Fuming, Aliisza squeezed through a narrow gap in the tunnel. Gods and devils, Kaanyr, what were you thinking? "Let's find another route and flank them." Brilliant if you know the tunnels well, but I'm so turned around now, I've got no idea where we are. And now they're chasing us, and you've gotten too far ahead. Wait for me, you thrice-damned-
She cast a quick glance behind her and spied the bearded devil that was chasing her. He caught up to her and swung his heavy polearm, topped with a thick, serrated chopping blade, at her head.
She ducked and the blade whistled over her.
A sharp ring of steel on stone reverberated just behind her ear. Chips of stone sprayed the back of her neck. Aliisza pushed past the bottleneck in the passage, then she turned to face her pursuer again. He grinned at her, licking his cracked, blackened lips, and thrust his blade through the gap for another attack.
Aliisza grimaced, shook her head in disgust, and lunged away. The stretch of tunnel before her opened up into a wide path, and the smooth floor was devoid of obstacles. She took off running.
As she retreated, Aliisza went back over Kaanyr's final conversation with her. Did he really get trapped by his own logic? she wondered. Then another idea struck, and it horrified her. Maybe he has begun to figure out a way to manipulate his own thoughts, convince himself a certain course of action is in Tauran's best interests. Can he deceive himself and thus circumvent the spell? Surely not.
But newfound doubt lingered in the back of her mind.
She neared a turn in the tunnel and could sense the bearded fiend behind her closing the distance once again. She marveled at how fast he could move.
Time for a little surprise, she decided.
As she reached the bend in the path, she planted her foot against the rocky surface. She leaped into the air and pushed herself backward. She flipped over so that she faced downward again and unfurled her wings enough to glide. The alu sailed over her pursuer, who stared up as his momentum carried him past her.
Aliisza landed behind the creature and slashed at him with her long sword. The blade bit into the fiend's moist, scaly flesh and drew black blood, but the cut did little to slow the devil. He snarled, turned around, then rushed at her again. He swung his nasty, serrated glaive with both of his clawed hands. The foul odor of his breath wafted from him, making Aliisza gag.
Another fiend arrived at the far end of the stretch of tunnel and rushed pell-mell toward Aliisza. She spied him raising a saw-toothed blade to strike at her. She kicked out with her booted foot and caught him squarely in the chest before he could land his blow. The impact drove the creature backward, but it also distracted her enough that her original opponent got inside her guard with his longer weapon and nicked her shoulder.
Aliisza grunted from the wound. It burned, and hot blood ran down her back inside her leather tunic. She tried to ignore the pain and refocus her attention on her two foes, who had her pinned between them in the narrow tunnel.
This killing things isn't as fun as it used to be, she decided. Where in the Hells is Kaanyr? Is he going to figure out he left me behind?
She knocked away a swipe aimed at her head.
She leaped a second, lower attack from the opposite side and summoned a collection of magical darts. The whistling, streaking blue missiles shot from the tip of her finger and burrowed into the devil's chest in rapid succession, leaving four scorched, smoking holes in the howling creature. He fell back, screaming in agony and clawing at his wounds.
Aliisza tried to ignore the painful twisting of her insides from the tainted magic.
The first devil slashed at Aliisza with his glaive again, and when she parried, she struck her foe's weapon hard enough that she jarred it loose from his hands. The loss of the glaive didn't seem to faze the creature one bit. He simply smiled malevolently and lunged at her with both his clawed hands extended.
"Pretty meat to tear and eat," the devil crooned as he grappled with Aliisza and pinned her arms to her sides.
She struggled free and fought to keep him at bay, slashing at his arms to prevent them from reaching her. Each time her blade struck, it cut into the fiend, but she simply wasn't having much of an effect on the devil.
"Begone!" she screamed as she brought her foot up between herself and the devil. "Go back to the hole from which you crawled!"
She shoved the devil away before he could get any closer. As he stumbled back and fell on his fleshy tail, she willed another set of the arcane missiles into being and flicked her fingers, flinging them from the tips so that they rushed at the thing. Three of the four blue projectiles pounded him, while the fourth fizzled out with a mild pop. Still, the magic did the trick. The devil fell, twitched, and writhed upon the stone.
