Chapter 12 Baying of the Hounds #2
He raised his hand and motioned for some Reskala to move forward into the darkness. The monsters descended, answering the call. First, they moved as mist—thick, black, writhing along the ground like smoke with a pulse. Then they caught the light and erupted.
Not into hounds, but into broken things. Things that had once seen a man and gotten the idea all wrong. Some had human legs where arms should be. Others ran on their hands with their spines bent backwards. Heads hung on broken necks. Mouths stretched open as they screamed.
“No! Please! Don’t!” one shrieked, breaking from the mist and leaping upwards. It was larger than Resh and Zarrek combined. In mid-air, its bones broke, snapped, and crackled as it shifted shape, its slimy skin erupting in waves of spikes and teeth.
Zarrek didn’t hesitate. His eyes burst into gold flames as he crouched then lunged into the air. With a great cleave, he ripped the beast in twain, sending both halves flying far into the murky night.
A cluster of smaller beasts tore from the body of the mist in turn. They shrieked, flailing cracked limbs and protruding bones into the air as they raced toward Resh. He raised one hand and took a step.
Pulled from deep within the aethersteel.
His armor dug its claws into his ribs, as it ripped mana from the rune just below his lung.
“Shera’eth thor,” Resh murmured, and the ground beneath him howled.
The mud, the grass, the rain all turned to dust as magefire spread outwards, enveloping the field. The varkhounds caught in the flames still ran, heedless of their bodies burning.
Still screaming. Eyes ravenous. Maws open. Hungry for his blood. The hounds converged, the mist closing in to surround the camp in one big circle. Something heavy landed at his back.
Resh smiled. “Getting bored?” he asked without turning around.
A pack of hounds had followed his Second, and as Resh lit them on fire, a huge axe shaved their heads clean off their shoulders.
“Your back’s wide open,” Zarrek scowled, spitting on the corpses.
“You just focus on your front,” Resh grinned, snapping his fingers. One by one, wards bloomed around them both, humming golden mana spinning around them and hardening into a shield. “Last thing you need is another scar.”
From there, all mirth faded from the Resh’Agar. Raising both blades, he crouched then jumped. The earth cracked outwards from the force.
He flew into the mist like a flame soaring from the heavens, igniting all he passed in an inferno of blue light. He was a whirlwind of death and magic—spinning, twisting, ducking, arching. His blade eviscerated all in their path, leaving naught but screams and sprays of blood in their chaotic wake.
The voices pressed in from all sides, the smell of rot and putrid flesh like a wall pushing up against his limbs. He cut that, too, setting the gasses in the air aflame, basking in the sea of death and carnage.
On his right, Zarrek charged into the fire, igniting the runes on his arms to condense the mana into pulsing orbs. He spun in an arc, hitting them all with his massive axe, and as they flew outward, they exploded.
Bodies flew. Left and right and up and down. Soon, Resh was wading in their blood. It steamed as it evaporated on his armor, smelling of gore and taint.
They pushed the horde back from the front and doubled back, supporting the Reskala on the western side of the field.
“Wards!” Resh shouted, raising his fist into the air. Select Riftwardens mirrored him, bolstering his spell with theirs to rejuvenate the aegis hovering above the camp.
Just in time.
The air imploded then rippled outward, knocking some of the Reskala back.
Resh and Zarrek stood their ground, his Second activating two more runes on his collarbone.
“Packmothers,” he sneered.
“Two at least,” Resh added.
He and Zarrek knocked their weapons together, the aethersteel ringing in the hiss of the crusty, burning air.
“You take the left,” Zarrek said. “Bring her on top of me.”
Resh nodded a split second before something hit the wards again.
The shield groaned.
Then cracked.
From above, two shadows fell like meteors, so heavy the ground sundered beneath their weight. Resh went left. From the black mass, a face appeared. Part human. Part—something else.
It looked at him with huge white eyes; its maw opening to reveal rows of sharp-edged teeth. Ichor leaked from its convulsing throat, and just as Resh raised his hand to set its limbs ablaze, its voice called out—
“Kailorien…”
Time stopped.
“Kailorien…help me…”
Resh couldn’t breathe. Without a doubt, it was her voice.
No.
No, no, no.
That wasn’t—
That couldn’t be—
Auryn was alive.
She was alive.
But the hounds only took voices of the dead.
He turned. Couldn’t stop himself. Back to the tetheryard, where the horses were. His rune of foresight, Perthro, turned him back.
He dodged.
Rolled.
A breeze passed by his neck.
He flew to his feet, blade at the ready, centuries of bloodbaths steeling his will against a rising fear.
“Kailoriennnn…” the voice wailed again.
He tuned it out, snapping his fingers to bypass incantations. The armor sank its teeth into his spine. The pain was welcome. Grounding.
He jumped again, landing on top of the writhing packmother and sinking his blades into her skull.
She shrieked and bucked. As he flipped backwards off of her, a chain of light followed his flight.
Grasping the mana chain in both his massive hands, he pulled the beast around.
Mid-charge, it was forced to change trajectory.
Resh ran toward Zarrek, who was fighting another packmother on his own.
The two beasts collided. Voices rose to fever pitch, overlapping until they morphed into a single wail. Zarrek vanished then reappeared in the air atop both monsters. Flipping forward, he cleaved the air with his huge axe. A blade of light came down and cut the packmothers clean in half.
Resh didn’t wait. He looked—desperate—toward the horses. A scream broke out. Fully human this time.
“Rift! Rift by the tetheryard!”