Onslaught

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: GRAND MELEE

Kamahl lay gasping in ecstatic pain.

Before him hovered a creature of light, glorious and beckoning. It was the death vision. Many barbarian warriors reported seeing this creature as they lay dying-a light so intense as to cast all else in a tunnel of darkness. Kamahl was dying, coming to pieces at throat, chest, and belly. The angel of death called him, her face so beautiful and yet so stark. She reached toward him.

If he took her hand, he would die.

Kamahl clawed away from her. He was a barbarian warrior, and all barbarian warriors clawed away from the angel of death. Kamahl rolled onto his face on the sand, and suddenly he could breathe. His throat was in ribbons, air sucking into and out of an open windpipe. Breathing, he averted his eyes from the beckoning angel.

She turned her eyes away as well. She moved with savage surges around the coliseum. It was as though she pursued another soul. Let her.

Kamahl crawled. If he knew anything in that moment of exquisite pain, he knew he needed his staff. The power of life was gone from him but not from that staff. It sparkled with green lightning where it lay in the sand. If only he could grip it, power would flow into him and knit him together.

Everything else fell away. He forgot who he had been, how he had become so wounded, what he fought for. Caught between the angel and the staff, Kamahl became a tabula rasa, a soul upon which nothing has been written.

White and black, figures flitted by. They shrieked, two raptors swooping, slashing, tangling, breaking. Their battle verged near to the crawling man. For a moment, he feared they would catch him in their lashing midst and tear him to pieces. He dug in and clung to the sand, throat rasping rotten breaths. The two creatures tumbled past.

The man scuttled forward, a lizard sliding on his scaly belly. Sand packed the gangrenous spots. One more surge, hands before him, and he gripped the sparking pole.

Life leaped in green bolts into his fingers. It hissed and cackled, sinking into his flesh. Putrid skin and muscle dribbled away. Power burst in bright loops from the wound at his throat, and lines of force wove themselves into new flesh. The surge of power plunged through his chest, healing it as well. Only when it reached his belly and the wound carved there did it stop.

The wound. "Jeska!"

It was the first word he had spoken since his throat had been eaten away. With that word, all his long life scrawled itself across him-a feverish and violent graffiti. How good it had felt to be white and unmarked, the crawling man instead of Kamahl. He had reentered the scarred carcass of his life. He was Kamahl again, and Kamahl had a sister.

He clung to the staff and turned over. "Jeska."

There, before him, she fought. The angel of death pursued her, a moth battling a roach. Her magna sword, as wide as an axe and as long as a sword, roared down to slice Jeska in two.

"No!" shrieked Kamahl. "No!"

Phage could not escape that blow. She had dodged every other, had flipped backward and dived low and performed every possible evasion, but Akroma learned with each leap. No evasion remained. Phage lay on her back, and the magna sword descended.

It struck. Metal that was stronger and keener than steel cut through her shoulder, cleaving silk, skin, flesh, and bone. It hung up halfway through her third rib, only inches from her heart. Gritting her teeth, the angel shoved downward. It would kill her, its eyes as white as ice.

Phage grabbed the blade. It was a thing of pure light and she of pure darkness. Her fingers clamped tightly around the metal. It hissed under her touch, and metal ran like wax. Her nails jabbed through. Phage ripped away a hunk of the sword and hurled it across the coliseum, where it struck stone. Her hand fastened again, and another slab came away. The angel struggled to withdraw the blade, but Phage was tearing it apart. Molten metal poured from her riven shoulder.

The black sorceries that filled her joined bone to bone and flesh to flesh. Even as the cleft closed, Phage hurled the last of the sword away.

She leaped to her feet, hands shoving the chest of the angel and leaving black prints.

Akroma recoiled in agony, her incorruptible flesh bearing marks of rot. Her face twisted in horror. It was the first time Phage had gotten a good look at her. This angel had the face of Nivea, but not just Nivea. She seemed the incarnation of all Phage's victims.