Aliisza whirled back around, fighting not to hunch over in pain. The other bearded fiend was struggling to regain his feet. He staggered unsteadily but would not stop coming. She spied three more of the things scampering toward her from the far end of the tunnel, along with another devil covered in wicked-looking barbs. It reminded Aliisza of a cross between a lizard and a porcupine. The four of them crowded together, bumping and jostling one another as they tried to be the first to reach their target.
Aliisza sighed in exasperation and chose another spell. The magic came almost unbidden to her then; she no longer had to think about what she needed to do, only brace herself for the accompanying pain each casting inflicted upon her.
Whatever else may have been wrong with living under Tyr's shadow, at least I didn't have to put up with the vile stench of devils all day, she lamented, only half in jest.
She waited until the horde of devils closed to only a few paces away. Then she gestured at an area directly behind them and let fly the magic. At the same time, she opened one of her magical doorways. The moment the conjuration was completed, she fell through her doorway and let it wink out before any of the foul creatures could follow her through.
She reappeared further up the passage, back in the direction she had originally come, and crumpled to the floor in agony. Her blade slipped from her hand as she writhed. She fought to catch her breath. She managed to glance back over her shoulder to catch a glimpse of her handiwork. A thick sheet of ice filled the passage from wall to wall and floor to ceiling, sealing the devils on the other side of it.
Aliisza could hear the fiends slam against the icy barrier from the other side. She clutched her stomach and willed the pain to dissipate. The blue glow emanating from her subsided, and she felt the gnawing of her insides ease at last. As she grabbed the hilt of her weapon and rose from her hands and knees to her feet again, two or three more thumps shook the thick slab, but it did not budge.
That ought to hold them, she thought as she managed to stand upright. I'll just return to the last intersection and wait for Kaanyr. When he realizes he left me behind, he's bound to come back looking for me.
Isn't he?
Before she could turn to retrace her path, though, the devils materialized on the near side of the ice.
Aliisza groaned. Not this again, she thought, turning to sprint away. I had enough of this with the archons!
She ran back down the stretch of tunnel and slipped past the narrow gap, rushing through the winding, twisting passage. She fought against the urge to employ more magic to aid her in escaping.
Not unless absolutely necessary, she told herself.
She could hear the devils behind her as she darted around one bend and then another, racing to reach the intersection where she believed she had taken a wrong turn and lost track of Kaanyr.
Ahead, more sounds of fighting reached her ears. She feared running into a hornets nest of trouble in that direction, but she knew she was outrunning certain difficulties behind her, so she resisted slowing down. The sounds of clanging steel and screaming combatants grew louder.
Aliisza turned another corner and nearly collided with a hulking froglike demon. A hezrou demon. The stout creature towered over a dead devil, nearly filling the tunnel with its broad, slimy body. Body parts and blood from its deceased foe splattered much of the floor. It opened its wide, teeth-filled mouth and growled at the half-fiend, then drew back a claw to strike at her.
"Wait!" she gasped, cringing back from the impending strike. "I fight for your mistress! Grekzith brought me before her! We're on the same side!"
The beast snarled again and pushed her aside.
"Then get out of my way," it rumbled.
"Several devils coming," she said as the behemoth demon stalked past. "Stinking, filthy barbed things."
The hezrou snorted and said nothing, but it sat back on its haunches and maneuvered its hands in front of itself in what Aliisza recognized as arcane gestures. She waited and watched, and as the first of the devils careened around the corner, the big frog-thing flung its spell. The barbed devil slipped and stumbled as it tried to halt, clearly surprised at the unexpected blockage in the passage.
The demon had timed its magic well, and a cascade of bouncing, multi-colored energy burst forward from it, ricocheting off the floor, walls, and ceiling like balls of madly flashing light. The globes of power pummeled the devil and the two that slid to a stop next to it, buffeting them and knocking them backward with considerable force. The devils howled and tried to swat the swarming attacks away.
