Page 24

Twenty-Four

T he castle was quiet.

The others seemed surprised by the silence as they crept into the entry hall, but Azreth wasn’t. Many creatures of the hells would lie silently in wait before striking. If he were one of Nirlan’s minions, he would wait in the shadows until his target turned their back to him.

On the floor in the center of the entry hall, they found a human corpse. As Azreth summoned a sphere of mage light to illuminate the room, Raiya approached the body, leaning in to examine it without getting too close.

“It’s Priestess Gereg,” she said.

Azreth raised an eyebrow. “She’s dead?”

“Quite dead.” Raiya’s mouth stiffened into a line. Blood was smeared all around the body. It was still fresh, not yet dry. The scent of it made Azreth salivate.

He was pleased. “Well. She’s with her goddess now.”

Raiya looked up at him, smirking. “Was that a joke, Azreth?”

“Maybe.”

Madira poked at the body with his sword, turning it to view the large gashes in its stomach. His nose wrinkled. “Do you think a sword did that, or another demon?”

“I cannot say,” Azreth said. “We should find the lord and ask him.”

Paladin Adamus kept his distance from the body, as if it were contaminated by some contagious evil. “A summoning gone wrong? It’s hardly rare for a demon to kill its own summoner.” He glanced up at Azreth. “No offense.”

“The truth does not offend me,” Azreth replied. Raiya gave Azreth a reproachful glance, as if she resented the implication that he might betray them. She trusted him so deeply that merely acknowledging this truth—that all demons were dangerous—offended her.

“The summoning circle the last cultist made was in the tunnels below the castle,” Raiya said. “We should start there.” She stepped around the dead priestess, and he followed close behind her.

The scent of decay tainted the air. They passed twisted, dead forms of more velravens and a thresher—more inhabitants of the hells brought here by Gereg and Nirlan. The bodies bore the same strange gouges they’d seen on Gereg.

Azreth made a mental list of things that could cause this much carnage but were also small enough to fit through the castle’s halls. The list was not very long. His fingers fiddled with threads of magic at his side as he peered into every shadowy corner they passed.

The only thing he wanted to face less than a vythian was another demon. The vythian had been bad, but at least it wasn’t intelligent.

The corridor opened into the massive room at the center of the castle. Azreth recognized it. The last time he’d passed through, he’d left it strewn with the bodies of mortals who’d tried to stop him from leaving. The bodies were gone now, but the room was not much cleaner for it. None of the lamps were lit, and the fireplace was dark. Cold air blew through broken windows while moonlight glinted on their broken glass.

There was rustling from above them, and Raiya came to a quick stop. Azreth put a hand on her shoulder as he raised his sphere of mage light higher. It floated to the ceiling, casting light on dozens of dark shapes in the rafters. More velravens. They seemed to be sleeping.

“Just birds,” he murmured to her. “They’re small.”

“They’re quite large by our plane’s standards.”

“But not bigger than I am.”

Just as he spoke, the creatures moved. They awoke in unison, and there was a great fluttering of dozens of wings as they took off. Raiya ducked. Azreth raised a hand to summon a sword, then he realized the birds weren’t attacking them. They flew in all directions, out windows and down hallways.They were fleeing.

Hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. “Something frightened them,” he said. Raiya glanced up at him, shifting nervously.

Suddenly, it was deathly quiet. Even the wind seemed to have stopped, as if nature itself feared whatever was coming. Azreth listened to the silence, staring deep into the shadows around them.

Behind him, something moved.

He spun, putting himself in front of Raiya. Waving a hand, he summoned a magical shield. No sooner had it appeared than a beam of magic impacted the shield, blowing it to pieces. Azreth stumbled back, but another attack was already coming. He raised the shield again just in time for a second blast to hit it. He forced more magic into the shield, and this time, it didn’t break.

He looked beyond his shield long enough to see a demon approaching them—long enough to feel a pang of dread as he realized that the other demon was much larger than himself.

As the demon launched another knifelike shard of crackling magic at him, Azreth rushed forward, shifting to one side to deflect the shard with his shield. He caught a glimpse of the demon’s expression—faint surprise—just before Azreth slammed into his knees. His weight knocked the demon off his feet, and they both went tumbling across the floor.

Azreth wouldn’t last long if they took to wrestling on the ground. He tried to roll to his feet, but a clawed hand swiped at him. As he grabbed the other demon’s wrist and leaned back to avoid his claws, the demon arched over him, trying to pin him. Azreth jabbed a fist into his chin, knocking him off balance long enough to flip him with a twist of his thighs. With the demon under him, he swung an arm to gather magic into the shape of a blade, and in the same motion, he drove it toward the demon’s throat.