Unafraid, Phage stalked toward her. "You would kill me, but you know nothing of death. I am Death. I will take you to my lands."

Someone approached-Kamahl. Phage had almost forgotten. The druid-barbarian walked with staff in hand, verdant lighting jagging around him. His chest and throat had healed to puckers of pink flesh, and his eyes were violent and grim. He dug footholds in the sand.

Phage glared narrowly at him. "I suppose I will have to fight you as well."

Kamahl shook his head. "I came here to save you." He flicked his eyes toward the angel. "Anyone who would kill you is my foe."

"All right." Growling in irritation, Phage edged nearer to the angel. 'Together, we kill her, and then we fight each other."

"If we must," replied Kamahl.

Side by side, brother and sister strode into battle.

Braids bounded along the rim of the coliseum, braying her excitement. "Behold! Brother and sister, sister and brother-mortal foes, this Phage, this Kamahl-and yet they ally together against an immortal enemy! New wagers for the next five minutes. Bet upon the angel. Bet upon the siblings! Prizes and purses collected first. Then the winners fight to the death."

Beneath her, the stands boiled. Folk flooded toward the betting counters. Others filled the air with their fists and shouts.

Never on Otaria had such din arisen. Never before had war been so profitable or entertainment so deadly.

Once again, Kamahl was caught between life and death. Akroma hovered brutally above, just out of reach of his whirling staff. Phage stood ready beside, seeming a cobra rising to strike. They were life and death.

The question was, which was which?

Akroma darted in, angry and white, a lightning bolt unfolding toward Phage.

For her part, Phage leaped in to catch that lightning bolt and ground it.

They clenched. Their power, black and white, battled for dominance. On contact, decay spread across Akroma body, and sterile welts rose on Phage. Where hands locked on arms, the skin peeled back from both women. Where eyes locked on eyes, the very air crackled with antipathy. They would consume each other.

Kamahl rammed his staff between the two. The butt struck Akroma and pried her away. He followed up the strike with the power of his shoulders. The angel jerked farther back. Kamahl swung the head of the staff before Phage, stopping another lunge.

Both women stared furiously at Kamahl and his scintillating staff. They were ravaged-black gouges across Akroma's arms and torso and white necrosis across Phage's. Even as Kamahl watched, the wounds closed. These creatures danced on the strings of puppet masters. Some unknown mind drove Akroma, but Kamahl knew too well who drove Phage.

He lifted one hand from his staff and raised it high in a signal.

He should not have released the staff.

From opposite sides, Akroma and Phage grasped the glimmering pole. Green magic rolled each direction. When the power reached Phage's hands, spores of energy showered around her fingers. Wherever those green motes landed, Phage's flesh pitted and burned. Black and green magic were ancient enemies. Black and white, though… At the other end of the shaft, Akroma drew off the power. It mingled with her own energies, strengthening her, healing her.

"No!" Kamahl shouted, but it was too late.

Akroma yanked the century stalk from both of them. It gleamed in her hands. Her eyes glowed green with power. She whirled the staff expertly, and energy ambled across her knuckles. On hovering wing, she surged toward Phage and Kamahl. Side by side, they backed away.

"Nice work."

Kamahl could only grunt. He wasn't use to fighting this way, caught between two foes. How could he slay one, save the other, and not die in the process?

He raised his fist in that same, insistent signal.

Stonebrow snorted. He thought he had seen the signal, but Kamahl had been surrounded by the other two and his own bright staff, and the general had not been certain. Its import was too grave to proceed until he was entirely sure. Now, Kamahl's upraised fist could mean nothing else:

Storm the coliseum and kill the First.

Stonebrow gazed down toward the luxury box of the First. Between Kamahl and it stood rows of cheering spectators, fists pumping the air. They would be an army, once roused, and would protect the Cabal patriarch. The Krosan warriors would have no hope of reaching the luxury box. Let them save Kamahl. Stonebrow himself would kill the First.