Relieved that the hezrou had slowed the devils down, Aliisza turned back to her journey. I forgot how disgusting those things are, she thought. I must have grown soft while a guest at the Court.
She reached the three-way intersection a few paces later and turned down the only remaining path she had not yet traversed. She listened for sounds of threats or anything else that might give her a notion of where Kaanyr was, but the tunnel ahead was silent. Only the mad fight between the hezrou and the devils reached her.
Aliisza came to a slight incline in the path and followed it up. As she rounded another sharp bend in the passage, she found herself near the ceiling of a much larger cavern. She stood upon a small outcropping, much like a balcony, that overlooked a roomier chamber below.
A vast collection of prisoners stretched out before her.
Aliisza could see that the captives were not fiends. The humans and humanoids hailed from faraway places, and their shredded rags and bruised bodies gave her the distinct impression they had been incarcerated for a long while. Someone had chained them together in cruel ways that rendered them virtually immobile.
Demonic guards stood watch over them, brandishing weapons and viciously poking and prodding their hostages for the pure glee of watching them squirm. More than a few prisoners cried out in anguish, but those were silenced again with a well-placed kick or punch. Sometimes permanently.
Aliisza grimaced at the display, but she had no time to feel sorry for them. Their own lot in life, she thought. I have problems too.
A commotion erupted from one side of the room. A throng of devils rushed in, swarming over prisoners and guards alike. They attacked viciously, striking to kill the demons and steal the prisoners. The demons, caught off guard for a moment, recovered and struck back, battling the devils with depraved abandon. The chamber became a whirlwind of screaming, thrashing fiends carving one another up with furious hatred.
To prevent the devils from making off with their prizes, the demons began slaying the prisoners. The panicked wails of the hostages made Aliisza cringe.
I was that brutal once, she realized. Does that make it worse to watch now? Can I simply no longer abide the wretched cruelty of fellow fiends, knowing I was once that cruel, or do they behave more mindlessly, more ruthlessly than I remember? It seems I can no longer tell the difference.
Aliisza wanted to rush forward, to swoop down upon both devil and demon alike and scour them from the room with her magic, but she knew she would succumb to the backlash of her curse long before she could destroy them all.
And then I could not aid Tauran and Kael to return ho-
Aliisza gasped. They are in danger! she realized. The fiends will find them and kill them, just because they can. I've got to reach them first! She hesitated a moment, pulled between her worries for Kaanyr and the other two.
She turned and sped back the way she came, hoping to find the route that would return her to her companions.
"I can hear them fighting ahead," Kaanyr said, increasing his pace. "Come."
He raced up a steep slope to a point where the passage became a narrow chimney. They would have to climb up. He glanced back as he reached the vertical shaft to see if Aliisza needed help.
She was not there.
Kaanyr stopped and peered back down the ragged stone tunnel, watching for the alu, but she did not appear. Frowning, he called to her.
She must have gotten lost, Kaanyr thought. He shrugged and turned away. She can take care of herself.
He continued forward, toward the sound of fighting. The ring of weapon on weapon, the death cries, quickened his heartbeat. Once he reached the top of the chimney, he slipped his sword-he had taken to calling it Spitefang-free and grinned. Time to shed a little blood, he thought.
The path took him down and around two more bends, and then he was in an open chamber filled with furiously battling fiends. He had entered the vast cavern along one side, away from the main swirl of melee. The demons and devils battled on the far side, across a strange irregular floor filled with large holes of various sizes and shapes. Kaanyr stepped close to the nearest one and peered down. He could see no bottom; it descended into absolute blackness.
The demons and devils screeched and howled as they slammed into one another, desperate to rend and crush their foes with tooth, claw, and weapon. Kaanyr could see that the opposing creatures outnumbered the abyssal fiends by a substantial amount, and the battle was not going well.
Long years of military instinct took over, and Kaanyr assessed the situation with an eye of how to improve the situation. He spied a small patrol of demons that had just charged into the chamber from another entrance not far from him. Acting quickly, he rushed over to cut them off, navigating his way between the odd craters that filled the floor. It was like traversing a series of narrow stone bridges, but he did not fear falling in.
