The Demon Awakens (64 page)

>
CHAPTER 51

>
Aida

Elbryan and Pony were coming down the northwestern face of the mountainous barrier when dawn broke over the Barbacan. Only then was the size of the dactyl’s gathered army revealed, a swarming black mass that filled the whole valley between the long arms of a lone, smoking mountain, some ten miles or so to the north.

“How many?” Pony breathed.

“Too many,” the ranger said helplessly, having no better answer.

“And how are we to get to the mountain?” Pony asked. “How many thousands must we defeat even to reach its black rocky base?”

Elbryan shook his head determinedly, somehow sure his companion’s assessment was not correct. “A few sentries, perhaps,” he replied. “Nothing more.”

Pony eyed him skeptically.

“The demon is confident,” Elbryan explained, “inviting us in. The dactyl fears no mortal man and no monster, and it has no reason to believe that we would ever dare to move against it in such small numbers, small enough to enter the Barbacan unnoticed.”

“That has been our hope since the beginning,” Pony agreed.

“And that is our only hope now,” Elbryan said, “a hope to which we must hold fast. If the demon sets its army to block us, then so we shall be blocked, and not my sword, nor Avelyn’s magic, not Bradwarden’s strength, nor your own assortment of weapons, will possibly get us through so many swarming monsters.

“But it will not come to that,” the ranger went on. “Even if the demon dactyl thinks that some enemies have come to its home, as the armored giants and that terrible spear might indicate, it remains supremely confident that none in all the world can stand against it.”

“How do you know this?”

The simple question seemed to catch Elbryan off his guard. Indeed, how did he know so much about this enemy that he had never seen and had never battled before? In the end, the ranger realized that he did not know, that he was guessing, and hoping. He answered Pony only with a shrug, and that seemed enough. They had come too far to worry about things they couldn’t control, and so they started along once more, quickly picking a path down the side of the mountain. They were both weary after the long night of running, but neither entertained any thoughts of stopping to rest, not with so many monsters before them—and perhaps more than a few chasing them.

An hour later, moving across an open expanse of bare rock—the two friends feeling very exposed indeed!—Elbryan stopped suddenly and dropped to a crouch. Thinking danger at hand, Pony crouched as well, and reached her hand into a pocket, fingering her few stones.

“There!” the ranger said excitedly, pointing down across the valley to his left, toward the western arm of Aida. Beyond that black line of stone, a black dot, a solitary figure, moved steadily across the green carpet, making fast for a thick copse of trees.

No, Pony realized, not one figure, but two, a man atop a horse . . . a man atop a centaur!

“Avelyn and Bradwarden!” she whispered.

“Running hard for Aida,” Elbryan agreed. He looked back at Pony, his smile wide. “And with none chasing them, and none standing before them.”

Pony nodded grimly. Perhaps her love was right, perhaps the dactyl was indeed inviting them in. She had to wonder, though she said nothing aloud, was that a good thing?

The pair were off the mountain within the hour, making their way along its base, weaving in and out of boulders and patches of trees. They easily avoided the few bored goblin sentries that were about, and every so often came upon tracks that told them they were following the exact route Avelyn and Bradwarden had taken.

Finally they crossed over the mountain’s long arm and were surprised to find the ground very warm under their feet. Only then did the pair realize that this line of stone was not a solid ridge, but rather, like a living thing, was growing and changing. Most of the ridge was hard, but every so often, the pair caught a sudden glimpse of fiery orange, the lava flow bubbling up to the surface, then meandering across the hardened black stone like a crawling orange slug. Within a few minutes, each of these movements would cease, the lava gradually rolling over itself or gathering in a depression, and then quickly cooling, its glow fading to blackness.

“Like a living thing,” Pony remarked, taking more care where she subsequently stepped.

“Like the dactyl,” Elbryan replied. “Flowing out from Aida, encompassing all the world under its blackness.”

It was not a pleasant thought.

They were several hours behind their friends, Elbryan and Pony realized when they at last came upon the same expanse they had seen their friends traversing. There was no apparent resistance; behind this arm of Aida, this blocking ridge of black stone some twenty to thirty feet high, no monsters moved about and no sentries were visible.

