Demonkin (32 page)

Dying was not her way, no matter how horrible her nightmarish world became. So long as there was even one person alive she could fight for, Kara Honuron would fight. She owed her father that. She owed Trell.

She took the dream world and scribed a Hand of Land.

ARYN DID NOT KNOW if Kara and Tania could bring a mountain down, but if anyone could, it was the two of them together. It was up to he and everyone else to buy them time to finish their complex string of glyphs.

“Dynara!” Aryn shouted. “We protect them no matter what! Agreed?”

“That's obvious.” Dynara stepped between Kara, Tania, and the golden horde below. Mat and Zell moved to Dynara’s side, planting shields and raising spears. If only they had twenty more just like them.

The twin columns of golden armored soldiers started up the hill. Blessed men, Trell had called them. Or was it ordained? These soldiers marched without taunts or battle cries. Aryn wondered if normal weapons could harm them. He wondered how many Trell had killed already.

He really wished Trell was still alive.

“Hold steady!” Aryn ordered. He turned to Tania.
“Raise yourselves,”
he thought.
“Even if we die, it may keep these demons out a bit longer.”

Tania diverted from the string of glyphs she was scribing with Kara, scribing another, shorter string below. It ignited and then a platform of earth rose beneath them, throwing Dynara off-balance. She leapt off the earth as it rose, barely keeping her feet.

“A little warning!” Dynara shouted.

“Keep going,”
Aryn thought.
“We need it higher than they can climb.”

He felt a brief flicker of amusement from Tania.
“If I die up here, skewered by a golden man, how are you going to get Kara down?”

“You're not dying.”
He couldn’t even think about that.
“I know Kara. Follow her lead. If you work together, she can save us.”

“Well, it is her turn.”

The columns of glowing soldiers were not running, not hurrying at all. The only sound was the clomping of dozens of golden armored boots. Were they even aware of the people waiting for them atop this hill?

“How do we fight those?” Zell glanced at Dynara, then at Aryn. “What
are
they?”

“Let's find out.” Aryn grimaced. “Davengers?”

Aryn's davenger limped forward. Then many more limped after it, dozens of davengers in various states of decay. An army raised in the Dead Bog.

Aryn pointed at the soldiers marching below, at the golden warriors. “Kill!” he shouted.

His horde of davengers tore down the slope in a fevered rush of snarls and drool. Davengers that were little more than meat and bone rushed the golden columns, fearless and powered by Mavoureen hate. They were not going to be nearly enough.

Aryn's fragile davengers tore into the golden soldiers. Their claws and teeth destroyed many but those golden warriors, like Aryn's demons, seemed immune to panic. Their silver blades cut davenger scales and, worse yet, the Alcedi zipped about in battle. Turned into lighting itself.

Golden soldiers barreled through davengers and trees, blowing demons and trunks apart each time they touched either. Bark splintered and wood flew as trees, demons, and golden soldiers skirmished below.

His davengers acquitted themselves well despite their desiccated state. It was a gruesome melee, filled with gore and shattered golden men, and when it was over only two golden warriors remained.

“They're dead men walking!” Dynara shouted. “Let's go show them!”

She charged down the hill. Zell and Mat threw down their shields and lifted their spears as they followed. All their weapons glowed with green glyphs. Atop a narrow raised pillar of rock, Kara and Tania scribed.

Aryn took the dream world.
“Erius, hit them.”

“Yes sir,”
Erius thought back, and then Aryn was too busy scribing Fingers of Heat to think anything else.

Fire and ice smashed at the two remaining golden soldiers, but no elemental strike penetrated their armor. Erius's icy spikes shattered and Aryn's flames fizzled out. Dynara and her legionnaires met the soldiers as Aryn called a halt to their glyphs.

Zell and Mat hurled their spears. Each hurtled through the space that separated them from the enemy and went
through
a golden soldier. If being impaled bothered the Alcedi, they gave no sign of it.