"You, come with me," Kaanyr ordered as he reached the group of perhaps a dozen tall, gaunt, ram-headed demons. He had to step in front of them to keep them from rushing forward into the battle.
They glared at him, and one, holding its overly large spear-headed polearm in one hand like a staff, half-walked, half-hopped to stand before the cambion and rose up to its full height. "Skewer you!" it snarled, spraying spittle from its thin, fanged mouth at him. "We take no orders from a half-breed."
The other demons grumbled in agreement. To punctuate its defiance, the first whipped its long, bristle-tipped tail back and forth and drew the long weapon back to strike at Kaanyr.
He sighed, smirked, and levitated up into the air by means of his innate magic. He slashed Spitefang through the air in one clean motion. The demon's rheumy eyes widened in surprise as its head separated from its body in a spurt of black blood. Both head and carcass toppled over and plummeted into one of the strange craters in the uneven floor.
Kaanyr gave the rest of the band of demons a hard stare as they watched their companion disappear into the fathomless blackness. "Anyone else want to debate?" he asked.
The creatures snarled and grumbled, but none of them openly defied him.
"Excellent choice," he said. "Now let's go."
It felt so good to assume command again. It had been far too long.
Kaanyr led the troop of fiends forward, navigating through the maze of holes, toward where the rest of the demons still struggled to hold their position against the invading devils. They had been overrun, separated into isolated groups surrounded by their foes. If Kaanyr did not act quickly, the entire fight would be lost.
He sent half the new demons accompanying him to flank the horde of devils on one side. "Wait for my signal," he instructed the creatures. "I mean it," he added, giving them a pointed stare. "We must strike as one, together."
The other demons grimaced and gnashed their teeth, but none of them argued. They turned and scurried in the direction Kaanyr sent them.
He suspected they would only hold off for a few moments before battle-lust overcame them. Their fear of me won't stay their weapons for long, he thought, but we'll make sure it's enough.
He led the other contingent of reinforcements to the opposite side and surveyed the battle once more.
"We must hurry," one of the creatures near him growled. "There is blood-letting to be done."
"Indeed," Kaanyr replied, "but if we do not hit them in the right place, the blood will be ours." He raised an arm and pointed to a location where several devils were milling in confusion. "There," he said. "Go."
With shrieks and howls of glee, the half-dozen or so creatures rushed forward, thrusting their polearms at their targets. They slammed into their enemies and skewered the first few of the devils. It happened so fast, the devils did not have time to react. As the first fell, the demons swarmed and overwhelmed the next rank. Then the devils turned to fight back, and the fight grew hot.
Kaanyr rose into the air to get a better view of the overall battle. The demons he had sent to the far side were just joining in the fray from there. Somehow they had managed to time their attack as Kaanyr wished.
Excellent, he thought, smiling. This might work out well after all.
He spotted an enemy commander that stood a bit apart from the others and directed their forces. Half-human like himself, the leader stood upon a large protrusion of rock. A fine breastplate adorned the half-devil, beneath which he wore fancy clothing. A pair of small, curled horns protruded from his forehead, and his skin was tinged red. He wore an oiled black goatee and wielded a pair of falchions that dripped with a vile, greenish substance.
Kaanyr engaged his magical cloak and headed toward the opposing commander. The half-devil spied him approaching and gave the cambion a smile and a mocking salute with one of his blades, then took to the air himself.
The two half-fiends swirled toward one another in the air above the larger battle. Kaanyr launched a thrust with Spitefang and watched to see how his foe would react. His counterpart spun and blocked the strike with one of his own weapons and then sliced low with the other. Kaanyr kicked the blade with his boot to deflect it. That drew a second strike from the half-devil's first falchion that the cambion was forced to duck.
"Not bad," the other commander said, smiling still. "I will enjoy this."
"Not for long," Kaanyr answered.
