The Legend of Asahiel: Book 02 - The Obsidian Key (67 page)

The fleet-footed elves would have finished him then and there except for two things. One was the arrowhead that tore through the cheek of the first to reach him. The other was the smelting furnace into which the ogre had crashed—the same furnace before which he’d stood a moment earlier. Possessed of a savage fury, the beast had simply ripped it from its struts and seating, tearing it from the wall and flinging it down upon the floor in a twisted mash of iron and fire and metal tubing.

It may have been grace alone that saved him then. For as flaming debris spilled across the floor, crushing and burning and sending black smoke everywhere, Torin was miraculously unscathed—save for a rivulet of molten slag that swiftly burned a hole through the heel of his boot. He cried out and scampered away, still upon his back, thrashing with feet and elbows, until finally he was able to roll over and rise once more.

Most of his enemies were not so fortunate. Several of the elves had been squashed or set aflame. Those that had evaded more serious injury, like he, had done so more through luck than reaction or intent. The ogre that had caused the mess was clawing at its own face, having blinded itself, it would appear, with the blast of gaseous air released from the furnace upon separating from its chimney.

The same creature howled with fresh rage as its foot splashed down in a puddle of melted iron. That sight, along with the burn upon his own foot, gave Torin an idea as both he and his enemies began to regroup.

Sprinting from the wreckage, he looked first for his friends. He found them to one side, their backs together as they fended off a pair of elves. Marisha was doing so with torch and dagger, Allion with bow and hunting knife. At such close quarters, the archer’s range weapon was no better than a lightweight staff. Neither, Torin feared, could hold out for long.

But then he spotted Evhan, emerging from the tunnel. The arrow had been broken and pulled from his throat, and though blood washed his chest, he appeared very much alive. Torin couldn’t hear him over the crackle of flames and the keening of the wounded ogres, but saw well enough that he was trying to redirect his remaining troops in one last, concerted rush.

Torin resisted the urge to fly to his friends’ aid, since doing so would only draw more enemies to them. Instead, he counted up those that had yet to be slain. There were more than he would have expected, given the gravity of the wounds that many bore. But as Darinor had warned, it took more than a ruptured lung or bleeding heart to convince an Illychar that it was dead.

Yet he could destroy them all, Torin reassured himself. He could make their bodies unusable and thus leave them no choice. He told himself this as he took his bearings without seeming to do so, and then faced his enemies squarely, daring them forward. They came on, many limping, some crawling—determined to finish him, lay claim to the Sword, and thus end this war before it truly began.

As they neared, Torin backed away slowly, letting them close rank, letting them tighten their own noose. They were taking no chances this time. The mad rush had failed. Now, they would cinch around him until he had nowhere to go.

He stopped at the edge of the trench, a sunken track along which wheeled crucibles were used to cart away molten materials. He didn’t know that his plan would work, of course. If he was to miscalculate on any number of levels, he might very well be sealing the fate of all. But at this point, he was desperate enough to try.

“Are you ready to end this, then?” Evhan rasped, gurgling blood as he pushed to the fore of his ring.

Torin glanced back toward Allion and Marisha, but couldn’t find them. Smoke and gases from the overturned furnace stung his eyes.

“You want the Sword?” Torin coughed, glaring from face to face. He was stalling, waiting for the second ogre to hobble near on its melted stump. The first, the one he had crippled, hovered over him, huffing its fetid breath.

Then Marisha cried out, and Torin knew his time was up.

“Let’s see which of you wants it most.”

He dropped his weapon then, into the spill trench—used to catch any overflow from the slag-bearing crucibles or the vat that supplied them. For a moment, no one moved, except to eye him with suspicion. But that suspicion was soon passed on to one another, as each of the Illychar came to realize that the Sword was its for the taking.

Like a pack of wolves, they descended, jostling one another to be the first to reach the discarded talisman. A crucible blocked the path of some, but was swatted clear by the ogre. As it crashed away, Torin sprang back to the other side of the trench, all but forgotten by his enemies. Evhan tried to call out a warning, but was ignored. He was too late, anyway. In the time it took for the Fason to realize what was about to happen, Torin tore free the safety pin and yanked down on the release chain, tipping the giant vat upon its hinges and letting its contents pour forth from its grooved lip.

