The Eye of the Chained God

CHAPTER SIX

It felt to Albanon as if the village walls were crumbling underneath him and he were plummeting toward the claws and fangs of the demons below. His heart leaped into his throat. His staff slipped out of his grip and he grabbed onto the parapet-the very solid parapet-with both hands. “It’s not real,” he told himself, trying to focus past the terror. “It’s not real.”

But it seemed real. Plague demons were all around him. One howled and swiped at him with bloodstained claws. He ducked, kicked back at the creature out of instinct, and felt his foot connect with flesh. The demon doubled over but kept clawing at him. Albanon pressed up against the parapet and tried to focus his fear-wracked mind on the arcane patterns of a spell.

“Albanon, no!” Roghar’s voice echoed over the cries of the demons. Beyond the creature that menaced him, Albanon saw the paladin come charging up the stairs onto the wall. Roghar thrust his shield before him, the symbol of the platinum dragon shining on its surface. “Bahamut, free him from his fears!”

The power of Roghar’s faith was like a cool breeze. Albanon’s terror wavered, then dissipated entirely. The stone was once again solid beneath his feet and the gibbering demons were once more out of reach. Along the wall, many of Winterhaven’s defenders were struggling with each other while others simply curled up in fear. The creature that had clawed at him, that he had been on the verge of blasting with his spell, was Bairwin. The other man’s eyes were still wide and desperate. What had seemed like demonic howls resolved into frightened screams. “Somebody help me! They’re on the walls. They’re on the walls!”

He threw himself at Albanon once more, but this time Roghar was behind him. The big dragonborn reached out and grabbed his collar, hauling him back and slamming him down hard. The impact knocked the wind out of Bairwin and left him gasping for breath. Roghar stepped over him. “Are you all right?” he asked Albanon.

The eladrin nodded, then twisted around. “Tempest! Uldane!”

“Here.” Tempest crouched below the parapet. Her face was pale and her limbs were trembling, but she had resisted the worst of the nightmare demon’s power. Albanon took her hand and helped her stand. Uldane was a little further along the wall. It seemed he’d escaped the demon’s attack entirely-his face was taut but clear, and he held his own against three fear-crazed men.

But those who’d been affected by the demon’s attack were no longer the only ones on the wall. Other defenders followed Roghar’s example and rushed up from the courtyard to help their stricken friends. Albanon looked back out at the nightmare demon. It stood impassive, though the frenzied pack once more churned around it in a renewed assault on the gate. Its red eyes watched the activity on top of the wall. Albanon’s gut tensed. The nightmare demon was waiting, he realized. Waiting for more would-be saviors to reach the top of the wall before unleashing its terrifying gaze a second time.

“We have to stop that demon,” he said.

“It would be my pleasure,” said Tempest. She pulled away from Albanon and raised her rod high. A harsh and chilling invocation spilled from her lips. At the sound of it, the demon’s eyes snapped to her, but it wasn’t quick enough. A cold white light engulfed the rod-and the nightmare demon. For the first time, the shadowy creature let out a cry, a thin wail of anguish. It flailed its arms and focused its gaze intently on the trio standing on the wall. Albanon felt its power brush his mind, threatening to plunge him into terror once more, but Roghar growled and thrust his shield forward. The might of Bahamut curled around them protectively.

Tempest spun her rod in a tight circle. The light surrounding the demon spun as well, turning into a whirlwind of radiance. The demon’s cries grew higher, more pained, as the rushing light tore at its shadowy substance. It cringed and tried to shield itself, but to no effect. The light burned it, then whirled its ashes away. Tempest’s eyes narrowed. The rod spun more tightly. The swirling light picked up speed, killing the demon little by little. Along the walls, Winterhaven’s defenders emerged from their terror as the creature’s power faded. Down below, the demon horde redoubled their frenzy. They shied away from the radiance of Tempest’s spell but otherwise paid no attention to the nightmare demon as it screamed and fought its death. All of their fury was directed with single-minded intensity at the gates.

A nagging feeling tugged at Albanon. Something wasn’t right. The plague demons didn’t seem to care that they trampled and clawed at other members of their horde, so it shouldn’t have mattered that they ignored the brilliant death of the nightmare demon. Or should it? As the defenders of Winterhaven cheered-Roghar and Uldane among them and even Splendid emerging from whatever hiding spot she’d found to twirl overhead-Albanon tried to focus his thoughts over the chaos. They’d fought nightmare demons before, but never one that had been able to direct its power through its gaze. The creature was powerful and judging from the way the horde of plague demons had drawn back before it, it was powerful enough to command their respect. Powerful enough to be the leader of the horde, surely.

