Whisper of Venom

But Cera had to be there somewhere.

No, said Jet, she doesn’t. You only went in there on a guess. If there’s nothing, get out before they catch you.

I’ll be all right, Aoth answered. Most of the candles and lamps are out, and nearly everyone’s asleep…. Then, suddenly, peering through yet another doorway, he saw it.

Many aristocrats and wealthy merchants built homes that had secret areas, and the interim temple appeared to be one of them. A section of oak paneling was set a hair deeper than the pieces to either side. The button concealed in the trim was similarly recessed, and the grain in the darker wood didn’t line up precisely.

No one else would have noticed it, certainly not across the length of an unlit room. But just as Aoth could see in the absence of light, so too did he view the world in minute detail.

He stalked across the nondescript, mostly unfurnished chamber and pushed the button. The catch clicked. He cracked the door open. On the other side, a spiral staircase twisted down to some portion of the cellars.

Aoth made sure he could easily reach the hilt of the sword beneath his stolen vestments. Then he started down.

The orcs howled as they charged. It was the fourth time they’d rushed their foes, but Oraxes still flinched. He couldn’t help it.

The enemy crashed against the shields and the warriors who carried them like a great wave battering a rock. And after a time of frenzied stabbing, slashing, and shoving on both sides, like a wave they receded.

Or reeled back, or stumbled away, where they didn’t lie dead or maimed on the ground. One of the things Oraxes had learned early on in this terrifying, fascinating night was that he mostly couldn’t watch a battle and truly grasp the import of what he saw. But still he had a sense the orcs had had enough, and when his companions relaxed, he knew he was right.

A spearman spat. At some point, something had chopped or broken off the point of his weapon, but he’d continued fighting with the shaft in preference to the mace on his hip. Oraxes suspected it had something to do with reach.

“The mighty Red Spears,” the sellsword sneered, and the warriors around him laughed.

A pillar of flame leaped up in the midst of the enemy formation.

For a heartbeat, Oraxes assumed that one of his fellows from Luthcheq had hurled an incendiary attack. Then he glimpsed a horned, skeletal head and clawed hands inside the blaze. Tall as a hill giant, the burning figure stalked forward while its allies scurried out of the way.

Oraxes and his comrades knew the enemy had spellcasters too, mostly conjuring from behind cover, just like their counterparts. The griffon riders in the air had loosed a lot of arrows at them. Seemingly to no avail, because periodically the bastards materialized some new entity to fight on their behalf.

Humor and scorn wiped from his face, the man with the broken spear looked around at Oraxes. “What is that thing?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Oraxes admitted. But his instincts told him it was deadlier than any of the creatures that had preceded it.

He reflected with a pang of fear that he’d largely depleted his magic. Still, maybe he could destroy the thing before it came any closer. He spoke words of power and brandished his hand before him. Frost flowed over it from his fingertips to his wrist. He could feel that it was cold, but the chill wasn’t painful.

Mimicking the attitude of his extremity, a huge, disembodied hand made of ice appeared in front of the oncoming fire creature. Oraxes reached and clenched his fingers shut, and the hand of ice did the same, gripping the entity around the torso and pi

The demon, if that was what it was, snarled and heaved, and the hand of ice shattered. Oraxes gasped at a sudden hot pain. When he inspected his own hand, there were blisters spotting the palm.

He told himself it could have been worse. At least the entity hadn’t broken his fingers.

Its aura of flame illuminating mangled corpses, as well as wounded men and goblinkin who struggled to crawl aside, the spirit advanced on Gaedy

The archers shot at the advancing fire thing for several moments. Some of them hit it too, but the arrows burned away instantly, and it was impossible to tell if they were doing any real damage.

Then, still steadily drawing and releasing, Gaedy

Oraxes’s companions scrambled to plant themselves squarely in the fiery giant’s path. He scurried after them.

As they reformed their shield wall and extended their spears, the demon was still a stone’s throw away. But it swept one hand in an arc, and a tongue of flame leaped from its fingers to slash across several sellswords. They staggered and screamed, their garments burning.

The demon charged the point where it had weakened the formation. It snatched, snagged a sellsword on its talons, and heaved him into the air, letting him char in its fiery grasp for a moment before dashing him to the ground. It lashed out again, and a warrior’s head tumbled off his shoulders.

Even several paces back Oraxes felt like he was standing next to a bonfire, and he soon saw that often, the creature didn’t even have to attack a man to take him out of the fight. When their spears and clothing caught fire, or every breath seared their lungs, the mercenaries had no choice but to fall back.

More quickly than Oraxes would have imagined possible, given its steadfast performance against the orcs, the formation started to fall apart. The warriors weren’t routed yet, but he could feel their fear just as he’d felt it when the orcs lost heart.

Griffon riders wheeled overhead, shooting, but their shafts didn’t seem to trouble the demon any more than the ones Gaedy

But Oraxes was, and he had to do something. He rattled off a spell, meanwhile making stabbing and slashing motions with both hands.

A dozen floating daggers materialized in the air around the demon. They too stabbed and sliced.

The demon snarled and sprang forward, smashing spearmen out of the way, extricating itself from the midst of the flying blades. Suddenly there was no one between it and Oraxes.

It slashed down at him. He jumped back and thought he’d avoided the attack. Then he felt fierce heat on his chest. He looked down.

He had two bloody grazes across his torso. But the truly alarming thing was that his tattered shirt and jerkin were on fire.

He dropped and rolled. But he couldn’t put out the fire and defend himself against the demon too. It reached for him-

And kobolds rushed it from the left and slashed at its legs with short, heavy, cleaverlike blades. Some even climbed its legs to strike at higher portions of its body. Its corona of flame didn’t deter them, and as he clambered back to his feet, Oraxes saw the reason why. They were already dead, and so incapable of pain, fear, or concern for their own survival. They didn’t stop trying to carry out their reanimator’s commands until they burned away to nothing.

Meanwhile, Meralaine chanted. The words sounded soft and dull, like shoveled earth dropping on top of a coffin, yet paradoxically they carried despite the din of battle. On the final syllable, she snapped a piece of bone in two.

The giant’s halo of flame shrank in on itself, and for the first time Oraxes got a clear look at the inhuman skeleton at the heart of the blaze. Then the creature collapsed in a heap, with just a few small blue and yellow flames flickering among the bones.