Thomas Reid - The Crystal Mountain

"Come on!" Aliisza said, conjuring a magical doorway. She hardly noticed that the outline glowed a deep blue instead of the familiar red. It matched the emanation shining from her own body. "Push them through!" She bent down to hoist the planetar up and carry the celestial through her portal. "We have to get out of here!"

Kaanyr shook his head as Aliisza instead staggered, overwhelmed by the gut-wrenching sickness that slammed into her. "It's no use," he said, pointing. "The fight's over."

Aliisza coughed and nearly vomited, but she managed to peer in the direction Kaanyr showed her. The demons were all but finished with the devils. The last few black-skinned creatures were down, overwhelmed by the pasty, hairless fiends. To one side, the crimson hyena-headed thing slammed its axe into the shoulder of its foe, taking the devil's arm off. Another stroke removed its head. When its enemy fell dead, the demon turned and sped straight toward the six stranded observers.

"Then you'd better hope," Aliisza said, crumpling to the ground and gasping for breath, "that they're interested in negotiating."

Kaanyr cocked his head to one side. "That's not a half-bad idea," he said.

The crimson demon settled to the sand in front of Kaanyr. His white-skinned followers gathered around them and formed a circle to prevent anyone from escaping.

Beside Aliisza, Zasian curled up into a tiny ball and cowered.

"You are far from home, lord," the crimson demon said. "And you consort with wretched angels." The demon pointed at Tauran's form. "I shall enjoy flensing you for your treachery."

"Do that, and your own lord will gut you like a pig and roast your innards. I come with important news."

"Come?" the demon asked, looking at Kaanyr warily. "Why here?"

"We are lost, trying to return to the Abyss. Help us, and you shall be rewarded."

"Lies," the crimson thing said, smiling. He looked to his underlings. "Let us feast upon their tender flesh!"

"I have been to the angels' plane," Kaanyr said, backing up a step as the demons closed in. "I have spied on them. They are fools, and I know where they are weakest."

"Kaanyr!" Aliisza growled under her breath. "Don't!"

"Hush, fool alu," Kaanyr whispered back. "I know what I'm doing!"

"Tell me," the demon leader said, "and I will let you live."

"Oh, no," Kaanyr said. "It is for your master's ears only. Kill me, and he will not receive my report, and you will be the one he punishes for it."

The demon cocked his head, considering. The snake growing from his neck writhed and hissed. Finally, the red-skinned beast nodded. "Very well," he said. "We will take you to meet Her Eminence. And when she has finished torturing you for everything you know, I will teach you not to speak to me in such a manner."

"With me!" Garin shouted at three archons following him through the forest. "It went that way!" He pointed toward a tangle of underbrush. One of the surviving demons had plunged through a narrow gap in the snarl or brambles and weeds, fleeing the angel and his servitors. Garin could hear the wretched thing crashing through more distant foliage, and the faint smell of its stench still hung in the air.

Garin pushed himself aloft, soaring upon his wings over the barrier of undergrowth. He spotted the demon farther ahead, its pasty pale flesh glowing in the gloaming light. The creature forced its way through a stand of saplings, snapping smaller branches and sending a hail of leaves fluttering to the ground.

The three hound archons with Garin worked in unison, using their innate magical abilities to teleport ahead. They surrounded the demon in the blink of an eye and closed in. Garin tried to glide closer, to aid them in destroying the fiend, but he got his wings caught up in a low-hanging branch and had to drop to the ground to free himself. He turned in place, drew the branch free from his feathered appendage, and released it to snap back up over his head.

A flash of light burst behind Garin, from the direction of the archons and their quarry. It filled the forest with an instant blaze of blue. The flare vanished just as quickly as it had come, replaced by a howling, chill wind. Stinging fragments of ice rode upon that gale, and a roaring storm filled the forest.

Garin brought one wing up to shield his eyes and staggered away from the wind. He sought shelter on the leeward side of a large tree and crouched, pressing his hands to his ears. His heart pounded in his chest. He was certain that he would, at last, succumb to the magic run amok.

After the initial violent burst of sleet, the storm settled to a dull roar. Snow mixed with the ice pellets and coated the ground. The air became more frigid and a deeper darkness settled over the forest. With every passing moment, the certainty of his death seemed to recede, so Garin opened his eyes and peered through the maelstrom. The angel couldn't make out more than the nearest trees, themselves already rime-coated.

Emboldened, the angel rose to his feet and took a few steps in the direction he had last seen the others. He stared hard into the gloom, hunting for the spot where the three hound archons had surrounded the demon. He listened for signs of the creatures. The howl of the wind filled his ears, but he detected nothing else. A few steps brought him to an abrupt end of the world. The ground, the trees… everything simply stopped. He stood upon a precipice, and beyond, he saw only storm.

Damn this insanity! How much longer must this go on? How many good soldiers must we lose?

Garin offered up a quick and forlorn prayer to Tyr for the three servants. He beseeched his lord to lend his deific strength to the land, to bring to an end the devastating magic tearing the House apart.

Then Garin turned and trudged back the way he had come.

He found the hike much easier with the wind behind him. He dismissed the notion of flying, and he refused to use magic to shift elsewhere when soldiers under his command might still need his aid. He wasn't sure where he was going, exactly-he could see little beyond a few paces and certainly no distinguishing landmarks-but he knew that those loyal servants of Tyr had been fighting all through the woods, and he trusted that he would come upon them in due time.

From the angel's left, the faint sound of a branch snapping accompanied shadowy movement. Garin spun and barely dodged the thrust of a massive black sword with coarse, fractured edges. The fiend wielding it stumbled forward, over-balanced in the expectation of connecting with its strike. Garin took two quick steps back and swung his heavy mace at the fiend's weapon, knocking it to the side. The wind muffled most of the clang of metal on metal.

The demon, a bulbously fat green thing with slavering fangs and webbed fingers, looked to be more at home in fetid swamps than snow-bound forests. It had a hard time getting traction on the icy ground and slipped down to one knee.

Garin used the advantage to leap high, intent on winging himself behind the fiend and finishing it off. But the storm betrayed him, for he failed to notice some low-hanging branches. The boughs snagged and tangled in his wings right at the apex of his jump. He grunted in pain as his appendages bent back at an awkward angle, and he had to flip halfway backward to avoid spraining the limbs. The maneuver spared him any serious damage, but he didn't clear the demon and instead wound up landing on top of it.

The fiend thrashed beneath Garin and pitched him off to one side. The angel tumbled away, wary of an attack. As he completed a roll, he brought his mace up to swipe away any blade thrusts. The wicked black steel of the creature's ill-formed sword whipped through the air and drove the mace wide. Garin grunted from the exertion of hanging onto the weapon and sprawled backward on his rump.