The Demon Awakens (67 page)

“Forward!” Avelyn cried to the group.

Elbryan agreed wholeheartedly, and he leaped back to get beyond the swishing torch, then rushed ahead, angling to dive between the two remaining giants at the front, thrusting Tempest at Pony’s foe as he went. The one battling Pony had to turn to meet the attack, and took a hit from the woman even as it parried the ranger’s blade. Then, even worse for the fomorian, it got a swishing torch across the face as its partner tried to catch up to the scrambling ranger.

Pony rushed ahead and struck hard, sinking in her sword, calling forth the jolting energy of the graphite once again. Though her lightning was much weaker this time, her magical energies taxed, the giant slumped back, stunned.

Then came a series of popping explosions in the air ahead of Pony, another celestite barrage from Avelyn, singeing and confusing the fomorian pair.

Pony stared curiously at the behemoth that had been battling Elbryan, at its suddenly too-straight posture, hips forward, shoulders back. She understood as the torch dropped away, as the brute toppled forward, sliding off the blood-dripping Tempest.

Avelyn flattened himself against the wall and instructed Bradwarden to run by, for only one of the four giants that had come in at the back had any fight left in it. Bradwarden, wounded more seriously than he had at first believed, didn’t argue, but slipped past the bulky monk, moving beside Pony, stubbornly bearing down on the last giant in front.

The last in the pile at the rear finally extracted itself and, seeing Avelyn standing alone, no weapon visible, it came on wildly.

Avelyn waited until the last possible second, then loosed the magic of his latest stone, the malachite, into the corridor.

Suddenly, the giant was off balance, feet barely scraping the stone. Every movement forced a countermovement from the weightless behemoth, and so, when the stupid thing brought its club high overhead for a mighty chop, the energy lifted the giant from the ground and turned it right over in midair, a slow-motion somersault. The giant tried desperately to get at the trickster monk, but each twist and turn only made its predicament even worse, and soon it was tumbling, floating helplessly back down the corridor. As soon as it cleared its fallen companions, Avelyn was upon them, reaching into the chest of one to retrieve his deadly magnetite. He looked up to see that last giant upside down, flailing wildly, futilely, floating even farther away.

Avelyn snorted at the sight and turned to watch his three friends finishing the last of that group. Then, with an almost apologetic shrug, when he noted that the giant was far enough from his friends, the monk ran toward it, enacting a serpentine shield and then pulling forth his powerful ruby.

Elbryan winced as he noted the centaur’s wicked wound, a bleeding gash that was fast draining the life from poor Bradwarden.

“We need the hematite,” Pony remarked, looking back toward Avelyn.

“Try this instead,” Elbryan offered, taking off his other armband, the red one, the one the elves had soaked in permanent healing salves.

Pony took it and went to work, while Elbryan ran ahead, both pausing, nearly tumbling, when they heard the tremendous blast of Avelyn’s fireball.

Avelyn trotted back down the corridor, the charred giant, still floating head-down, far behind him.

The tunnel continued straight for a dozen paces, then turned sharply to the right, where Elbryan had run.

“Move along,” Avelyn instructed his weary friends, and they nodded, understanding that their task was far from finished. Pony looked at Bradwarden, but the centaur was smiling widely, the healing salves already at work under the red bandage.

So on they went, Avelyn in the lead. All three stopped suddenly as Elbryan came rushing back around the corner. The ranger hit the wall hard, using it to turn himself so he could dive back down the corridor, and when he came up out of the roll, the others looked past him curiously to see glowing stones fast hardening on the floor.

“A great red man!” the ranger explained, “with the black wings of a bat—”

“No man,” Avelyn interrupted, knowing the truth of this newest foe, knowing that they had at last met with the demon dactyl.

>
CHAPTER 53

>
Destiny

A wave of molten stone splashed around the corner, driving the group back, the heat nearly overwhelming them. A second wave, and then more—a river of the magma—coursed around the bend, and three of the group turned in full flight. Avelyn stood his ground, though, and went quickly to work, calling upon his stone magic to enact a shield, constructing a magical wall, floor to ceiling across the corridor.