He stood, shoved his way through the crowd, and strode down the stairs. His hooves hardly fit on those steps, and each stride shook the stone floor. He reached for the horn that rode on his side. He lifted the great thing, set it to his lips, and blew.

The sound pealed out even above the cacophony of the crowd. It was joined by the call of a second horn and a third. From every stairway around the coliseum, the horns of the commanders rang. They called the people of Krosan, the people of Kamahl-called them to attack.

Many of the fans cheered, expecting some new wonder from the proprietors of blood sport. It would be a new wonder, but not from the Cabal.

A second roar arose, this one outside the coliseum. From the throats of centaurs and mantis warriors, elves and goblins, giant serpents and great jaguars came that violent sound. The green forces charged. Fiery spine folk led the vanguard, burning anyone or anything that stood in the way. Already, the great doors burst into flames.

A living forest rushed to invade the coliseum.

Braids clapped as they came. She could hardly smile more deeply, more sincerely. Things were going wonderfully.

Of course, she and Phage had planned on the storming of the coliseum. They had expected the attack to come when Kamahl lay dying beneath his sister's grip, but Akroma had ended all that. She was a surprise, though a diverting one. This attack by the forces of green only brought things back on schedule.

Leaping from prominence to prominence, Braids cupped her hands and shouted, "Behold, the armies of Krosan! Behold, the Grand Melee! Place your bets! Krosan vs. Cabal. Who will win? It's ten to one odds on Krosan! Win tenfold if the beasts conquer!"

A shout of delight and avarice swept through the stands even as the green beasts began to emerge on the sands below.

Braids applauded. Oh, what a diversion, to run the wars of the world! How wonderful to pit folk against folk, and all for sweet, sweet cash.

The air rang so loudly that the sky seemed solid.

Kamahl labored beneath it. He had lost his staff to the angel, and now she used it against his sister.

Akroma vaulted through the air above Kamahl's grasping hands. She flipped over and came down on Jeska like a stooping eagle. Instead of talons, though, she attacked with the staff. The butt struck Jeska's chest. Green and white power crackled down its length and ripped through her. Jeska shook, a living conduit. Wounds burst open, and verdant force followed, filling each injury with moss. Jeska's necromantic power was proof against a single mana assault, but not against two simultaneously.

Wailing, she hurled herself back, flipped twice, and landed on her arms and hands. Her stomach was a garden in red and green, blood and moss. Her eyes rolled beneath pools of tears. She collapsed to her back, the air rushing out of her.

Akroma surged in for the kill.

"No!" Kamahl shouted.

He leaped toward the angel, and the crowd shrieked its delight. Kamahl climbed up the fury-frozen air. His hands filled with angel pinions. He clawed them free and dragged himself higher. Fingers closed around stony flesh-ankles and then knees. He scaled her wings, his weight forcing them flat and flinging her down to the sands. Akroma struggled beneath him, a dove beneath a devil.

The crowd overtopped its ovation. Bets flew across the counters.

Akroma surged suddenly upward, hurling Kamahl from her shoulders.

He too landed on his back in the sand.

The angel lunged upon him. She brought the shocking staff down to kill.

Kamahl grasped it. The power grasped him. Green and white mana dived into his flesh. It did not destroy him but strengthened him. Veins swelled with magic; muscles bulged with force. Though the angel wrenched the staff, trying to rip it from his hands, Kamahl's strength was greater. He broke Akroma's grip, dragged the staff back, and swung it. The end cracked against the angel's head.

She whirled in the air, plunging. Stunned wings fought to hold her aloft, and sand spun in wide vortices beneath her.

Kamahl rose. He snarled, gripping his staff, and stalked toward his sister.

Jeska lay nearby, supine and panting. Her native magic worked to drive back the wounds and the infestations, but she would not fight again-not soon.

"You've done it again," she rasped quietly.

He lifted the staff. "Yes. I've gotten it back."

