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"Go on with you, man!" the Horse Stealer shouted. "I'll watch over Kerry!"
Brandark nodded back curtly and moved forward once more, hurrying to catch up with Bahzell and Vaijon.
The tu
"Sharnā! " he shouted, and crossed blades with his first enemy.
The Horse Stealer came in ferociously, and he was both stronger and had a longer reach. But he was also badly wounded, with blood pumping down his side from a brutal rent in his scale armor. He moved almost like someone in the grip of the Rage, except that his eyes were clear, without the berserker haze the Rage produced, but his injury slowed him. Even so, he almost did for the crown prince with his first attack. Chalghaz managed—barely—to parry the blow and riposted savagely. Their blades flashed and rang, crashing together again and again, and then Chalghaz twisted his wrist and lunged with all his strength, and the Horse Stealer went down as the Bloody Sword's longsword drove through the base of his throat in a shower of blood.
Chalghaz whirled to face the next Horse Stealer, but the man didn't attack instantly. Instead, a gore-smeared blade flipped up in mocking salute, and a voice that never came from a Horse Stealer cut cold and taunting through the clangor of the fight.
"How nice to see you again, Your Highness," Brandark Brandarkson said, and unleashed his first lightning stroke.
High Priest Tharnatus knelt beside an iron door sealed with the Scorpion of Sharnā. The evening's intended sacrifice lay beside him on the stone floor, eyes glazing in death, and the thick, red flood of her blood pooled about his knees and soaked into his ceremonial robes. His hands were slimed in blood as well, tracing signs on the door as he muttered prayers and exhortations. It was never safe to move this quickly, but he had no choice. The roar and tumult had been faint when he began his task; now he heard them all too clearly, and he knew how little time he had before the enemy was upon him.
He finished the last prayer and wiped sweat from his forehead, smearing his victim's blood across it. It had been a pity to use her up so quickly, a corner of his brain thought, but there would be many more where she came from if his followers could just defeat this attack and he could recast his plans. And for that to happen—
He drew a deep breath, unlocked the iron door, and pulled it open.
Bahzell cut down yet another guard. From the corner of his eye, he saw Brandark dueling viciously with an elegantly clad Bloody Sword, and even the fraction of his attention he could spare to think about such things recognized the cold, cruel efficiency with which his friend fought. There was something special about that confrontation, but Bahzell had no time to worry about what it was, for more guardsmen were coming at him with the frenzy of despair.
He met their attack in a clangor of steel. There were three of them, but it didn't matter. He took the one in the middle with his first blow, using his reach advantage to kill the man before any of the three were in range to strike at him , then cut to his left and brought a looping backhand whistling back to his right. The three bodies hit the floor in the same heartbeat, and he whirled to meet whoever was coming behind them.
But what came behind them wasn't more guards, and he heard cries of fear, coming from his Horse Stealers this time, as they saw what it was.
He didn't blame them. It didn't look much like the only other demon he'd ever seen. That one had been a hideous blend of insect, spider, and lizard; this one came forward on a hundred segmented, flickering legs, mandibles and fangs clashing. At least its body was no more than four or five feet in diameter, unlike the other demon he'd fought, but it made up for it by being much, much longer. He couldn't even see the full length of its body as it came slithering down the tu
The other Horse Stealers wavered, despite the Rage which had carried them so far, but Bahzell heard Hurthang's booming voice quelling their panic. And at least he and Kaeritha had warned them it was coming. They knew a demon was champion's work—that there was no shame in leaving it to him and Kaeritha—and they concentrated on keeping the rest of the guards out of the fight.
Not that the sanctuary's denizens had any desire to force their way into that battle. Bahzell sensed them streaming aside, literally crawling over one another in their desperation to stay clear of the demon, but he paid them no heed, for they were utterly unimportant now. All that mattered was the demon.
He took a step to the side, eyes fixed on his opponent, and opened his mouth as he flicked a glance at the blue-lit figure beside him. But the words he'd meant to say stayed unspoken as he realized the warrior beside him wasn't Kaeritha.
It was Vaijon, and the young knight-probationer's face was pale as the raw, stinking power of the demon assaulted him. It was like a sword, an invisible blade that drove deep into the heart and mind of whoever faced it, and Bahzell knew it well. He had felt it before, on the night he swore himself to Toman?k's service, and he'd never meant for Vaijon to face its like. He'd pla
Bahzell ripped his attention back to the demon, seeking some vulnerable spot—any vulnerable spot!—while it finished devouring its first victim. Well, that was one vulnerability. It was stupid enough to waste time dealing with tidbits one at a time instead of charging forward to crush and rend its opponents. Not that slothfulness looked like all that terrible a weakness. The thing truly was like some enormous, slime-streaked centipede, and its body was covered in hard, horn-like armor.
"The belly, Bahzell." Vaijon's almost conversational voice carried through the hideous cacophony of battle with u
"Belly, is it?" the Horse Stealer muttered. Vaijon might well be right, but just how did a man go about getting at a centipede's belly in a tu
There didn't seem to be a good answer to that, and he was still looking for one when the thing became aware of him. Its first victim had disappeared down its maw, and its head swiveled, pointing at Bahzell. Mandibles clashed, clacking together like snapping tree trunks, and spittle drooled from its fangs. And then it heaved itself forward, with a deceptive speed which looked far slower than it truly was.
Its front end reared up, brushing the roof of the passage. The movement exposed its thorax, but only briefly, and then it lashed down like an earthquake.
Bahzell darted aside, grateful that he and his men had at least reached a wider spot which gave him room to dodge. The blunt head slammed the floor with an ear shattering clash, and stone shards flew as the mandibles drove into it, but Bahzell spun on his toes like a dancer, sword whining, and the demon lurched with a high-pitched, grunting squeal as he sheared away two of its legs. It flinched back, twisting with pain, but however much it might have hurt, the wound was minor, the damage only superficial. It had scores of legs, and it coiled around, trying to reach him once more.
The head darted at him again, and this time he had less room to dodge, for the bulk of the demon itself filled much of the tu
The Horse Stealer backed further, then grunted as his spine rammed into the wall. The head loomed above him once more, and this time there was no room at all to dodge.
"Tomanāk ! " He bellowed the war cry and lunged forward desperately, his sword at full extension. The steel was edged in blue flame, and the demon shrieked as Bahzell drove home against the side of its head. Bony armor hissed like ice in a furnace as that dread blade struck, and Bahzell sank it to the hilt with one mighty thrust.
But his thrust was off-center, and it missed the brain, driving lengthwise down the armored, massively muscled barrel of the demon's body. The monster shrieked again as it whipped away from him... and his blade went with it. One of the virtues of that sword was that he would never drop it or lose his hold upon it in battle, yet that meant little here. The demon couldn't wrench it out of his hands, but neither could he draw it back out of the monster's body—not without better leverage than he had. And so the whipping head took him with it, clinging to his hilt. It flailed about, shaking him like a rat, and he had no choice but to release the weapon intentionally before the creature battered him to death against the passage walls without even realizing what it was doing.