They went into a copse of trees, such a stark contrast of teeming life next to the black wall of stone, and found again the centaur’s tracks. Soon a second set—the tracks of a heavy human, of Brother Avelyn—were visible beside those of Bradwarden, and it was not hard for the pair to surmise that the centaur might be getting tired.

But Bradwarden continued on, and so did Avelyn; and so did Pony and Elbryan, increasing their pace in the hope that they might catch up to their friends before they entered the caverns of the mountain. Perhaps, Elbryan pondered, if Avelyn and Bradwarden were scrambling about, looking for some way into the mountain . . .

It didn’t happen that way. The ranger and Pony exited the copse of trees, then crossed through a second and then a third, climbing to the lower reaches of Aida. As soon as they cleared that last copse, they saw an entrance, a great gaping hole, defying the slanting rays of the westering sun. If the appearance proved true, if this was indeed a way into the heart of Aida, then Avelyn and Bradwarden had long ago gone into the mountain and might even now be standing before the demon dactyl as Elbryan and Pony stood staring at the entrance. The anxious couple went back into the last copse and cut sticks, wrapping them with cloth to make torches.

Then, fearful that they would be too late, the pair split, left and right, and moved quickly and stealthily right up to the edge of the cavern entrance. Elbryan peeked around the stone and into the gloom; Pony did likewise from across the way; and they were somewhat relieved to find that this was indeed a deep cavern and that it was apparently empty.

Just inside, Elbryan noted the hooflike depression of the centaur’s track.

Keeping near the side wall, not daring to light a torch, the pair moved in tentatively, allowing their eyes to adjust to the rapidly diminishing light. All too soon, they were faced with a dilemma: light the torch or walk on in near-complete darkness.

Elbryan winced as the fire flared to life, as if expecting all the minions of the dactyl to descend upon him. After a few tense but uneventful moments, he motioned to Pony, and the pair crept along, coming to a place where the tunnel forked: one branch going right and level, the other left and down. Looking down the right-hand side, Pony noted that the tunnel forked again just a short way in, and the tunnel continuing to the right beyond that second fork showed yet another side passage.

“A veritable maze,” Elbryan moaned. He fell to his knees and moved the torch low, searching for some sign of his friends’ passing, but the ground was bare, unmarked stone.

“Straight ahead,” Pony declared a moment later, seeing her companion’s frustration. “Deeper into the mountain, and then down and to the left at the next fork.”

She spoke with determination, though it was only a guess—a guess that seemed as good to Elbryan as any he might make. They moved in deeper, then began a descent along a smooth and angled passageway. Elbryan gave up any thoughts of continuing his scan for tracks, knowing that to do so would only slow their progress. Avelyn and Bradwarden were wandering in here, probably as lost as were Elbryan and Pony. Sooner or later, one of the pairs, or perhaps both, would stumble upon the dactyl or some of its deadly minions.

It was a desperate situation, and both Elbryan and Pony had to remind themselves often that they had known it would be like this from the moment they had set out from Dundalis.

Bestesbulzibar was outraged, and yet the demon was somewhat amused as well as it stood with Quintall and a pair of very nervous giants, looking down the ruined slope of a mountain. How powerful indeed was the demon-forged spike! To cause such devastation as this, simply because it left the hand of its dying wielder and fell across the stone!

One of the giants continued to stammer on about bad luck and other such nonsense, trying hard to concoct some excuse that might keep its skin attached to its body. Bestesbulzibar wasn’t listening.

“Have they made the mountain?” the dactyl asked Quintall, indicating Aida.

The rockman scrutinized the terrain ahead and considered the distance. He put a hand to his chin, an oddly human gesture. And indeed, Quintall now seemed physically human. The rough edges of his rocky body had smoothed and rounded, shaping more and more to the exact human form the spirit had left behind. The rockman was recognizable again as Quintall; the features, the size, and the body dimensions were all the same, as if the man’s spirit were somehow determining the shape of this new stone coil. Of course, his “skin” was now obsidian in consistency as well as hue, and red lines of molten stone still striped his joints; his eyes, too, were red pits of liquid stone. But he looked like Quintall, and the rockman could hardly wait until the moment that Brother Avelyn saw his new and superior body.

