The Temple of Yellow Skulls Page 31

  Uldane glanced out through the crack in the wall. The demons were all staring in the direction of the screams—and beyond them, he finally spotted Raid.

  Heading back to the courtyard.

  He drew a breath and dropped away from the wall. “New plan,” he said. “Raid’s on the move.”

  Shara gave a grim smile. The crossbow rose and she squeezed the trigger. The bolt buried itself in the head of one of the spiders and the creature leaped back, squealing and twitching. The other spiders froze for an instant, long enough for her to drop the bow and draw her greatsword. “Back to the courtyard?”

  Uldane nodded. “Back to the courtyard.”

  The spiders hissed again and came at them. Shara whirled and shoved Uldane along before her. “Go!”

  The screams caught Raid off guard. There was something strange about them, something that ran across his nerves. The screaming of Vestapalk’s prisoners as they become his exarchs had been sweet. This was different.

  Shara and Uldane, even the priest, vanished from his mind. Panic filled him. He lengthened his stride and raced for the courtyard.

  The two brutes that Raid had left behind watched Albanon as if he might leap to the attack at any moment. Albanon stared back at them, breathing slow and hard against the building burn of the Voidharrow in his body.

  He tried to focus past the pain. Was there anything he could do to fight the changes that the Voidharrow wreaked upon his body? Probably not, but by the moon of the Feywild, he could fight it in his mind and soul. Memories of happier days seemed increasingly distant, but he dragged them up with grim determination. Memories of Moorin and his apprenticeship in the Shining Tower. Memories of Splendid teasing him, usually in good humor. Memories of his first adventures with Shara and Uldane. Memories of his other friends, Falon and Darrum. Erak and Roghar. Tempest. Memories of Kri and of the cleric’s tales of the Order of Vigilance.

  His friends were close. All he had to do was fight the Voidharrow—and the pain—a little longer. He tried to imagine what Shara and the others were doing.

  He certainly didn’t imagine the small form that came plummeting from the sky to whirl around the two guards.

  “You!” shrieked Splendid. “Lummoxes! Muscle-bound clods! Think you can catch me?”

  One of the demons swatted at her. She darted nimbly between waving arms to perch on its crystal shoulder plates. The brute snorted and tried to grab for her but its arms couldn’t quite reach. The pseudodragon ducked, then lashed out with her stinger. The demon roared and spun in pain. Splendid launched herself back into the air. “Do I have your attention now? Come and get me!”

  She swirled once in the air above the courtyard, skimming low enough that Albanon was certain he saw a look of horror and sorrow in her eyes when she looked at him—then she was speeding off into the ruins with Raid’s guards snorting and snarling as they chased her.

  “Pseudodragons are remarkable creatures,” said an accented voice from behind Albanon. “Loyal beyond death. It takes a lot to get them to change that loyalty.”

  Albanon tried to twist his head around. “Kri!”

  “Don’t move or I might cut you.” Something pulled at his bonds—a knife, Albanon thought—and they began to loosen. “We have to hurry. There isn’t much time.”

  The cleric sounded grim.

  “For Shara and Uldane?” Albanon asked.

  “No,” said Kri. “For you.”

  The last bonds parted and Albanon almost fell. His legs felt numb. He hadn’t realized how much the post had been supporting him. He felt Kri try to catch him, but he shrugged the old cleric off. “Don’t! The Voidharrow—”

  The words came out pinched and harsh, grating along Albanon’s throat. He barely recognized his own voice—but what there was of it stuck in his throat as he caught sight of the hand with which he tried to hold Kri back. The fingers had all but fused together. He no longer had a hand, just a crystal-tipped … spike.

  Terror rose in him. He felt the pain. He’d fought the Voidharrow. But he hadn’t been able to see the changes that the Voidharrow had wrought in him before. Until now. He raised his other hand. It was almost a spike as well. His legs, his feet—he tried to tear at his robes to see. The demon that Vestapalk had planted in him rose like a fever. His breathing became harsh.

  Kri grabbed his arms. “Albanon, calm down! I need to try and stop the Voidharrow.”