But if it was the leader, the key demon that kept all the others focused on their goal, why wasn’t the horde’s attack falling apart?

Even as he thought it, Tempest’s spell crushed in on the demon. Its shriek rose and broke, then vanished entirely along with the light. A scarred husk collapsed to the ground. Tempest lowered her rod and turned around. Her teeth flashed white. “One demon stopped,” she said.

“No.” Albanon bent down and snatched up the staff he had dropped, gripping it tight. “We’re not done. There’s another demon somewhere, one more powerful than the nightmare demon. It’s the one commanding the horde.”

Roghar let out a curse unbecoming of a paladin. “Where is it, then? It seems like we already have the entire pack right here.”

Albanon stared out into the darkness. Beyond the churning melee before the gates, nothing moved. If another demon lurked in the shadows, it was well-hidden. He searched the horde as it hammered at the gates and scrabbled at the walls, but none of the demons seemed powerful enough to dominate the others. Another of the great juggernauts had appeared, yet this one, though towering tall and lanky, wasn’t as massive as the other that had charged the gates. In fact, the defenders of Winterhaven appeared to be gaining the upper hand. The wall was crowded with men and women thrusting down with long pikes and leaning out over the parapets to loose arrows and bolts into the massed creatures below. Albanon could hear Lord Padraig calling for people to return to the defense of the gate. It was so crowded that, when a lithe demon jumped up onto the tall juggernaut and swung itself high, three pikes clashed together as their wielders tried to skewer it. The demon fell short anyway, but it might have made the wall if the pikemen had not been there, or if the towering juggernaut had offered it actual assistance.

A sudden sickening certainty made the tips of his ears crawl. Where had the second juggernaut come from? What had it been doing during the first part of the attack? “Mercy of the gods,” he whispered. “The lead demon isn’t outside. We’ve let it get inside the village.”

If he’d had wings, he would have flown high and simply dropped into the middle of Winterhaven. But he didn’t-though sometimes his memories of the sensation were so vivid he might have fooled himself into believing that he did-so he built his plan around the next best alternative. Among the minions he had gathered was a demon of particular height and strength. Not so strong as others of its kind or so tall as to be able to reach the top of Winterhaven’s walls directly, but both strong and tall enough to enable another to reach the parapets.

It had only been a matter of waiting until the right moment, when the moon broke through the scudding clouds. Not because the demons needed light to see, but because those on the wall would be sure to see their attackers. The moonlight came and it only took a whisper through the connection of the Voidharrow to launch the attack. On the other side of Winterhaven, howling demons rushed the gate. He’d waited the few moments it took the humans patrolling his stretch of wall to rush away, then ordered his tall minion into position against the stones. His pride wouldn’t permit him to be lifted or carried, so he scaled the demon like a tree, his talons gouging its tough hide. A leap from its shoulder and he had caught the parapet, then swung himself over.

The walls of Winterhaven had been breached.

He dismissed his minion below with a gesture and it moved away. From the direction of the gates came the shouts of villagers and the howls of demons. He guessed the massive creature he had set to lead the attack by ramming the gates had failed. He wasn’t surprised. His prey was in Winterhaven. He had seen the eladrin, Albanon, on the walls. The others would be close to him. Those who had slain Raid and Nu Alin wouldn’t fall to any lesser demon.

“This one prepares,” he growled to the night.

This one is eager, came the reply through the Voidharrow.

He bared his teeth and dropped lightly into the shadows below the wall. His goal lay across the village-not his prey, but the gate. It was possible that the small horde he had assembled would be able to break it down from outside, but not likely. He wanted them inside Winterhaven’s walls. The warning he had delivered earlier would keep them from his prey, but their presence, their slaughter of the villagers, would be a distraction. He’d learned from the destruction of Nu Alin and Raid. He would not allow his prey the advantage of numbers. He would divide them and take them one by one.

Screams from the wall heralded the attack of the nightmare demon and the second wave of the horde’s assault. He paused to look for his prey. The wizard reeled on the wall, the tiefling and the halfling alongside him, as the dragonborn paladin rushed to their aid. All of his enemies accounted for, but all in one place. His eyes narrowed. They would need to be separated.