An intense heat erupted over him, scalding his face and hands, but Torin held on, refusing to let the vat tip back. Already overfilled from having been abandoned for too long, the molten slag poured out like the runoff from a waterwheel, disintegrating anything it touched.

Piled together in a crush at the bottom of that trench, only a couple of the Illychar saw it coming—and still had no chance to escape. Even those upon the fringes let loose terrible wails as the slag rained down in gushing torrents, melting faces and flesh and bones. The ogre lasted the longest, but was soon eaten away down the center, falling in among the others and leaving only its burning limbs to poke free of the fiery river.

When those, too, had slipped beneath, Torin let go the pull ring and allowed the empty vat to settle back, wincing at the pain of his blistered hands. Covering his mouth against a horrid stench, he watched the molten flow as it drained off toward a recovery basin. Almost all of the Illychar were gone. Those that still lived had been reduced to flaming stumps, and were of no threat. Evhan was among the most whole, his body intact from the waist up, while his hips and legs had been melted away. Other than that, Torin saw only the blinded, footless ogre, which thrashed about near the center of the cavern, struggling to find its way.

He turned then, remembering his friends. He found them quickly this time, though the smoke had thickened and his eyes still burned. Marisha had not been hurt, as he’d feared. Her cry had been for Allion, held prostrate on the ground by a lone surviving elf. A curved blade of Finlorian design was pressed against the back of the hunter’s neck, while his head was arched back sharply, hair gripped in the elf’s fist.

All three stared in Torin’s direction, as if frozen by the spectacle he had just produced. Marisha was the first to react, snatching up her fallen torch. The Illychar looked over in time to catch the flaming brand square in the face. With a terrible screech, it fell back, dropping its blade. Allion seized the weapon, and with Marisha’s help, swiftly made sure the creature would never rise again.

As its hisses and screams died away, Torin looked back to the trench in which he had cast the Sword, a flutter of anxiety in his chest. But as the last of the slag drained free along the designated spill route, the blade was revealed, pure and pristine, unscarred by the superheated materials that had washed over it.

Torin smiled in spite of himself, though he waited a moment longer before retrieving the talisman with a pair of tongs from a nearby worktable. He inspected it for both residue and heat, but found no need to wipe it down or cool it off. The weapon had protected itself fully, as he’d hoped, and was as flawless as ever.

Armed once more, he found it but a small matter to finish off the handful of mutilated Illychar that remained. Even the blinded ogre fell swiftly. One on one, its sluggish movements and hardened skin were no match for the Sword; though, given its plaintive wails, Torin almost pitied the creature while putting it down.

Finally, he returned to Evhan, upon whom Allion was looking down with understandable sadness.

“Help me finish him,” the hunter bade.

Torin nodded, and together, they carried the Fason’s remains to the nearest
furnace. Marisha moved on ahead, opening the door to the fire chamber used to preheat the blast air. Alerted, perhaps, by the grating of iron, the roaring of flames, or his imminent demise, Evhan jerked awake at the last moment, blinking unsteadily. Startled by his sudden movements, both men let go and fell back.

“This changes nothing,” the Illychar sputtered, lying on the floor where they had dropped him. “You cannot stop what is already in motion. My kind will be free.”

“As will Evhan,” Allion growled. “Go now, and let him find peace.”

The hunter moved forward, knife in hand. The legless Illychar reached out feebly to stop him, but could not prevent Allion from plunging that blade through his eye socket and digging around in his brain. After a moment of convulsions, his struggles ceased.

When finished, Allion withdrew slowly, wiping his blade on the other’s tunic. Torin awaited his friend’s signal, then bent to help him once more. This time, the ruined torso offered no resistance as they heaved it into the flames.

After watching it blacken and crumble, Marisha closed the door, leaving the three of them to gaze upon one another’s soot-smeared faces.

“May we leave now?” she asked of Allion.

The hunter did not respond, so Torin placed a hand on his shoulder.

“Come,” the king urged. “Let’s go and see if any of what he told us is true.”

