The Scorched Earth (The Chaos Born) (49 page)

Freed from his prison, the Guardian leapt from the hole and up onto the surface of the plateau. He scooped his spear up from the ground, his muscles quivering with the crackling energy of raw Chaos. And then he felt it—a foul, hateful presence he had not sensed since before the Cataclysm.

The ogre has risen!

Turning to the west, he set off at a run toward the battle that raged on the other side of the mountain, devouring the ground with each massive stride.

Vaaler grabbed Shalana’s arm and turned to flee, but the ogre was already charging toward them. Despite its size, it moved with incredible
speed, leaping forward on squat, powerful legs and clawing at the ground with its long arms to help propel it along.

It closed the distance between them in seconds. In their frantic flight, Shalana stumbled over a fallen body and tumbled to the ground. Unwilling to let go of her arm, Vaaler was dragged down with her.

The ogre landed beside them, the ground shaking and shuddering from its massive bulk. It raised its fist above its head, and Vaaler threw himself on top of Shalana as if he could somehow save her from being crushed.

And then the sky above them exploded in a storm of purple clouds and silver lightning. The strange storm seemed to mesmerize the ogre, freezing it in place, arms raised above its head as it stared up at the sky.

Vaaler and Shalana scrambled to their feet and began to run, not knowing or caring what was happening. The storm vanished a few seconds later, and Vaaler heard the ogre unleash another terrible, gurgling roar. Glancing back over his shoulder, however, he saw the beast wasn’t following them. Instead, it had turned on the Danaan soldiers that had rallied around it: massacring the men and women who, only moments before, had been its allies.

Standing in the back ranks of the Danaan army with the stilldominated Rianna at his side, Orath felt a sudden surge of power as the Chaos storm materialized above them. It invigorated him; restoring much of the power that had bled away since he’d crossed the Legacy.

But he knew the ogre felt it, too. And while Orath was descended from countless generations of men and women mutated and transformed by the terrible power of unchecked Chaos beyond the Legacy, the ogre’s connection to magic was far greater. The beast was Chaos Spawn, born from the most primal fires of
creation. It fed on the storm’s fury, drinking deep and growing stronger—too strong for Orath to control.

With a roar that echoed across the entire battlefield, the ogre wrested its mind free, shattering the invisible chains the Minion had used to bind its will. Orath staggered from the shock as his connection to the beast was severed, a sharp pain shooting like a knife through the back of his skull.

Beside him, Rianna—still linked to him through magic—gasped and doubled over, clutching her head with her hands.

Orath ignored the Queen’s suffering, his mind racing. The ogre was free, and though there was still a tenuous link between them, without another ritual he wasn’t strong enough to dominate its mind again.

But the link is still there. The beast can sense you. It will seek revenge
.

Orath hated to abandon his hunt for the Ring, but the mortal who carried the Talisman had not joined the battle. And now he knew where to find another Talisman.

The storm had come from the west, and though it had passed, there were still lingering traces of its power traced across the sky. Orath could follow them back to their source and resume his search for the Ring after he had claimed Daemron’s Crown.

With a flick of his wrist he ripped away the magic binding the Queen to his will. She fell unconscious to the ground, her body limp as a marionette with its strings cut. Orath knew she might never wake, but her fate mattered little to him.

He could feel the ogre’s brutal, bestial mind probing for him, seeking him out among the Danaan ranks, and he knew it was time to flee. Unlike Raven he did not have wings, but there were other ways to fly. The spell was difficult and taxing, and it required such intense concentration he could only sustain it for an hour or two at a time, but he was driven by the direness of his situation.

Calling on his renewed reserves of Chaos, he began a quick, rhythmic chant. The air around him began to swirl rapidly, lifting
him off the ground. When he reached a height of twenty feet, the pitch of his words changed. In response, the spinning winds shifted direction, whisking him away from the battlefield, the ogre, and the Ring.

