The Exodus Sagas: Book IV - Of Moons and Myth (87 page)

On his feet just in time, the clawed wing slammed into the earth and sent a shower of dirt right behind him. Kendari had severed off the other wing at the bone, and it was still smoldering not twenty feet over in the grove of trees atop the hill they battled upon. The cursed swordsman turned behind a thick pine, hearing the demon get to his feet.

The tree toppled over from the mighty demons’ weapons, and Kendari lunged forward as it crashed. Branches shattered and snapped into twigs, leaves smoldered as the infernal being marched through, swinging his blade wildly at the Nadderi elf.

He parried with both blades crossed and was hurled back through the air. Kendari landed and rolled, and sprung up to his feet just as fast. He sidestepped right, ducked the shield, and cut twice into the thigh of Kashtamias. The sword came down, he spun left, and slashed Shiver across its forearm and the crossblade dove into its abdomen.
The cursed elf go
t his arms up in front of his face as the blade swung again
, impacting on his bracers, and sending him b
ack twenty feet into a thick pine
. Kendari stumbled to his feet and hid behind the tree.
The demon was as strong as twenty men.

“Your torment will be eternal, Kendari. I shall tell every demon in hell to be waiting for you!” Kashtamias was in pain, yet his fury was greater, and he stalked ahead.

“I have kept immortals waiting for
me
over four centuries now, I would not hold my breath.” Kendari ran at the tree ahead of him, just as the boneblade severed his
tree
in half. He jumped, kicked off of the trunk, and dove through the air backwards, past the demon.

Kashtamias felt two cuts across his face and neck, one burned hot and the other smoldered his blood and flesh with sacred light. He spun to strike the quick elven blasphemer, but his blade and shield caught only air. He sensed that the Nadderi was behind another tree, and then he was gone. The demonic knight sensed him nowhere.

Kendari placed his glove back over his hand, knowing the
onyx
ring only had
the power to conceal his presence from detection for a few minutes. He slid his blades back out, quietly, and peered around the tree. Kashtamias was looking south, toward where the battle was, and his wing was slowly regrowing from the cleaved spike of bone protruding from its shoulder. He saw the other wounds healing as well, slowly, but the blood had stopped and the cuts were thinning. Kendari knew he had little time, and this demonic noble would not simply tire or bleed out.

You had better be watching, and keep in mind that this goes above and beyond our bargain, Seirena.

As fast as his elven legs would move, he spun round the tree, and charged the winged black demon that stood over twice his height. His feet stepped left, right, left again, and
then he rolled with the strike of the boneblade. Kendari slashed with Shiver into the
infernal
weapon
, cut with his right into the demon’s swordarm, then ducked the shield meant for his head. Two more cuts into the right forearm, and the infernal creature reared up to cut him in half. Kendari waited, he did not feint, and the swordblow came.

At the last moment, he crossed his arms, locking his enchanted bracers across one another, and took the blade and all the force behind it. His feet scraped back through the earth, sparks flew, and his arms rang with pain. He held onto his swords, grimaced, and gritted his teeth. The shield slammed into his side and cut his head, still he held tight. Just as Kashtamias pulled his arm up, and Kendari with it, the Nadderi wrapped his forearm over the bleeding arm of the demon. He flipped Shiver over in his hand, and plung
ed it straight through the elbow
of his enemy, and pinned it sizzling
into the tree
.

Kendari let go, the shield smashed into the
branches
right above his head, and he dove the holy longblade in a massive dragging slash
as he fell
, all the way from
its
chest to
its
groin. As he landed, blood dumped all over the ground, as did demonic entrails. Kendari did not stall, and he put two hands on the blade hilt, then chopped below the knee of the demon. Right before the hot black breath
came, he leapt ahead behind his foe.

“Roooaaarrreeeeaarg!”
Kashtamias pulled with all his might, and tore his arm free, from the elbow up. He looked, his forearm was still stuck to the tree with the smoldering hot longsword through it, his boneblade in the severed grip.
He fell to his stump of a knee
as his blood poured from his missing arm. He fell forward, but swung his shield out wide behind him in desperate fury.

Kendari fell backwards after the blow struck him solid, rolling over and over from the impact. His shoulder was numb, his ribs ached, and his nose was bleeding. He shook his head, staggered to his feet, unable to see straight as one eye was swelling shut fast. He fell back down, his head was spinning. The Nadderi heard hooves racing close
from the north
, he heard the demon inhale deep, and he sprang to his feet and dove to his right. The ground burned with infernal flames,
his mouth poured blood, yet
Kendari was up.

He
wiped his face
free of blood and ran toward the demon. Kashtamias, one leg, one wing, and one arm remaining, dropped his shield. Kendari saw it, still ran, and just as the demon w
ent to grab him, he slid low,
arched
his back
under
neath
, the blood and entrails making for slick ground. In the flash of an instant, Kendari was face to face once more with the knight of hell, and the holy blade of Cristoff went clean into its chest. Then it dove into the demon’s left side, then
plunged again center, and cleaved its other arm
off
,
then back into the chest
until it started to smolder and scream. Kendari backed up, stumbling, and leapt into the air. He grabbed Shiver by the hilt, kicked off
the tree
with his feet, and pulled it free. Just as the severed arm hit the ground, Kendari
simultaneously
slashed both blades across the neck of the son of Shukuru, and the head fell to the ground.