At last, the hunter nodded, and the three of them turned away. Weapons in hand, they pushed on through the thickening haze, seeking their tunnel and an escape into the night.

S
IDE BY SIDE,
the trio of friends staggered into the exit tunnel, stepping over and around the bodies of Illychar slain in the initial rush. Inside, the air cleared somewhat, while the temperatures cooled. Torin welcomed the change, taking a deeper breath and reaching up to wipe the sweat from his brow.

“Was that how it felt for you and Kylac in Killangrathor’s lair?” he asked Allion.

The hunter ignored him at first, then stopped suddenly to stare at him strangely.

“What is it?”

Before answering, Allion peered back toward the cavern, a den of ash and smoke and unchecked blazes—complete with a river of molten stone. “The shaman,” he whispered.

“The what?”

The hunter was not really speaking to him, but seemed to be wrestling with something in his own mind.

“What’s wrong?” Marisha inquired with concern.

“The A’awari shaman,” Allion repeated. “The one who slew Wyevesces. He told me I would know my enemy when I returned to the dragon’s lair.”

Torin could only look on helplessly as his closest friends faced each other, struggling to find meaning in a riddle he knew nothing about. Clearly, it had something to do with the foray into Vosges of which Stephan had made mention. But not even his seneschal had yet heard the story, other than the basic courier report of a Parthan division that had been lost and then saved.

“A prophecy?” the king asked.

Allion frowned. “A warning, I think.”

“Well, it’s behind us now,” Torin offered reassuringly. “Time to move on.” He took a couple of steps, but stopped when he realized that his friends had not followed. “Come,” he urged again. “Those fires back there are still singeing my skin.”

Marisha gave a gentle tug, and Allion started forward, a look of frustration creasing his brow.

Then, all of a sudden, as his gaze took in the emptiness of the path ahead, that look changed, overcome by an expression of absolute horror. Once again, the hunter stopped in his tracks.

“Allion,” Marisha said, “you’re worrying me.”

The hunter seized the woman’s shoulders, putting his face close to hers. “Darinor. The Illychar trapped him underground, did they not? When he went to check on the seal?”

Marisha stared back, eyes affright. “That’s how he tells it. But why—”

“What would he have used to defend himself in those catacombs? Fire? Lightning?”

“Why not?”

The hunter shook her, trying to make her see. “Because he doesn’t just conjure those elements. He summons them from the world around him. And if he had no source…”

“Allion,” Marisha said, searching his face as if he were a stranger. “What are you saying?”

Torin’s stomach writhed as a fresh dread seeped in like poison. It seemed quite obvious what his friend was suggesting. If weaponless, had the renegade Entient really escaped?

But the terrible consequences of that possibility, along with the utter dismay in Marisha’s face, caused him to search for an alternative. “He would have carried a torch, would he not? A candle’s flame was enough to set my hearth afire.”

Allion glanced at him. “Maybe. Though I’ve never seen him use one.”

“How can we know?”

“Stop this, both of you!” Marisha demanded. “My father is even now risking his life to save yours, while you stand here suggesting him to be some sort of villain!”

Torin’s gaze drifted back toward the tunnel mouth, his thoughts returned to the slain Illychar. “Did he mean to save us, or deliver us?”

“My father is not a monster!”

“Marisha,” Allion said, trying to make her meet his gaze. “The shaman spoke of betrayal.”

“Of Evhan, then, if you must believe in such things. Evhan is the one who betrayed us.”

The hunter did not respond right away, as if urging her to think it through. “If that is so,” he said softly, “then tell me, how did Evhan know about us? Who could have possibly told him?”

The word
us
echoed in Torin’s thoughts, and once again, he felt like an outsider. Only, this time, that which he was hearing sounded clear enough. He thought back to the secret Evhan had mentioned, and an odd warmth billowed through his veins.

Marisha glanced in his direction, and his suspicions were confirmed. Denial and understanding collided within, spawning emotions too confusing to sort through.

“Torin,” he heard her say, from what seemed a great distance. “Torin, listen, we—”

“We have to go,” Allion said. “We have to warn Galdric and Thelin—”

But
his
words, too, were cut short suddenly, though not because someone
else’s had trampled them. Rather, it appeared the hunter had simply run out of breath. His mouth was still moving, but it made no sound, like a fish groping for food.