  Calm. Albanon took another breath and fought back against the demon. It seemed like he had been fighting so long that it was second nature, but how long had it really been since Vestapalk had brushed the Voidharrow across his forehead? The sun was still barely a hand span above the horizon. He spun, staring at the other captives in the courtyard.

  He couldn’t call them captives anymore. If they still lived, demons stared back at him. They stood quiet, like sleepers newly woken, spent in the aftermath of their transformation. Dead or alive, the familiar forms of orcs, goblins, humans, ogre, dragonborn, all of them, were now alien … things. Albanon looked to the demon that had been Tiktag and a wedge-shaped head with a single glowing eye looked back at him.

  A whisper came from the tiny mouth below that eye.

  “Fight.…”

  Albanon twisted around to Quarhaun.

  It was no longer like staring in a mirror, that was certain. The drow looked like a black skeleton twined about with veins of crystal. Like the brutes, he now bore a second pair of arms, though his were spindly and rose from gaping sores on his chest. His original arms dangled almost to his knees. His mouth had changed, become a tooth-filled circle like a lamprey’s. But his eyes … they were tinged with red now, but they were still the wide, round eyes of a drow.

  And they stared at him with desperation.

  Albanon turned back to Kri. “Both of us,” he said. “Help me and him.” He nodded to Quarhaun.

  Kri blinked. “A drow? But—”

  Albanon lunged at him. “Do it!”

  The old cleric gasped and looked down. Albanon followed his gaze—and flinched. The crystalline point of his fused fingers dimpled the golden chainmail over his belly. Albanon staggered back. Kri touched his stomach as if in wonder that he hadn’t been stabbed, then nodded. “I’ll try.” He grabbed Albanon and dragged him over closer to Quarhaun. “Do you remember in Andok Sur? When I cleansed you after the kobold wounded you? This will be worse.”

  Keeping a hand on each of them, he tipped his face back, closed his eyes, and murmured the words of a prayer.

  Searing white light seemed to burst inside Albanon. It burned him, not in the way that the Voidharrow had burned, but as if the sun had suddenly risen inside of him. The light shone into every part of him, into the secret corners of his mind and the darkest recesses of his soul. It stripped him bare, scouring the impurities from him. Burning away the Voidharrow.

  A scream rose from his throat, but it was his voice. Pain pierced him, but it was clean pain, untainted.

  But just like the transformation of the Voidharrow, it seemed to go on … and on … and on. His throat became raw. His eyes felt like they would steam in their sockets. His body seemed to tear itself apart.

  When it ended, he would have staggered, but every muscle in his body was locked and rigid. His head was back. His back was arched. His fists were clenched.

  His fists.

  Albanon forced open his eyelids and stared down at two hands with long, graceful fingers and thumbs. He looked up and saw Quarhaun, once again his dark reflection, clinging to the post for support. “By the gods!” Albanon gasped. “Kri, you—Kri!”

  The cleric knelt on the ground, trembling with weakness. Albanon squatted down and wrapped his arm across the old man’s back, drawing him up. Kri’s breath hissed between his teeth. “That took more than I thought.” He jerked his head. “Get us out of here—”

  A howl of fury and disbelief interrupted him. “No!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Albanon turned so quickly that Kri almost slipped from h
is arms. Raid glared at them from across the courtyard. “This isn’t possible!” the demon roared. An arm came up, pointing an axe at them. “I will not be denied. This time … this time you will die!”

  Quarhaun scowled and stepped forward. “He talks too much,” he said in Elven. His eyes narrowed and his hand stabbed out, throwing a crackling blast of dark energy at Raid.

  The demon twisted to the side with incredible speed. The bolt went sizzling past him. Quarhaun’s eyes opened wide in surprise and he flung another bolt. Raid spun away from that one, too.

  A murmur passed through those prisoners that still lived as if the fight was finally rousing them from their stupor. Albanon’s gut clenched. Half a dozen prisoners appeared to have survived the plague. Could the Voidharrow really have made them all exarchs as powerful as Raid? If even a few of them were, he and his friends were in trouble. He shook Kri. “We need to leave now.”