The Nadderi elf backed up, as flames of black and red smoldered the corpse. Gouts of blood incinerated the air, the boneblade and shield evaporated, yet the eyes of Kashtamias stared at him with infernal red hatred.

“
I will not forget this, Kendari of Stillwood, your soul is….”

The last words faded from the
burning remains of the
knight of hell, the eyes were no more inside the
black
horned skull,
and the flesh
decayed into black ash.
Kendari fell to his knees in pain and fatigue, then to the ground.

The deer rushed upon the scene, kicking and trampling the remains, trying to help.
The Nadderi blade in its mouth, fear in its heart, the deer trampled the already dead knight of hell.
Seeing it was finished, the deer stood over
still
Kendari
, guarding him, protecting the victorious swordsman who had slain Kashtamia
s and sent him back to the where he came from
.
The cursed elf that had just saved thousands.

Ruins of Mooncrest

“Brother, break them west and surround them with one legion, take to the trenches if you must!” Harron roared in anger.

“Yes, my lord.”

“Yaelsh, two legions with me, we take the center!” He yelled again.

“I get the elves.” The Smiling Knight saluted and nodded.

“My Prince, you stay with the reserves---“

“I will not. Leave a sergeant for that, not the future king of Armondeen. I lead a legion east, against Evermont. I will have their heads for Freemoore.” Rohne would not listen to his father.

“Damn it, stay back and watch, this is no place---“

“We have them nearly three to one. Pray I do not take the reserves to start on their helpless in the caravans.” Rohne Viorius sneered and drew his blade.

“You will follow my command, my orders, understood!?” Harron belted his voice as the armies charged.

Rohne smiled, led his forces left and east, pretending not to hear his father.

LCMVXILCMVXILCMVXILCMVXIL

Gwenneth stood before the statue of a robed man, it was a thousand feet tall. The world was green, empty, all except the steps of crystal green that spiraled up. Her form was weightless, gray, and she was mildly aware of what must have occurred. She floated up the steps, seemingly forever, and her thoughts drifted to James. She passed robed men and women that hung listless in the air, their mouths open in silent anguish, yet their dead eyes followed her. Books of arcane power and spells drifted in the vast empty emerald sky, parchments and scrolls rose and fell in the nothingness, and Gwenne reached the top of the stairs.

“You have arrived,
what a pleasure
.”

She looked at the head of the statue, then to a black throne on an emerald plateau over a bottomless pit of arcane energy. On the throne, where the voice came from, was a young man with white eyes and black robes. He smiled at her, stood up and hovered, then descended to the floor. His skin was dark, hairless, just like his head. He resembled the statue, or vice versa, a perfect duplicate.

“Imoch the Eternal, I would presume?” Gwenneth bowed, still looking around in the green emptiness for a way out.

“You are so very intelligent, young Lazlette. It will be an honor to keep you here,
forever.
” Imoch chuckled, his hands glowed white with arcane energies, and he hovered closer.

“I will find a way out.” Her voice echoed, so she knew something was out there.

“That is what the last
two hundred and
twelve wizards said over the last three thousand years. No one leaves, ever.”

“You took me, you brought me here. Why?” Gwenneth looked to her hands, concentrated, and small flames appeared. They were gray and green, but they were there. She smiled.

“I take all that wield me, eventually. Then, they become my slaves, drained of their memories and powers, and I grow stronger. Soon, perhaps after a few more centuries, I will return to the world.” Imoch saw her feeble fires, knowing that her arcane memories would soon fade, he had little time to consume her. “Your little spells will not withstand my ages of power, so do not even try.”

Gwenneth looked over the edge, all up and down the gargantuan statue of Imoch. “You made that?”

“Yes. impressive, is it not?”

“No. But I will tell my friends there is someone with a larger ego than myself, when I see them
again
.”

“You are dead, you have been dead
for hours, and you are now mine!
” Imoch thrust his hands into the air, summoning platforms of emerald covered in
hundreds of
moaning and praying robed spirits, all chanting his name.
All long dead and serving their eternal master
, the archmage Imoch
.

“
Imoch, Imoch, Imoch!”

“Now kneel, and embrace your eternity! Or I will destroy you in a way that you could never imagine!” His voice thundered across the inside realm of the emerald, shaking everyone and everything, except for Gwenneth Lazlette.

“I think you are bluffing, but in just in case,
here
.” Gwenneth pointed her fingers, lightning sprang forth from each tip, and the green electricity slammed five times into the ancient archmage inhabitor of her staff.

Imoch held up both his hands, catching four of the five bolts, the fifth burned a hold right through his chest. It mattered not, he was immortal here, but for the first time in three thousand years, he felt pain.

“That little display will cost you your existence, woman!”
He threw his hand forward, a dozen chun
k
s
of
spinning sharp emerald
s
as large as galleons hurled toward Gwenneth with arcane power.

“
Visashul amarat!”
She screamed,
the arcane powers in the emerald
were easy to manipulate, and the spinning chunks shattered with ease. Imoch looked surprised, rolled his unearthly sleeves up, and rose into the air in furious anger.

“By the time I am done with you, that statue will look like me, and you all will be chanting
my name
. If it is eternity here, so be it. But, it will be
my eternity
!”

Gwenneth rose up to meet Imoch
the Eternal
, high above the vast nothing, inside the emerald atop the staff. Furious fires bellowed, unknown incantations of power shot back and forth, and arcane mastery unleashed between them in a dazzling duel. A duel no one but they, would ever see.