The Crystal Mountain (9 page)

Or a god, Aliisza thought, suddenly terrified, for she recognized that face from her vision within the Eye of Savras.

Azuth.

Is he slain too? she wondered. Can such possibly be? What is happening to the universe?

Aliisza turned away. Somehow, looking upon the face of a god, even one that might be dead, hurt. “We need to go,” she said, trying to rise. “Now.”

“I agree,” Kaanyr said, standing beside her and still looking at the gargantuan deity, “but where?”

“Anywhere. Let’s just get off the beach.”

“How are we going to move the others?” Kaanyr asked. “We’ll never outrun those fiends trying to carry them, and there’s no way you can muster that magic trick again. You’re exhausted as it is.”

“I’ll just have to,” she said.

“No,” Kaanyr said, grabbing her shoulder. “Don’t.”

“What choice do we have?” she demanded. A part of her beamed at his concern.

Kaanyr looked at her helplessly and shrugged.

“Very well, then,” Aliisza said. She grimaced as she prepared to conjure the magic once more. She dreaded the pain and suffering. For a moment, she wasn’t certain she could muster the willpower to subject herself to it again, but all it took was a glance down at Tauran and Kael’s still forms to convince her. She drew a deep breath and braced herself.

A howl from a ridge of rock higher up the beach interrupted her.

A second horde of creatures swarmed into view.

Dozens of muscular, pasty-skinned humanoids took flight on matted feathered wings. Aliisza could see three red eyes blazing on each of their faces, and rows of sharp teeth filled their gaping mouths. Each thick arm ended in a deadly barbed

claw that reached and grasped ahead as the creatures swooped toward the oncoming black-skinned fiends.

A crimson-skinned humanoid with a howling, feral-eyed hyena head led the newcomers. A snake protruded from the side of the monster’s neck. The creature held a massive axe aloft as it screamed a war cry and commanded its charges to attack. He spoke in a language Aliisza understood all too well.

“Demons,” she breathed. “Where in the blazes are we?”

The white-skinned things outnumbered the ebony fiends two to one, and they flew at the other creatures, who appeared just as eager to join the fray. In a matter of moments, the sky above the six castaways swarmed with white and black bodies clashing, screaming as they fought and died.

The crimson demon rushed to attack its own counterpart, the scaly-skinned devil. They slammed into one another with a vicious clang of weapon on weapon and became embroiled in a fierce battle of their own, whirling and slicing at one another as the war between their subordinates raged in the background.

For the moment at least, neither collection of fiends paid any attention to the six castaways sitting on the beach below.

“It’s the Blood Rift,” Kaanyr murmured, staring at the fight in awe. “How did we end up here?”

“What difference does it make?” Aliisza said, scrambling to her feet. “Once the fight’s over, whoever wins is going to turn on us. We must leave!”

As if to punctuate her point, one of the ebony devils darted out of the swarming maelstrom and swooped close to where Zasian and the unconscious bodies of Kael, Tauran, and the planetar lay. The priest shrieked and cowered. The

devil pulled up and hovered, staring down at the still form of Tauran. Recognition gleamed in his eyes, and he gave a shout of triumph as he drew his trident back for a killing thrust.

At that moment, two of the white demons swooped in and bowled the devil over. He went tumbling through the air and flopped into the shallow water along the shore several paces away. The two white demons jumped on him and shredded him with their claws. Black blood and chunks of flesh spurted and flew everywhere as they rent the devil. When their prey was nothing but a pulpy mess, the two demons took to the air again and went back into the battle, seeking new opponents.

“Come on!” Aliisza said, conjuring a magical doorway. She hardly noticed that the outline glowed a deep blue instead of the familiar red. It matched the emanation shining from her own body. “Push them through!” She bent down to hoist the planetar up and carry the celestial through her portal. “We have to get out of here!”

Kaanyr shook his head as Aliisza instead staggered, overwhelmed by the gut-wrenching sickness that slammed into her. “It’s no use,” he said, pointing. “The fight’s over.”

Aliisza coughed and nearly vomited, but she managed to peer in the direction Kaanyr showed her. The demons were all but finished with the devils. The last few black-skinned creatures were down, overwhelmed by the pasty, hairless fiends. To one side, the crimson hyena-headed thing slammed its axe into the shoulder of its foe, taking the devil’s arm off. Another stroke removed its head. When its enemy fell dead, the demon turned and sped straight toward the six stranded observers.

