The Dragonstone (51 page)

And outside, Burel hefted his great sword and faced the monstrous foe, the angular creature some eight feet tall and shiny black, its entire being covered with a hard bony layer—smooth, chitinous panes. It was cloven hoofed, and where a knee should be was a joint bending backwards at an angle, and somewhat above that one bent another, this joint flexing forward. Narrow shoulders topped a plated torso, and its head was elongated with fang-filled jaws protruding forward, and its eyes were glaring and wide-set. Angular arms dangled down, ending in long bony grasping fingers, and it clutched a great, jagged, ebon sword half again as long as the one in Burel’s hands.

Oblivious of the pandemonium in the tunnel behind—camels bellowing in a frenzy of fear and kicking out, thrashing hindwards, trying to escape—Burel sprang toward the black apparition and cried, “Ilsitt, aid me!” and lashed out with his father’s steel, only to have the creature’s obsidian blade fling him backward with stunning force, the man stumbling on the crimson stone.

As the demon stalked forward on its ill-jointed legs,
Burel recovered his footing, and planting himself squarely he swung his two-handed sword in a mighty, sweeping blow. With a loud
chank!
—like steel crashing on stone—it slammed into the jagged blade to be stopped cold.

Again Burel swung and again the demon blocked the blow. And again and again.

Then with shocking power, the demon lashed out with its black blade to send Burel’s sword flying from his hands. And ere the man could move, the creature smashed him hindwards with a backhanded blow, knocking him into the crimson wall, and Burel fell sprawling and senseless to the stone.

*   *   *

In the tunnel, Aiko was battered backwards by Burel’s pack animal, the camel lunging against the rope fastened to the ring in its nose and tethering it to the slain beast lying in the exit ahead, an exit beyond which some creature of horror stood. All the other companions, too, were hammered against the walls by the bellowing beasts, and they lost control of the animals, and could only throw their arms over their heads for protection and try to keep their feet so as not to be trampled. Alos shrieked in fear, Ferret screaming as well, their cries lost in the uproar. And none knew the cause of this pandemonium, only that the beasts were frenzied and trying to escape something somewhere. And even though Aiko cried out “Burel, Burel, deadly peril!” her voice was heard by none.

Yet Aiko, as quick as she was, abandoned her camels and dodged this way and that, and ducked down to scramble under and past the panicked pack animal ahead.

Springing forward, her swords now in hand, she scrambled over the slain creature blocking the exit.

*   *   *

Above Burel, the demon laughed and raised its sword to deliver the final blow, the one that would at last set the summoned fiend free from the Wizard’s binding command. Yet the creature waited and waited, waited until Burel opened his eyes, the man yet dazed but looking up at the apparition. Then, down flashed the obsidian blade…only to meet Ryodoan steel.

Aiko had come at last.

*   *   *

Arin managed to drive her bellowing camel backwards under the portcullis and into the sanctuary. Abandoning the fleeing beast and calling to the gathered priestesses for help, she dashed into the uproar of the narrow tunnel once more, several of the women on her heels. With Egil shoving his panicked lead camel hindwards, and Arin and the women hauling at the frightened, thrashing rear beast from behind, they managed to back two more of the terrified animals out from the passageway, the creatures bolting across the ruddy stone as soon as they were free.

Now Egil and Arin and two of the women ran again into the tunnel to aid Delon in backing his flailing camels out.

*   *   *

Shang!
Aiko could not stop the powerful demon’s downward blow, could only deflect it instead, the obsidian blade shocking into her steel with numbing force and sliding along her sword to
Chank!
into crimson stone next to Burel’s head. Even as the black edge shattered red rock, with a backhanded sweep Aiko lashed her second sword up and at the creature’s neck. But, lo! the demon smashed her cut out and away with an upward bash of its angular arm, her blade sliding along the bony chitin like steel sliding along armor.

Yet Aiko lashed her right-hand weapon up in a slashing cut, only to find the demon’s black blade blocking the way.

Aiko sprang leftward, along the demon’s flank, but stunningly quick the creature whipped about, its sword seeking her. She managed to deflect the blow even as she dodged back.

In a blur of steel, Aiko attacked, yet the creature fended the blows of both of her blades with its single dark sword. Again Aiko sprang back, her breath now coming in harsh gasps.

