“Come on, come on!” Kataria cried, pulling on Lenk’s arm.
There was no choice but to run as the netherlings filed in after them, as the pillars groaned and toppled over, as darkness swallowed them whole.
Are you well, lorekeeper?
Am I dead?
You are not.
Are you sure?
I am certain.
He tried to rise. Something inside him suggested that such an action and keeping all his organs inside him were mutually exclusive concepts.
Oh, you lying little harlot.
Lie still, lorekeeper. Her thoughts came into his head on lilting notes, a spoon stirring whatever soup his brain had become. Let me soothe you with-
Stop. Stop thinking at me.
“We can use words, if you wish,” she sang.
No, no. I don’t think I have lips anymore.
“Open your eyes, lorekeeper.”
That seems like a bad idea.
He did it anyway.
It was.
The battle raged across the ring still. The netherlings seemed to have a stable hand, if not an upper one. Each warrior stood knee-deep in bodies as frogmen hurled themselves at them. Abysmyths waded in tides of flesh, reaching down to pluck netherlings from the sea of combatants and twist an offending body into a purple knot before absently tossing them over their shoulders. They were heedless of blades sinking into their ribcages, arrows finding their gullets. It wasn’t until a Carnassial, wild with fury, would tear herself free from the combat and bring an envenomed blade to hack off a demonic limb that they noticed there was a battle going on.
Their father seemed even more heedless than that.
Daga-Mer and the storm strode as one. Each time the titan’s foot set down, it did so with the sound of thunder that crushed the screams of the frogmen and netherlings beneath it. Each time the hellfire in his eyes swept across the field and found a target, lightning danced joyously for the impending doom. Each time his great fist came down, red tears filled a shallow grave across the sand.
Dreadaeleon went unnoticed because he was currently heaped amidst a small pile of bodies. He was fine with that. He was more than fine with being absent from this mayhem.
Which made it difficult to justify why he was rising up, albeit shakily.
“Lorekeeper!” He felt Greenhair’s hand on his shoulder, steadying him. “You cannot be feeling well enough to do what you’re thinking of.”
Perhaps she had known what he was planning even before he had the thoughts to put it into name. Maybe he really was that obvious. After all, for what reason could a skinny little ill boy in a dirty coat get up and begin staggering toward a vile melee like this?
What could he hope to accomplish?
Go in there, find Sheraptus, or his corpse, locate the crown, use it to save his friends who were. . somewhere else? Or go in there, hope that he’d been wrong all his life, discover that Gods were real and would smile on him enough to let him end all this? Or maybe just go and die and feel anything but the disease running through him?
All terrible plans, of course. The more he thought about them, the more stupid they seemed.
A good enough reason, then, to stop thinking about them. Actions, theoretically, were better.
Doing what he could to stop Sheraptus. Doing what he had to to help the others, wherever they were. Doing what he had to, to prove he still wasn’t as weak and useless as everyone-
He bit back a shriek. A hand thrust against his head as a sudden spike of agony lanced his skull. Fever and chill swirled about him, an immense pressure came down on his skull. He fought to hold onto consciousness, then to breath, then to thought.
Magic. An immense amount.
That made finding Sheraptus easy enough, even if the longface didn’t look wildly out of place amongst the carnage.
The boy caught sight of him not far away, standing at the center of a ring of charred sand and smoldering bodies, pristine in his white robes, fingers still steaming as he folded his hands behind him. He was casually observing a small crew of netherlings loading their spiky siege engine with a tremendous ballista bolt, a trio of Carnassials standing beside him, wary of the carnage he was seemingly oblivious to.
Dreadaeleon’s eyes drifted down to the twisted, blackened husks that ringed the longface.
Seemingly.
But more, his eyes were drawn to the crown. Burning bright as fires, alive with energy. He tried his best not to remember where the energies came from.
He had to try harder not to remember what he could do with it.
He forced his attentions on what would have to come first. He raised his hand, focused on the crown, called the magic to mind.
“I can smell your wings burning, little moth,” Sheraptus said suddenly. “Finish that spell and you might very well burn to ash.” He turned to Dreadaeleon and smiled. “Only one of you?”
He couldn’t hear Greenhair’s song in his head. Had she fled? She was getting more efficient with her betrayals, if nothing else.
“The rest are busy trying to stop what you’re interfering with. They’re demons. Unnatural. You can’t use them like you used the Gonwa.”
“Use them? For what?”
“The. . the red stones. Fuel.”
“The martyr stones?” Sheraptus grinned. “That would have been a good idea, wouldn’t it?”
The boy furrowed his brow. “Why did you come here, then?”
“I dislike that word. It’s only three letters, yet it’s been annoying me greatly. We have no equivalent in our tongue. We do not ask, we simply do. I have found this to be effective, thus far.”
“Ulbecetonth is rising, Sheraptus! That means certain death for us all!”
“If that were certain, we’d already be dead. The fact that I’m still here must, therefore, mean that my victory is certain.” The longface pointed a finger upward. “They have shown me this.”
“Has that crown finally burned a hole through your brain? Do you not hear yourself?”
The Carnassials hefted their blades, began to stalk toward the boy. Sheraptus held them back with an upraised hand.
“I don’t blame you for your faithlessness. It took me quite a while to realize the error of it myself and I’m so much more than you.” He turned and nodded to the ballista crew. “That is why I am about to do their will and end this.”
Creation shook with a howl. Daga-Mer challenged heaven and earth alike, throwing his titanic arms back as he roared to the sky.
Sheraptus answered softly.
“Let it fly.”
The ballista bolt went shrieking over the heads of the combatants, a great chain snaking behind it. It sank into the titan’s midsection, inciting barely more than a flinch from the beast as he reached into the melee and scooped out a longface.
A surge of power sent pain creasing across Dreadaeleon’s mind. Sheraptus raised his hands to the chain. The stones burned on his brow, his eyes erupted with red light. Electricity danced from his fingers onto the chain, link to link and flesh to flesh.
Daga-Mer convulsed as the electricity raced across his colossal body. His shrieks tore apart the sky, his hellish red light turned to a vivid blue pouring out of his mouth and painted against the storm with his scream. When it ended, the titan collapsed to one knee. Earth trembled, smoke bloomed in a gray forest.
Sheraptus smiled, flicking sparks from his fingers and making a vague gesture toward the demon.
“Finish it,” he said. The Carnassials obeyed, rushing off across the battlefield. He turned to Dreadaeleon with a smile on his face, almost seeking approval. “You see?”
Dreadaeleon was having a hard time seeing anything. The surge of power persisted, pressing down on his skull. He breathed heavily, trying to listen for Greenhair’s song, just for a moment of reprieve.