Bruce Cordell - Key of Stars

Raidon plunged into the newborn thicket. The vines instantly wrapped around him. He grunted with surprise as the venomous thorns pierced his skin and held him fast.

“Pathetic,” said Neifion. He looked at the immobilized monk and said, “A hundred curses take you, Shou.”

A sharp pain pierced Raidon’s left temple.

The Lord of Bats stepped closer to Raidon, with one hand up. Claws the size of small daggers burst from the end of each of his fingers.

Raidon tensed every one of his muscles, then relaxed. The vines responded with a moment of slack. In that moment the monk forced one arm up across his body until his hand rested on Angul’s hilt.

His exhaustion puffed away. Numbness from the spreading poison receded. Even the jagged fractures of his mind smoothed out into a glow of calm conviction.

Neifion’s claws bit and dragged across Raidon’s ribs. Skin and muscle peeled away, revealing white bone. Pain seared, then Angul’s cerulean strength numbed Raidon’s mind to the awful trauma.

The Lord of Bats reared back for another blow. It promised to rip out the half-elf’s spine, Angul or no.

A vortex of starry energy swirled up between Neifion and the half-elf. Streamers of glowing gas engulfed the Lord of Bats. The archfey screamed in rage as his second claw swipe went wild.

Raidon hauled Angul from his sheath and ripped through the entangling vines with the extra strength the blade lent him. He swept it down, slicing through the remaining poisonous thicket in a single scything cut. Healing energy continued pouring from the hilt through his bloody body. The grievous wound on his side began to knit.

“Strike Neifion down, Raidon! Before he recovers!” came Japheth’s shout.

Raidon spared a glance over the railing. The warlock had emerged from behind the iron sculpture. One hand pointed up at the balcony; it was sheathed in the same starry mist that had slapped Neifion away from Raidon. The warlock’s other hand held open his cloak. Bats flowed out of the catacombs and into the black folds as swiftly as a river during spring melt.

A clawed fist slammed Raidon’s head so hard he saw white. He smashed through the balcony railing and fell. His trained instincts tucked him into a spin. He fell into a roll, and transferred the momentum of the fall so that he was on his feet in an eyeblink. A bloody imprint from his wound marked the floor.

“What in the Bitch Goddess’s name is going on?” came a voice.

Captain Thoster stood in the chamber entrance. Behind him was Seren. And the faintest outline of a woman in articulated gold armor.

“Wait your turn, mortals,” growled the Lord of Bats. One clawed hand gestured at the doorway. A wall of surging water appeared beneath the entrance arch. It roared like a mile-high waterfall, sealing Raidon and Japheth into the chamber with the archfey.

Neifion’s other hand formed a strange crooked configuration. The room shuddered.

“Come, my allies of the Old Woods,” said the Lord of Bats.

The domed ceiling seemed to peel away, revealing a twilight forest of towering trees. A moon many times bigger than normal peered down through the lofty canopy. One tree bent, and before Raidon quite recognized the threat, it smashed him into the floor with a gnarled fist the size of boulder.

Cerulean fire lit the dark path back from unconsciousness.

He was sprawled at the center of a crater in the stone floor. Pain stitched him to the shattered stone even as he saw his limbs straightening. His hand had maintained a death grip on his blade. Raidon sensed Angul was hard pressed to return him from oblivion’s edge. But the blade couldn’t spare him the bone-deep ache as his body was forcibly reknit into a functioning whole.

The monk rolled onto his side, gasping. The torrent of water still blocked the doorway. The Lord of Bats remained on the balcony. Thankfully the tree creature that had flattened the half-elf, along with the odd moonscape that had accompanied the thing’s appearance, was gone.

Japheth stood only a pace from where Raidon lay, his back turned to the monk as he whispered another spell to engage his foe.

The sword pulled Raidon’s hand toward the warlock’s unprotected back.

“No,” whispered Raidon, as he struggled to his knees. “The archfey first. The thing on his brow is an abomination that must be extinguished.”

Japheth had retrieved a green rod with a shattered end. A bolt of emerald energy lanced from it and struck the Lord of Bats. Neifion grunted and stepped back half a pace, but a smile remained firmly on his lips.

A woman’s voice said, “Lord of Bats, you’ve got your power back. Japheth has renounced your pact and your castle; why don’t you leave us alone?” The monk recognized the voice as Anusha’s, but he saw no hint of her presence.

“Because I swore revenge,” replied the archfey, glancing around. “When I said I’d quench my anger by eating Japheth’s liver, I wasn’t making idle threats.”

The Lord of Bats laughed.

Then he screamed. A flash of golden light briefly revealed Anusha’s new location. For the barest instant Raidon saw her standing behind Neifion. Her dreamsword was plunged straight into the archfey’s broad back.

The outline of a great dog burst from the shadows. It grabbed the flickering image of Anusha and bore her to the balcony’s floor, out of Raidon’s sight. The dreamsword protruding from the Naifion’s back blew away like smoke.

Japheth yelled, “No!” and released another crackling beam. The emerald energy played across Neifion’s body, pocking his clothing and flesh with miniature smoking craters.

The healing torrent continued surging from the Cerulean Blade. Under its impetus, Raidon stood.

The Lord of Bats glared down at the warlock and monk, smoothing his garments. Where his hands passed, some of the rents in the fabric and his flesh were made whole, though others still gaped and bled.

“Do your worst-I surpass you in every way,” Neifion said. “Besides, Malyanna and I are allied. See?” He pointed to the rune on his forehead. “She’s no simple eladrin, nor even an eladrin noble. The strength lent her by the Sovereignty makes her equal to me … if not stronger! And that’s just a splinter of the strength she and I will soon claim. Shall I call her to my side now, or will you relinquish Japheth?”

“You’re weakening; all your talk is a ploy to gain time,” Raidon said. He turned to Japheth. “Can you put me next to him?” he asked.

The warlock blinked to see Raidon standing, but nodded. Without any audible command, the folds of the warlock’s cape billowed toward the half-elf.

Night enfolded him, then Raidon stood on the narrow balcony, Japheth at his back.

A shadow hound crouched in front of him, between Raidon and the Lord of Bats. Of Anusha there was no sign.

Raidon charged, leaping over the black mastiff’s head before it realized a threat had appeared on its flank. But the dog was quick. It loosed a low-pitched bay of warning. Neifion spun around. Angul’s sweeping blow failed to lop the archfey’s head from his shoulders. Instead, the vicious cut removed half the creature’s left hand raised in unconscious defense. The fingers dropped to the balcony’s stone floor and flexed in a mindless parody of life.

The Lord of Bats screamed. The overwhelming sound buffeted Raidon and shook the catacombs’ walls. The monk nearly lost his grip on Angul when his body insisted he clap both hands over his ears.

He ignored his body. He feinted with Angul but put all his power into a front kick that blasted into Neifion’s solar plexus. A nearly comical expression of surprise crossed the archfey’s face as he launched backward off the balcony. The Lord of Bats followed a trajectory similar to Raidon’s own earlier fall. However, Neifion didn’t fall half as gracefully.