A door in the building behind him opened.

He turned instantly and caught a glimpse of an old human woman peering out, her urge for safety probably overcome by curiosity at the screams. Her eyes went wide at the sight of him, then he was on her. The great talon on his right hand stabbed up through the woman’s belly and under her ribs. Her wide eyes grew wider. A dry croak emerged from the woman’s throat.

He felt disgust. “This one was made to kill greater creatures than you,” he said and twisted his hand. Life shuddered from the woman’s body. He let her fall inside the door and listened for the noise of others in the house. There was only silence. Stealth was not his primary concern, but the closer he was able to get to Winterhaven’s gate without being detected, the better.

The screams of villagers were replaced by the wail of a demon before he had passed two more houses. On the wall, the tiefling warlock stood with her rod raised and glowing, her attention fixed on a cold, white light that lit the darkness beyond. He felt the dying of the nightmare demon through the Voidharrow and quickened his pace. The creature had done its work, both with its attack and with its destruction. Almost all of Winterhaven’s defenders had rushed up onto the wall to battle the demons on the other side. A man in better armor than most was trying to call some of them back. The lord of the village, perhaps. The commander of its forces, certainly.

He recognized two figures standing close to the lord: an eladrin man and a human woman, both warriors by their weapons and bearing. They had ridden with his prey through the Cloak Wood. Allies of his enemies. He flexed his hands. He had his goal, the reason for his existence, but slaughtering these three would bring added distress to his true prey.

Beyond the trio, only two uneasy looking guards remained to watch over the counterweight that would lift the heavy bar from the gates. The defenders of Winterhaven had grown overeager and overconfident.

He hissed in anticipation and moved out from the shadows.

“What do you mean we’ve let a demon into the village?” said Tempest.

“Everyone’s up here fighting the horde. Who’s defending the gate? Who’s watching the other walls?” Albanon twisted away from the parapet, shoving through the villagers that had crowded in behind him. “Lord Padraig! Lord Padr-”

The warning died on his tongue as he reached the other edge of the walkway and the top of a flight of stairs back down into the village. Padraig was below, looking up, his attention drawn by Albanon’s shouts. Immeral and Belen stood with him. But perhaps twenty paces behind them another figure emerged from the shadows of the inn. Albanon heard Roghar, close behind him, draw a harsh breath of surprise. Their shock must have been plain on their faces because Immeral, Belen, and Padraig spun to look behind them as well.

The figure froze, just for an instant, but the sight of it burned into Albanon’s mind. It wasn’t quite like anything he had seen before. In rough shape, it was something like a dragonborn: draconic in feature but humanoid in body. The resemblance ended there. The creature was almost skeletally thin, its skull long and narrow. A whiplike tail lashed the air behind it and cruel talons extended from its hands and feet. It carried no weapons and wore no armor, but one of the talons on its right hand was enormous, as big as a shortsword and far heavier. The thing bore signs of the Voidharrow, too. Its talons and the straight, spiky horns on its head were red crystal. Crimson veins traced along its spine and concentrated in its tail, which also seemed made of crystal, splintering and reforming with every movement.

Its scales, while tinted with the red of the Voidharrow, were green, and there was a familiar, hateful intelligence in its eyes.

“Vestapalk,” said Albanon.

Somehow the creature heard him over the din of battle. It smiled cruelly. “This one is not Vestapalk,” it shouted back in a harsh male voice. “This one is Vestagix. This one will be your doom!”

He moved. In only heartbeats, faster than Albanon could call a spell to mind, Vestagix had closed the distance between him and the three standing below. The huge talon, completely out of proportion to the rest of his body, lashed out in a wide arc.

Belen grabbed Lord Padraig and dragged him to the ground, both of them rolling out of the way of the terrible claw. Immeral stood his ground. His sword already out, he parried Vestagix’s blow. Crystal rang against steel. Vestagix’s smile didn’t falter. His left hand, the talons smaller but still sharp, raked at Immeral’s belly. The eladrin swayed back to avoid them.

In that moment, the great talon thrust past his guard. It hooked into the flesh of his shoulder. Vestagix wrenched his arm back and the talon tore through flesh and leather armor, shoulder and throat. Blood gushed out. Immeral’s free hand went to his throat as if he could stop the flow, but his sword was already sliding from his grip.