Zell unsheathed a broadsword as Mat drew two daggers and Dynara spun in on the enemy, howling. All their weapons glowed bright green. If only Xander had showed Aryn those glyphs before he died.

Aryn watched, helpless, as three legionnaires with greenish glowing blades fought golden soldiers from beyond their world. One of the enemy exploded, struck in just the right place, as the other turned to lightning and slipped away. Retreating.

Aryn wanted to cheer. The last Alcedi zapped forward. When it stopped moving, its silver blade jutted from Zell's back.

Zell gasped as his body turned to salt. Even as Dynara and Mat hacked at the golden soldier, the white wreckage that had once been Zell scattered on the wind.

Mat cut the soldier’s knees out from under it. As it fell, Dynara screamed and hacked off its head. The soldier twisted as it exploded, brushing Mat’s elbow with the tip of its sword.

Mat stopped, grimaced, and turned to salt. He exploded. The wind carried him after Zell.

The Alcedi sword clattered among armored pieces as the lightning warrior ceased to be. Dynara's chest heaved as she stood, glaring at dwindling salt piles. Her friends. Her eyes lit upon the silver sword.

“Dynara,” Aryn shouted, “don't—”

She grabbed it by the hilt, not the blade, and lifted it with an agonized roar. She stomped up the hill, carrying the silver sword like it weighed nothing at all. Her trophy from a battle won.

“If I see those things again,” Dynara shouted, “I'm going to shove this blade right up their—”

Dynara stopped talking. Her hand and then her arm and then her entire shoulder turned to salt, and it spread across her as Aryn watched in mute horror. Dynara could not seem to drop the blade.

“Dammit,” she said, “all I did was touch the—”

She burst apart. The silver sword clattered to the ground. Any contact with those blades killed. That was clear now, far too late to save anyone.

Aryn's eyes rose to Knoll Point, to more columns of soldiers marching out of it. Hundreds of them. The Alcedi invasion had begun, and Aryn was going to turn to salt before he could tell anyone about it.

A rumble shook the earth, knocking Aryn to his knees. Hordes of rocks broke from the mountain looming over Knoll Point. They tumbled, smashing trees as the avalanche grew. Someone had cracked that desiccated mountain open, and it was coming down with the fury of Land himself.

Kara. And Tania.

As Aryn stared, the mountain above Knoll Point buried the town in boulders and dirt. The golden light sputtered, flared, and vanished. Their world went eerily silent as no one cheered. No one spoke.

This end had come too late for First Sword Dynara Keris and her brave legionnaires.

KARA OPENED HER EYES TO FIND FIELDS of rippling grass stalks surrounding her, and for a moment, her heart seized. Her mind fled. This was the world of the Alcedi, a world of sun-drenched terror.

This was not that world. It was the Valerun in late afternoon. Her mother sat beside her, not moving, and that meant the Alcedi had not come after them. They had survived, somehow, when so many others had died.

Kara wanted nothing more than to scream at the sky, tear out her hair and lose herself in sobbing, but what she
wanted
no longer mattered to anyone. The Alcedi were beyond any power her people had ever faced, and she had unleashed them on her world.

She could not die until she put that right.

“Kara?” Ona stroked Kara’s hair. “Are you all right?”

“No.” Kara would not lie to her mother. “I killed Xander. I killed everyone.”

“Nonsense.”

“I did this, Mom. In the Underside, Paymon came to negotiate with me. He tried to talk and instead, I destroyed everything he loved. His Great Home. I defied and insulted him, and this was his revenge.”

“You did nothing wrong! Don't let that monster deceive you.”

Kara looked around at the world she had destroyed. Aryn and Tania sat beside a small campfire, along with a Tellvan mage in blue robes, but there was no one else with them. No Xander, no Byn, no Sera. No Trell.

“You can't blame yourself for Paymon’s atrocities,” Ona said. “He's responsible for Knoll Point.”

“I helped Sera make that blood doll.” Kara stared at her mother. “Remember? It led you into a trap.”