Momentarily they paused, and as if considering which of these humans to slay first, the creature glanced at Burel, the man yet stunned and ineffectually scrabbling at the ground in an attempt to rise but falling back, unable to gain his feet. Then the demon turned its elongated head
toward Aiko, its fangs dripping with a viscous saliva, its wide-set eyes glaring.

“Bakamono!”
it hissed in Aiko’s native tongue, and then the eight-foot-tall angular monster wrenched its great, jagged, ebon sword up and stalked toward her on its backward-bending, cloven-hoofed legs.

*   *   *

Delon’s bellowing camels had been set free of the tunnel, and now he and Egil and Arin went after Ferret’s, but as they entered the narrow way, her terrified beast came backing toward them, Ferai’s training in the
cirque
enough for her to manage the beast. Even as this animal was loosed to flee across the scarlet basin, Ferret turned and ran back toward the tunnel, crying, “Alos may be down and like to get trampled to death.”

*   *   *

Shing-shang, cling-clang, chang-shang
…The steel of Aiko’s blades skirled and rang against the demon’s sword, as she attacked and retreated, parried and riposted, blocked and counterstruck, but the demon’s power and quickness drove her back and back, and it was all she could do to fend the creature off. Never had she faced such a foe, for it was strong beyond measure and blurringly fast, its blows stunning, its guard impenetrable. And it beat aside her own two blades as if they were chaff, trivial, worthless. Her shiruken were gone, lying somewhere on the bloodred stone, batted from the air by the dark sword. And now—
ching-shang-clang-ching
—the monster drove her against the towering crimson wall of the narrow canyon.

Shing…!
The sword from Aiko’s left hand flew spinning through the air to strike vermilion stone somewhere in the distance.

Shkk…!
The ebon blade sliced down and across through leather and bronze, and Aiko’s scarlet blood welled from the diagonal cut high athwart her chest.

Ching-chang-shing-shang
…Now she fended with but one blade, the demon’s ebony sword and her own steel but a blur as she fought fiercely against a monster she could not defeat.

Cling…!
Now her sole remaining sword tumbled
through the air, spinning as it arced up and over and down to land with a clatter on the crimson rock.

Desperately, Aiko lunged for the dagger in her boot, but the demon smashed her back with its fist, and she crashed down to the red rock. Now the monster bent over and with its long, bony, grasping fingers clutched her bronze-plated jacket and snatched her up from the scarlet stone, preparing to behead her. But Aiko’s leather armor ripped open along the diagonal cut, and she fell back, the crimson tiger between her breasts exposed.

The demon jerked back, its eyes wide at the arcane sigil revealed, and from nowhere, somewhere, everywhere there exploded an enraged chuff—RRUH!—as if coughed from the throat of a wild savage beast, and in that moment, with a strength she alone did not possess, Aiko twisted the creature’s own jagged ebon sword in its grasp and slammed the blade up and into the monster’s gut, the demon still gripping the hilt.

Phoom!
Furious flames burst forth from the demon’s torso, and the creature shrilled in agony and reared up and back and ineffectually tried to draw the flaring black blade from its bony carapace, but in that moment from behind—
Shkkk!
—Burel’s two-handed sword sheared off the demon’s head, and the burning, decapitated monster toppled over sideways, dead even as it struck the ground.

Dropping his great blade, Burel snatched bleeding Aiko up from the crimson stone, and in spite of her protests—“My swords. Get my swords”—he headed for the tunnel and the aid of the healers beyond. Just as he reached the opening, Egil One-Eye emerged, the Fjordlander clambering over the dead camel to do so.

“Wha—?” Egil started to say, but in that very instant there came a whelming blast, the shock hurling Burel and Aiko into Egil, slamming all three to the blood-slathered stone.

I
n a far-off tower on the Isle of Kistan the aethyr within the sanctum rang with an unheard note. The Black Mage therein raised up his gaze from an arcane tome and cocked his head as if listening.

Ah, the demon Ubrux is no longer on this Plane, which means the geas is achieved.

Laughing to himself, Ordrune bent his will once more upon the cryptic tome.

H
is ears yet ringing from the blast, Burel gained his feet and once again lifted Aiko into his cradling arms, freeing Egil to stand. As the Fjordlander scrambled up, Delon came through the tunnel, Ferret and Mayam on his heels.

