DemonWars Saga Volume 1 (92 page)

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 anti-magic 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 walling 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 tile 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 panning 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. "Hit it with a bolt o'
yer lightning!" the centaur bade Pony.

"I gave that stone to Avelyn," she replied, holding up her hands, showing only the glowing diamond and the green-ringed malachite.

That news seemed to take the resolve from the centaur. "Then it's Avelyn and the demon," Bradwarden said, "as the monk knew it should be."

Elbryan swooned and tumbled to the floor. His friends were beside him in an instant, Pony propping up his head.

"Might that ye give him this," the centaur offered, indicating the red bandage.

Pony considered it for just a moment, but when she pulled the bandage down a bit, she realized that Bradwarden's garish wound wasn't nearly healed, and that if she took the bandage away, it would only open once more. Elbryan's arm was agonizing, but not life threatening, and Pony knew her love well enough to realize that he would be angry indeed if she risked the centaur's life to alleviate his pain.

The woman shook her head and looked back at Elbryan.

"Side passages," the ranger mumbled.

Pony turned to Bradwarden, who glanced back helplessly at the great bronze doors. "Got nothing better," the centaur agreed, and so the three were off, Pony supporting Elbryan and Bradwarden leading the way back down the tunnels, up the slope and down the stairs, searching for a side passage that would get them into the throne room from a different entrance.

Their hopes were bolstered shortly thereafter when they heard a voice —
Avelyn's voice — cursing the demon, then crying out in pain. On they ran with all speed; Elbryan was so strengthened by the indication that his friend might be in trouble that he pulled away from Pony and made his own unsteady way, stumbling often, but using Hawkwing as a crutch and moving faster than the woman could have ushered him.

They went down the next side passage, a narrow, winding affair, and the talking continued, spurring them on.