Robert Vardeman - Istu awakened

Slung stones and javelins sleeted down at the winged creature. They passed through it like smoke. Clawed limbs lashed out again and again. The monster delighted in eviscerating Zr'gsz and tearing out hearts to fling them in the faces of its foes.

'They'll never get past that horror,' said Fost. Relief almost overwhelmed his dread of the monster.

Synalon frowned. A spot of darkness appeared in the air beside the winged beast, grew. The tiger-headed thing saw it, struck at it with a claw. The beast's arm disappeared. The black hole caught the arm and drew the monster in. It uttered a wail that raked down Fost's spine. Then it was gone. The hole winked out of existence. Synalon's hair crackled with sparks. 'Damn! They've a mage with them who draws on Istu's power.'

As she spoke, a beam of black light lanced down at her. She gestured contemptuously. It bent abruptly to dig a smoking rent in the ground.

'Even with the Demon's help he has no touch for offensive magic,' Synalon sneered. 'But I fear he can negate any spells I attack with.' 'Is Istu near?' asked Fost, peering all around.

'No, but his power can augment that of any he favors. I myself sought to tap the power of his sleeping mind – as you may recall.'

He had a fleeting urge to strike her. He remembered too well. She had planned to sacrifice Moriana to the sleeping Demon as a bribe for his assistance. Fost had barely rescued the golden-haired princess.

Synalon's hands moved, weaving a new spell. A crack opened in the earth below the skyfleet. A billion black hornets billowed forth to surround the rafts. Stoic as they were, the Hissers began to scream and fling themselves over the edges of their vessels to escape the maddening stings.

Fost couldn't see the enemy sorceror. But he must have acted because the swarm became a cloud of tiny sparks burning unbearably bright, falling to the Steppe in an incandescent rain.

The rafts were almost overhead. Arrows began to pelt the landscape, javelins and stones striking with thumps like hail. Synalon's lips drew back taut. 'They know what we're doing. They're trying to slay the Ethereals.'

'They're shooting blind,' Fost said. Evidently the Vridzish had spotted the Ethereals at a distance and knew they were near, but couldn't pinpoint them. With their eerie self-control, many of the Ethereals died without a sound, without stirring.

The rafts came close enough to speed missiles at the mounted pair. Fost steeled himself. He had no shield and his mail vest would provide little protection against hard-driven arrows.

Synalon waved her hand. The barrage of missiles dropped, arrows and javelins aflame, the stones molten lumps.

'Had they enough archers they could swamp me,' she said. 'But they don't.'

The skyrafts veered off, milling aimlessly in the sky. Fost awaited a new spell from Synalon. None came. 'I do what their mage does,' she explained. 'I conserve strength.'

The rafts spread out, formed a circle around the two and touched down. The craft each held six to eight Vridzish. Six to eight too many for Fost's liking.

The Hissers rushed forth, the nobles splendid in their cloaks and armor, the paler scaled lowborn warriors clad in loincloths and carrying obsidian spears and axes. Some of the latter carried short-swords of plain steel looted from a human armory. Oracle had predicted this would happen. Obsidian held a keener edge than steel but it was brittle. As Vridzish weapons were broken or lost, they had to be replaced. Picking up fallen human weapons proved easier than chipping new ones from glass.

It was small comfort. Two of the shortsword-armed Hissers stopped and hauled an Ethereal woman to her feet. Her face never lost its dreamy look as they plunged their swords repeatedly into her body.

Synalon pointed three times with her finger. Three lines of blue lightning stabbed forth. The two slayers and an officer nearby charred and fell. Synalon laughed delightedly at her handiwork. 'The whoreson can't guard against that!'

The Vridzish commander shouted and waved his sword. The Hissers advanced on Fost and Synalon at a trot. Both dismounted, preparing for battle.

Lightning flared in such rapid succession that Fost was momentarily deafened and blinded. But if the Zr'gsz mage couldn't fend off her deadly short range lightning, neither had Synalon speed or strength to cinder all their enemies before they reached the embattled pair.

Instinct made him lash out even before his vision cleared. Fost felt his blade slash through something brittle; then came the unmistakable sensation of steel cleaving flesh. A Hisser gasped and fell, the broken halves of a mace dropping to the Steppe.

A score of the reptiles surrounded the pair. Fost's dog snarled and leaped, taking a deep gash down one side but bearing two of them to the ground. A trio of lowborn Hissers closed on Fost. His eyes searched rapidly and found a small stone lying near his foot. He kicked it between two of the Vridzish.

They were stupid. Their eyes followed the rock and then not even their inhuman speed saved them from Fost's whining blade. He swung left, right, left again and black blood gushed over him.

A noble loomed up ahead swinging an obsidian-edged sword. Fost hurled himself backward. The black stone blade moaned past. Fost felt nothing but as he backpedalled he saw that his tunic was parted in a line running across his chest and blood welled through a sleeve.

Synalon glided forward, her rapier twitching before her like a giant insect's antenna. She attacked the officer, and he retreated a step. Steel rang on stone, and then the tip of the slender sword whipped around a parry to score a heavily muscled forearm.

The Zr'gsz whistled in rage and struck, battling Synalon's blade out of the way. She danced back. He smiled then, teeth bright in his dark face, and advanced.

As quickly as he had advanced, he stopped. His eyes rolled up in his head showing greenish white balls. He stiffened. Every muscle swelled into relief on his powerful body, and he began vibrating in the grip of an awful spasm. A keening sounded only to be drowned in a froth of blood. He fell, kicking grooves in the soil. He finally lay still.

'My sword skill's too paltry to put all my faith in it,' Synalon said from behind Fost. 'Come on then, bastards. My venom's good for many more!'

And they did come on, barely giving Fost time to clamber to his feet. He and Synalon fought back to back as the Vridzish rushed. It seemed that each new attack must be the last; Fost didn't know how he parried the blinding strokes of mace and axe and sword. The Zr'gsz crowded in on all sides, jostling each other, making it difficult to attack. Fost buried his sword over and over until he was black with their blood. Synalon's poisonous sting littered the ground with convulsing victims. But there were too many Hissers, and beyond the circle of hard, dark faces Fost saw several score others still hunting down the Ethereals.

His face and arms stung from myriad shallow cuts. He dared not even glance over his shoulder at Synalon, but from her constant low-voiced cursing he guessed she was in no better shape.

He refused to have it end like this. The thought of dying filled him with rage.

'O, Ust!' he bellowed. 'Give me the strength to slay these sons of darkness!' Madness came on him, and he waded in among the Vridzish.

He scattered a dozen of the lower caste warriors. Another officer faced him. His speed outmatched Fost's berserker fury. Each stroke of his mace drove Fost's blade perilously near the man's own flesh. Sweat blinded Fost.

Then the noble's head departed its shoulders atop a column of blood.

'Again I greet you, O Chosen of Ust,' said Jennas, hetwoman of the bear clan, as she flicked black blood from the six-foot blade on her greatsword. 'This is getting to be a habit,' she added in a quieter voice.