With that, the half-devil twirled in place and slashed at Kaanyr with a rapid succession of strikes that came from different angles and targeted various points on the cambion's body. Kaanyr gasped at the speed of the attacks, but Spitefang was well balanced and up to the task, and the cambion parried them all.
The two parted and circled again.
The half-devil's smile deepened as he surveyed Kaanyr's defensive stance. "You seem a bit unsure," he said. "Would you like a moment to collect yourself?"
"Thank you, but no," Kaanyr replied. "I'm just relishing the chance to dispatch such a worthy foe. It's been a while."
Kaanyr twirled Spitefang and beckoned his opponent to come. The half-devil obliged, and they began a dance of blades in earnest.
The ring of steel clashing against steel created a bizarre song above the swirling melee of demon and devil on the floor below. Kaanyr and his foe jabbed and blocked, swirled and circled, each trying to find a weakness in the other's defenses. Kaanyr had to work hard to keep the twin falchions at bay. More than once, a poison-coated edge got dangerously close to creasing his skin. Each time, he managed to evade the deadly strikes, but he was breathing hard with the effort.
Fortunately, Kaanyr's opponent was exerting himself just as much. The two of them separated and hovered in the air, taking a moment to catch their collective breath.
"You fight well," the half-devil said. "It's a shame you fight for the wrong side."
"That's a matter of perspective," Kaanyr replied. "I could say the same about you."
The half-devil grinned. "True, bur I was not referring to your demonic kin. You stink of the taint of angels."
Kaanyr blinked in surprise. Had his association with Tauran rubbed off on him that much?
"Yes," the half-devil said, his grin growing more mocking, "I can see by your sudden meek expression and quivering lip that I am right. Fall in with the wrong crowd, did you?"
Kaanyr glared. "Hardly," he said. "Not that it's any of your business, but I found it necessary to deceive a few and associate with them in order to further my own agenda."
"Which is how you came to be ensnared in one of their magical compulsions, is it? How's that working out for you so far?"
Kaanyr snarled and lunged at the half-devil. He slammed Spitefang at his foe's head, smashing the magical blade against the falchions.
The half-devil laughed as he defended himself against Kaanyr's enraged attacks. "I must have hit a nerve, cambion," he said gleefully. "You let me know sometime how that agenda is coming along."
The half-devil began to use Kaanyr's own rage against him, redirecting his momentum as the cambion slashed and hammered at him. Kaanyr's fighting became frantic and sloppy and it was only when he got nicked on the forearm by one of the poison-coated falchions that he recovered his wits.
Kaanyr backed out of the fight and hovered out of the half-devil's reach. As the other commander approached him again, Kaanyr reached inside his tunic and grabbed a handful of colored sand from a small inner pocket. He flung the sand toward his opponent and uttered a quick arcane phrase. The sand burst into light and sent a spray of dazzling color right into the half-devil's face.
The magical burst startled the half-devil. He threw an arm up to protect himself from its effects. Kaanyr used the distraction to shoot higher into the air, above the half-devil. By the time his opponent had recovered from the arcane attack, Kaanyr was swinging his sword down.
The cleaving blow sliced the half-devil's head in half. He seized up and then dropped like a stone from the air, nearly yanking Kaanyr down with him. Kaanyr wrenched his blade free of the half-devil's skull and watched his corpse plummet into a crater in the floor.
Kaanyr sighed in relief and cast a quick glance around. The battle between demon and devil had ended. Two demons still stood, both wounded but still able to fight. They had been watching the aerial combat from below.
"Go," Kaanyr ordered. "Find more devils to kill."
The two demons grinned and took off, heading toward another tunnel. Kaanyr turned his attention to his injury.
The wound was slight, but it burned terribly. He saw that it was already festering and that pus seeped from it. What was worse, discoloration in the skin was spreading from it along his arm.
Blast, Vhok fumed. I let him taunt me into making that mistake. Been around too-noble angels for too long. Must not let that happen again.
Wondering if Tauran had at last awakened and might be able to heal the poisoned wound, Kaanyr turned and sped from the chamber, seeking his way back to the angel.