.

Behind him, the Void opened.

Chapter 19

There was a sudden silence that filled the whole plaza. Even the sounds of battle ceased.The combatants simply stopped fighting.

All turned as one to stare at the middle of the plaza and the burning, floating figure.

There was a flash as the veil between the worlds tore in two.

Heat erupted out of the burning tear in space, washing over the open space before it like a wave. The ice and snow on the cobblestones around the opening gate hissed up in great gouts of steam. Black and oily smoke erupted from the gaping, fiery orifice.

Kendril turned. “Back!” he shouted. “Get ba—”

A shrill wail, unlike anything in the mortal world, shrieked throughout the plaza.

The men, cultists and loyalists alike, screamed and covered their ears, cringing on the wet cobblestones.

Glass from every window around the edge of the plaza exploded, sending slivers and shards hurtling onto the streets below.

Kendril ran back to the gendarmes, covering one ear from the unholy noise that still echoed all around. He waved his sword frantically with his other hand, signaling the men back towards the western edge of the plaza.

“Go!” he shouted, his voice sounding small amidst the noise of the opening Void. “
Go
!”

The gate opened like a giant flaming mouth, a hole suspended in space. The stench of burning bodies filled the air. Cackling laughter and screams came pouring out of the opening, wails and sobs mixed with giggles and chortles that defied all common sense and reason.

The men ran, pounding back across the cobblestones towards the buildings behind them. It wasn’t even a retreat. Just pure, blind panic. Even the cultists, those who remained, went running in terror, hands over their ears and their clothes smoldering from the intense heat.

A broiling mass of purple clouds began forming over the plaza, swirling and churning as it spread out into the sky.

Another scream erupted from the midst of the flames and smoke.

Something came out of the Void.

Baron Dutraad watched the line of retreating men. He was bleeding from the face, a shallow cut from a richochet. Nothing much, but it stung fiercely.

The militia were retreating to the edge of the Shackles, forming a new perimeter there. The Wobble had been lost, and the cultists had gained the entire northwestern section of the city.

It was the Seteru, the demon.

Mina
.

She was too powerful. Nothing could withstand her. She destroyed whole blockades with one flick of her hand, sent men flying through the air with but a glance. Bullets couldn’t hit her, blades couldn’t touch her—

Dutraad could hear the sounds of fighting from just a few blocks to the north. He was beginning to feel the truth in his heart.

Vorten was lost.

A shadowy shape appeared out of the darkness.

A Ghostwalker. For a moment Dutraad thought it was Kendril once again.

It wasn’t. The man pulled down his hood. His pale face was covered with blood that flowed down from a wound on his head. “Baron Dutraad,” he said. “I didn’t know you were here.”

Dutraad nodded curtly. “I’ve seen enough. We’ve lost the Wobble. That demon can’t be stopped.”

Olan looked down wearily. “She’s…protected by some kind of force. She raises a hand and—”

They both heard it at the same time, an unearthly scream that echoed through the city and pierced the eardrums of every man in the street.

There was a flash, sudden and bright, from the southeast.

Dutraad spun his horse around. “Vesuna’s blood! What now?”

The soldiers and gendarmes in the street stopped, their eyes on the direction of the new disturbance. There were murmured whispers and pointed fingers.

Olan narrowed his eyes, peering over the tops of the buildings. “An explosion of some kind? But how—?”

The sky began to turn a dark, menacing purple. Olan and Dutraad both watched as streaks of lightning flashed down out of the broiling mass like witch’s fingers.

The clouds twisted, re-formed, appearing as faces as they grew over the entire city. More screams echoed, followed by insane laughter and chilling howls.

“No,” Olan whispered. “Eru in Pelos, no—”

The soldiers cried out in fear and panic. They started to run, throwing down their weapons and covering their ears.

The retreat had turned into a rout.

Some of the men were screaming. Others wept, their hands over their ears.

“We have to withdraw,” Gradine babbled. “To the bridge…yes, we’ll hold the bridge—”

Two militiamen turned and ran, wild fear in their eyes.

Kendril pushed himself up against the side of the building in the street they were huddled in. His arms were shaking. His mind was blank. He couldn’t think, couldn’t even move.