"No, you've killed me again."

Kamahl's jaw clenched, and his eyes grew as hard as ivory. "You'll not die today, Sister." He held the staff out before them, ready to ward away Akroma.

Even then, the angel landed and approached.

"You've killed me again, and you'll kill yourself too."

Stonebrow blew the last, long call into rioting heavens. They were coming, every last elf and goblin in Kamahl's vast army.

They would pour into the arena and turn its sands into a sudden forest. Stonebrow stowed the horn at his hip and descended the final flight to the First's luxury box.

He had some of his own killing to do.

"Stand back, in the name of the Cabal," growled one of the two black-garbed guards at the door. It was iron-banded oak with a viewing slot. Long switchblades flicked out in the hands of the two guards.

Stonebrow lowered his massive head and snorted, his breath gusting hot. "I have business with the First."

"No one sees the First without an invitation," sneered the guard, yellowish skin tight across his cadaverous face. "If I were you, I'd step back."

"All right," agreed the giant centaur with a shrug, "step back."

The shrug flowed down his arm in a wave that broke at his fist. Backhanded, it pounded the guard's midsection and flung him, kicking, over the crowd. The switchblade had cut a long line down Stonebrow's arm but missed veins and tendons.

With a yelp of surprise, the other guard stabbed his switchblade into the centaur's shoulder. The blade struck bone and snapped off, leaving the man with a stumpy handle in hand. He dropped it and reached for a black-bladed short sword at his waist.

Stonebrow grasped the man's arm, pursed his lips, and shook his head.

The man, jowly and gray, gabbled, "I'll step back."

"Yes, you will," Stonebrow agreed.

He tossed the fellow away. This guard didn't thrash, seeming resigned to his fate. He crashed down atop the luxury box's roof, skidded, and dropped into the stands.

Stonebrow picked the broken blade out of his shoulder and dropped it to the stone. Balling his hand into a fist, Stonebrow stooped and knocked on the door.

The spy slot slid open, and a pair of feverish eyes stared out. "What?"

Stonebrow jabbed two fingers through the gap. It was all that would fit. They hit the man's forehead with sufficient force to knock him unconscious.

Wrapping his fingers around the door, Stonebrow yanked. Iron shrieked and crackled. The oaken door bulged. Setting a fore hoof on the doorpost, Stonebrow hauled hard. The hinges exploded, and the door came away in one piece in his hand. Seeing a contingent of Cabal enforcers rush up the stairs toward him, Stonebrow flung the door at them. It rattled down the stairs and felled them like kegel pins.

Stonebrow nodded in satisfaction. Eventually, he would be overrun by Cabal guards, but it wouldn't matter as long as the First was already dead.

Ducking his massive shoulders, Stonebrow surged through the gap Within lay a velvet antechamber where cloaks and shoes were left-and the slumbering figure of one guard. Careful not to crush him, Stonebrow cantered through the far doorway.

In the next room-a gallery of gladiatorial memorabilia-stood another Cabal thug. She was as scarred and scabrous as the guards outside, but the mad tumble of her eyes told of her profession: dementia summoner.

The woman smiled a dagger grin. From the brutal gaps between her teeth emerged creatures. They were gaunt men the color of yellow ivory, their limbs razor-edged.

With a sound like hom on slate, the things scrambled toward Stonebrow.

The tunnels beneath the stands roared like storm sewers in a flood. Instead of water, though, the corridors ran with wood-and all the creatures of the wood.

Roth led the way. The serpent's mouth gaped, snatching up Cabal guards. Lumps struggled in his red-scaled bulk as he reached the forbidding doors. Hissing and biting, Roth could do no more than splinter the bar.

Up bounded more ferocious creatures. They seemed like giant badgers, but were in fact ground squirrels the size of hippos. The things leaped eagerly through the darkness, passed Roth, and stopped at the barred doors. Whiskered snouts worked over the obstacle, sensing fresh air beneath. The squirrels hunkered down to dig. Claws hurled sand from the hole, and columns of grit showered out behind.

