Richard Baker - Avenger

Geran moved down the hall, glancing at the doors as he went. This was the weakest part of his plan; he knew nothing about the layout of the priests’ quarters behind the Cyricist’s chapel. He simply hoped that Valdarsel’s chambers would be obvious from a quick inspection. The temple was not a very large building, after all, and he doubted that there were more than six or seven rooms in the portion of it barred to the public. The hallway from the garden door met an intersecting hall in a T, and he paused to look left and right. To one side the new hall opened into a large antechamber that led to the great chapel, and to the left he saw two more doorways, including one that was lavishly gilded and carved into the skull-and-sunburst emblem of Cyric. He allowed himself a small smile at their good fortune; that was the first place they’d look.

He motioned for Sarth to follow, and turned left toward the ornamental doorway. But the sudden soft clicking of claws on stone and rapid footfalls came from the antechamber behind him. Geran whirled, and found himself facing a terrible devil with greenish black scales and razorlike barbs jutting from shoulders, elbows, knees, and skull. The monster hissed in frustration as it realized that its stealthy rush had failed, and threw itself forward in a flurry of raking talons and stabbing spikes.

The swordmage gave a step or two, parrying the monster’s claws with his blade. The steel rang shrilly under its iron-hard talons, and sparks flew. “Foolish mortal,” the monster snarled. “Do you not know whose house this is? Did you think the servants of the Black Prince would leave their shrine unguarded?”

Geran said nothing in reply, still hoping to avoid making too much noise if he could. He fought back in grim silence, his blade leaping and darting to nick the barbed devil once, then twice. The creature’s scales were as hard as a coat of mail, and he quickly realized that it could shrug off anything but the most solid thrusts or heaviest slashes. Sarth stepped out into the hallway behind the monster, his rune-carved scepter of gold leveled at the creature’s back-and a second devil appeared in the archway to the antechamber at the far end of the hall, hurling itself toward the sorcerer.

“Sarth, behind you!” Geran cried.

Sarth spun to meet the new threat; the second devil was almost upon him, and he had no time for subtlety in his magic. “Narva saizhal!” he shouted, and from his outstretched fingers a half-dozen spears of blue-white ice took form and streaked toward his attacker. The monster screamed in rage and tried to leap out of the way, but two of the ice spears skewered its torso even as the rest streaked past and shattered loudly down the hallway. It staggered back and sank to the floor, but found the strength to conjure a ball of green hellfire and fling it at Sarth. The tiefling deflected the blazing ball with a motion of his scepter; it bounced back down the hall leading to the back door, scorching the flagstones.

Claws raked through Geran’s spell-shield, and he hissed aloud as his adversary’s hot talons scored the meat of his left arm. He returned his full attention to the monster in front of him, launching a furious attack of his own. Steel glittered and rang as the barbed devil batted the blade aside with its claws and spikes, and the monster grinned at Geran with a mouthful of yellow fangs. He could hear an uproar beginning in the temple as the Cyricists began to wake to the battle in their halls, shouting alarms to rouse the rest of their fellows or demanding to know what was happening. There’s no point in trying to keep it quiet now, Geran realized. Time is more important than stealth. With that in mind, he cleared his mind for a sword spell and let the arcane words roll from his mouth. “Sanhaer astelie!” he shouted.

Supernatural strength flooded into his limbs. When his foe raked at him again, Geran caught its forearm in the grip of his left hand-gashing his palm badly on the monster’s sharp scales in the process-and spun around to fling the creature into the wall as if it were a toy. Plaster cracked and the stone blocks of the wall shifted out of place under the impact. Before the monster could recover, he set the point of his sword against the barbed devil’s side and rammed the blade through lungs and heart until the point burst through the opposite ribs. With the last of the strength spell’s brutal power he wrenched his blade free and tossed aside the fiend’s corpse, which collapsed into sulfur-tinged smoke.

The door with the skull-and-sunburst design opened. A black-robed man with straw-colored hair and a sandy goatee stopped on the threshold, momentarily taken aback. A holy symbol of Cyric hung from his neck by a silver chain. Two soldiers in black mail with curved half-sickle swords hurried out to take position between him and Geran. “What is the meaning of this?” the Cyricist demanded. “You dare to defile the house of the Wronged Prince?”

“Are you the one called Valdarsel?” Geran said to him. The man in the black robes met Mirya’s description of the Cyricist well enough, but Geran had never actually laid eyes on him before; he’d happily kill all the Cyricists in the place, but he wanted to make sure that the so-called high prelate was among them.

The robed man’s eyes narrowed. “Who are you?” he snarled.

“I am Geran Hulmaster, of the House Hulmaster, and you are a murderer and a coward. Your hand is on the letter calling for my uncle’s death. For that, you’ll not live to see another sunrise.”

“Then you’re a fool to challenge me here.” Valdarsel sneered. He glanced to the armsmen at his side. “Slay him!” The two soldiers started forward, advancing on the swordmage.

“More are coming, Geran!” called Sarth. “Strike swiftly!”

Geran glanced over his shoulder. “Sarth, keep the others busy!” he replied. “Raze the place to the ground if you have to!”

Behind him, the sorcerer nodded and unleashed a great blast of golden fire that roared back down the hallway, shaking the building and filling the air with acrid smoke. Screams of pain and terror rang from the hall. Sarth shouted the words of another spell and flung a sizzling orb of green acid back at the antechamber from which the devils had come, catching several of the human temple guards as they rushed back in from their place by the front doors. The stone blackened and sizzled as the green acid ate into the walls and floor. Dark chants rose as lesser priests summoned their own magic against Sarth, and the very air crackled with the ripples of spell and counterspell. Then Valdarsel’s bodyguards threw themselves at Geran, and the swordmage had no more time to concern himself with how his friend was faring in the hallway behind him.

The hallway was narrow enough that two enemies couldn’t easily come at him at the same time, so one guard held back a step and allowed his companion to go ahead. The leading bodyguard gave voice to a shrill laugh, his eyes ablaze with a fanatic’s reckless zeal. “Die, defiler!” he shrieked, and hacked down at Geran with an overhand cut. The swordmage parried the hard blow with some difficulty-the oddly shaped sickle swords were unfamiliar to Geran, and he wasn’t exactly sure where he wanted his own blade to meet his foe’s weapon. The curved point passed over his shoulder as the black-clad guard bore down, pushing the crossed blades down toward Geran with a two-handed effort … and the instant the curve of his sword was around Geran’s back, he suddenly leaned back and yanked with all his might. The sickle point wasn’t quite curved in enough to pierce Geran’s back, and it wasn’t effective as a slash, but the Cyricist guard did manage to drag him stumbling forward off balance, right into range for his comrade to cut Geran down. Geran survived only by throwing himself to the right, getting inside the second man’s swing and ramming his right elbow into his mouth. Then he stepped toward the guard who’d pulled him close so that his sword was no longer pinned against his body, and managed to smash the heavy pommel into the side of the second guard’s head as he recoiled from the elbow smash. The guard groaned and sank against the wall, his hand clapped to his ear as blood streamed through his fingers. But the guard grappling Geran shoved the swordmage back and attacked again.