“Have they?” Bestesbulzibar prompted.

Quintall nodded. “If they ran on through the night,” he answered, “and if no others rose up against them.”

“Perhaps they will be seated upon my throne when I return to it.” The dactyl sneered, eyeing the pair of giants wickedly.

“B-bad luck,” one of the behemoths stammered.

“We will—” the other began to promise, but the dactyl cut it short.

“You will go and take your places with the army,” Bestesbulzibar instructed. The demon badly wanted to rip the hide from these two, and from any others of the hunting party who had survived their encounter with the intruders and who were now hiding nearby, fearing the demon’s wrath. Or perhaps Bestesbulzibar could take them back to Aida and throw them in the path of the deadly Nightbird. Or, the demon mused, perhaps it would give the job of punishment to Quintall, that Bestesbulzibar might witness the power of its newest weapon. But the dactyl was not a stupid creature and could control its impulses, even those bent upon destruction, which the demon loved above all else. Bestesbulzibar had lost too many of its elite giant guardsmen already, considering the effort he had taken to outfit the giants with armor, but, in truth, the demon figured that it had lost little by the failure of the giants. So Brother Avelyn and the one called Nightbird may have entered Aida; that only meant that Bestesbulzibar might enjoy a bit of the fun of killing them.

“Come along,” the dactyl instructed Quintall. The rockman moved closer and Bestesbulzibar lifted from the ground, hooking its powerful legs about Quintall, and then speeding the instrument of its wrath across the valley, above the heads of the cowering minions, and back to Aida.

Quintall, possessed of heightened senses, whose glowing eyes could light the way along dark tunnels, was sent to find the trail.

“We are too low,” Avelyn complained, leaning against a wall of the stuffy, tight cavern. He kept the light of his enchanted diamond low, hoping that it would be less conspicuous and not attract any more guards like the two powries Avelyn and Bradwarden had just overwhelmed. That thought in mind, Avelyn kicked aside the bloody leg of one of the dwarves and shifted himself so that he was looking back the way they had come.

“Now wouldn’t the demon thing be at the heart?” Bradwarden asked casually, tearing at the second powrie as he spoke. “And wouldn’t a mountain’s heart be below?”

Avelyn shook his head immediately; he just didn’t feel right about the path. They had gone down and to the left at the first fork, too soon perhaps, to be heading into the lower chambers of this tunnel-crossed mountain. “Our enemy might be higher,” he said, “near the smoking cone, where the winged demon might quickly fly out among its minions.”

He looked back at Bradwarden as he finished his argument, and he was sorry that he did.

“Bah, ‘tis a guess and nothing more,” the centaur replied, taking a huge bite out of a powrie leg.

Avelyn closed his eyes.

“We go along, I say,” the centaur continued, talking through its full mouth, “choosing trails as we find them. It’s all a guess, yer knowing as well as I’m knowing.”

The monk sighed and didn’t disagree. Whatever course they chose, Avelyn would second-guess. Too much was at stake here; the monk was too much on the edge of his nerves.

“Now why’re ye here?” Bradwarden asked simply. “Ye’ve come to face yer destiny, so ye said, and so ye shall. We’ll get there, me friend, and if that’s what’s scaring ye, then I’m not for blaming ye. But turning back won’t put us any closer to anything, and every lost step gives more of our enemies the chance to stumble upon us.” He spat at that last thought and tossed the tough powrie leg to the ground. “And the damned things aren’t even good eating!”

Avelyn managed a smile and walked by the centaur, taking great care to avoid stepping on the discarded meal. They started off again, side by side, their bulky forms filling the narrow passageway.

“I am not pleased by the sight,” Elbryan whispered, looking down the long, narrow descent, a ledge bordered on the left by an uneven wall and on the right by a long drop of more than two hundred feet from where the ledge began and only gradually diminishing as the trail moved lower. Height hardly seemed to matter when considering the danger, though, for the drop ended in a pool of red fire, a swirling lake of molten stone. Even from this great height, Elbryan and Pony could feel the intense heat, and the sulfuric stench was nearly overwhelming.