The Temple of Yellow Skulls (43 page)

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 turned 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.

It took effort but Tiktag pushed back the call.

He’d thought he could save his master, but Vestapalk had never been in danger. The dragon had embraced his transformation. The only one Tiktag had failed to save was himself. He had tried to fight the Voidharrow when he realized Albanon and the drow were doing the same thing, but he’d been too late. The part of him that was Tiktag hung above the maw that was a demon.

How much longer did he have? For now, he was still here. For now, he was still Tiktag. He could still fight.

I do not want this
, he screamed into the silence of his mind,
I do not want to be like Vestapalk! I reject him. I reject the Voidharrow!

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

Tiktag’s head snapped up at the words. Raid stood like a giant, confident and strong. Albanon, Shara, and Uldane fought back to back with the drow and the human priest, surrounded by brutes, spiders, and Raid. They were like him, Tiktag realized, holding their own but only until they fell. More like him than he could ever have hoped to be like Vestapalk.

The first time Tiktag had seen Raid, a part of him had hated the man’s strength. His ability to challenge even Vestapalk. Tiktag remembered wondering if he’d ever be able to challenge a dragon himself.

But he had done that, hadn’t he? He’d resisted Vestapalk and the Voidharrow. He was stronger than he thought.

And he wasn’t finished fighting yet.

Albanon’s gut dropped as the demon that had been Tiktag moved for the first time.

What had it been waiting for? Thin crystal wings spread and blurred as it leaped into the battle. Something unfurled from behind the demon’s shoulder—long, lashing, grasping tentacles. Albanon’s gut dropped even further.

Until the tentacles wrapped themselves around Raid’s arms. The bigger demon cursed and turned, but Tiktag pulled back, hauling him off balance.

And for the moment, out of combat.

Albanon caught the flicker of a glance from Tiktag’s single eye. As Shara and Kri—Uldane had joined Quarhaun holding off the spiders—blinked at the sight of one demon fighting another, the eladrin clenched his jaw. “Don’t let up!” he shouted. “He’s helping us!” Wishing he had his staff now, he conjured
a bolt of silvery force from the air and hurled it at the nearest brute. The thing staggered back, briefly dazed.

Shara seized her opportunity. She swung hard, putting all of her weight behind a sweeping upward cut. Her greatsword sliced into the demon’s stomach, tore through its chest, and sheared up into its head. The creature’s skull might have been thick and armored above, but from below it was soft and vulnerable. The force of the blow snapped its head back. Shara’s sword grated along the inside of its skull plate. The demon toppled instantly.

Raid snarled in anger. He yanked hard on the tentacles restraining him and Tiktag, smaller and lighter was dragged through the air. One tentacle let go of Raid’s arm and slapped at his face. The larger demon roared and snapped sharp teeth at it.

Kri’s expression turned grim. He raised his holy symbol.
“Let the light of the gods rise against our enemies!”