Andar was up at dawn, though in truth he hadn’t slept the entire night. When the horns sounded the initial charge, he found a small hill from which to watch the battle at a distance, trying to gauge the ebb and flow. The barbarians fought with savage desperation, inflicting heavy damage. But the Danaan had too great an advantage in numbers, and it quickly became clear the outcome was inevitable … though not before many, many more would die on either side.

But though he mourned for those who would fall, most of his focus was not on the doomed soldiers but the ogre that towered over them. The beast had spent the early moments of the battle in a strange, almost trancelike state.

It feels Orath growing weaker. It’s fighting him. Trying to break free
.

But despite its struggles, the Minion finally imposed his will and drove the beast into the fray, further shifting the battle in the Danaan favor.

And what happens when the last barbarian falls, and we still have not found the Ring or the Destroyer of Worlds? Will Orath simply turn the ogre on us? Or will he find some other use for Rianna and her army?

His thoughts were cut off by pealing thunder, the clear blue sky disappearing behind a sudden formation of violet clouds. Andar immediately recognized the power in the storm as silver lightning flashed above him: Old Magic—the same power he had called on in the forests around Ferlhame.

A desperate, foolish plan formed in his head, and he opened himself to the Chaos. The storm lasted only a few seconds, but it
was long enough for the former High Sorcerer to gather a concentrated reservoir of power.

He ran down from his observation perch, racing recklessly through the tents of the Danaan camp. The power inside him bubbled and broiled, making his skin twitch and crawl as it tried to break free.

This is madness
, he thought.
You are no match for Orath. He will destroy you!

But if the Minion was distracted, focused on the ogre, there might be one chance for Andar to unleash the stored Chaos against him.

When he reached Rianna’s tent, however, Orath was nowhere to be found. Instead, the Queen lay unconscious, partially supported by Greznor’s thick arms. Lormilar, the unofficial chief medic of the Danaan army, was examining her closely, a troubled look on his face. Hexiff and Pranya were there, too, standing anxiously off to the side.

“What’s wrong?” Andar demanded, throwing himself to his knees at Rianna’s side. The Chaos pumping through his veins turned his concerned question into a frantic shout.

“Orath has disappeared,” Greznor answered. “When he left, the Queen collapsed.”

“We have to fall back!” Andar barked, the only one who understood the true implications of the general’s words.

“The ogre!” he snapped, seeing the confusion on their faces. “It will turn against us!”

A look of dawning horror spread to each member of the war council.

“Leave the Queen with me!” Andar shouted, reaching and roughly hauling the unconscious woman from Greznor’s grasp. “Go sound the retreat!”

Spurred on by his manic urgency, the others scattered in all
directions. Taking a deep breath to try to calm himself despite the fiery Chaos coursing through his veins, he lay the Queen gently on the ground.

He wasn’t sure exactly what Orath had done to the Queen, but he knew her mind was lost, drifting in the void. Clenching his teeth against the pain of the searing heat burning him up from the inside, Andar reached out and placed his hands on the Queen’s temples.

Unlike the human mages, the Danaan didn’t use complex rituals and incantations. Their magic was primal, instinctual. Andar didn’t recite any arcane words or mystical chants, he simply focused his will and released the Chaos he had gathered through his hands.

Rianna’s body bucked and heaved, thrashing about in a violent seizure. Somehow, Andar kept hold of her head as his palms began to smolder.

Come back to us, my Queen!

He poured everything he had into his spell, igniting a burning flame to guide his monarch safely back from the void. But in the brief storm, he’d only gathered a few seconds’ worth of power, and in only a few seconds his strength was spent.

Exhausted and drained, he slumped forward, resting his weight on his hands and knees, panting heavily. In the distance he heard the horns calling the Danaan into a full retreat. As if in response, Rianna twitched and moaned. Then—to Andar’s great relief—the Queen opened her eyes.

H
UDDLED IN A
small corner of her own mind, Cassandra slowly felt her strength returning as Rexol redirected the terrible, awe-inspiring power of the Talisman away from her and into himself.

