Chapter 40
Harald strained to lift the Scourge.
He felt mired in cold mud. Eclavistra had unshielded her might, and now blazed before him like a terrifying star, the air made cold and oily by her presence, so that it choked Harald and made it almost impossible to breathe.
The only movement, the only constant source of activity, was the mindlessly voracious hunger of his Well of Starless Dominion.
Even now the abyss continued to drink from the demon queen, ever widening, endlessly draining.
Without Sam’s Covenant, however, which had died with the Starfire Bastion, the demonic power being fed into Harald was raw and corrupted, and he felt it saturating him with Eclavistra’s personality and essence.
But enough time had passed now that Eclavistra had to notice the quantity of dark energy stolen from her. Not enough to impede her actions, but sufficient, surely, to impinge on her total reservoir?
No matter.
It wasn’t enough, and couldn’t be enough.
And Abyssal Imperium was being negated by Eclavistra’s will. His Servitors couldn’t benefit either, for other than the Thunder Lizard stomping its way toward them, all were dead.
Straining, jaw clenched, Harald fought the arch demon’s will, and failed.
Eclavistra stepped up alongside where Sam stood shivering and placed her hand on the nape of Sam’s neck, curling her long ebon talons about Sam’s throat.
“I have to admire your temerity,” she crooned.
“To think you could go up against one such as me. Even as the weakest of my brethren, I am so far outside your understanding that it must beggar your mind. But that doesn’t undo the insult.
Nor the punishment I will now inflict upon you in the depths of my abode. ”
Sam jerked her head to one side, as if trying to deny the demon’s words, and tears brimmed and ran down her cheeks.
Eclavistra gently turned her chin so that Sam stared at Harald.
“There he is. The source of all your misfortunes. Your master. Your demon-tainted brute. Oh, he’s not bad in his own way, but a more selfish creature you’ll never meet.
Only thinking about his power, his needs, his father, how he must be the savior even if it costs everyone their lives.
Here. Kill him for me, and I’ll lessen your punishment. ”
Harald’s fury rose.
And as the demonic essence filled him, as the Well continued to saturate his being with unfettered power, he realized there was another option available.
Demoniac Body.
If he couldn’t swing his blade, then perhaps he could swing claws formed from Eclavistra’s own essence.
With a flexion of his will, he drank deep of the reservoir in his soul, and swelled in size, his hands growing talons, his form massive, his waist narrow, his body endowed with incredible strength and resilience.
Eclavistra raised an eyebrow and leaned in from behind to press her cheek against Sam’s. “See? That’s his true nature. He reveals it at the last. Put him out of his misery. He doesn’t even understand how he’s becoming lost. Think of it as mercy, dear Sam. A chance for you to redeem yourself.”
Harald could almost sense the web of lies and power that the demon was weaving around Sam. A cradle of humming perfidy and horror. Sam struggled, twitching and shivering, and stared at him with such loss that it broke his heart.
Now all he had to do was break… free.
Harald fought Eclavistra’s will.
Fought to stride toward the pair, to raise his talons, to strike her down.
But the arch demon’s power was absolute.
Straining, grinding his fangs together, he managed to lean forward, but that was all.
“Your holy beam will incinerate him where he stands,” whispered Eclavistra. “What does that tell you? What does that mean for your own weapons to be so perfectly suited to erase his dark existence?”
More tears ran down Sam’s cheek, but she refused to lift her hand.
“Do it,” hissed Eclavistra. “Now, while you can yet redeem your soul. It will matter to you when—”
Khazadrok.
The Rune of Destruction clipped Eclavistra in the shoulder and hip, passing through her purple shield even as it flickered into existence, and tore her away from Sam to hurl her spinning in the air.
Even so, Eclavistra’s power remained absolute. Harald could only strain to stare out of the corners of his eyes to where Kársek had lifted his face, rune hammer pointed at them.
The demon queen didn’t hit the ground. She ceased to spin and fly through the air, catching and righting herself to manifest her spiked mace and point it at Kársek.
Who whispered one last word of power.
Thurak.
The ghostly Rune flew through the air, but not at Eclavistra. Instead, it passed clear through Sam, who shuddered as the demon’s enchantment sundered.
“Curse you,” rasped Sam, and her form blazed with power.
The Starfire Bastion coruscated into existence, encapsulating them all once more, and with its appearance Eclavistra’s dominion shattered. Simultaneously, Harald felt Covenant return so that the Well’s deep onslaught on the demon queen now passed once more through her Cosmos.