The other demon was fast—much too fast. Before the blade could make contact, something flashed through the air and hit the side of Azreth’s head, knocking him to the floor.

He rolled to his feet, bracing for another attack. The other demon was already standing, watching Azreth impassively, his posture relaxed. He had allowed Azreth to get up. Otherwise, he would have been dead already.

All of it had happened in a matter of seconds, but his heart was already racing and his muscles were burning from exertion.The mortal plane had spoiled him. He’d almost forgotten what a fair fight felt like.

Panting to catch his breath, Azreth studied the demon. He was taller than Azreth by at least a head, and his fingers were tipped with long, tapered claws. He was probably older than Azreth, but his crimson skin bore few scars, as if he’d not lost many fights. It went without saying that he wasn’t missing any limbs.

When he looked closely, Azreth saw runes glowing very faintly all over his body, catching the light whenever he moved. Nirlan had succeeded in binding him.

Azreth guessed the demon would have happily killed them even without Nirlan’s encouragement, though. A faint scent of amusement and bloodlust floated off the demon’s skin. He was enjoying this. He was already sure of his imminent victory.

Azreth glanced over his shoulder to look for Raiya. She and the others were wisely standing back. He was glad they knew better than to try to help.

Raiya looked up at a balcony on the second floor. Careful to keep the other demon in his peripheral vision, Azreth followed her gaze. A human was perched there in the shadows, watching them. Azreth recognized him immediately, even hidden in the shadows, as if the man’s blackened soul called out to him.

“Nirlan!” Raiya’s voice snapped like a whip, and Nirlan reacted as if he’d been struck. He turned and ran out of sight.

“Go!” Azreth shouted to Raiya, and she jumped at the volume of his voice. “Go after him!”

Claws sliced across his chest. He recoiled, blindly throwing out a wave of amorphous magic. It knocked the other demon back, but it was all wild strength and no finesse. Touching a hand to his chest, Azreth felt blood where the claws had cut deep. He let it bleed. He couldn’t afford to expend magic on healing superficial wounds—he might need every last drop to fight.

The other demon watched Raiya and the others run up the stairs, following her movement with the bright, sharp eyes of a hunter. Interest showed in his expression, and for a horrible moment, Azreth thought he was going to chase her. But the demon turned to him instead, unhurried.

“Where do you come from?” Azreth blurted.

The demon paused, probably surprised to hear him speak at a time like this. Demons didn’t bother exchanging words when there was blood to be shed. Azreth didn’t know why he’d asked the question. It was the sort of immaterial, pointless thing that mortals asked strangers to be polite. But it was what came to mind as he searched for anything that would delay another attack.

The demon started to move, and Azreth quickly spoke again. “I can help you destroy the mortal who bound you.”

The demon paused again. “You wish to serve me?”

Azreth’s entire being rebelled at the idea of being put into servitude again.

“A wise offer,” the demon said.

“I am no servant,” Azreth said sharply. “We can work together to kill the mortal and then go our separate ways, as equals.”

The demon stared at him, bemused.

It was a ridiculous thing to say. It was what Raiya would have suggested. A very short time ago, he had reacted with that same bemusement when she’d made this offer to him. This simply was not the way of the kin.

“Serve me, or die. I will let you choose,” the demon said.

Azreth was afraid. And the other demon could certainly sense it, because Azreth was having a shocking amount of difficulty suppressing his feelings. Perhaps spending so much time among mortals, who felt their emotions so freely, had given him bad habits.

Or maybe it was just that he’d never had so much to lose.

“I am no servant,” he repeated.

The demon looked amused. “Perhaps you will change your mind.” And then he lunged.

Azreth twisted sideways, then backed up another step, and then another, as attacks kept coming. A long talon grazed him, ripping open his forearm. He hissed, lashing out with a spear of magic. It missed, but as the demon came at him again, Azreth dove under his arm and swiped at his thigh with a summoned blade. A cut opened above the demon’s knee, but it did little to slow him down.

They traded blows for what felt like hours but must have been only minutes. Soon they were both adorned with bruises and cuts, and the stones of the walls and floor around them were cracked from the impacts of their bodies.

As Azreth tired, he grew more desperate. He feinted with a longsword and then summoned a smaller dagger to stab at the demon’s opposite side when he leaned away from the feint. He put all his weight behind the attack to ensure it hit home, driving the dagger in just below his ribs.

The demon grunted in pain, but Azreth felt no sense of victory from landing the blow, because he knew he’d overextended, leaving himself open to a counterattack.

