Chapter 24
Acrowd had gathered at the edge of the camp by the time they returned. Fu-lon and a dozen others were watching a hill nearby.
“Did you hear that, too?” Raiya asked as she approached.
Fu-lon gestured toward the hills with her cane. Raiya followed her gaze. After a few moments, a faint orange flash lit up the horizon—the kind that only came from magic or fire.
Fu-lon turned to one of the other shepherds. “Make sure the herd is secure. They’ll spook and run.” The shepherd nodded and hurried toward the grazing behelgi.
There was another screech, and then a large shape came over the hill. It was high in the air, flapping batlike wings.
It was unmistakably demonic, looking like a cross between Azreth and a dragon. Black scales and plates dotted a vaguely humanoid body, and horns and spikes tipped its reptilian head and tail. A gout of fire burst from its mouth into the air.
The group drew back, gasping in unison. “A demon?” someone asked.
“A vythian,” Azreth corrected them, his expression dark. “Another creature from the hells.”
“Astra preserve us,” someone said.
The vythian turned its head in their direction. It studied them from a distance, and then, as if it had found its target, it accelerated toward them, its wings shaping it like an arrow in flight.
Fu-lon turned to the others. “Take shelter in the city. Leave the behelgi.”
Raiya was startled by the command. The behelgi were the Roamers’ livelihood. Losing them would mean losing everything. It was not a command that would be made lightly.
“The vythian will set fire to them if you leave them,” Azreth said to Fu-lon. “They will all die.”
The shepherd gave him a solemn look, her lips tight. “I know.”
Azreth’s brows twitched. He watched the others help Fu-lon hobble back toward the city.
Raiya grabbed his arm. “We need to make sure Jai and Madira are safe.”
He nodded, following her to their tent. The vythian was gliding rapidly closer.
“How could it have gotten here?” Raiya asked.
“Vythians are not intelligent creatures. It is unlikely that it found a way out of the hells on its own.”
So who had brought it here?
“Where are the Paladins when you need them?” Raiya muttered.
“The Paladins would all fall before a vythian. They would be no help.”
They found the elves in front of their tent, huddled together and staring up at the sky with horror. Madira had drawn his sword, though what he planned to do with it against that thing, she had no idea.
Jai grabbed onto Raiya as she arrived. “There you are! Didn’t you see there’s a fucking giant demon in the sky? Come on, let’s get out of here.”
Madira scowled at her. “Jai, don’t curse. It makes you sound stupid.”
“If there was ever an occasion for cursing, it’s when a demon is about to kill you.” She pulled on Raiya’s sleeve, tugging her toward town, where everyone else was running.
There was a blast of heat and light, and all of them flinched. The vythian had released a jet of flame from its mouth, engulfing several tents in fire. Even from several dozen yards away, Raiya could feel the heat on her face. By the time it stopped, the tents and their contents were smoldering ash. Raiya reached for Azreth without thinking. He took her hand reassuringly.
“We must get to the city and behind something solid,” he said.
“And when it sets fire to the town?” Raiya asked as they ran. Azreth didn’t reply.
They were halfway to the city wall when there was a screech behind them, so close and loud that Raiya had to stop and cover her ears. Azreth’s arm wrapped around her and held her against him to shield her with his body. Powerful gusts of wind buffeted her as enormous wings flapped above them. Up close, she realized the creature was nearly the size of a small house.
The vythian swooped down on them and then glided away, seemingly for fun. It made a series of short screeches that sounded almost like laughter, and she had to wonder whether Azreth was certain that it wasn’t intelligent.
They ducked behind the stables outside the town gate, all of them breathing hard from the sprint. Raiya could hear the behelgi and horses inside the stable stomping nervously. As the vythian circled above them, its head turned toward the Roamers’ behelgi, and its gaze lingered on the animals. Then it turned and started flying toward the herd.
Azreth straightened. Sparkling, magenta wings sprouted from his back.
Raiya raised her eyebrows. “Where are you going?”
He flapped twice and then leapt into the air. Raiya stared after him, gaping. He was heading toward the vythian.
