Clayton Emery - Sword Play

First to attack were the winged erinyes. A dozen or more, naked but for wings, flapped and swooped at them. Clutched in both hands were chunks of broken stalactites like flint daggers.

Sunbright waited, timing the attack, then swept Harvester like a long-bladed scythe. The sword sheared through a wrist, hacked toes from a foot, lopped off a wing. Out of control, one erinyes flipped over onto its back in midair, then plummeted toward the lava pool, keening like a hog at slaughter. Another, beating its wings at Sunbright's head, had its belly sliced so a loop of guts spurted loose. A third, creased across the forehead, flipped backward and crashed before Greenwillow's feet. Between jabs, the elf kicked the creature over the edge.

The yellow-haunted sky was a sea of skin and wings and slashing daggers. Up close, Sunbright could see that the erinyes had complexions as chalk-white as those of a corpse, and their wings were not lustrous and sharp like a live bird's, but dusty and ragged. Nor did they bleed when struck; it was as if he'd sliced leather. Sunbright didn't strike to kill, in case he fetched Harvester up in a gut or bone, but conserved his strength and slashed to keep them back, for even this attack might buy them precious time to retreat-if there were any place to retreat. The erinyes were not hard to kill, for they were clumsy and crowded one another in the small space before the promontory. But they were so many, a dozen at least, with more flying from holes in the cavern walls, a sky-filling flock of them. Had they worked together and simply dived and plowed into the humans, their prey would have been smothered in seconds, As it was, Sunbright could only wade into the assault swinging his great sword.

Elven blade flashing, Greenwillow stayed close enough to the barbarian to keep them from being separated, yet out of range of the awful scything power of Harvester. With her slim true-steel blade, she aimed surgical stabs: throat, eye, breadbasket, groin. Stricken monster-angels would shrill and drop or fall back or flutter away, for they could feel pain, especially from her blade, which contained elements of silver. Yet never was there a pause in the furious, feathered attack. Always there were more and more targets above, before, below, to the side. Hale and hearty as she was, Greenwillow knew her arm would grow weary long before the beasts' numbers were exhausted. Before long, she had been nicked on the forearm by a flint knife, sliced across the back of her hand, pinked on the shoulder before she shoved back the attacker with a blade tip jammed into its mouth. Overhead, the black raven flashed amidst the white monsters, striking and pecking at eyes and fingers. But even it lost black feathers that pinwheeled to ignite in the lava far below.

Dancing back a pace for room, Greenwillow saw that Sunbright already bled in four places, including the side of his head below his topknot. Yet he ignored the wounds and watched his enemy, swiping at them so hard that his sword hissed in the air. But he was already grunting with the effort.

From the corner of her eye, Greenwillow saw Candlemas hammering on Sysquemalyn's chest. Thinking he'd gone mad, she shrilled, "Leave off your stupid feud and fight!"

"I am!" returned the bald mage. "I seek to shatter her mystic bonds!"

Abruptly, the feathered beings fluttered backward. Sunbright's sword, in one last swipe, ticked only an errant white foot, shearing toes. Immediately the barbarian dropped the tip of Harvester to the stone to rest and panted in great gulps of the hot, fetid air. Greenwillow wiped sweat from her face with her wrist, hissing as the salt burned in a long slash. Both warriors watched the leader of the fiends below.

The mighty pit fiend rolled its lips around its tusks as if tasting something foul. With a wave of clawed hands and a huge puff of wind, it blew the erinyes to either side of the cavern. Many, exhausted and wounded, crumpled like dust balls on the jagged stones and plummeted to crunch on dark rock, or plunged, sizzling, into the lava pit.

Then, glaring at its foes with blazing hatred, the archfiend jerked its hands as if snapping a stick.

The world dropped from beneath the humans' feet.

Sunbright had only a vague notion of what happened next.

A grinding, crashing, rumbling roar drowned out all sound. Rocks as big as huts were crushed to powder, splintered and shattered on more stones. The cavern walls lurched sickeningly, and fiends of every sort jumped and scampered to get away. The raven squawked and beat the air to gain height.

Only for a second did Sunbright fall; then a giant, invisible cushion blossomed under his rump and back. It vanished just as abruptly, and he crashed painfully, wracking his elbows and butt and head.

Amidst a roiling cloud of ashes and dust, he saw he'd landed on broken rubble. Cracks big enough to trap and snap his leg ran everywhere. Groggily he realized that the pit fiend had reached out with magic hands and yanked down the promontory they'd fought on. The fractured stone lay beneath them in a mound of boulders and gravel, and from under it leaked yellow blood such as Sunbright had never seen before.

But if he and Greenwillow had fallen half a hundred feet onto rock, how had they survived?

"Rouse, rouse!" barked Candlemas. "There'll be another wave!"

The podgy mage helped a shaken Sysquemalyn to her feet. Her invisible bonds had been broken, Sunbright noted, probably in the shock of the promontory collapsing. And if Candlemas, or Chandler, were on his feet, he must have triggered the spell that had cushioned their fall.

Now they lay at the bottom of the great cavern. Only the pit of boiling lava at its center was deeper, and Sunbright saw a yellow-red jet of it flung higher than the lip, burst, and drop like fiery rain. In the distance, seen through heat waves shimmering over the pit, hunched the pit fiend, shouting and waving and pointing-straight at them.

All around them, the sides of the cavern rose, somehow looking larger from below than from above. And just as populous. The yellow blobs were thicker than fleas. Skeletal warriors toted ancient pitted bronze swords, and spiked imps capered to attack while the surviving erinyes flapped clumsily overhead.

All this Sunbright took in with a glance, though there was much more he couldn't see, either because the hellish red light flickered too wildly, or because the craggy fissures in the cavern walls sucked up any glow while spilling shadows. That Candlemas could conjure at all was encouraging, for it meant-perhaps-that they were not entirely unprotected from magic.

Then the next wave arrived.

Sunbright heard the word "Lemures!" escape Greenwillow. He had time only to pick a platform-a raised rock fairly flat with gaps all around to slow the enemy-then they were fighting anew.

To Sunbright's eye, the lemures were pale yellow and half-melted, like badly dipped tallow candles. Vaguely human-shaped, their faces were naught but big black eyes like glass globes and sagging string-strung mouths. Folds of their skin hung in runnels, and long globs dangled from their outspread arms.

And there were hundreds of them.

The first to spill up the rubble mound Sunbright dispatched with his sword. Or so he thought. Aiming high, he smashed Harvester deep into the skull of a lemure to test its mettle. The sword's heavy nose penetrated deep, popping a black eye to spill gore, knocking the lemure to the ground with a split head. But the wound only spilled a yellow ichorlike pus before it snapped closed…

… and healed.

Quick as thought, Sunbright "killed" another five. He rammed the sword point straight into the mouth of a wretch, twisted to set the hook, and ripped. The lemure sank to blobby knees. A questing hand from the right, the barbarian sheared off at the armpit, so it landed squishily at his feet and flapped like a grounded fish. He slung wide to the right and bowled over another with a half-severed neck, slung left and chopped the leg from another so it toppled on its fellow, rammed again to drive Harvester's point through one head and pierce another crowding in from behind.