Roth withdrew his fangs from the bar, studied the situation, and ate one giant squirrel. He would have eaten the other one too, but he was distracted by new arrivals.

Goblins rushed up panting. They got lungfuls of kicked sand. The green fellows doubled over, grabbing their bellies and coughing viciously. Unsure what else to do, the goblins headed for high ground-up Roth's flank.

The great snake knew the difference between creatures clawing deliciously within and those clawing impiously without. Roth's head lifted, and he eyed his next meal. Fangs darted down.

The first goblin saw them coming and shrieked. His warning was literally swallowed by the serpent's mouth. A second goblin heard the muffled cry and gave his own, which had the benefit of echoing from the snake's gaping mouth. He fell amid teeth. A peristaltic wave grabbed him and yanked them down through the cool tube of muscle. A third and fourth goblin turned to run but found themselves treading on a slippery tongue. It slid steadily back into the serpent's mouth. Jaws snapped up a final goblin, and the serpent swallowed. Five knobs wriggled wonderfully in its gullet, and Roth gave a big smile.

He suddenly gagged. He had never eaten such dusty creatures in all his life. With a convulsive retching motion, he spewed them out, one by one. They held to each other in a long, slimy chain. The filthy beasts piled atop his back, mewling like newborn kittens. Giving a reptilian shudder, the serpent sloughed them off onto the ground.

They struggled to their feet only to be struck by tons of airborne sand. The grit sank into the digestive slime that covered the goblins. It amalgamated with the stuff, thickening to cement.

Moments later, the sand ceased. A ululating cry rose from the giant ground squirrel. Its head dipped into the hole it had dug, and its shoulders slid easily through. Hind legs shoved the massive beast beneath the doors and out onto the arena's sands.

Seeing daylight, Roth went as well. Soon, he slithered rapidly across the coliseum.

Behind him in the tunnel, thousands of Krosan troops marched to war. A contingent of elves raised their short swords and their voices in an ancient battle cry. Their eyes were fixed on the hole ahead, though they all took a moment to admire the statue of dancing goblins there in the midst of the tunnel.

Akroma soared down. Her wings flashed blindingly in the sunlight. She stared with wasp eyes, unblinking and merciless, at her foes.

Phage lay helpless on the sand, nearly slain. She would have been dead already if not for Kamahl. He stood above her, his sorcerous staff held horizontally.

What obsession drove him? Why did he care whether she lived or died?

The angel growled, "Stand aside. I have no quarrel with you, barbarian."

"If you would kill my sister, you have quarrel with me."

The angel canted her head slightly, considering. She tucked her wings and dropped from the sky.

Kamahl stood resolute, staff lifted crosswise.

The angel's feet struck the shaft and broke it in two. An explosion of green fire roared out of the shattered stalk. For a moment, it eclipsed Akroma, Kamahl, and Phage. When the initial blaze diminished, green force remained, clinging in viney lines to Akroma's legs. It emerged from the riven ends of Kamahl's staff and dragged her down.

Growling, Kamahl hauled the halves toward the sand.

Akroma struggled against the green force. "Release me! I have no quarrel with you!"

"Swear off your vengeance against my sister!" he shouted.

"Never."

"Then you will die." He muscled the two halves of the staff together. The bolts of green energy fused. She would never escape now.

With a great surge of her wings, Akroma lifted her eyes to the skies and cried, "Ixidor, Creator! I return to you." One more surge, and she pulled free Not entirely free. Her legs were yanked off her body, and they fell, wrapped in green magic. Those perfect, severed things dropped in the dirt.

Wailing, Akroma flew away.

Kamahl stood gaping after the maimed angel.

With a horrid roar, his armies converged in a great ring around him. Spine folk and woody dryads mounded in a protective dome of bough and branch, blocking out the sky and the last, fleeting glimpse of Akroma.