Talons of acid sliced the air. The dripping latticework of death sizzled and spat as the foe struck it. A few scraps of armor, it seemed, caught the energy. They dwindled and tumbled as the acid ate through them.
The onrushing foe seemed a human woman, clad more in her own hair than in anything else.That hair was long, as willful as the tentacles of a hunting squid. Those tresses held wands and rings and other items of magic... and even aimed them!
Harboring's second magic slammed into her. The spell created stars of long thorns bristling in all directions, then caused them to explode, hurling their deadly shrapnel. The nearly bare woman writhed in her own blood, studded with dozens of javelinlike thorns, and fell through the air....
Fires of the Pit! She was going to plunge into the still-steaming guts of the dragon! What if she lived and fought on-what would survive of Harboring's meal?
With some alarm, but also with savage glee, the Horned One cast a bloodhook spell and pulled hard. The spell would snatch the human female-torn open and writhing in her death-agonies-to his feet.
The hook plunged home. The woman threw back her head. Cords of straining flesh stood out in her throat. She screamed her pain at the blood-red sky. Then she seemed to leap across the space between them. Somewhere along the way, her helpless parabola became a pounce. Her face grew a grin to match Harboring's own.
Magic flashed and flowed around the human sorceress as the two damned creatures came together. In sudden alarm, the Horned One belatedly conjured burning talons to augment the razor sharpness of his own.
They were just swirling into existence as the foe smashed into his chest, her own hands glowing fiercely.
Harhoring knew worse pain than anything he'd felt since the hand of Asmodeus himself. Red, shrieking agony! The Lord of Bones roared as his foe pierced him, and helplessly, convulsively, shoved her away to free himself-thereby winning greater pain.
The woman's spell had briefly turned her hands into metal fauchard forks, each with a long point that stabbed deep into the goat-devil. A cruel hook below tore the gash wider. Her points drove deep-one piercing right through the devil's body.
Shuddering and flailing, Harhoring spat flaming blood on her and wept more flames as he thrust her away. He pulled himself off her blades with frenzied, convulsive strength.
Coolly she caught both hooks around his exposed intestines as she went. She fell away to one side, and the fury of his shove carried her on past the screaming devil. Her hold on her foe's guts jerked Harhoring sharply around.
Squalling, the horned devil fell from the pinnacle, sprawling onto sharp rocks. Steaming innards tore themselves out of him in the fall. The curseworms reared and writhed in hungry agitation around his midriff.
Thrashing on the rocks in arching, broken agony, the Horned One cursed the hand of Asmodeus, which prevented outcasts from summoning any devil to them and their service. By all the blood in Avernus, he needed aid now!
With twin shimmerings, the woman's hands dwindled back to human form. She wrapped a loop of glistening devil guts around one forearm and began weaving another spell with her free hand.
Harhoring wallowed on the rocks, trying to get upright despite the burning pain of broken bones. He needed to spin a desperate magic of his own.
Harhoring offers little challenge, it seems. Hmmm. I'd thought him one of the strongest among us outcasts. Come, little wizard: it's time for you to see another corner of avernus.
[mindworm fades to quiescence, casting commences, magic rising dark and strong]
Blue-white fire raced along the goat-devil's guts, snarling on its swift journey from the grim and trembling human sorceress to the fallen, thrashing devil.
"Where is he, devil?" the Simbul snapped. Death reached for the Lord of Bones. "What have you done with my man?"
Puzzlement joined rage in the horned devil's eyes. It leveled a shuddering arm to point at her and unleash a last, desperate magic. The harsh word it said next was the beginning of an incantation, not an answer... but then her blood spell reached Harhoring.
The explosion tore the horned devil apart, huge shoulders and all, drenching rocks all around.The Simbul stood, coated in dark ichor. Gore spattered down in a grisly rain that drowned out the sound of her sigh. The trace had laded. She was alone once more. Elminster was gone again, snatched away elsewhere in Avernus.
"Someone wants a lot of devils slain," she said aloud, wearily. "Surely there are more efficient ways of doing that than throwing a lone human mage at them. Even this one."
She looked down at her blood-drenched limbs. A few tiny fragments of armor were still whirling around them. The Simbul shook her head. With a careful spell she transformed the shards into dark wings.The slower way would have to suffice for the rest of this manhunt if her dwindling magic was to see her through another fray.
"Time for Hell to tremble a little more," she murmured and leaped into the blood-red sky.
***
Fiery eyes narrowed. "Saw you that?" a harsh voice rumbled.
"Aye," the nearest pit fiend said."Another incursion that's more than it seems. No human sorceress should have been able to slay Orochal, let alone Tasnya the wanton and as deadly a hunter as Harhoring. Three gone to the flames where none should have fallen."
"Indeed. Whelm our troops. Let there be fire in Avernus- and this human intruder writhing and pleading on my cooking-spit in its midst."
***
"At your dread command," the pit fiend said, bowing its head. It took wing in ungainly, flapping haste. Good sport was not so common in Hell as to be willingly missed.
A ball of flames gouted up from a brazier, with a roar as sudden and sharp as a gong. Horned heads turned.
"Saw you?" asked a deep voice that made the floor tremble with its force, and the listeners with their fear.
"Aye, Dread Lord," they hissed, more or less in chorus, reluctant and anxious.
"To arms," the voice said simply. "Fail me not."
Flames rolled up from the brazier more fiercely than ever before.There was a sudden tumult as devils scrambled to leave that trembling place.
***
Well, well. Your witch-queen has snared more than a little attention in hell among the deep and powerful hosts wheimed, mighty magic taken out of hiding, nergal happy...
Pet humans once more of service, hmm?
Cleverness, cleverness! Always I'm treated to elminster being witty, elminster making mocking pronouncements, elminster saving the day with a sneer for the dolts he deals with! I could wrench you to bloody pulp in an instant, flames take you.'
And yet ye don't. Why?
Because no other devil in heu. Has a human in his hands who personali.y serves a goddess and holds any trifling measure of her power. Some deviis cajole or threaten or influence morals outside heu, but you're mine, body and mind. Obviously powerful and wise, and potentially very useful and yet i can't manage to learn anything useful from you. Yet.
And-?
and I won'twait much longer. You wiu yield m me, or die
AS HORRIBLY AS I CAN CONTRIVE. that is, if malachlabra doesn't get you first.
[unvoiced human query, mental eyebrow raised]
On, yes. she survived our uttle battle over you, it seems,
BUT HAS GOING INTO HIDING FOR FEAR OF Nl-RGAL THE MlGHTY... SO IT'S ONLY FfTTING THAT I GO TO HER. OR RATHER, SEND HER TWO LITTLE GIFTS. YOU AND YOUR AVENGING IADY LOVE.
[rising bellow of diabolic laughter]