“Then you’d better hope,” Aliisza said, crumpling to the ground and gasping for breath, “that they’re interested in negotiating.”

Kaanyr cocked his head to one side. “That’s not a half-bad idea,” he said.

The crimson demon settled to the sand in front of Kaanyr. His white-skinned followers gathered around them and formed a circle to prevent anyone from escaping.

Beside Aliisza, Zasian curled up into a tiny ball and cowered.

“You are far from home, lord,” the crimson demon said. “And you consort with wretched angels.” The demon pointed at Tauran’s form. “I shall enjoy flensing you for your treachery.”

“Do that, and your own lord will gut you like a pig and roast your innards. I come with important news.”

“Come?” the demon asked, looking at Kaanyr warily. “Why here?”

“We are lost, trying to return to the Abyss. Help us, and you shall be rewarded.”

“Lies,” the crimson thing said, smiling. He looked to his underlings. “Let us feast upon their tender flesh!”

“I have been to the angels’ plane,” Kaanyr said, backing up a step as the demons closed in. “I have spied on them. They are fools, and I know where they are weakest.”

“Kaanyr!” Aliisza growled under her breath. “Don’t!”

“Hush, fool alu,” Kaanyr whispered back. “I know what I’m doing!”

“Tell me,” the demon leader said, “and I will let you live.”

“Oh, no,” Kaanyr said. “It is for your master’s ears only. Kill me, and he will not receive my report, and you will be the one he punishes for it.”

The demon cocked his head, considering. The snake growing from his neck writhed and hissed. Finally, the

red-skinned beast nodded. “Very well,” he said. “We will take you to meet Her Eminence. And when she has finished torturing you for everything you know, I will teach you not to speak to me in such a manner.”

With me!” Garin shouted at three archons following him through the forest. “It went that way!” He pointed toward a tangle of underbrush. One of the surviving demons had plunged through a narrow gap in the snarl of brambles and weeds, fleeing the angel and his servitors. Garin could hear the wretched thing crashing through more distant foliage, and the faint smell of its stench still hung in the air.

Garin pushed himself aloft, soaring upon his wings over the barrier of undergrowth. He spotted the demon farther ahead, its pasty pale flesh glowing in the gloaming light. The creature forced its way through a stand of saplings, snapping smaller branches and sending a hail of leaves fluttering to the ground.

The three hound archons with Garin worked in unison, using their innate magical abilities to teleport ahead. They surrounded the demon in the blink of an eye and closed in. Garin tried to glide closer, to aid them in destroying the fiend, but he got his wings caught up in a low-hanging branch and had to drop to the ground to free himself. He turned in place,

drew the branch free from his feathered appendage, and released it to snap back up over his head.

A flash of light burst behind Garin, from the direction of the archons and their quarry. It filled the forest with an instant blaze of blue. The flare vanished just as quickly as it had come, replaced by a howling, chill wind. Stinging fragments of ice rode upon that gale, and a roaring storm filled the forest.

Garin brought one wing up to shield his eyes and staggered away from the wind. He sought shelter on the leeward side of a large tree and crouched, pressing his hands to his ears. His heart pounded in his chest. He was certain that he would, at last, succumb to the magic run amok.

After the initial violent burst of sleet, the storm settled to a dull roar. Snow mixed with the ice pellets and coated the ground. The air became more frigid and a deeper darkness settled over the forest. With every passing moment, the certainty of his death seemed to recede, so Garin opened his eyes and peered through the maelstrom. The angel couldn’t make out more than the nearest trees, themselves already rime-coated.

Emboldened, the angel rose to his feet and took a few steps in the direction he had last seen the others. He stared hard into the gloom, hunting for the spot where the three hound archons had surrounded the demon. He listened for signs of the creatures. The howl of the wind filled his ears, but he detected nothing else. A few steps brought him to an abrupt end of the world. The ground, the trees… everything simply stopped. He stood upon a precipice, and beyond, he saw only storm.

Damn this insanity! How much longer must this go on? How many good soldiers must we lose?