Albanon felt like he was falling, just as he had under the nightmare demon’s attack, except that this was no illusion. The force of the blow had spun Immeral around. As he sank to his knees, his eyes rose. Albanon imagined that the hunter was looking at him, that his gaping mouth struggled to form words one last time. My prince…

Beside him, Roghar bellowed in fury. “Demon!” he roared. “Face me! Bahamut’s strength will drive you back where you came from!” He rushed down the stairs in a clatter of armor.

Vestagix looked from the charging paladin to where Padraig and Belen were rising warily, then bared white teeth and sprinted toward the wall-but not toward Roghar. Before Immeral’s body had collapsed onto its face, Vestagix had disappeared under the walkway above Winterhaven’s gate. Roghar roared again and disappeared after him.

The need to act forced focus upon Albanon’s mind. “Tempest, Uldane-get some people off the wall and back down to the gate!” He didn’t wait for their response, he just followed Roghar. His mind raced along with his feet. What in the three worlds was Vestagix? They’d all seen Vestapalk take control of and speak through plague demons, but Vestagix was different. He didn’t look like any other demon and he didn’t act like he was being controlled. He acted like Vestapalk himself.

A weight settled on his shoulder and needle-sharp claws gripped his skin before he reached the bottom of the stairs. “A wizard’s place is at a distance,” Splendid shrieked in his ear. “Stay on the wall. You’ll be safe there.”

“I can’t see what’s happening on the wall,” Albanon told her, “and I can’t help Roghar if I can’t see him.” He reached the bottom of the stairs and spun toward the gate. The sound of the demon horde outside was intensified below. The thick wood of the gate shook and thundered with every misshapen body that was flung against it. Two human bodies lay before the gate: the guards who had stayed at their posts had fared no better against Vestagix than Immeral.

Roghar had caught up to the intruder though, and it appeared that Vestagix had more respect for his new, heavily armored opponent. The two circled each other like weird reflections, Roghar bright and noble, Vestagix dark and savage. It seemed to Albanon that they knew it, too. There was a hatred in Roghar’s eyes that he wasn’t used to seeing.

“You mock the shape of dragonborn and dragon alike,” said the paladin.

Vestagix sneered at him. “And you,” he said, “have angered one greater than the gods.”

Roghar growled deep in his throat and lunged. Vestagix, still sneering, caught and turned the impulsive thrust with his outsized claw-leaving himself open to a powerful and fully controlled slam from Roghar’s shield. The blow threw him against the gate and Roghar closed in, his facade of anger replaced by deadly focus. The sneer vanished from Vestagix’s face, replaced by a snarl. He pushed off from the gate, slashing at Roghar in a frenzy that drove the dragonborn back pace by pace.

Albanon clenched his teeth and drew a spell close to the surface of his mind. Sliding sideways, he tried to find an opening to cast it, but Vestagix’s whirling attack was too quick. One moment he had a clear line, the next Roghar was between them. Splendid clung tight to his shoulder. “Back away,” she begged. “You can attack from a greater distance.”

He ignored her. Roghar was beginning to look harried. Vestagix had him on the defensive and Albanon knew in his gut he wasn’t going to get his opening. He’d have to risk throwing his spell, even if it meant catching Roghar by mistake. As Vestagix turned around the paladin again, Albanon exhaled, concentrated, and released the spell with a flick of his fingers and a whispered word. Two thin blue bolts streaked at the demon-who sprang back with the same lithe quickness that had been Immeral’s doom. As he leaped, he turned and his tail snaked around Roghar’s sword hand. The flexing, splintering crystal tightened, then jerked. Roghar cursed and clutched at his wrist as both his sword and his gauntlet were wrenched away. They went clattering across the ground. Vestagix glared at Albanon, his red eyes narrowed.

“Maybe you will die first after all, wizard,” he said. Albanon felt sudden fear race through him and groped for another spell. With Vestagix’s speed, it would take only an instant for him to bound across the distance between them.

But the demon didn’t come for him. Instead he turned-and Albanon’s heart dropped as he realized that Vestagix’s leap away from his magic had brought him right beside the counterweight for the gate.

Roghar saw it, too. He charged, his shield held in front of him like moving wall. Brilliant white light burst from the symbol of Bahamut.

Too late. Vestagix seized the carefully balanced counterweight and wrenched it down. The great beam barring the gate soared up. The gate slammed open and a wave of plague demons poured into Winterhaven.