“Allion?” Marisha asked. Then, as he dropped to his knees, she shrieked, “Allion!”

Torin sprang forward. At the same time, he felt a rush of heat from the Sword, gripped in his hand, and noted a deep glow from where the Pendant hung around Marisha’s neck. He paid neither more than an instant’s consideration, however, for Allion’s face was red, veins standing out beneath his flesh. His chest heaved, and his throat strained, but still he made no sound. His eyes widened grotesquely a moment before the convulsions ceased and he fell back against the rough stone of the tunnel floor.

“Allion!” Marisha wailed again, cradling his neck and bending her ear to his mouth. His flesh was purple, his chest still. She began at once an attempt to revive him.

“He has overspoken himself, it seems.”

They looked together toward the sound of the new voice. All at once, a shadow appeared. Though backlit by the red glow of the tunnel mouth, it had been invisible but a moment before. It came ahead now, growing in size and definition.

“Father,” Marisha whispered, tears in her eyes.

“You already returned the Pendant to her, I see,” Darinor grumbled, eyes ablaze as they fixed upon Torin. “You leave me no choice but to do this in crude fashion.”

Before Torin could manage a response, there came a great swoosh and crackle. A torrent of flames gushed in from behind the renegade Entient, composed of molten materials summoned from the burning smelter. As the torrent neared, it split off into separate streams, each of which alighted upon one of Darinor’s outstretched hands in the form of a swirling fireball.

Blazes in hand, the Entient took another step forward.

But so did Torin, brandishing the Sword as he stood over his friends. “What, no more ruse, then?” the king snarled.

“It would be wasted now, would it not?” Darinor growled in response. “In any case, I am out of patience. I had hoped this little snare sufficient to end matters between us, but it would appear I underestimated you. I will not do so again.”

Torin’s thoughts whirred, struggling to put the pieces in place. That was what the Entient had been doing when he’d left them there in the king’s chambers, just before their retreat. He had set forth not to check on things, but to arrange Evhan’s ambush.

“If you meant to kill us, why not help Bull finish us before?”

“Because I did not wish to give myself away by fighting openly against you. Bullrum’s was a chance encounter, though I allowed him his opportunity. He failed.”

“And those who came after? In the dungeons? Why send us on ahead?”

“Those were not mine, but yours—soldiers answering to General Rogun.”
The Entient grimaced with savage defiance, teeth flashing amid the crags of his beard. “They will make fine Illychar.”

“Then you were not as wounded as you appeared,” Torin observed darkly. He glanced at Marisha, but the healer did not seem to be listening, too busy was she pumping on Allion’s chest as if he were some sort of bellows.

In that moment of distraction, the first of the fireballs was unleashed. When Torin looked up, it was already upon him, leaving him no time but to raise his blade instinctively. As contact was made, crimson flames leapt forth to meet and then consume the offensive magic—though the intense heat of the blast caused the air to ripple around him.

“You must know your powers cannot harm me,” Torin retorted, sounding much braver than he felt.

The remaining fireball split and spilled over into the Entient’s empty hand, so that both were alight once more. “Not directly, perhaps. But how long can you afford to stand here while my armies surround you?”

“How long can
you,
” Torin snapped, “knowing that Rogun’s soldiers may find us first?”

The Entient’s scowl deepened. “Whatever your general has come here to do, he is too late. Already, your dearest friend rots beneath you.”

Torin had to clench his jaw to keep his lip from quivering. Beside him, Marisha began pounding Allion’s chest, weeping in denial. She then kissed him, on the forehead and on the mouth, with tears and with passion. When Torin looked to her, another fireball came roaring. This one was not aimed at him, however, but went sailing past to strike the tunnel wall, hot enough to melt the very stone.

“You cannot save him,” Darinor warned. “The only way to do so is to raise him as an Illychar.”

“Never!” Marisha hissed, looking up at last. Her next utterance was a yell. “Never!”