She turned to the elves. “Into the stable. Stay out of sight.” They all crept inside. Jai patted the noses of nervous horses, whispering to soothe them. Raiya couldn’t keep her eyes off Azreth and the vythian. When the vythian arched its back and drew a deep breath, its mouth aglow with the promise of death for the herd, she stopped, frozen.
Before it could release its fire, Azreth slammed into it at high speed, grabbing it around the neck. The vythian screeched, tumbling through the air. With a powerful flex of its body, it shook Azreth off. There was black blood oozing from the vythian’s neck, and Raiya realized Azreth must have used his teeth.
He dove and righted himself, coming at the creature again. This time, he attacked its wing, ripping at it with his bare hands as he flew past. The vythian roared. Azreth had torn a hole in the webbing of its left wing, and now it was flapping erratically as it spiraled. As it fell, its heavy tail lashed out and hit Azreth across his middle. His wings disappeared, and he dropped like a stone. Both of them hit the ground, sending tremors through the earth.
The vythian scrambled onto its hands and feet, its posture hunched and inhuman. Azreth was still shakily trying to rise as the vythian galloped toward him with its jaws agape and razor teeth flashing.
Raiya jumped up, raising her baton. The runes glowed bright as she took aim at the vythian, and just as the monster’s teeth were nearing Azreth’s head, a bolt of magic energy exploded from the baton. It shot clear across the camp to blast the vythian in its side. The creature stumbled, giving a hoarse cry, and Azreth’s head jerked toward Raiya. Even from this distance, she could see his look of disapproval, but she’d just saved him from having his head bitten off, so she returned the look. The handle of the baton was hot and prickling with energy, and her hair felt like it was standing on end. The baton didn’t make her feel like a fearsome elven warrior princess the way her bow did, but it was certainly effective.
The vythian’s scales were blackened and cracked where the attack had hit, but it seemed to have done little real damage. The thing was even sturdier than Azreth was. She needed a stronger weapon.
She turned to Madira and Jai. “Iron. Find some iron. Quickly.”
“Like an iron knife?” Jai asked. “A spear?”
“I don’t know. Anything. Whatever you can find.”
The elves exchanged a skeptical glance, then began searching the stable.
In the distance, Azreth backed away from the vythian, teeth bared in a grimace, and the vythian followed, circling him. Azreth waved his hands around him. He was weaving magic into a spell.
From nothing, a bright light burst forth and shaped itself into an enormous, shining, magenta sword, big enough to match the vythian’s size. It hung in the air above him, as if wielded by an invisible hand. Azreth swung his arm, and the ghostly sword echoed the movement, swiping toward the vythian. The vythian screeched again as the sword struck it, but it wasn’t bleeding. It couldn’t have done more than bruise the thing.
Raiya kept one eye on them as she scanned the room for metal. There were hinges on the doors. Stirrups on the row of saddles hanging on the wall. Bits of something silver on the bridles and Madira’s armor and on her own shoes. Much of it did not look to be pure iron, but other metals or alloys. She grabbed anything that looked promising, prying up loose nails and grabbing horse shoes from hooks on the wall. Madira handed her a knife so she could cut the stirrups from the saddles.
A long-handled broom leaned against the wall. She grabbed it, then found a roll of twine. She dumped out her satchel and shoved all the clanking iron bits inside, then began winding twine around and around the bag to attach it to the end of the broom handle, her hands moving like a madwoman’s.
“What are you going to do with that?” Jai asked.
She knotted the twine over and over to be sure it was secure on the broom. Gods, she must have lost her mind. “Kill the vythian?” she asked.
“Is that a joke?” Madira asked.
Raiya chose not to answer as she hefted the broom in both hands. She looked across the fields to where Azreth still fought. Just as she looked up, the vythian cocked its head back and breathed a massive jet of fire. Azreth flung his arm in front of his face defensively, and the blaze of fire engulfed him completely. Raiya’s breath caught in her throat.
It was only then that she realized there was a crowd watching the fight from near the city gate, because all of them screamed and gasped as the flames overtook Azreth. The blaze seemed to last forever. Raiya wondered if the vythian would ever run out of breath.
But finally, it did. The jet shrank and then died, bits of flame and sparks spiraling away as it shut its jaws. And Azreth was still standing there, his arm over his eyes. His body steamed and smoked, his cloak was gone, burned to nothing, and only his demon-crafted sarong remained. But he was unharmed. He slowly lowered his arm to look defiantly at the vythian, and the vythian gave a screech that almost sounded irritated.
