Grym Prophet (Song of the Aura, Book Three) (22 page)

Blood. Water. Light. Shadow.

Ahead, Sheolus raised his hand. In it was a bone dagger with a flaming blade.

“GRIBLY!” Elia screamed, bare feet splashing in the mud as she halted, slid, and flung out her arms in a desperate Sea Striding maneuver. Mud and water streamed around her in a maelstrom that lifted her bodily off the ground and propelled her across the remaining distance in a whirling pillar of power.

Sound died, feeling became irrelevant, and time itself seemed to slow. Elia saw the demon-man turn in surprise as she rocketed towards him...

She saw individual beads of water splash on his gray, dead skin as the water she'd Stridden began to crash over him...

She saw herself stretch out her hands towards his neck...

She felt him lash out defensively with his flaming dagger...

She felt him plunge its blade past her ribs and into her stomach, poking out of her back as her body slammed into his, knocking him over...

She saw Gribly, imprisoned in the tangle of rock, open his eyes...

She saw him scream...

~

“Eliaaaa!!!!” Gribly screamed. The world rushed in on him, all blood and rain and stone, and he thrashed against his bonds. The nymph girl he was sure now he loved had just saved his life, again.

Elia and Sheolus fell in a heap, the sorcerer's blade in her body and her hands gripping his neck. The water that had carried her splashed to the ground, no longer supported by her Striding, and the thoroughly soaked sorcerer began to pry her fingers from his throat with a strange slowness.

A ball of hail struck Gribly in the jaw, bruising it and drawing another trickle of blood on his face, but he felt no pain. Rage built in his chest and seared the inside of his throat; rage so powerful and all-consuming that it drowned out all other feeling or hope. One thing occupied his entire mind: vengeance.

Sheolus succeeded in getting Elia off, stood up, and pulled the dagger slowly out of her. She convulsed, and Gribly realized she was still alive.

“Elia!” he howled, and the rage in him grew so hot that he could not hold it in. An animal bellow tore from his lips, and the stone holding his arms shattered into hundreds of pieces as he hammered it with his mind.

The Sea Strider's body shimmered, then melted into a swirling golden mist that lifted from the ground, traveled quickly through the air, and dissipated as it hit the blade of Sheolus's bone knife.

“Dog! What have you done?!”
Gribly's roar of hate was so loud that the demon-man halted for half a second. Then he curled his bloody lip in a sneer and stepped forward, raising the knife to do to Gribly as he had done to Elia.

But the Stone Strider had freed his arms. In two sweeping motions, Gribly swept away the stone that held his lower body, turning it to dust with the power of his Striding. Power from an unknown source even stronger than his rage, power like he had never known, lanced through his body like a draft of cold air.

Sheolus leaped forward, eyes aflame, and struck with his knife.

The remaining stone on and around Gribly exploded in all directions, catching the archdemon in the chest and hurling him backwards in a monstrous collision.

His enemy landed amid the debris, but stood up a moment later, apparently unhurt. Fear hit Gribly like a cold block of ice in the stomach, despite his new and mysterious surge of power.

Sparks danced up the blade of Sheolus's knife again, and it burst into flame.

“Aura of the Creator!”
the prophet screamed at the top of his lungs,
“Come to me! If I am your prophet, SHOW ME! I can't do this alone!”

Sheolus cringed- he actually
cringed!
But nothing happened.

Then the rain and hail simply stopped. Gribly felt the power begin to drain out of him, and his head throbbed with new pain.

“Your pleas are fruitless, Boy!”
laughed Sheolus, walking forward with deliberate slowness.
“I am more powerful than either of your exiled 'friends'!”

But as he moved in for the kill, a single sunbeam broke through the clouds and fell on the space between the boy and the archdemon.

The air shimmered. Gribly gasped as the surge of power returned to him, stronger than ever. The light was coalescing... forming the shape of a…

Sheolus stopped dead, tensed, and stuffed the dagger back beneath his robes. Then he raised both fists and cursed loudly in a hideous voice. Fire spewed from his hands towards the still-wavering shape, engulfing it in a hellish torrent. With a cry Gribly leaped forward towards the sunbeam and fire, hoping against hope to stop the archdemon from killing whatever came out of the air.

It was unneeded. There was a soundless flash of light, and the fire died away as quickly as Sheolus had summoned it. The sunbeam vanished, and the land was dark again...

...but in its place stood a young man in a long cap, dressed in weather-beaten gray robes and leaning on a gnarled wooden staff.

“Traveller?” Gribly blurted, stunned. The Aura paid him no attention, his full attention locked on the archdemon who had tried to kill him.

“YOU!”
spat Sheolus, lifting his hands again. Traveller grinned mischievously and raised his staff.

“You've fallen as far as an Aura can fall, Aurum Therestore,” the gray-clad guide of Gribly's dreams said. “It will be my pleasure to send you back to the Blaze.” Then he opened his mouth and let loose with a cock's crow louder and fiercer than any mortal's war cry.