Caught right in front of the gate, Roghar was engulfed by the surge. Bahamut’s light dimmed and disappeared among crimson crystal and demonic flesh.

“Roghar!” came a scream from above. Albanon caught a glimpse of Tempest on the stairs. Flame from her rod blasted into the mob, to no visible effect. She might have been swatting at a cloud of midges. Behind her, Winterhaven’s defenders rushed down from the wall, but like Roghar’s charge, they were too late. Even as the villagers reached the ground, the horde swarmed around Vestagix, hiding him, and spread out to meet them.

Albanon put his back to the nearest wall and tried to choke down his fear and dismay. First Immeral, now Roghar? He saw the plague demons take others, too. The man who had opened the gate for them earlier that day. A woman he had seen in the inn. Thair Coalstriker crushed the skull of one bestial demon with a heavy hammer-only to have another leap over its body and slam into him. The dwarf hit the ground with the demon tearing at his chest and throat. Someone wailed in anguish, the sound rising above shouts and screams and howls.

Rage closed like a fist around Albanon’s heart. He stabbed his staff toward the demon crouched over Thair and a silvery bolt of magical force sent it sprawling. Thair didn’t rise, but Albanon knew there were others he could still fight for. He shook Splendid off his shoulder. “Find somewhere safe,” he told her, then he spread the fingers of his free hand and hissed a word. A wave of flame rolled over a trio of demons, leaving two of them rolling and shrieking as fire consumed them.

Unfortunately the third, though scorched and smoking, remained sufficiently alive to snarl and lunge at Albanon. The wizard brought a column of golden flame rushing up around it, but the damage was done. He’d drawn the attention of the demons. A pack broke free from the horde and raced for him. Albanon clenched his jaw. He blew across the palm of his hand and an icy mist streamed from it, billowing up into a thick cloud around the demons. Yelps of surprise emerged from the mist as the creatures reacted to the cold.

The cloud wouldn’t last long, but it would distract the demons. Quickly, Albanon slid along the wall, trying to get closer to one of the knots of fighting villagers. He wouldn’t last long on his own in an open melee. When the first shape came out of the fading mist, he was ready for it. Another silver bolt darted from his staff.

But the shape that emerged was not one of the demons that had gone in. It twitched to the side with unlikely speed and Albanon’s bolt flickered harmlessly past Vestagix’s skull.

The narrow muzzle twisted in a sharp-toothed grin. “Vestagix claims you.”

Albanon froze, a rabbit before a coiled serpent. Suddenly, he was back among the ruins of the Temple of Yellow Skulls, a captive of Vestapalk as the Voidharrow-transformed dragon inspected him, stroking a claw like smoky red glass across his belly. His death hung over him. Vestapalk had spared him with the intent of infecting him with the Voidharrow. Vestagix seemed to have no such intention. For a moment, everything seemed to slow. A perfect image burned itself into Albanon’s mind of Vestagix as the strange creature-both dragon and plague demon and yet more than either-raised his great talon.

A talon that, Albanon saw, was identical to the one that had stroked his belly. A talon that seemed older, more nicked and worn, than the rest of Vestagix’s bright-scaled body, almost as if that body had been grown from the talon rather than the other way around. A fragment of a long-ago lesson with Moorin rose in Albanon’s mind: the Draconic word for “claw” was gix.

Then the moment shattered as something swept past him and darted straight at Vestagix. Shrieking like a boiling kettle, Splendid swirled around the creature. Vestagix stabbed at her, but the pseudodragon was an agile flyer. “Master, run!” she spat, then dived past Vestagix’s talon. Her tail lashed out and the stinger on its tip sank into his flesh. Vestagix howled, probably more with shock than actual pain. He grabbed for Splendid again, but once more she slipped away from his grasp. She stung him a second time, then beat her wings and climbed away from his claws.

But not from his tail. It snapped up in a blur almost faster than Albanon could follow. Suddenly Splendid was tumbling down, stunned. Vestagix snatched her out of the air. He looked at Albanon and his eyes narrowed.

Then he snapped Splendid’s neck.

He might as well have snapped Albanon’s. The wizard watched Splendid’s broken body slip to the ground. He felt paralyzed, his thoughts and emotions tumbling too fast to make sense. Vestagix coiled to spring. The great talon reached out for Albanon.

Brilliant white light erupted behind him as the horde of demons parted like storm clouds before the sun. Vestagix half-turned to face this new threat-and a glowing shield emblazoned with the crest of Bahamut slammed him to the ground.