The demon fires rolled on, bearing down on the praying monk. Pony skidded to a halt, realizing that Avelyn was not with her. She turned and screamed out to him, even took a running step back toward the monk, but Elbryan held her fast.

Avelyn’s faith was put to the test as the magma flow approached, as the heat intensified. He had used this gem, serpentine, to survive in the midst of a fireball, but he had no real knowledge of how it would work against the demon magma. It might defeat the heat, he supposed, but what of the sheer weight of the flowing stone?

Avelyn had no room for such doubts. He fell deeper into his prayers, into the depths of the stone magic. The magma was only a couple of feet away, rolling, bubbling.

The monk felt no heat, then, felt no hot wash from the molten stone. As the leading edge passed through the serpentine barrier, it cooled suddenly, turning black and solid, and the magma behind it began to flow over it, until it, too, cooled and hardened.

Now Avelyn saw a new problem brewing: if the lava continued to pile up, it would rise too high and block the corridor, the only way they knew to get at the demon dactyl. Boldly the monk strode forward, stepped up on the leading wall of obsidian, and forward, too, went his magical shield, stealing the demon’s heat.

Seeing the spectacle, realizing that their friend had beaten the dactyl’s attack, the other three were quick to join him, Elbryan, Hawkwing in hand, moving right to the side of the praying monk. They went around the bend, Avelyn stopping the magma river fully, the demon dactyl coming in sight.

Elbryan lifted his bow and let fly, and the dactyl, so obviously surprised to see its enemies, took the hit squarely in the chest between its humanlike arms.

Bestesbulzibar’s eyes flared, and the demon opened wide its mouth, vomiting a stream of magma at the group, and while the serpentine shield blocked the heat, the sheer force of the missile-like spew knocked Avelyn and Elbryan back against the wall. The ranger recovered quickly, growling and sending a second arrow after the first, again with perfect aim.

The dactyl howled, more in rage than pain, for Elbryan’s arrows were but a minor inconvenience to the mighty creature.

Avelyn, though . . . that one presented a more troubling power. The demon’s arms shot forward, fingers extended, and black tendrils of crackling electricity spouted from them, biting against the wall and running the length of the straight passage, nipping and snapping at Elbryan and Avelyn, at Pony and Bradwarden as they followed their friends around the bend. Avelyn had no counter ready and the demon’s magic caught him and Elbryan, holding them fast in its sparking grasp for a long painful moment, and then hurled them both backward to crash hard against the wall. Smoke wafting from various parts of their clothing, the pair darted in a quick retreat around the bend, pushing Pony and Bradwarden back the way they had come.

Avelyn desperately searched his magical repertoire, but it was Pony who struck next, thrusting forth the graphite rod and letting loose a bolt of streaking lightning, bouncing it off the wall, angled perfectly to skip around the bend and bear down on the demon. Her aim was true, it seemed from the howl that came back at them, but that howl was followed closely by a second crackling black bolt, this one hitting with a thunderclap that launched Pony and Avelyn—and would have sent Elbryan, as well, except that he was holding to the sturdy centaur—flying to the floor.

“Time for running!” Bradwarden cried.

“Take it!” Pony called to the monk, tossing him the graphite, knowing that he could put it to more powerful use.

“Forward, I say!” Avelyn corrected the centaur, catching the stone and pulling Pony to her feet. He paused for just a moment, considering the fact that his hands were full of a confusing jumble of gems, and none of them were the particular stone he now desired. He quickly handed two stones, the malachite and the lighted diamond, back to Pony, then he scrambled on, taking the lead toward the bend once more. “Now the darkness is before us, so forward, I say!” Avelyn reached into his pouch and retrieved yet another gem, a stone he had used to defeat dactyl-inspired magic before, in a fight with a powrie general.

Avelyn focused the energy of the sunstone, building a wall before him, shaping it and thrusting it forward, taking some comfort in the fact that Pony, who was behind him, kept the diamond glowing brightly.

The dactyl loosed another tremendous bolt as Avelyn rounded the bend, but the crackling magic fell away to nothingness as it entered the disenchanted zone.

