Sensing his curiosity, Stielbek drew his wings back to send them into a dive with Vintress following close on their tail. They streaked down through a dozen swirling duels, Shamil blinking his eyes against the repeated flare of discharged sorcery whilst the hellish cacophony of rage and pain penetrated his helm with irksome ease. He could feel the heat of the lava now, building in intensity as they swept lower and beading his skin with sweat. A small, somewhat bedraggled swarm of flensers tried to bar their path, many leaking blood from recent wounds, their wings pierced or torn in places, causing Shamil to wonder how they still managed to fly. He sensed Stielbek’s disdain as he continued to dive, not troubling himself to change course and cutting his way through the beasts with a few well-placed snaps of his beak before levelling out some three hundred feet from the surface of the molten river.
The sounds of conflict faded as they glided across the steaming, bubbling surface, and Shamil’s nose and mouth flooded in response to the foul gasses. He could see the far bank of the flow through the shimmering curtain of heated air. Blinking tears to clear his vision, Shamil was shocked to find himself confronted by an army, tall spears rising like a vast forest from dark ranks. The distance was still too great to make out their features, but he knew these must be the dreaded vehlgard, the two-legged fodder of the Voice’s malign horde said to be the obscene result of some unnatural fusion of man and beast. They were arrayed in neat, unmoving columns from the lip of the Maw to the edge of the glowing river, a thick black line thousands strong broken in the centre by the blaze of white Shamil had seen from above.
As Stielbek took him closer, he saw to his amazement that his first thought had been correct; this was a snowstorm. Or rather, he realised as the near overpowering heat gave way to a sudden chill and a lacelike veil began to cover his visor, an ice storm. As frost clustered on his brow, Stielbek let out a brief, throaty cry of protest and beat his wings to take them higher. Shamil leaned forward to stare down into the heart of the raging storm below, seeing great plumes of rising steam as lava met ice and turned instantly to rock. Upon nearing the slope leading to the lip of the Maw, the wall of white suddenly diminished, revealing the eastern bank in full.
Although the air remained thick with mingled steam and smoke, Shamil managed to make out a dozen dark figures below. They stood in a line close to the storm, each one holding aloft a staff, tips blazing with the unmistakable glow unique to crystalmancy. Streams of pale blue energy emerged continually from the twelve staffs, curving in chaotic spirals before merging with the raging chaos of the ice storm.
“Mages,” Shamil realised in a whisper. “The Voice has mages of its own.”
As if hearing his words, all dozen figures instantly turned their eyes skyward. Their faces were indistinct, but he saw that they were all clad in mismatched clothing, long trailing silks contrasting with archaic armour or cloaks of fur. However, their disparity in appearance was dispelled by the uniform glow of the eyes they focused on Shamil as he flew overhead, as fiery red and full of hateful hunger as the flenser Stielbek had dispatched only moments before.
It was then that Stielbek gave full vent to his cry. Shamil had heard little of his voice so far and found the volume of it enough to shake his very bones. It bore little relation to the high-pitched screech of a fire wing or falcon, pitched lower even than an owl’s hoots. It was more of a roar, full of rage and a depth of enmity Shamil could feel through the bond, along with a deeper understanding: Stielbek knew these mages of old and wanted very badly to kill them.
The mages lowered their staffs as Stielbek’s cry faded, the arcing streams of energy blinking out as they raised their red eyes to regard the black wing. It may have been something conjured by his overburdened mind, but Shamil was sure their eyes all blazed brighter in that moment, though he saw no change in their stance or expression. However, the sense of hatred being returned in full measure was palpable.
One of the mages in particular caught his eye, a tall, bare-chested man of impressive stature. Shamil quickly flipped the lever on his helm, switching to the magnifying lenses to gain a better view, finding himself confronted with an angular, hollow-cheeked face, the man’s well-muscled frame and bald head covered all over in a dense matrix of tattoos. Shamil once again wondered if his sight were playing him true, for the tattoos seemed to be moving, coiling and overlapping like snakes trapped within his skin. As if in response to the scrutiny, the tattooed man blinked his red eyes and angled his head. Shamil caught the unmistakable curve of a smile to his lips before Stielbek abruptly turned away and the view was lost.
Facing to the front, Shamil switched his visor back to the standard lenses in time to see an inverted rain of fire filling the sky directly ahead. Stielbek swept his wings down then up in rapid beats that sent them higher. Shamil ducked as something fast and flaming streaked within a foot of his helm, half-a-dozen more trailing smoke as they whooshed past. Glancing up at the sound of a pealing cry, he saw Vintress rapidly disappearing into the pall above, rider and bird swallowed by the smoke before any fire arrows could claim them.
Hearing a hiss loud hiss of annoyance, Shamil looked down to find an arrow had left a patch of burning embers on Stielbek’s wingtip. He watched with relief as it dwindled to a blackened stain before it could birth a blaze. The origin of this fiery barrage became obvious when Stielbek went into a steep bank. Fire arrows blazed along the leading edges of the vehlgard columns as archers raised their bows and loosed concentrated volleys. Luckily, they were now too high for the arrows to reach them, though Shamil saw one sentinel who wasn’t so lucky.
The fire wing swerved through the air in an effort to dodge the blizzard of fiery shafts, but the smoke trailing from twin blazes in each wing told of a grim and inevitable fate. In addition to the countless arrows seeking to bring it down, it was being pursued by three Maw beasts Shamil hadn’t yet encountered but was quick to identify.
“Man-bats!” he hissed, matching Ashinta’s description to the human-sized creatures with huge black eyes and leathery wings that sprouted from their backs. Two were armed with what appeared to be ten-foot-long tridents, but the one in the lead carried some form of overlarge crossbow.
Shamil watched in growing dismay as the man-bat raised the weapon and triggered the lock. The melon-sized projectile ignited soon after being launched, bursting into a sparking ball of blazing light. It described an elegant arc through the air to impact on the fire wing’s tail, bursting apart with a flurry of shimmering particles that Shamil might have found pretty at another time. His dismay turned to outright horror as the fire wing transformed into an ugly ball of broken wings and trailing feathers, and the identity of its rider became clear.
Morgath Durnholm held on to his bird’s harness for only a few seconds before his muscular form was cast away, bird and rider tumbling towards the army below with the man-bats screaming triumph and diving in pursuit. Shamil’s alarm was enough to send Stielbek into a steep descent, the black wing beating his wings to produce a daunting turn of speed. One man-bat noticed their approach and immediately abandoned its dive to place itself in their path, swinging its long trident around in a slash at Stielbek’s head as they closed. Shamil flicked his wrist, and the raptorile-tail whip uncoiled with blurring speed, the topaz tip entwining the three spikes of the man-bat’s trident before discharging its sorcerous energy. Lightning danced along the spear’s length then up the arms of its wielder, transforming both into a blackened and twisted mess that tumbled away as Shamil jerked the whip free.