Azreth must have finally decided there was no more point in maintaining any pretense about what he was, because his glamour flickered away, baring his cobalt skin and horns to the world. There was another concerned murmur from the nearby crowd.
But the fight wasn’t over. The vythian darted for him again, its damaged wing dragging beside it. Azreth jumped back, bringing his floating sword down to knock the vythian aside. Raiya could see Azreth tiring. His movements were becoming slower.
She started running toward him. Toward a fight between a vythian and a demon. She had definitely lost her mind.
The duel went on as she ran, until Azreth’s floating sword disappeared. He’d run out of magic. The vythian saw its opportunity and dove in, teeth bared.
Raiya screamed as the vythian grasped Azreth in its jaws and bit down, teeth piercing his shoulder and chest. Azreth contorted to reach up and jab his fingers into the creature’s eye, raking it viciously. The vythian dropped him, shaking its head. Its eye was a ruined mess of gore. Azreth staggered, leaking black blood everywhere.
“Hey!” Raiya screamed at the beast. It ignored her until she waved her broom in the air, the attached iron-filled satchel swinging, and then the vythian turned to look at her. “That’s right,” she said. “Leave him alone. Come here.”
It did.
The vythian stalked toward her at a frightening pace, and Raiya’s knees threatened to collapse beneath her. She forced herself to run toward it.
It drew back its head and opened its mouth, its throat filled with pent-up heat. The scent of boiling metal and burning flesh singed her nose, and hot wind from its maw blew back her hair.
With a shout, she raised the broom above her head and jabbed it forward, shoving the satchel of iron into the vythian’s mouth. The end of the broom stuck deep in the back of its throat, and the vythian recoiled, choking.
The broom was ripped from her hands as the vythian withdrew. It backed up, trying to dislodge the stick from its mouth. It was too deep, possibly stuck in the flesh of its soft palate. And then the iron began to take effect.
The vythian panicked. It heaved and retched, foul-smelling steam erupting from its mouth. The broom remained stuck, the iron burning it from the inside out.
Its struggles didn’t last long. The vythian collapsed, heaving a few last labored breaths before it went still. The metallic poison had done its job more effectively than Raiya had ever imagined.
She turned to Azreth, who was kneeling nearby, clutching his wounds as he watched her in disbelief. Punctures on his shoulder and stomach were bleeding freely. Raiya ran to him, pressing her hands against his shoulder to try and stop the worst of the bleeding. He grimaced at her touch.
“Azreth,” she gasped. “That was foolish of you to fight that thing alone. Damn you, that was foolish.”
“Are you hurt?” he said.
“No.” He was practically bleeding out, but he was worried about her. She wanted to hug him, but she thought it might cause him pain. “You saved everyone. The whole camp. The whole town.”
“The behelgi?” he asked.
Raiya choked on a laugh. Perhaps he cared more about the welfare of the animals than the people.
She looked over at the herd. The fires hadn’t touched them. They were frightened, but were being calmed and corralled by a few shepherds who had lingered despite Fu-lon’s orders.
“They’re fine,” she said. “They’re all fine.”
Azreth nodded. He allowed himself to slump a little, as if it was an effort to even hold himself upright. His gaze moved toward the crowd in front of the city. They were staring. None of them had moved yet.
Raiya noted that Azreth’s prosthetic arm had disappeared. “Do you have enough magic to heal yourself?” she asked.
He slowly shook his head, then tried to stand. “Help me,” he said, reaching for her. Raiya’s eyes widened. She wrapped an arm around his back and let him lean on her as he stood up. She staggered under his considerable weight.
“You need to be healed,” she said.
“I will survive as long as the people do not attack,” he said. Given the amount of blood streaming down his chest, she wasn’t too sure. “I can’t fight them. We must go. Please.”
She nodded rapidly. “We’ll go. I have my baton. I won’t let them hurt you.”
They started moving away from the town, but he couldn’t manage more than a slow walk. Soon, people were breaking off from the group to approach the vythian, and perhaps to follow her and Azreth. She kept moving and tried not to look back.