Harald roared as he bounded forth, springing with impossible speed and agility toward Eclavistra, who sneered and flew back and up into the air.
But his Abyssal Imperium had grown to hamper her flight.
Enough of her own stolen power now swelled his own that the air was growing thick with void shards, distances deceiving, the air even darker.
Numerous translucent blades cut slightly deeper wounds into her pearlescent flesh, and from these shadows began to seep forth and flow toward Harald’s Well.
He was now draining her on twin fronts.
Brianna yet hung limp and broken some yards behind the demon, rising with her as the Dragonslayer Knight’s power kept them connected, and as Harald reached up with one fist to clench it over the sight of Eclavistra, he saw Sam’s Guardian’s Pulse began to burn brightly over the unconscious knight.
Harald snapped his hand into a fist, and willed the abyss to consume Eclavistra.
Shadowed swords erupted around her, slashing and cutting at her purple shield, and while they failed to pierce her defenses, they drove her back yet again.
Again, a halo of golden energy appeared over Eclavistra’s horns—Sam’s Luminous Interdict, marking the demon as her target—which was followed immediately thereafter by another torrent of living sunlight that streamed and filled the air in a great current, engulfing Eclavistra where she hovered.
The demon screamed in rage as she appeared outside the assault and tore open a new portal of burning purple by her side.
She went to pass through it, only to be jerked back again as the great disc of golden light with its living runes and inward facing spikes flared brightly with Sam’s own silver power and prevented her from escaping.
The slumped form of Brianna Hammerfell raised her head, parted her own burgundy hair, and smiled at the demon queen who turned to regard her.
“Where you going?” slurred the Dragonslayer Knight. “We aren’t done here yet.”
Brianna extended her remaining hand, and Wyrmfall appeared in her fist, blazing with white light.
Eclavistra pointed her spiked mace at the wounded warrior, but Harald manifested the hungry darkness around her again, and a hundred shadow blades hewed and cut at her, causing her to snarl an oath and flit away again.
And still Sam’s healing energies played over Brianna.
All this while, the Well had been drinking from the demon. And with each passing second, it had been drinking ever more. An exponential growth so that now such a volume was being poured into Harald’s Cosmos that he felt nauseous, drunk on power, nearly overcome.
Had Sam not been processing it through her Covenant, Harald was certain he’d have been driven mad by the demonic taint.
Instead, he channeled it all into Abyssal Imperium and the Thunder Lizard, who was slowly swelling in size so that he now loomed more massive than a manor house. It raised its great tail and a mass of flickering electrical might blossomed at its tip.
“That’s the thing about us Dragonslayer Knights,” said Brianna, raising Wyrmfall. “If you don’t kill us right away, we become… well. Almost unkillable.”
Eclavistra cast a glance at Sam, then at Harald, then Brianna, and laughed. “This is foolish. We all stand to gain if—”
Brianna surged forward like a tidal wave, and the wall of force that preceded her tore Eclavistra’s skirt to shreds and continued past the demon to seconds later impact the distant cliff face, which cracked and fell apart monstrously in the background.
But it was her first blow with Wyrmfall that truly did the damage.
Somehow, despite having lost her right hand, Brianna attacked the demon with just as much strength and precision, slamming her Legendary Artifact against Eclavistra’s defenses again and again and again with an ever-growing cadence, the blade burning brighter, each blow more powerful.
Eclavistra tried to fly away, but Brianna’s Starfire Bastion-enhanced Crucible kept the demon pinned, so she could only rotate about the knight.
Abruptly, the demon cracked her tail, and a spear of purple light flew toward Sam, its brightness such that the world darkened around it.
Time seemed to slow.
Harald leaned forward and leaped.
His Demoniac Body was all that allowed him to react in time.
He flung himself before the purple spear, his Form of the Black Throne gathering every possible drop of power from the Well to reinforce his shadowed flesh, turning his skin into a hide of adamantine strength.
The purple spear flew right through him, burning a hole in his chest and lancing on to Sam.
Harald hit the ground on his side, Warden’s Pulse already blazing over his wound, and turned to see the spear explode on Sam’s Shield of Valor, which also detonated into fragments.
Sam cried out and fell back, landing on her ass and then tumbling from the force of the detonation.
But the Starfire Bastion held.