“Ho, ho, what!” Avelyn roared, and all the friends came on in full charge.

Bestesbulzibar was confused, had not seen such a display of antimagic in all its millennia of life. It narrowed its gaze upon Avelyn, upon the gemstone the monk held tightly in his extended hand, and, ignoring the charge, thinking nothing of the next stinging arrow that soared its way, the dactyl gathered all its magical energy.

They were barely thirty feet away.

Twenty—another arrow zipped in, deflecting off the dactyl’s bone-hard forehead.

Ten feet away, Avelyn roaring wildly, the ranger hooking his bow over his shoulder and drawing forth his sword—an elvish sword!

The dactyl’s shriek echoed all through the tunnel maze of Aida, deafened the four friends, and made them reach for their ears. The demon, recognizing the power of Elbryan’s silverel blade and wanting nothing to do with an elven-forged weapon—Dinoniel had wielded such a weapon!—loosed a stream of its purest magical force, a green line of sizzling, tingling energy aimed directly at Avelyn, at the monk’s extended hand.

The beam stopped right before the monk, wavered there, holding Avelyn in his place, crackling sparks flying wide, forcing Elbryan to slow and shield his eyes.

Avelyn screamed, and the dactyl shrieked again, throwing all its magical strength, every ounce, behind the beam.

On came the green line, engulfing Avelyn’s hand, the sunstone glowing fiercely. They held for a long moment, the monk’s will against the demon’s hellish strength.

The sunstone absorbed the dactyl energy, stole the line from the demon’s hand. But Avelyn’s expression of joy, of victory, was short-lived, for the stone could not contain such energy, and it threw it out, dispersed as green smoke into the air, the sheer force of the expulsion throwing Elbryan and Avelyn backward into Pony and Bradwarden, the resulting smoke filling the corridor.

None of the group was hurt, but the momentary distraction gave the drained dactyl the time to retreat.

“Ho, ho, what!” Avelyn bellowed when he saw the creature half running, half flying down the corridor, and the roaring monk was the first in pursuit.

Elbryan scrambled to untangle himself from Pony, and charged off behind the monk, the woman coming next, and bulky Bradwarden bringing up the rear.

They sped past several side passages, around turns in the corridor, Avelyn leading boldly, trying to keep the demon in sight, ready but without fear in case the creature was waiting for him around each bend.

They raced up some stairs, pounded fast down a long, narrow descending slope, and came at last into a long, straight corridor, the demon visible before them. Elbryan tried hard to get past his monk friend, then, to take up the lead and close the distance to the monster. But Avelyn was too focused even to notice the ranger’s attempt, even to consider letting the faster Elbryan squeeze by him.

The monk was trying furiously to bring up the magic of the sunstone again, but even if he couldn’t manage it, Avelyn meant to get to the dactyl, to tackle the damned thing and beat it with his bare hands if he had to!

Up ahead, the corridor widened, like the top half of an hourglass, and then ended in a wall, broken only by a large archway, through which the demon dactyl scrambled. Beyond this portal, Avelyn saw a huge room, braced by columns and lit by the orange flow of molten stone.

This was the throne room, he knew, the very heart of the demon’s power. That notion only spurred the furious monk on even more, Avelyn lowering his head and running full out, with his telltale cry of “Ho, ho, what!” He charged through the archway with no consideration that it might be trapped, and Elbryan, though he slowed a bit for caution, was but two running strides behind.

The dactyl, back on its obsidian throne, was ready for them. As Avelyn passed into the room, he was hit full force with more demonic magic: a great gust of wind that held the monk in his tracks, that sent the huge bronze doors to the side of Avelyn swinging mightily.

Elbryan, too, felt the wind and saw the doors. He screamed out and tried to buck the force and dive ahead, arm extended, Tempest leading.

The doors swung closed, brushing Avelyn, spinning him about, and then slamming together on Elbryan’s forearm, smashing his bones, tearing his flesh. Tempest fell to the floor; the doors pushed on, threatening to rip the ranger’s arm off.