“What made that bloody din?” asked Delon, clambering over the corpse of the camel, his gaze sweeping the scene of carnage. “And what in blazes happened here?”

“She is wounded,” rumbled Burel.

“Here, let me see,” said Mayam, now outside as well.

As the abbess lifted the slashed leathers to examine the wound, Aiko, bleeding from the gash across her chest, struggled to get down from Burel’s embrace, her effort weak and ill-directed. “My swords. Get my swords.”

“Where?” asked Ferret.

“Back there,” said Burel, pointing with his chin.

“Let them care for you, Aiko,” said Ferret, glancing down the crimson canyon, where scattered black bits of something burned. “I’ll retrieve your swords.”

“Shiruken,” said Aiko, then she lost consciousness.

Frowning, Mayam looked up from Aiko to Burel. “I do not understand. Her wound does not look severe, yet—We’ve got to get her back inside, where we can tend to her. It may be poison.” The abbess turned to Egil and Delon. “You men, and you, Burel, pass her across that dead animal.”

Egil and Delon scrambled back across the carcass, Egil stopping halfway, Delon going completely across. Then Burel gave over the Ryodoan to Egil, the Fjordlander reaching out to receive her, and Egil in turn passed her to Delon. Burel clambered across the slain beast to take her
in his arms once again, and bearing the unconscious warrior, the big man headed toward the basin beyond, Delon and Mayam at his side.

Behind, Egil and Ferret walked warily out into the canyon, Egil now with his axe in hand, Ferret gripping daggers. Parts of some black creature were scattered across the crimson stone, here and there dark pieces afire, others lying about in the scarlet shadows like shattered bits of obsidian.

“Adon,” breathed Ferret, her eyes wide. She looked down at an elongated, fanged, chitinous head severed from a monster, vile eyes filming over even as she watched. “What
was
this thing?”

Egil squatted and looked closely. Finally he drew in a deep breath and said, “Methinks we look upon the demon that slew Burel’s sire…or rather what remains of it.”

Ferret glanced at Egil. “Elwydd! Are we going to have to fight one of these things every time Burel steps through the gate?”

Egil stood. “Adon’s balls, I hope not.”

Together, they moved on down the canyon, Ferret taking up one of Aiko’s swords and four of her shiruken, Egil hefting up Burel’s two-handed sword. As Ferret knelt to retrieve Aiko’s last sword she said, “Lord Adon, Egil, look at this hand.”

The Fjordlander stepped to her side. One of the demon’s long-fingered, bony hands and part of its blackcarapaced arm lay on the red stone. “How big was this thing?” asked Ferret, looking at the length of the grasp, fully three times her own.

Egil squatted at her side and slowly shook his head. “I cannot say, though given a right hand like that, it must have towered.”

“Look here,” said Ferret, pointing at the wrist. Four deep gouges were rent entirely through the chitin, and a black ichor oozed out. “It looks as if some roaring wild beast has clawed the demon’s arm.”

*   *   *

“Well, it’s not poisoned,” said Mayam, sponging away the seeping blood, “or at least I think not.”

“Then why is she senseless?” rumbled Burel, the big man sitting at Aiko’s bedside and holding her hand in his.

“By the grace of Ilsitt, I would say that she is merely spent.”

Delon looked down at the oblivious Ryodoan. “Spent?”

“It’s as if she has performed some feat of labor beyond her means.”

Burel grunted, then said, “She ran the demon through with its own sword, yet that creature was strong beyond belief.” He looked down at the unconscious Ryodoan. “I did not think one so small could have such power.”

Mayam nodded. “Perhaps that is what drained her so.”

The abbess turned to Arin, the Dylvana cinching the last of the bindings on Alos’s ribs, the old man groaning and cursing stupid camels, his voice feeble as the sleeping draught took hold. As Alos’s words fell to mumbles, Mayam said, “Dara, would you examine Lady Aiko?”

Arin stepped away from Alos and to Mayam’s side, leaving the old man slipping into snores. With the abbess sopping up oozing blood, the Dylvana examined the long, diagonal wound. Arin then pressed her cheek to Aiko’s forehead. “I sense no fever.” She straightened. “Is this the only wound she took?”

“Aye.”

Arin frowned and shook her head. “This will need sewing. Hast thou gut?”