Garin offered up a quick and forlorn prayer to Tyr for the three servants. He beseeched his lord to lend his deific strength to the land, to bring to an end the devastating magic tearing the House apart.

Then Garin turned and trudged back the way he had come.

He found the hike much easier with the wind behind him. He dismissed the notion of flying, and he refused to use magic to shift elsewhere when soldiers under his command might still need his aid. He wasn’t sure where he was going, exactly—he could see little beyond a few paces and certainly no distinguishing landmarks—but he knew that those loyal servants of Tyr had been fighting all through the woods, and he trusted that he would come upon them in due time.

From the angel’s left, the faint sound of a branch snapping accompanied shadowy movement. Garin spun and barely dodged the thrust of a massive black sword with coarse, fractured edges. The fiend wielding it stumbled forward, over-balanced in the expectation of connecting with its strike. Garin took two quick steps back and swung his heavy mace at the fiend’s weapon, knocking it to the side. The wind muffled most of the clang of metal on metal.

The demon, a bulbously fat green thing with slavering fangs and webbed fingers, looked to be more at home in fetid swamps than snow-bound forests. It had a hard time getting traction on the icy ground and slipped down to one knee.

Garin used the advantage to leap high, intent on winging himself behind the fiend and finishing it off. But the storm betrayed him, for he failed to notice some low-hanging branches. The boughs snagged and tangled in his wings right at the apex of his jump. He grunted in pain as his appendages

bent back at an awkward angle, and he had to flip halfway backward to avoid spraining the limbs. The maneuver spared him any serious damage, but he didn’t clear the demon and instead wound up landing on top of it.

The fiend thrashed beneath Garin and pitched him off to one side. The angel tumbled away, wary of an attack. As he completed a roll, he brought his mace up to swipe away any blade thrusts. The wicked black steel of the creature’s I’ll-formed sword whipped through the air and drove the mace wide. Garin grunted from the exertion of hanging onto the weapon and sprawled backward on his rump.

Before Garin could regain his balance, the demon leaped atop him. It brought its sword down hard, and Garin was forced to brace his mace with both hands to ward off the blow. The fiend used the opportunity to drive its weight onto both weapons, ramming them toward Garin’s face.

Garin grunted as he resisted the onslaught. Enough of this, he decided. He opened his mouth to utter a holy word, but the abyssal fiend must have been expecting that, for it vomited a foul-smelling thick sludge right into Garin’s face, choking and blinding him.

The angel coughed and shook his head from side to side, trying to fling the vile substance from him, all the while fighting to keep the demon from crushing him.

A low growl emanated from Garin’s right, and he felt a powerful concussive force slam against the fiend. The weight of the demon toppled to the left. Canine snarls of rage mingled with reptilian hissing. Garin could feel thuds in the ground beneath him as the fiend wrestled with a new adversary.

Garin rolled away from the fight and dropped his mace. He frantically wiped the sludge from his eyes and spit the

disgusting stuff from his mouth. He scooped up handfuls of snow and vigorously scrubbed his face clean of the noxious goop. When Garin could see again, he turned toward the commotion.

A hound archon perched atop the demon, pummeling it with his fists. He went tumbling head over heels as the fiend bucked and pitched him off. The dog warrior landed with a splat into the wet snow and immediately went into a roll. He sprang to his feet and spun to face the demon. He gave a shake, flinging leaves and ice from his fur and spared Garin one quick nod.

Garin grabbed his mace and moved to circle the demon so that he and the archon could get it between them and gain the advantage. He was forced to move wide, however, due to a particularly large tree. As he raced around the thick bole, a deafening roar burst from the other side. Blue flames shot everywhere, engulfing the entire-forest and blinding Garin once more.

The angel sank to one knee, shielding his eyes with his forearm and wing. The heat of the fire scorched his skin and melted much of the snow from the storm. A torrent of it splashed him as it cascaded off the tree branches overhead.

Just as quickly as the fire began, it vanished again.

Garin opened his eyes and found that he had been spared the worst of the inferno by the tree. Everything to either side of him was blackened to a crisp. On the far side of the tree, he discovered a large rift in the ground, perhaps ten paces across, still smoking and smelling acrid. The angel moved warily to the edge and peered down, but he could see nothing but darkness.