  The cleric’s head came up and he glanced around. His weary face cleared instantly as he grasped the danger of the awoken prisoners. “All-Knowing Mistress be merciful!”

  But he wasn’t the only one. A grin passed across Raid’s face. “Your god has no place here now.” He darted to the closest prisoner and slashed at its bonds. The big brute that had been the old dwarf stretched four muscular arms and lumbered forward. Tiny red eyes fixed on Quarhaun. The drow cursed and loosed another churning blast.

  The demon simply hunched down, tucking head and arms beneath the crystal plates across its back and shoulders. Quarhaun’s bolt hit the plates, crackled across them—and dissipated. Quarhaun gaped in astonishment.

  But there was more movement on the edge of the courtyard as Shara and Uldane came charging out of the ruins. Shara saw Raid and the new demons and almost stumbled in astonishment. Uldane didn’t stop at all. His hand flicked and a pair of bright steel daggers flashed at Raid. The demon batted one aside with an axe. The other found his shoulder. He snarled in pain. “Stop them!” he ordered and the big brute demon lunged.

  Shara blinked and brought her greatsword up to meet the demon’s grasping claws. Thick gray hide sliced off in a chunk. The demon snatched back that hand, but raked at Shara with three others. She threw herself to the ground to avoid them then scrambled up and continued on across the courtyard with Uldane.

  Right behind them, more than a half dozen brute demons along with three massive spiders came pouring out of the ruins.

  Raid roared with delight as soldiers and spiders swarmed around him. He gestured with his axes at the remaining bound prisoners. “Release them all!” As the demons moved to obey, Raid seemed to chitter at the spiders and they came crawling around the edge of the courtyard. Quarhaun cursed again and immediately turned to face the ruins behind them.

  “What is it?” Albanon called to him. “Are they that fast?”

  “No,” said Quarhaun, “but we brought more than just three spiders with us last night.”

  Albanon twisted around and peered into the ruins. The light of the morning sun left shadows sparse, but he could count at least four more eight-legged forms lurking within what shadows there were. He cursed. No escape for them through the ruins.

  Shara and Uldane stumbled to a stop beside them. Uldane threw his arms around Albanon’s legs. “You’re better! It worked.”

  Kri just pushed himself away from Albanon and scowled at both the halfling and the warrior. “Why did you come back? You were supposed to be leading them away.”

  “Forgive us,” said Shara caustically. “When the screaming started and Raid headed back, we thought you might need help.” She nodded across the courtyard. “We wouldn’t have brought demons if we knew you already had your own.”

  Albanon watched the new demons—Vestapalk’s new exarchs—as they stepped out of their bonds and moved their bodies for the first time. Each was distinct, but there were similarities between many of them. Most were lean and hard; a couple were, like the brutes, massive and powerful. The demon that had been an ogre was unique in its size. Others were unique in their utter strangeness, no longer even bipedal but insect-like, crawling on multiple crystalline legs. All of them glittered with the silver-red crystals of the Voidharrow.

  Of them all, however, only the soldier demons showed any inclination to mix with others, whether of their own kind or not. The rest inspected each other, standing apart or at best circling each other like suspicious dogs. One or two of them hissed and growled, spines of red crystal rising over their shoulders and spines.

  Raid didn’t seem to notice. Like a victorious general, he stood before the motley collection of demons and exarchs, almost twenty of them in total, and raised his axes high. “You have seen the beginning of a new age,” he bellowed at Albanon and the others. “It will be the last thing you see!” The axes came down. “Attack!”

  The other demons didn’t move. Raid whirled in shock. “You! Obey me!” He glared at the demons and thrust an axe at Albanon again. “Attack!”

  Some of the brutes Raid had commanded before shifted and looked around almost uncertainly, but they didn’t move. The demon exarchs only looked at Raid and between themselves. A few drew back a pace, opening up space around them.

  “What are they doing?” Uldane asked in a whisper. “Why aren’t they attacking?”

  “They’re challenging each other,” said Kri. The old cleric’s hand rested on his holy symbol. His eyes were wide in astonishment. “By the Book of Insight, Vestapalk made a mistake. He made too many leaders. Demons will only follow the most dominant among them.”

