The Black Shriving (Chronicles of the Black Gate Book 2) (63 page)

The dragon snake writhed in the air, its wings sending down storm winds; there was no end and no beginning to is coils. It pulled its head back as the black flame raced up, then turned at the last to flee, but it was too late. The ebon flames shot into its mouth, engulfed its head, and it gave a screech loud enough to deafen the world.

Madness seized Asho. Wicked might filled him, the magic that poured down from the Black Gate finding him a receptacle without end. Blade in hand, he leaped. He flew straight up, like a spear hurled at the heavens, up through the coils of the dragon snake to loop an arm around its neck, fingers digging in under its jawbone. He swung his legs up and around, and then he was seated between two great horns.

He screamed with terror and exhilaration, a war cry that he hurled in defiance of the demons arrayed below him, and with all his strength he wrenched the horns down and to the left. The dying, blinded dragon snake obeyed, its wings still thundering through the air as it reared and then fell into a dive, plummeting in its final throes down toward the wall.

Asho hopped up into a crouch, released the horns, reversed his burning blade and buried it deep into the dragon snake's skull. The blade sank in effortlessly, down to the hilt, and there it locked. The dragon snake contorted, its wings faltered, and then it went limp. There were only seconds left before it would collide with the wall of the Hold.

Asho pulled his blade free in a welter of demonic ichor, rose up and ran between the horns, took three steps down the dragon snake's ruined head, and leaped a moment before it slammed into the stones. Unnatural strength caused him to soar up, just managing to clear the parapet. He brought his knees up to his chest, whisked over the far stone edge, and slammed right into the giant.

It bellowed in confusion and anger, releasing a chunk of rock, but it was too late. Asho's trajectory had caused him to hit it right in the center of its chest, momentum allowing him to sink his burning sword down to the hilt.

Yes,
crooned the blade.
I drink deep!

The giant bellowed again, but the black fire was in its body, searing and burning it from inside. Asho felt his own body warping, sickness flooding through him as he channeled the tainted magic. The world was a smear of light around him as he rode the toppling giant to the ground, the huge form shaking the earth as it collapsed, its head last to smash into the shallows of the lake.

Asho rolled clear, tumbling over the pebbles of the beach, and came to a stop on his side, blade half in the water, where it sent up continuous, hissing wisps of steam.

He tried to rise, hawked, and spat blood. His insides felt liquid and strange. He'd grown used to depending on Kethe, used to her cleansing his every act of magic. Now he was paying the price, that oldest of curses, taking in that taint that had warped users of magic across the centuries without fail and had gifted them with the damning name of Sin Casters.

Asho propped himself up on one elbow. The giant blocked most of his view of the causeway, but he could see Kethe fighting along the castle wall, still burning with her faint white fire, while Audsley hove into view, flying backwards and dropping and rising as he threw fistful after fistful of crimson fire. Levering himself to his feet, Asho staggered, then threw up a block, deflected a demon's descending blade and whipped his blade around to take off its head.

Sheets of black fire came spitting out through the gatehouse tunnel, searing the twisted oak's trunk and devastating the massed ranks of the enemy. Three Agerastians strode into view, their faces grim, hands outstretched before them, driving the enemy away from them as they cleansed the island. Asho could sense the pulse of taint as it raced up to Kethe, slamming into her with each blast. How was she doing it? How was she taking such punishment?

Three shadow hounds raced forward, snarling and slavering, and the whole world was reduced to the few feet around him. He fought, ducked, threw himself into a roll. He opened a belly as a hound leaped over him, cut off a foreleg. He was knocked down, felt jaws clamp around his thigh, and shot a blast of black fire from his open palm into the hound's head. It howled and fell away. Asho, shuddering, rose to his feet again and froze.

The demon lord was moving forward. At long last his almost lazy wing beats were carrying him into battle. The Agerastians were moving forward with terrible determination, blasting left and right, searing everything that came their way. As the demon lord hove into view, they stopped, lifted their faces, and Asho saw the whites of their eyes. He screamed, waving for them to retreat, but instead they raised their hands in unison, one of them crying out a count, and then they unleashed a wave of infernal flame.

It seared the night, spitting like a living thing as it raced up to the demon lord, who wrapped his burning wings around his flame and disappeared as if within a burning cage. The black fire shattered against his wings, but Asho saw to his disbelief that the Agerastians had succeeded in what he had thought impossible: they had wounded the demon lord.

It swept its wings wide and in one terrible shudder shed its human guise. Its skin blackened, and its form expanded to almost six yards in height. It was massively muscled. A wealth of twisted horns curved up and back from its head like a chitinous corona, and its face was the stuff of nightmares: a second jaw opening up beneath the first, the nose mere flaming gashes. Glowing runes of power smoldered like scars across its whole frame.

Let me show you fire,
it said.

It leaned forward, both mouths gaping open, and vomited a stream of livid white flame. This was no flickering, dancing, many-tongued flame such as what Asho had been throwing, but sleek and fat and concentrated into a vicious beam that expanded into a cone just before it hit the ground. The roar was like standing directly under a waterfall. The demon lord arched its back and flared its wings as it poured forth its might, enveloping the Agerastians completely. On and on it roared, and all Asho could do was stand there, sword in hand, staring in horror.

Abruptly, the demon lord snapped its mouths closed. The flames disappeared, and where the Agerastians had stood was nothing but a crater. Asho couldn't see how deep it went, but the stone around its edge was black and ruinously cracked.

The demon lord threw back its horned head and laughed.

Asho looked up to Kethe and saw her standing tall behind the battlements, the deaths of the Agerastians having lightened her strain. He reached for her again, forged their connection, and then, gripping the sword with both hands, leaped
straight up the front of the wall, up high to arc over the crenellations and land lightly by her side in a crouch.

