Troy Denning - The Titan of Twilight

The queen and Avner had barely pushed past the next guard before this man also fired and charged. His scream was mercifully short, then a deafening clatter sounded from the top of the stairs. Brianna glanced over her shoulder and saw a purple hand tearing away the curved wall behind her. The appendage was the size of a double door, with knuckles as large as boulders and fingers the length of battle-axes.

The fist withdrew to discard the rubble in its grasp. A pair of guards hefted hand axes and shoved past the queen. The appendage returned to the cramped corridor, and the two men began hacking at the wrist. Their blades sank through the purple flesh as though it were mist The hand pushed past them and reached for Brianna.

“Go, Avner!”

The youth flung himself headlong down the passage, shoving the guards over backward. Brianna sprang after the young scout-then felt something cold and ethereal slipping around her waist. She tried to break free but managed only to crush her tender abdomen against her captor’s hand. Searing pain boiled up through her stomach, filling her with such agony that she screamed and nearly dropped Kaedlaw. She was entwined from the waist down by four dark fingers, each as large as a firbolg’s arm.

Avner gathered his feet and spun around, drawing his sword. Brianna pulled Kaedlaw from inside her cloak.

Avner’s face went pale. “No, Majesty!”

“Take him!”

Brianna thrust the infant into Avner’s free arm, then lost sight of the pair as she was dragged up the devastated stairwell. She tried to twist free, but her captor’s grip was secure. She clutched at the wall and succeeded only in bloodying her fingertips.

The fiend pulled her into the rubble-strewn temple, where the odor of blood hung so thick the air smelled like liquid copper. Heaps of mangled armor lay everywhere, often with the groaning remnant of a shattered body still twitching inside. One man lay upon the broken altar, the crimson head of the queen’s faith spear protruding from his punctured breastplate.

Brianna stretched her fingertips toward the spear. “My goddess, help me!”

“The gods won’t answer, child. It is by their will that I have come for you,” rumbled her captor. “Now you must be quiet and save your strength. You have suffered much, and it is a long journey to my Vale.”

“Twilight!” Brianna gasped. “No!”

A wave of cold air rolled down the queen’s back as the Twilight Spirit pulled her through the shattered window casement. The keep walls spun out of sight, and Brianna found herself staring into a purple face as large and murky as the darkening sky. Seen from a distance of a mile or two, the titan’s square features and even proportions might have been handsome, but from so close, the visage was hideous in its very hugeness. His shadowy brow overhung his eyes like a parapet hoarding, his nose jutted out like a cliff buttress, and from his cavernous mouth wafted a breeze as cold and stale as a tomb’s breath.

“Where is your child?” The titan’s angry voice shook Brianna to the core, setting her ears to ringing and her stomach to quivering. “What have you done with my nephew?”

Another tremendous crash sounded inside the ward, shaking the gateway so violently Tavis nearly lost his footing. He took the clamor to be a good sign. If the titan already had what he wanted, he would not be tearing Wynn Keep apart handful by handful. The high scout reached the end of the vaulted passage, and, with Basil close behind, followed their escorts through the wicket door at the base of the iron-clad gates.

When Tavis entered the ward, his heart sank into his stomach. The keep roof lay scattered across the cobblestones, crumpled into twisted heaps of lead and rafter. Inside the fortress itself, several fires were burning out of control, casting streaks of dancing orange light through the slender arrow loops and pouring huge plumes of black smoke into the sky.

The titan stood at the front of Wynn Keep, a looming figure cloaked in purple gloom, barely distinguishable from the fading dusk light. He was straddling the dry moat that guarded the approach to the entry gate, ripping the upper story off the temple tower with one hand and holding Brianna in the other. A semicircle of garrison soldiers stood at his feet, firing a constant stream of crossbow quarrels into his body. The bolts simply passed through the colossus and bounced off the walls behind him, drawing no attention whatsoever from their target. Perhaps a dozen men lay wounded at the feet of the colossus, their open mouths voicing screams that could not be heard above the din of demolition.

The sergeant who had been guarding Tavis pulled a hand axe, then turned to his small company of men. “Ready yourselves!” he yelled. “We’ll save the queen!”

“How?” Tavis asked. “What makes you think your axes will have more effect than those crossbows?”

The sergeant spun on the high scout, frowning at his presence in the inner ward. “Milord, the queen barred you-” The objection came to an abrupt end as the titan dropped another handful of rubble to the ground. A sheepish look fell over the sergeant’s face, and he glanced back toward the keep. “Never mind-but we’ve got to do something!”

The titan lowered his head to peer into one corner of the tower. He plunged his free hand deep into the building and began to feel around, like a man trying to pull a weasel from its hole. Since he already had Brianna, the colossus could only be searching for Kaedlaw.

Tavis pointed to one of his escorts. “You, fetch my bow and quiver from my chamber.” As the man left to obey, the high scout turned to Basil. “We need your help.”

The verbeeg was already holding his runebrush. “Show me your blades, all of you,” he ordered. “And keep them steady!”

The high scout drew his sword and braced it over his arm. Basil touched his brush to the weapon and painted, tracing a moon-shaped pattern of turquoise light upon the metal. A rich blue stain crept outward from the glowing sigil, turning the entire blade the color of sapphire. The steel began to shimmer like starlight, then became dusk-purple and vanished from sight, save for the rune itself and a gleaming line of cobalt along the weapon’s edge.

Basil nodded his approval, then moved to the sergeant’s hand axe. “These runes will help your steel find purchase in Lanaxis’s armor,” he said, using the titan’s ancient name. “But don’t swing your weapons about unnecessarily.”

“Why?” The sergeant scowled at the glimmering stain spreading across his axe blade.

“My runes haven’t had time to dry.” Basil was already working on the next soldier’s weapon, and he did not even look up as he spoke. “The night air will rub them off.”

Across the ward, Lanaxis had moved to the back end of the keep and was peering into the red tower. He reached inside, came up empty-handed, then grunted in anger and slapped his palm against the spire. The third story came loose and crashed to the ground with a deafening boom.

Tavis shouted an order, but realized his ears were ringing so hard that even he couldn’t hear his own voice. He motioned for the sergeant to join him, then started across the ward at his best sprint. The others would have sense enough to follow when their weapons were ready.

By the time Tavis dodged past the rubble heaps and reached the temple tower, his hearing had returned to normal. He found a dozen stunned crossbowmen waiting for him, their faces shocked and hopeless.

“It’s no use, milord,” said the leader. “He’s a phantom. Nothing will touch him!”

“These will!” Tavis raised his sword and, without slowing his pace, pointed to the glowing rune. “Come along, and when someone falls, arm yourselves with his weapon.”