There was a hissing, sputtering noise, and fire began to fall from the clouds above.

Small chunks of burning hail pattered off the roofs and street, blazing like little pieces of coal where they fell.

The gendarmes and militiamen began to wail in despair. They ducked further under the overhangs of the nearby buildings, and dodged into open doorways.

Another cackle of screams exploded from the plaza.

Kendril craned his head around to look.

There were shapes moving in the square, bat-like creatures flying and flitting amid the smoke and ruin of the plaza. They shrieked, cavorted, squawked like angry birds. Talons flashed and gleamed in the light of the fires.

The demons were coming. Everything was lost. Despair had won. Nothing could—

You are not alone.

The words came from nowhere, gentle but firm. Kendril heard them clearly in his head, as if someone had spoken them aloud.

His mind suddenly cleared. He gripped the handle of his sword.

“Set up a flanking position,” Gradine was saying, his voice shaking and incoherent, “did you hear me, Sergeant? Establish a perimeter…then, a flank—”

“We’ve got to shut down that gate,” Kendril ordered. He turned to the men who were still behind him. “Hamis, Joseph, with me! Everyone else, fall in behind. Let’s move!”

He turned, not waiting to see if anyone else was following, and ran into the burning heat of the plaza.

One of the bat-like creatures swooped and dove at him with a terrifying screech. It was monstrous, its face a contorted mockery of a human visage, its body hairless and oily black. It dove straight for him, fanged arms outstretched.

Kendril met it straight on, swinging both his swords at the abomination.

Talons tore through his cloak, just missing skin. His blade slashed down into body of the beast.

It howled in pain, its wings flapping and beating against the ground.

Kendril brought his other sword down on its head.

Fire erupted from the beast, blazing over its wretched form.

Another screech sounded right above him.

Kendril looked up to see another bat-demon gliding down at him. He tried desperately to wrench his sword from the burning carcass in front of him.

Hamis leapt forward with a booming battle cry. His two-handed sword caught the demon as if came forward and split it in two.

More fire blazed from the severed body.

Hamis staggered back. “Well, at least they can die—”

A black winged shape came from behind Hamis and latched onto his back, biting at his neck with a horrible fanged mouth.

Hamis bellowed in pain, trying to grab the creature and throw it off.

Kendril yanked his sword free and started forward.

Joseph appeared. He slashed his rapier at the scrambling demon.

It laughed, then howled as it erupted into fire.

Hamis screamed and collapsed to the ground.

Joseph stamped out the fire on the Ghostwalker’s cloak, then hurriedly turned him over.

Hamis’ neck was a bloody ruin.

Another screeching creature came through the air at them.

Kendril turned and flung his sword at it.

The blade caught the howling beast in mid-flight. It exploded into flames and spiraled to the ground.

“Kendril!” Joseph warned.

The Ghostwalker whipped his head to the side.

Another bat-demon was scrabbling across the steaming cobblestones, its wings folded against its back.

Kendril dove and grabbed an abandoned halberd off the ground. He came up with a shout and swept the heavy axe blade on the haft downwards.

The edge caught the demon and ripped open its slimy body. Fire scattered over the ground as the creature shrieked its death cry.

Two gendarmes skirted forward cautiously, holding their carbines and glancing fearfully around at the burning bodies of the demons.

Hamis looked up at Kendril with a ragged smile, his lifeblood pouring out onto the ground. “Kendril
Demonbane
,” he whispered.

His eyes glazed over.

Joseph stood up.

The two gendarmes looked at Hamis’ body, then at Kendril. They winced as more fiery pieces of rock pelted down around them.

The Ghostwalker scowled down at Hamis’ body for a second, then hefted the halberd in his hands.

Kara came up behind them, her loaded bow at the ready.

“Go back!” Joseph shouted when he saw her. He ducked as a flaming piece of brimstone dropped right by his face. “For the love of Eru, Kara—”

She fired, and a bat-beast plummeted down through the oily black smoke to earth. “I’m not leaving you!” she yelled back. She smacked her shoulder furiously where a burning piece of rock had started to smolder her coat.

A deep, bellowing roar filled the plaza, shaking the ground.

They all looked around towards the smoking rift.