Roghar stood over his fallen foe, shining like the Platinum Dragon incarnate. He gave Vestagix no more chance to recover than the demon had given Splendid. Wrenching his shield off his arm, the paladin raised it in both hands.

“Your existence,” he growled, “offends the gods.” The white glow shifted to the shield’s rim as Roghar drove it down across Vestagix’s throat. The shield bit through flesh like the edge of a sword blade. Vestagix’s head rolled away, his eyes wide in surprise.

On the periphery of his attention, Albanon saw a change come over the horde with the loss of their leader. Their charge into Winterhaven seemed to fall apart. Whatever control Vestagix had over the plague demons gave way to sheer blood lust. The demons’ attention flitted from one target to the next. They started fighting each other as much as the defenders of the village. The battle didn’t get any easier for the Winterhaveners, but the tide had turned. The tall juggernaut came sprawling down, hamstrung by a squad of defenders led by Padraig and Belen. Uldane went dancing among the demons, crippling any he could, killing any that fell wounded.

The only thing on Albanon’s mind, though, was Splendid. He went over to where Splendid lay by Vestagix’s outstretched hand. The light that shone around Roghar had faded. The dragonborn jerked his shield out of the ground-there was little blood from Vestagix’s corpse, as if the holy light had seared the stump of his neck. “I’m sorry I wasn’t quicker,” Roghar said. “The demons swarmed over me, but they didn’t even try to attack, even when I fought free of them. It was as if I was just in their way.”

Albanon felt nothing at Roghar’s strange escape. He kneeled and gently picked up Splendid’s body. Her bright eyes were dim. Her delicate wings hung limp. The scales on her chest were torn where Vestagix’s lashing tail had struck.

“She called me ‘master,’ ” he said.

“Bahamut will welcome her spirit,” said Roghar.

The fury that Albanon felt when he thought Roghar was dead reignited inside him, even hotter than before. He dropped his staff so he could cradle Splendid in one arm and still have a hand free. “Step back, Roghar.”

“What?” The paladin looked startled.

“Step back!” The spell was already in Albanon’s mind. As Roghar moved away from him, he let it flow onto his tongue and into his fingers. Lightning chased his gestures. The jagged lines formed a glowing image in the air: a small, sleeping serpent, no bigger than Splendid. Albanon ground his teeth. When the serpent woke, it would strike, but no more than once. That was no aid to the defense of Winterhaven. That was no tribute to Immeral or Splendid.

The solution rose out of the darkness of his anger and grief. You know the way. Kri showed you.

He’d controlled himself, and for what? Splendid and Immeral were dead. Vestapalk’s plague demons might still overrun the rest of them. There was nothing fair or heroic in that. Why control himself any longer?

Madness received him with an embrace both warm and terrifying. The eye of Tharizdun gazed upon him.

The world opened into flows of magic and numbers, the promise of unlimited power if only Albanon could expand his mind to encompass it. The power to burn all of Winterhaven if that was what he desired.

It wasn’t. He pulled back. Fire would grow to fill any volume he permitted, but lightning was different. It needed focus. Squeezing his eyes shut, he twisted the numbers in his mind. He forced himself to conceive of the magic as growing not by squares or cubes, but in linear progression.

Glowing lines and crackling angles sprang to life in his imagination, as if a whole plane of magic had lain dormant there, just waiting for him to discover it. He could have reached across the world. He could have touched the Astral Sea and the domains of the gods! If his manipulation of fire spells showed the power of a spell expanded, this spell showed the power of a spell grown and focused. Albanon’s body trembled with it.

His ears itched at some sensation he couldn’t immediately identify. The sound of fighting had stopped, he realized, though something new had taken its place. Something that wasn’t quite a noise and wasn’t quite a touch, but that licked along his skin like a cat’s tongue. He opened his eyes.

The sound and sensation he’d felt was the crackling play of little arcs of lightning across his body. The serpent of his spell had grown. It surrounded him, towering over the entire village of awed people and staring plague demons. It had sprouted more heads, too, making it more hydra than serpent-and each head looked like Splendid. Harsh laughter, half-strangled by tears, bubbled up from Albanon’s throat. He twitched the fingers of his free hand, plucking at the flows of power. The hydra woke.

And struck.