The demon grabbed him by the shoulders and slammed him into the wall. The back of Azreth’s head hit stone. His vision spotted with black, and then he was on the ground in a pile of rubble, his head throbbing.

The demon stood over him, breathing hard as he flicked blood from his claws—but Azreth’s attention was drawn to something behind him.

Paladin Adamus stood behind the demon, bow and iron-tipped arrow clenched tightly in both hands, his face ghostly white. Azreth couldn’t imagine why he hadn’t left with the others, and for a moment he wondered if he’d been waiting for an opportunity to stab Azreth in the back. But as the demon stepped toward Azreth, Adamus drew the bow and shot at the demon’s back.

The demon shouted, a sound that shook the flagstones beneath them. Blood sizzled as it burned on the iron. He spun, reaching behind himself to rip the shaft from his back. The arrow clattered to the ground. The Paladin should have run with the others, the fool. But instead, he’d given Azreth an opening.

Azreth summoned another sword of magenta light, which he gripped in his flesh-and-blood hand because he didn’t know how much longer he could maintain his summoned arm. Adamus turned to run, but the demon reached out to him with a tendril of magic, lifting the Paladin off his feet. As the demon threw him to the ground, knocking him unconscious—or maybe killing him—Azreth dragged himself up from the floor and lunged.

The demon spun to face him, too late. The blade sank into his chest.

His claws lashed out, cutting everything in reach—Azreth’s arm, his side, his chest. Azreth didn’t try to evade them. He let the attacks come as he pushed the sword harder, cutting deeper. There was a crunch as the blade hit bone. Black gore spilled from the demon’s body.For a moment, he thought he might actually win this fight. If his blade had been iron instead of mere magic, maybe he would have.But bright particles of healing magic were already covering the demon’s wounds.

And then something hit Azreth just above his navel.

It took his breath. All his muscles froze in place. His summoned arm and his sword faded away as he lost concentration on his spells.He looked down, and the demon’s hand was buried in his abdomen. The claws had cut through him like a knife.

The demon dragged his claws up Azreth’s body, ripping through organs and skin. When he’d torn a jagged gash from his waist to his sternum, he threw him to the ground.

Even knowing this injury was too grievous to recover from, Azreth tried to get up. He gave up when the demon’s boot came down hard on his chest, pushing the wind from his lungs. He gritted his teeth. Something in his chest bubbled, and hot blood oozed over his skin. He put his hand to his stomach, and a frail healing spell began to form, but then it guttered out. His magic was spent.

He glanced over at Paladin Adamus, who was not moving. There would be no more help from him. Azreth also could no longer sense Raiya nearby. He hoped she had gotten far away.

The demon stood over him, grimacing as the hole in his own chest rapidly closed. He spat blood on the ground.“Why bother fighting?” he asked. “What do you have to gain from prolonging a fight you can’t win? Are you really so foolish?”

His disgust was both so familiar and so foreign.

For all of his life, Azreth had thought it was only natural to be disgusted by weakness. He had perfectly understood why his maker had hated him, because when he saw a creature that was deformed or injured or small, or when he witnessed a display of unguarded emotion, he’d felt the same deep discomfort she had felt.

He had seen himself in those small, vulnerable creatures. He hated himself, so he hated them, too.

The demon leaned closer, as if searching for the flaw that would explain Azreth’s behavior.His nose wrinkled, and he said accusingly, “I know this scent. You smell like desperation and misguided happiness. You’re ill.”

“Perhaps,” Azreth said. The demon couldn’t have understood, and Azreth pitied him. He couldn’t know what it was like to be enthralled. He would never know this joy.

“Can you not see how broken you are?” the demon asked. “Have you no regret?”

“I have no regret for serving the one I love.” Something in his lungs sputtered when he spoke and breathed. He shuddered slightly as he fought to stay conscious.

“If I were kinder, I would put you out of your misery,” the demon said. He waved a short spell over Azreth, healing him—but only barely. Azreth gingerly touched his chest, taking a gurgling breath. The wound was still bleeding, but he did not think it would kill him yet. “Perhaps I should bring you back to the hells to be exorcised.”

Azreth knew it was a false threat designed to frighten him, but a thread of panic still went through him. The demon smirked, taunting him, but he had no idea what the threat truly meant.

Azreth’s mind was the one thing that had always been his own. The idea of the core of his being—his feelings, his love for Raiya and the mortal world—being stripped from him, was horrific. He understood now why the enthralled fought their exorcisms so desperately.

The demon bent to pick up Paladin Adamus in one arm, then took Azreth’s wrist to drag him behind him. “Don’t die just yet,” he said. Azreth could feel him feeding from his agony as they moved down the hall.