Paul Kemp - Shadowrealm

I wish you to die, Brennus said.

You may get that wish, Rivalen said, and flew into the air.

Brennus seemed not to hear him. But you are my brother and it will not be by my hand. The spell sequence I provided to you before will kill you if you use it.

Rivalen had nothing around him but air yet he felt walls closing in on him, his plans unravelling before his eyes, the thread of his life being pulled from the weave of history.

I will not cause your death but neither will I cause your deification. I will simply hate you forever.

The words pained Rivalen faintly. He had felt closer to Brennus than other members of his family.

I have not told the Most High, Brennus answered. Nor will I. This is between us, Rivalen. And it will be between us forever.

Rivalen understood Brennus's meaning. He had lost his brother. Soon he would lose his life. He was about to speak when a surge of surprise carried through the connection

What is it? he asked

Sakkors is moving, Brennus answered, and cut off the connection.

Rivalen glanced back and saw Kesson touch himself with his right hand as he completed a spell-an illusion, perhaps- that caused his form to shimmer for an instant, after which he extended his left hand at Rivalen and fired a line of orange energy that Rivalen could not avoid.

Rivalen screamed as his body exploded and he fell back to earth.

Broken bones and damaged organs caused Furlinastis to roar with pain. Blood poured out of him, fountaining around the giant's sword that spiked his chest. He was dying, vaguely aware of the Lathanderians forming up somewhere near him.

Unable to take revenge on Kesson Rel, he decided to take it on Kesson Rel's creatures.

Lurching forward into a mass of giants, he crushed two under his body, impaled another on his right claw, pulled the giant to his mouth, and bit him half. The blood and flesh fired his rage and he roared anew.

The giants shouted and bounded forward. Blades rained down on Furlinastis's scales. Giants shadowstepped atop his back, tried to drive their blades down into his spine. He lurched, throwing them off of him, crushed another under his body, and tore the arm off another with his fangs.

But some of the giants' blows penetrated his scales. Furlinastis leaked shadows and blood. He was slowing, weakening.

Cale and Riven stepped through the darkness and materialized two strides behind Kesson Rel, in time to watch Rivalen's body burst in a shower of blood as veins and arteries exploded outward from his flesh. The Shadovar prince fell to the ground in a twitching heap of glistening gore. Shadows still streamed from his ruined body.

"High," Cale said.

"Low," Riven answered, and both lunged forward, blades bare.

Cale took a two-handed slash across Kesson's throat; Riven stabbed his sabres in the middle of Kesson's back.

Their blades passed through him as if he were air.

"Illusion," Cale said, as the image disappeared. Riven cursed.

Kesson's voice, intoning a spell, carried on the wind from somewhere to their right. They whirled, sought him, saw nothing.

Holding his mask, Cale spoke a brief prayer and a circle of force radiated outward from him in all directions to about twenty paces, countering invisibility in its path.

Kesson appeared, hovering low over the plains, energy gathering in both his hands.

"I have Rivalen," Cale said, and winced as a wave of Mogadon's mental energy caused a spike of pain in his head. "Go."

Riven nodded, and charged Kesson.

I am power, Magadon said in Cale's head, his voice an echo of Mephistopheles's. And I am hate.

Riven threw one of his enchanted sabres at Kesson as he charged. The curved blade, poorly balanced for throwing, cut an irregular arc through the air and struck Kesson in the shoulder. If the blade cut flesh, Riven couldn't tell. He could tell that it had no effect on Kesson's casting.

Kesson's dark eyes fixed on Riven. He flapped his wings, pointed both hands.

Cale shadowstepped to Rivalen's side and gagged at the stench. The Shadovar's body had been opened, as if his skin had been unbuttoned and the vitals pulled forth. One of his arms was little more than a withered stick.

Blood vessels, tendons, intestines all lay in a twisted heap on the ruins of his flesh. His eyes fixed on Cale, still aglow, filled with rage and pain. He opened his mouth to speak but nothing more emerged than a wet gurgle. Cale saw that Rivalen's hand still held his holy symbol, slicked with his blood. Perhaps the Shadovar's regenerative flesh would heal him in time. Perhaps not.

Intoning a rapid prayer, Cale cast his most powerful healing spell and fought back bile as the magic caused Rivalen's innards to squirm back into place and closed the flesh over them.

Rivalen, still slick and sticky with his own blood, inhaled in a gasp.

"Get up," Cale said, and pulled him to his feet.

Magadon's voice rang in his head.

I am power.

Magadon! Cale projected through the mental connection. This is not you! Get control! Get out of the Source, Mags. Get out.

I have control, Magadon answered, and began to laugh. And I will never get out.

Cale looked back the way they had come and saw through the darkness, through the raging battle of wraiths and shadows, a huge form moving through the storm, a floating city.

Sakkors.

And Magadon.

Riven dodged to his right as energy flew from both of Kesson's fists. A glowing orange ball of power streaked toward Riven from Kesson's left hand, while a line of green energy from his right hand coalesced in the air and formed itself around Riven into the shape of a large, barred cage. Riven slammed into its unyielding bars. He was trapped inside with the orange ball, which began to spin and hum.

Riven cut at the bars, but he might as well have been chopping at adamantine.

The ball spun ever more rapidly, emitting a high pitched whine. Riven backed away from it as far as the cage allowed. He looked over and saw Cale pull Rivalen, mostly whole, to his feet.

"Cale!"

The ball exploded, filling the cage with billowing black smoke shot through with burning streams of red-hot embers. Riven had nowhere to hide, no cover, and smoke and embers saturated him. He screamed as his flesh blistered, blackened, as his clothes caught fire.

Cale heard Riven's screams. Lines of burning embers snaked through a cloud of smoke, glowing runes of heat and agony traced in the air. The smoke leaked through the bars of a magical cage. Riven had nowhere to run.

"Forcecage," Rivalen said, and spit a tooth and blood.

Cale felt for the darkness within the cage, found it, held his breath, and stepped to it. Lines of fire wrote letters of pain on his flesh. He gritted his teeth, endured, and followed Riven's screams through the smoke. He found the assassin writhing on the ground, burning. Cale grabbed his cloak and rode the shadows out of the cage and onto the plains. He rolled Riven around on the the rain-swept grass as Cale's regenerative flesh healed the burns on his own skin.

Riven grunted with pain through bared teeth, as much angry as pained. His face and hands were blistered, blackened like seared meat. Blades of grass clung to the charred flesh from where Cale had rolled him on the turf. His hair was melted.

Rivalen stepped from the shadows next to Cale.

"Be still," Rivalen said, and held Riven still with his one hand. He chanted a healing prayer, the language not unlike that which Cale had used to heal Rivalen, and Riven's skin regenerated before their eyes. His breathing eased, though his hair and beard remained blackened and curled.