Kethe inhaled the taint from his magic with something akin to violence, snatching it away from him, and in its place she once again extended that white shield, surrounding him with her invisible fire so that he was shriven before he could even sin.

"We have to kill it," she said, ignoring the corpses and the new demons that were clambering up toward them. Asho gazed out over the host and saw that its size was much diminished. It no longer seem infinite; now, the rear of the causeway shone clear, and the forces gathered around the castle were thinner. A pyrrhic victory, Asho thought; giants were heaving themselves out of the lake to step onto the shore, some wielding clubs the length of tree trunks. They alone could destroy the hold and Asho and Kethe along with it.

Audsley alighted by their side, drenched in perspiration, his hands burning like twin torches, his stately body slashed and much abused, though the pain seemed to touch him not. The magister gave them a weary smile and took his spectacles off to rub them on the hem of his tunic.

"Hello Asho," he said. "Kethe."

There would be time for questions later. Now, Asho's mind spun. Oh, how he wished now for the drunken, searing glory of the magic of the Black Gate, even though it had threatened to burn him up from within. Could he pull in that much magic here? Steal it from the air and the land till he was on the verge of losing his mind once more?

A plan came to him. A preposterous, impossible plan. "Audsley. Can you carry Kethe?"

"I... Why, I suppose so. With her permission, of course. Though my, ah, speed might be hampered."

"Good."

The first demons crawled into view on either side of them, their shadows whispering in a frenzy, their yellowed skulls gleaming as if covered with a patina of wax.

"I'm going to distract the demon lord," Asho said. "Carry her up and behind him. When you get the chance, drop her onto his back."

Audsley's eyes went glassy with panic. "I - what? Drop Kethe - on -?"

Asho turned to Kethe, cupped the back of the neck, and pulled her in for a hard kiss. Her lips were smooth and burning hot, and Asho felt a terrible shock as he pulled back. Her skin had grown paper-thin and impossibly smooth, her eyes now liquid black flame. But they couldn't stop now. Everything hung in the balance.

Asho stepped up onto a crenellation and crouched. He drank deep of the magic around them, inhaling it into his soul, more and more, till he felt saturated, till he felt that he couldn't take in a drop more - and then did so. He heard the blast of Audsley's fire, heard Kethe call out a warning, the sound of battle. He ignored it. He focused on his blade, using it as a conduit to the world, as if its point had cut into the fabric of reality and was allowing magic to pour free just like the Black Gate did.

More
, he whispered the blade.
I need more.

So you shall have it,
whispered the blade in return, and Asho gasped as magic poured into him at a terrible rate. His clothing and hair whipped around him as if he were standing in a storm, and the sword disappeared within a black fire so complete it was like a gash of night. Just when Asho thought he was about to go mad, when his vision had begun to blur, when his need to scream was nearly overwhelming, he sprang up and out, throwing himself at the distant demon lord in an impossible leap into the void.

Over the twisted oak, over the head of a giant who swung his club too late, right at the demon lord flew Asho, leaving a trail of black fire in his wake. The demon lord saw him coming; it extended its hand to the right, and a curved blade of crimson fire manifested in its grip.

Asho swung with both hands. His sword bit deep into the burning blade, lodging almost halfway into its substance, and such was his momentum that he drove the demon lord back through the air. Yet it wasn't enough. He tore his sword free, magic roaring through his ears, a deluge of taint rushing back toward Kethe with no doubt ruinous consequences - but he did not fall.

With an ear-splitting cry Asho hammered at the demon lord once more. The demon fenced with adroit skill, wielding his huge blade as if it were a feather, circling around Asho as they fought. Black and crimson sparks were spat out into the night with each clash, and Asho knew that the demon lord was toying with him, that it could spit forth that terrible flame at any moment and char him in the sky.

On he fought, sucking in more magic even as he expended it. He brought his blade hammering down, and just as it lodged again in the demon's sword, he extended his left hand and unleashed a blast of black fire at its face.

The demon lord roared in anger as its features were seared. Asho had hoped to blind it, melt its skull, but instead he seemed to have only blistered its visage; the demon opened its twin mouths and Asho saw hellish light building in its gullet. Panicked, he yanked his sword free and fought to fly back, but the demon lord brought its huge wings around them, encircling them both in a cage of living fire, and where Asho's back touched its wings he felt his flesh rupture with blisters.

There was no way out. He drank in more power, looking desperately above and below, but he was trapped in a globe of fire. The heat was tremendous, and his clothing spontaneously caught fire as his pale skin began to lesion. The demon lord again opened its mouths wide, and Asho was bringing his sword forward in a futile block when he saw Kethe drop from the sky behind the demon lord and land on its shoulders.

Her sword sank down to the hilt between its huge shoulders, the white fire hissing as it quenched itself in its flesh. The demon threw open its wings in a spasm of agony, arching its back and letting out a cry of utter fury. But the wound wasn't mortal. Even now, Asho could see awareness and cruel intelligence in its expression, and knew that all it would take was slamming its fiery wings together and it would kill Kethe where she was hanging on.

"For the Black Wolves!" Asho cried, then reversed his blade, put the very last of his power into a final surge, and lunged forward to slam his sword deep into the demon's sternum.

This time the demon lord screamed, and with terrible beats of its wings it began to rise, higher and higher, clawing at Asho. But Asho ignored the deep gashes, his own fiery corona protecting him from the demon's worst attacks, and with everything he had, he plunged the sword in to the hilt.

Not knowing why, acting on instinct, he reached out for Kethe. He focused on their channel, their magic connection, and attuned his blade to her own. He felt the two swords align in some mystical way with each other, felt the flow of magic between them, a miniature version of the universal flow from Black Gate to White. His blade became a vortex, sucking in all the magic around them, and sank that power into Kethe's sword.