Ona blinked at her. “You made—”

“You followed that doll to the Dead Bog, didn't you? That's where Xander ... where my father died. Because of me. Because of what I did to throw you off my trail.”

Ona set her jaw. “No.”

“I murdered Jyllith too,” Kara whispered. “She was there to stop the Alcedi and close that portal. She told me, and I ignored her. I put a spike of rock,” and Kara tapped her chest, “right through her heart.”

“Enough!” Ona pushed them apart. “You ended that threat when you collapsed that mountain! It's over! As for your father—”

“Ended it?” Kara shouted. “Mom, the Alcedi are digging their way out right now! Three brave legionnaires died so we could
inconvenience
them!”

Rock and rubble were nothing to the Alcedi. Their invasion had begun and Kara had murdered the only woman capable of stopping it. Collapsing Knoll Point had bought them time, but how much? Two weeks? Three?

“You aren't responsible for what happened back there!” Ona shouted, but her body trembled. She had lost everything too, lost Kara's father, and that hurt her worse than any disease.

Kara looked away from her mother. The Valerun was a long way from Knoll Point. Had they carried her all this way?

None of that mattered. What mattered was the Alcedi, their invasion, an unstoppable army that would come for her world sooner rather than later. Kara had slept through the end of the world, but she still had time to stop it. She still had time to try. What else could she do now?

Kara clung to Trell's last words. There was a glyph in Terras. It bound the Five and if she removed it, their champions would regain their power.

She remained one of the only people still alive who could walk beneath Torn's spectral storms. She had Melyssa’s blessing. Trell had told her to live — for him — and she would live no matter how much her life hurt.

She would not fail her world again.

“Mom.” Kara stood and stared at her trembling mother. “I'm so sorry I yelled at you. I'm sorry about everything.”

Ona stood as well. “Come with us. King Haven—”

“Can't do anything. He's as helpless as everyone was back there. No mortal army can stand against those monsters. Only the Mavoureen could, and I'm fairly certain they won't help us anymore.”

“So what do you plan to do about it?” Ona stomped and glared. “Stop that golden army by yourself?”

“I'm going to Terras.”

“You're not going anywhere without me!”

“I have to.” Ona would die like everyone else if Kara did not fight, and that death would come sooner rather than later if her mother stepped beneath Torn's spectral storms. “You have to warn King Haven. Return to Tarna with Aryn and Tania. Prepare our defenses.”

“Warn him yourself!”

“We know we can kill these soldiers with glyphed blades, but elemental glyphs don't seem to hurt them.” Kara grieved for Dynara. “We can't touch their weapons either, so make sure everyone knows. Not even the hilts.”

Tania rose from the campfire and led Aryn over, clutching his hand in hers. So that was the way of it. Kara almost felt happy for Aryn. Yet it was hard to be happy about anything right now.

“Ona, listen.” Tania gently touched Ona's arm. “I think Kara's right.”

“Thank you,” Kara said.

“Don't thank me yet,” Tania said. “You're the one who volunteered to march into a death storm.”

Aryn stepped forward. “Do you need me?”

Kara sniffled. Their relationship had changed so much from Solyr. She now knew Aryn Locke as the man he always had been, a brave and loyal friend. She still had one friend left. If Tania spoke truth, maybe even two.

“I'm going alone.” Kara locked eyes with Ona. “You must go with them, Mom. Please. Once I muss the glyph at Terras and return the power of Heat, Aryn may be the only mage powerful enough to stop the Alcedi.”

Aryn glanced down at his charred hands. “The power of the Five remains inside us?”

“Trell said so,” Kara said. “I believe him.” She also missed him more than she could put into words.

“I'll handle it.” Aryn glanced at Tania. “We’ll protect your mother, get her safely back to Tarna, and warn King Haven.”

“I don’t need
protection
.” Ona crossed her arms, tapped her foot, and grimaced. Kara prepared more counterarguments.

“Go,” Ona said. “Five know I can't stop you. You're as stubborn as your father always was.” She trembled anew. “Just be careful. Be
safe.
I can’t lose you too.”