Annihilation

Pharaun pronounced a quick set of rhyming syllables and made a fast motion with his right hand. Pushed by his magic, the viper whip slid along the deck a few inches, well within Quenthel's reach.

As the high priestess's fingers closed around the handle of the scourge, Pharaun laughed inwardly. The spell he'd used was no more than a cantrip, a transmutation so simple any first year student at Sorcere could master it. It would tell Raashub nothing about the limits of his power.

The uridezu hissed at Quenthel, backing farther away from her, his tail twitching behind him, and his claws flickering in anticipation. The demon obviously thought he was well out of reach of the whip. He was wrong.

The five vipers that comprised Quenthel's scourge were five feet long, giving the weapon considerable reach. The high priestess was still on the deck and didn't bother to stand. She lashed the whip behind her, her jaw set tightly and her eyes wild with rage. When she brought the weapon forward, the snakes whipped outward to their full length. The uridezu flinched, though he seemed confident enough that he was still out of the weapon's range. The vipers extended farther, though, drawing themselves out, stretching thi

The uridezu didn't register what was happening nearly fast enough to avoid the vipers. All but one of them sank needle-sharp fangs into the rat-demon's flesh. As the whip lashed back, they dug long, bleeding furrows in the uridezu's leathery hide.

The demon screamed, high-pitched and loud enough to rattle Pharaun's eardrums.

Anything else would have been dead. Each viper possessed a deadly venom, wickedly potent. Quenthel, wild with a battle-frenzy Pharaun had never imagined, much less seen from her, wouldn't have let the snakes hold a drop of venom back. It would have been enough to drop a rothe.

The victim of that venomous lash wasn't a dumb food beast; it was an uridezu, and Pharaun had studied demons long enough to know the traits that all of them shared. Poison would never affect one. The whip had wounded the captain but hadn't killed him. Pharaun knew he could take more than that. Even a demon as relatively weak as an uridezu—and the rat-creatures were hardly the sturdiest of their kind—could withstand extremes of cold and heat and muster i

Even as that thought crossed his mind Pharaun had a hand on a wand that would have unleashed lightning bolts. Knowing that was useless, the Master of Sorcere shifted his hand an inch over and drew a different wand.

Pharaun hesitated and watched Quenthel hop nimbly to her feet and face the uridezu. The demon hissed at her, but Quenthel made no sound or sign she'd heard it. The high priestess cracked her whip at the demon again, and three of the five snakes bit deeply into the rat-demon's chest. The creature lashed out at the snakes with one set of razor-sharp claws, but the vipers withdrew in time, and the talons slashed through empty air.

Ignoring that failure, the uridezu whirled, whipping at the drow priestess with its heavy, fast-moving tail. Quenthel brought the buckler in her left hand up to meet the tail. The appendage hit her with enough force that Pharaun was sure her arm would snap, but instead she managed to bat the tail away.

The uridezu recovered more quickly than Quenthel, though, and the tail reversed and dropped lower, clipping the priestess in the ribs.

Pharaun could hear the breath driven from her lungs. She stepped to the side, almost staggering. The demon, a feral smile spread across its face, stepped in. It meant to bite her and rake her with its claws at the same time.

Pharaun drew a breath to pronounce the command word for his wand even as the demon attacked—and took Quenthel's buckler full in the face. There was a loud, wet crack! and blood splashed out from between the buckler and the uridezu's nose. The demon's hands flailed harmlessly in front of Quenthel and each of the five vipers took their pick of the demon's most sensitive spots in which to sink their fangs. The uridezu howled in agony.

Well, Pharaun thought, not bothering to activate the magic in his wand, looks like she's got this well in—

His eyes settled on Raashub, and Pharaun stopped. The bound uridezu was looking at him, his eyes ru

Pharaun looked at his wand then back at Raashub. Their eyes locked, and Raashub smiled at him.

With a smile of his own, Pharaun slid the wand back into his pack where it belonged. Raashub hid his disappointment well, turning his attention back to Quenthel and his fellow uridezu.

Pharaun made the decision to help Jeggred. Raashub would know what the draegloth was capable of, and if Pharaun could deal with the swarming rats and allow Jeggred to help Quenthel, the unbound uridezu could be dispatched quickly and without Pharaun having to take a more active—and more revealing—role in the fight.

As Pharaun came to that decision, a loud series of cracking and popping noises drew his attention back to Quenthel. The Mistress of Arach-Tinilith pulled up a whole section of railing. Bone and cartilage separated from the deck, snapping off like dried mushroom stems. Her whip was in her belt, the uridezu was staggering in front of her with blood pouring from its ruined snout, and she lifted the ten-foot length of railing over her head.

Pharaun quickly prepared a spell to aid Jeggred, and Quenthel attacked. The high priestess brought the section of railing down on the uridezu fast and hard. The demon, not quite blinded by its bleeding nose, skittered away from the attack and managed to leap out of range at the last second. The railing crashed onto the deck and shattered, sending bone fragments whirling through the air. Several of them bounced off Pharaun's spell-wards and shields, and he watched a couple of them slice into two of the rats that covered Jeggred.

Quenthel growled in nearly incoherent rage, and Pharaun found the noise unsettling—unbecoming to the Mistress of the Academy.

Pools of blood were collecting where the railing had smashed into the deck. The ship of chaos itself was bleeding. The wizard wasn't sure if he'd be able to repair it, and any further damage might delay or even prevent their voyage. However, Pharaun didn't want to say anything out loud, and Quenthel wasn't looking at him so he couldn't sign to her to stop damaging the ship.

Pharaun cast a spell at the rats on Jeggred. It was a simple spell, one that conjured a cone of flickering, multicolored Weave energy. Pharaun was careful in his placement of the spell so that the effect brushed along the side of the rat-encrusted draegloth. The magic didn't affect Jeggred in the least, but a goodly portion of the swarming rodents fell off him and onto the deck, where they lay twitching and writhing in a pile of wet, furry bodies.

Jeggred roared as he shook himself, sending his wild mane of snow-white hair whipping rats, blood, and water across the deck. The draegloth smashed four more of the filthy creatures—one in each hand—and stepped on three others.

Pharaun sneaked a glance at Raashub and was rewarded by a look of disappointed frustration on the uridezu captain's face. It was another easy spell the Master of Sorcere cast, one he'd learned while still a child, and Raashub knew it.

Pharaun turned his attention back to Jeggred and called, "Leave the rats, Jeggred. Your mistress is having demon troubles."