Torin raised an arm to block her, but she brushed right past. With murder in her eyes, she lunged toward her father. Torin sprang after, but could not reach them before Darinor intercepted her with a backhand across the face. At the moment of contact, a burst of flames from the Pendant consumed those upon the Entient’s hand and drew from him a sharp cry. Yet the blow itself sent her reeling. As Torin reached them, Darinor hurriedly stepped aside, keeping his distance from the Sword, while Marisha sprawled into a jag upon the wall, beneath which she crumpled.

Rather than chase after his enemy, Torin stopped to check on his friend. The Entient’s flames had done no damage to her skin. But there was a gash from where she had struck her head, and she did not stir at his touch.

“You would destroy your own daughter, as well?” Torin demanded, feeling for a pulse.

“She is a coil,” the Illychar corrected, shaking his hand as if stung by the Pendant’s defenses. “Nothing more.”

Torin rose from his crouch, his rage boiling.

“And what is she to
you
but a faithless harlot?”

“My friend,” Torin snarled, starting forward slowly.

The Entient did not back off, but rather shifted to one side. He did so in the blink of an eye, so quick that he seemed to simply vanish and reappear. A third fireball was launched, once again skimming Torin’s shoulder before blasting against the tunnel wall.

Startled by the sudden movement, Torin ceased his approach and instead stepped round the other way, keeping his adversary in front of him, measuring carefully the distance between them. It seemed Darinor was doing the same. Mirroring each other’s pace and stride, the pair began to circle like cats at bay.

“Tonight would have been much easier without her interference,” Darinor lamented, hurling yet another fireball. This one ignited a mine cart farther down the tunnel, filling the air with even more smoke and heat. “I would have taken the Sword as you slept. By the time you awoke, you would have done so as an Illychar.”

“The Sword could have been yours from the very beginning,” Torin reminded him. “If it’s the blade you covet, why did you refuse it when it was offered?”

“Because I did not care to repeat the same strategy that failed my kind before,” Darinor admitted, flinging a fireball that landed at Torin’s feet. “Remember Sabaoth? What would your Sword have won me if the Vandari were to return with another, or an army, or a way to restore the seal? Your quest was not a lie. Securing your trust seemed a far better way to achieve control of whatever forces and talismans you—or they—happened to return with.”

Torin tried closing the gap between them, but again his enemy flickered and speed-stepped, leaving only a fireball in the king’s path.

“You could have made the journey yourself,” he observed. “You could have found the Finlorians and pretended to befriend them as you did me. What if I had lost the blade?”

“Had you lost the blade, then it would have posed no threat to me. The more likely danger was that it would fall into another’s hands, which is why you were given the Pendant to carry along with it, remember?”

Reacting to each other’s movements, they continued to circle, back and forth between the tunnel walls. All the while, Darinor threw his molten balls of fire—haphazardly, it seemed—as Torin searched for a hole in the Entient’s defenses.

“There were risks involved, to be sure,” Darinor allowed. “But necessary that I might have the opportunity to carry out my designs here, where the real battle will now take place. In truth, you succeeded too soon for me to complete my web. Had I anticipated that, or believed for a moment you might succeed
without
carrying the Sword, I might have sent you on your errand with the Pendant alone.”

Though the answer made some sense, it didn’t feel right to Torin. Not a lie, exactly, but an incomplete truth. Either way, Darinor had used him. His quest had been little more than an elaborate scheme to steal or subvert for the Illychar any powers or plans that might be used against them. An unwitting
pawn, he had done just that, playing the game as the renegade Entient had designed it.

So that in the end, the Illysp would possess all.

“But there are no additional armies,” Torin said. “No more talismans, no other forces of magic for you to seize as your own. You have nothing save that which you started with.”

“I have enough,” the Illychar argued. “And without fear of retribution, I will now take the Sword, and move on to the next phase of conquest.”

That was why the Entient had seemed almost relieved, Torin thought, upon listening to the king’s report. And the lightning bolt—the one that had rocked his tower without spawning any others—that had been a signal to the Illychar troops. He still didn’t know for sure where Rogun fit in, but was now willing to believe that the general had sprung his trap upon realizing that the Illychar were springing theirs. It was the most reasonable way to explain why Darinor had sent them off into the tunnels, away from a madness he could not fully control, and into an ambush that he did.