Her former Master had claimed her body as his own, using it as a gateway to return to the mortal world and steal the Crown. But he had also saved her life. Even if her will had been strong enough to withstand the crushing force of infinite knowledge and awareness, her body would have been destroyed.

Now, however, she was the one trapped inside the Crown; an unsettling noncorporeal quasi-existence in the netherworld between Chaos and reality. Even for one used to the Sight, her perception was weirdly doubled and reflected. She had a broad, all-encompassing awareness of everything around her, as if looking at it from high above. Yet she also saw everything from the perspective of her mortal body, looking out from the center at the world that surrounded her. The effect was confusing and unsettling, her mind twisting in on itself over and over as it tried to find some way to reconcile the impossible duality.

How many weeks was Rexol imprisoned here? How did he keep from going mad?

The answer, she realized as he unleashed a massive storm of pure Chaos up into the sky, was that he hadn’t.

Her mind flickered and spun, the two views overlapping and
blurring together into a radically distorted semblance of reality. She saw that the Crawling Twins were still there; coming toward them. She felt Rexol drawing on the Crown, carefully summoning Chaos now that he had cast off the first irresistible rush of power.

She could feel the spell as it took shape in the mage’s mind, and she realized he had used similar—though far weaker—magic when he had compelled the Crawling Twins to attack the Inquisitors instead of her. There were no other enemies this time, so Rexol simply turned the Twins against each other.

The twisted creatures fought briefly against him, but their minds were crushed by the Talisman, their free will snuffed out in an instant. They threw themselves at each other, ripping, tearing, and shredding. Equally matched in their suicidal fury, their battle didn’t last long.

Even a Minion can die from its wounds
, she realized,
if enough damage is done
.

The blue one fell first, the killing blow coming as the other finally sunk its teeth in and ripped out its throat. But as the victor turned its attention to the human in the cell it was already struggling to stand. Dark blood poured from a dozen deep wounds in its bright red flesh to form a sticky black lake on the floor, including a hole in the stomach so deep Cassandra could see its twisted, twitching intestines. It took a single step forward, then keeled over, dead as its Twin.

Rexol didn’t even seem to notice. He continued to draw Chaos from the Crown, reveling in the power of Old Magic. The steady influx of power began to build, pulsing out through the floor beneath Cassandra’s feet.

With her new awareness, Cassandra felt it rolling through the entire city. Everyone it touched was struck with a sudden, violent madness. Some turned on each other, some turned on themselves. But most simply poured out into the streets and quickly banded
together in savage mobs: smashing and burning everything they could reach and attacking anyone else who crossed their path.

It’s over
, Cassandra said, projecting her thoughts at Rexol in an effort to manipulate him the way he had tried to control her.
The Twins are dead. Take off the Crown!

He didn’t respond, and she wasn’t even sure he’d heard her. What was one small voice amid the millions that assailed him through the Crown?

Rexol continued to channel Chaos through him and out into the mortal world, oblivious of the consequences. Old Magic was the primal essence of creation—a force so great even the Gods had been wary of it. They had used it to shape and form the mortal world; now Rexol was unwittingly tearing it apart.

The ground began to shake, the tremor quickly escalating to a massive earthquake. Older buildings began to crack and crumble, great chunks of stone toppling into the street.

It’s too much!
Cassandra screamed.
You have to stop!

But Rexol couldn’t stop. In trying to control the Crown, he’d dared to touch the very depths of the Burning Sea, and now he was lost in the ecstasy of absolute power. And then Cassandra realized it wasn’t just Callastan that he was destroying. The raw, undiluted power of Old Magic was beginning to tear away the very fabric of the Legacy itself!

Jerrod threw himself at Raven, pressing the action to keep the Minion from targeting Keegan again with another spell. He didn’t know how badly the young man was hurt, but with his Sight, he could tell Keegan was still alive.

Daemron’s Sword moved like it had a will of its own in his hand, almost as if he were the weapon and it the wielder. The Minion was quick and cunning, slashing at him with her beak and claws and battering him with her wings. But Jerrod was able to
anticipate and counter every move, fighting the creature to a standstill.