AURA?
Gribly shuddered, gaping at the revelation.
This archdemon was an Aura?

Sheolus lifted a clawed hand to the sky, and lightning struck his palm. He caught the bolt and held it as it crackled and spat fire, hefting it back as if to throw.

Before either combatant could attack, however, a deep rumbling quake shook the earth behind them all, from the direction of the blasted hill where Wanderwillow and Sheolus had fought. Gribly stamped his foot and Stone Strode to keep himself from falling, sending a hurried glance over his shoulder to find the source of the disturbance. Could there be another archdemon coming?

The hill itself heaved, shuddered, and split open, transforming into a massive ball of churning earth that rolled forward over the land with extraordinary momentum. In three seconds it careened past Gribly, plowing around Traveller and straight into Sheolus, who cast his lightning bolt at it just moments too late.

Half of the deadly orb was blasted away, but the rest continued on for another span before falling apart, leaving a battered, smoking Sheolus behind, victim to his own lightning as well as the concussive force of the quake-ball.

The ground next to Gribly convulsed and ruptured in a spray of dirt, as Wanderwillow himself stepped up out of the earth. He was almost unrecognizable, so battered and gnarled... his skin had taken on the appearance of bark; his hands and feet were knotted messes of root and branch.

With a surprising grace and speed, Wanderwillow ran to stand beside Traveller. No, that wasn't the right word; he didn't run... he
flowed
. His legs remained still, and his feet were a churning mass of tree roots, seeming to swim through the earth as a human might swim through water.
If a tree could walk,
Gribly thought,
it would walk like that.

Soon the two Aura faced their fallen enemy as Sheolus struggled to his feet, tottered, and fell to his knees in front of them. Traveller raised his staff, and wings sprouted from the end.

“There are two of us and one of you,” the gray Aura said. “Surrender your weapon, and you will be sent to fester with the rest of your Legion.”

Sheolus shrunk lower, shaking and cowering. Then he looked up, eyes glowing once more... but he was not looking at either Aura. He was glaring right at Gribly.

“You
will
be mine!”
he spat, and before anyone could blink he had drawn the bone dagger and slashed his hand open with it. Rusty-golden blood poured from the wound, and he squeezed his fist shut on it, weaving strange words in an evil tongue as the ichor, the godblood, flowed onto the ground at his knees.

Quick as a flash, Traveller flung his winged staff like a javelin straight at Sheolus's heart... but it was too late. The weapon impaled the ground where the archdemon should have been, but had vanished into thin air. The only sign that he had been there was a lingering, cackling laugh that echoed across the Nothing like the ghost, then died away on the wind.

“Blast, that was close!” Traveller grimaced, stretching out his hand and calling his staff back to him. It shot out of the ground and into his grip; he spun it in a quick circle before slamming it into the ground with a loud, frustrated
crack!

“How did you…” Gribly started to call, running towards them. Thunder rumbled overhead.

“No time!” shouted the Aura, “Help your friend and we'll bring you both out of the otherworld. We can still catch this demon if we move fast enough!”

Gribly nodded, trying to suppress the aching exhaustion that seeped into his bones, now that the immediate threat was gone. With heavy steps he stumbled across the pitted, debris-strewn land until he came to where his friend lay.

“Lauro!” he wheezed, dropping painfully to his knees beside his friend. “Creator Above, don't be dead! I can't lose two friends in one bloody day!”

The prince's face was covered in soot and dust and blood, but he managed to crack one eye open. Coughing violently, he grabbed Gribly by the shoulder. “If they've killed Elia... I'll tear their damned hearts out... I'll kill them all! I'll-” but his head flopped to one side and his eyes rolled up into the whites. Out cold again.

“That's the Lauro I know,” Gribly whispered, trying to cry and failing miserably. “Always brave, always stupid...”

A rough hand clapped his shoulder. Wanderwillow. The Aura did not speak, but his expression was sad. Traveller flew through the air and landed beside the three, briefly touching the dying prince's forehead before looking Gribly in the eyes and grinning.

“Never fear, Boy... this one's far too tough to die today.”

Reaching out, he touched Gribly in the forehead. White light blossomed in the prophet's mind, and the darkness of the otherworld fled away from the brilliance.

Chapter Eighteen: World Bleeds Gold

The first thing Lauro felt was cold. He opened his eyes slowly, saw a rounded, gray ceiling over him, and felt more stone at his back. He lay still for a few more seconds, trying to decide if he were dead or alive, decided that death would look different, then sat up to figure out where he was.

He was placed on the top of a polished stone block just as wide and long as he was when lying down. Several other blocks occupied the round-walled, dome-ceiling room, and two of them were occupied.

“Lauro...?” a hesitant voice inquired. Gribly raised his head on a stone nearly opposite from him, looking as confused and fatigued as Lauro felt.