Bradwarden threw Pony aside and barreled into the doors full force, but even the centaur’s great weight and strength could only move them slightly, just enough for Elbryan to extract his arm and fall back, semiconscious, into the corridor. Bradwarden caught him and scrambled back with him, and the bronze doors slammed closed, leaving Avelyn alone in the throne room with Bestesbulzibar.

Or so the monk thought. Bestesbulzibar kept his concentration on the door, using his magic to hold it closed against the repeated slams of stubborn Bradwarden. But then the demon’s second trick became apparent as a grinding sound filled the room and the massive stone columns began to twist and shift.

Avelyn, grasping at the opening, was quick to retrieve Tempest, but he was no swordsman. He felt the power of the weapon’s gemstone, but it was a magic to strengthen and enhance the blade, he believed, and nothing that the monk could access beyond that.

The closest two columns stretched out their stony arms, broke through the inanimate stone holding fast their legs, and started the monk’s way. With a yelp, Avelyn skipped to the side, bringing the puny sword up defensively. These two behemoths weren’t going for him, however, but for the bronze doors.

Avelyn held his breath, thinking that the pair would throw wide the doors and fall over his friends. To his relief, they did not, but rather they fell against the metal, using their bulk to seal off any chance of entry. The fact that the maneuver put those two obsidian giants out of the fighting did little to bolster Avelyn, for eighteen of the gigantic black animations remained, all stepping forth now, and with the doors thus barricaded, the dactyl was free to deal with this one intruder.

The demon leered down at the monk from its obsidian throne. “Destroy him,” Bestesbulzibar commanded, and all the stone monsters started Avelyn’s way, except for the two holding the doors.

Avelyn took a careful measure of their approach; they were not fast-moving things, and the monk believed that he could keep his distance, for a while at least. He meant to do just that, and loose whatever magic he could muster against Bestesbulzibar, but to his surprise, the demon did not remain, leaping up from the throne, moving to the side of the dais, and diving headlong into the lava flow, disappearing through the floor.

Avelyn growled in frustration and entertained the thought of using his serpentine shield and chasing after Bestesbulzibar. He found that he had more immediate problems, though, as two of the massive columns bore down on him. He thought to use the sunstone, to counter the magic and disenchant the obsidian, but he feared that the stone itself had not yet recovered from the strain in the corridor. Up came the graphite instead, and Avelyn let loose a tremendous blast of lightning, a thundering forked bolt that slammed both the columns and knocked them back a step, sending cracks running up and down their length.

Avelyn ran between the pair, easily avoiding their lumbering attempts to grab him. The monk lashed out with Tempest as he passed, for good measure, and the sword took a slice of stone from the back of a giant leg. Avelyn hardly took comfort in that successful strike, though, realizing by the extent of the damage that he would have to hit the thing a hundred times, at least, to destroy it, and probably a score of times on the same spot on the leg to topple it!

So it became a game of cat and mouse, and Avelyn was the mouse. He ran all about the great hall, igniting a fireball, and then, when that proved ineffective, resorting to the graphite, falling into its magic again and again, stinging giant, cracking the black stone.

After a few minutes, the monk amazingly had three of the behemoths down, no more than great piles of broken rubble, but Avelyn couldn’t possibly maintain the pace, he realized, for he was huffing and puffing and his magical energies were fast depleting.

He took a different tack then, rushing to the dais and scrambling up the steps. How simple the evasion proved, for the giants could not maneuver their great bodies to follow!

Now Avelyn focused his energy on the pair holding the door, thinking to clear the path for his friends.

He didn’t know it, but his friends were long gone.

Elbryan was hardly conscious, with Pony holding him up and holding his smashed arm out from his body, trying to keep it steady. Waves of pain assaulted the ranger with every slight shift, turned his stomach and dulled his vision. He did see Bradwarden, slamming repeatedly, stubbornly, at the doors, not budging them in the least.

How helpless the ranger felt then! He had come all this way, and now was denied. Was denied!

Summoning every ounce of his remaining strength, Elbryan managed to pull away from Pony, taking two unsteady steps toward Bradwarden, meaning to help with the door.