It was as if a thunderstorm had erupted within Winterhaven’s walls. Bolts of lightning smashed down into the horde, scattering the demons and leaving bright lines seared across Albanon’s vision. Thunder shook the ground. Albanon could hear nothing else, not even the sound of his own voice as he screamed his rage. The lightning fell again and again, reducing some demons to smoking cinders and knocking others back. One bolt, as thick as his thigh, fell on Vestagix’s decapitated body. It clung to the corpse as if it had been hooked into the flesh, making the dead limbs twitch and dance.

Albanon fed power to his spell, the numbers that composed the long lines of the lightning arcs growing continually. The sparks that played across his body grew in power, too, until each one stung his skin and left a red pinprick of a burn behind. Pain was a small price to pay. The demons had recognized the danger he presented. Many ran before the onslaught of lightning, but a few tried to get close to him. He burned one with a carefully hurled bolt. Others got the message and backed off. A handful, more aggressive than the others, remained. One small creature even capered as if to taunt him. Albanon snarled and flung another bolt. The small demon dodged-and too late Albanon realized that it was a distraction. A big four-armed demon leaped on him from behind, wrapping its arms around him to break his spellcasting as it howled into his ear.

“Stop, Albanon! Bahamut’s mercy, stop!”

Roghar’s voice.

No, snarled his anger. It’s another demon trick. You have to throw it off. Possibilities flowed into his imagination, a way to turn the numbers of his magic back on themselves in a burst of force that would hurl his assailant away.

“Albanon! Can you hear me?”

It was Roghar holding onto him, Albanon realized. And the small capering demon was Uldane. His mad fury ebbed, taking the long construction of numbers with it. The last of the lightning and thunder faded like a storm receding in to the distance. Albanon blinked and looked around Winterhaven.

Looked around what remained of Winterhaven. The plague demons were gone, leaving only their dead behind. Theirs weren’t the only lightning-burned corpses, though. Half a dozen human bodies sprawled-charred and smoking-on the ground. One was only a few paces from Albanon, and he remembered the demon that had tried to get close to him. A terrible hollow grew inside him. He pulled away from Roghar and turned in a slow circle. The walls of Winterhaven bore long scorch marks in many places. Most of its buildings were scarred. Three wooden structures were on fire with the flames spreading fast; one stone wall of the inn was shattered to reveal a growing inferno within. Pale, terrified faces peered out of whatever shelter had been available and stared at him.

Four of those faces, maybe even more shocked than the others, belonged to Roghar, Uldane, Belen, and Tempest.

Vestapalk felt Vestagix’s destruction like a sword driven deep into his body. His roar of anguish echoed up the Plaguedeep, sending lesser demons scrambling away and greater demons flinching back. The pool of the Voidharrow splashed and splattered as he thrashed. If a plague demon he was inhabiting died, it was no different than shedding an old, dry scale. The death of Vestagix felt as if a part of him had died as well. Eight foreclaws clenched and gouged stone-seven claws of translucent crystal, plus one of deep red, regrown from the Voidharrow to take the place of what he had sacrificed.

His agony eased. Thought returned. The death was hardly conceivable. Vestagix had been given only a measure of his power but he had shared all of Vestapalk’s cunning. He should not have fallen.

But his proxy’s death was not the end. His vengeance might still be salvaged. Vestapalk sent his thoughts out through the Voidharrow. They settled on a plague demon… in flight from Winterhaven. New rage rushed over him. What could have gone so wrong? Vestapalk tore open the demon’s memories of the battle.

He saw Vestagix struck down by the dragonborn Roghar, felt the demon’s rush of wild ecstasy at being released from Vestagix’s command.

He saw lightning and heard thunder. A bolt struck close and blew him back. He saw Albanon surrounded by crackling, barely controlled power greater than any mortal wizard should have been capable of wielding. The eladrin’s face was twisted in single-minded fury, but his eyes shone fever bright.

The fear that swept over Vestapalk surprised him. It pierced his anger and pushed him out of the plague demon, back to his own body. The same fear, as of an old enemy or a newly discovered weakness, seemed to have penetrated the whole of the Plaguedeep. The red abyss was still. Silent. As if the Voidharrow itself was afraid.

Afraid not so much of the power that had driven back the plague demons as of the all-consuming intensity that had lit Albanon’s eyes-and of what lay behind it. A name rose out of that fear, wrapping around Vestapalk’s mind.

Tharizdun.

Vestapalk hissed.