  Shara adjusted her grip on her sword. “Even if they’re fighting each other, I don’t want to be in the middle of a demon battle.”

  “Neither do I,” agreed Kri.

  The ogre demon lifted its blind head, nostrils testing the air. A gravelly growl rolled out of its throat. Other demons around it tensed. So did Shara and the others—but the massive head just turned, looking away to the west. Other demons turned that way as well.

  In the direction Vestapalk had flown. Albanon’s heart seemed to skip as a memory from the nightmare of his transformation came back to him. A powerful need, a desperate yearning, an almost undeniable urge.

  An urge that might still save them. Before any of the others could move, he stepped forward and raised his voice. “Vestapalk commanded that you follow him! Obey him! Find your master!”

  Demon eyes turned to him, unworldly gazes that made Albanon’s skin crawl. Raid spun around. “You! What do you think you’re doing?” he demanded.

  Kri echoed Raid. “Albanon, no! If the exarchs get out into the world, they’ll only spread the plague faster.” The cleric grabbed Albanon’s hand.

  Albanon shook his off. It took all of the eladrin’s effort not to glance at either Raid or Kri. He kept his attention on the other demons, watching their reaction. And after a heartbeat, they looked away from him to each other, then once more to the west after the dragon.

  He had them. The certainty of hope rose in him. “Vestapalk has the power you need,” Albanon shouted. “Find him. Claim your power!”

  He had almost been one of them. He knew what they felt. He knew what they would do—and he was right.

  The ogre demon broke first, turning and charging west like a juggernaut. An unfortunate brute got in its way and was run down. The other exarchs turned, too, scattering, each taking its own path in pursuit of the call of the Voidharrow.

  Kri let out a shout of protest and turned accusing eyes on Albanon—just as Raid cried, “No!” and grabbed for the retreating demons. They snapped at him and slipped aside, moving on without a second glance. Only one seemed inclined to linger: the slight, wedge-headed winged creature that had been Tiktag backed slowly away, single eye moving from Raid to Albanon and back. Raid ignored it as he tried to draw back the others.

  “Obey me!” he said. “Follow me. This is my destiny!” His clutching hands found some of his brutes and hauled them back. “You will stay. And you. And you. And”—Raid paused, chest heaving, then tu
rned to glare at Albanon—“you. This is your doing. You’ll pay for this!”

  He threw himself across the courtyard.

  Swept up in his rage, the soldiers he had clawed back came with him. A cold calm descended on Albanon. From twenty demons to four. Even if one of them was Raid, it was better than he could have hoped for. “Fight!” he snarled at the others, then swept a hand before him and spoke a word of magic. A bright blue spark darted at Raid, bursting around him in a cloud of swirling mist.

  The demon didn’t even slow. He burst from the mist with frost clinging to him, silvering his chest, face, and hair. But then Kri was beside Albanon, chanting a prayer, and Quarhaun was beside the cleric, stabbing out with both hands. Bolts of blazing light and crackling darkness ripped at Raid.

  And still he kept coming. His axes swept down.

  Shara caught them on the blade of her sword as Uldane darted in behind to stab with daggers at the demon’s gangly legs. Raid roared and hopped, then leaped back. As the remaining three brutes rushed in to take his place, Raid let out a chittering call.

  It was answered from the ruins. Cursing, Quarhaun spun again, put his back to Albanon’s, and called out an ugly incantation. Albanon felt a chill breeze on his neck and heard a thin, fluttering wail. Some of the chittering from the ruins became squealing, but not all of it and not enough.

  Spiders behind them. Demons before them. The cold calm Albanon had felt began to unravel. He swallowed and cast a spray of flame at two of the brutes. One of them screeched, but the spell wasn’t enough to force either of them back. Raid roared with battle-crazed joy.

  “I will not be rejected. I will not be denied. I am Raid. Challenge me and die!”

  The call of the Voidharrow was strong. Far stronger than he had ever expected. A hundredfold stronger than his loyalty to Vestapalk. Or what had once been his loyalty to Vestapalk.