“Another Adept!” she shouted. “So it was no idle threat after all.”
The huntress raised her bow and then hesitated. Which to target? And what good would it do to slay one when the other would then be their undoing? She muttered an oath and dropped down behind the low ridge again. Syth knelt beside her.
“What do we do now?” he breathed, his eyes scanning the scene beyond like a caged animal.
“We wait,” she whispered back, “and hope for the right opening.”
“What trick is this, wilding?” she heard Xenoth demand. “What manner of creature is this?”
“You are looking upon the fall of your kind, Adept,” the queen snarled in response. “We are the Nar’ath. We are your doom made flesh.”
Xenoth snorted. “From the look of things, you are only a pace or two from your own doom. If you truly know my kind, creature, you should know as well how easily I can send you the remaining distance. Begone, then! Enjoy what time remains to you and to this pitiful world.”
“Indeed, we know your kind, Adept,” the queen answered with a low, sibilant laugh. “You gave birth to us, all those centuries ago, and then tried to end us, but you failed. We have been preparing to face you again, ever since, on more even footing this time. We are nearly ready now, and it is not this world that interests us.”
“Do not trouble me with your riddles, creature,” Xenoth snapped. “Speak your meaning before I destroy you where you stand.”
The Nar’ath queen gave another ugly chuckle. “You will not find me such easy prey, Adept. Even now, my minions return at speed to defend or avenge me. They will wash over you like a tide. You cannot hope to slay them all.”
“I have no need to slay them all,” Xenoth said. “My business here will be concluded long before your forces arrive.” His voice rang with confidence, but Thalya noted that he threw a glance to either side, probing the darkness of the wastes.
“And then you think to return home, to your world, through the Essence Gate nestled amid the ancient ruins of Queln?” The Nar’ath queen’s harsh voice almost purred with satisfaction.
There was a long pause as the black-robed Adept stood, still and silent, regarding the monster swaying in a spider’s crouch before him. “You cannot use the Essence Gate,” he said at last.
The queen’s laugh was booming, triumphant. “I see that the colossal arrogance of the Adepts has not diminished in all this time!” She leaned forward, and her voice dropped to an almost intimate whisper that somehow still carried to Thalya’s ears. “We have already used the Gate, sweet enemy mine, and countless times at that.”
“Impossible. You are lying.”
“I would not hesitate to harm you with lies,” the Nar’ath queen sneered, “but when the truth will suffice, it is a much sharper weapon. Years ago the Essence Gate began to draw, ever so slightly, upon the energies of this world. My sisters and I were feeding upon the ley lines to restore our strength and to increase our numbers. We were proceeding with utmost caution, remaining well out of sight. The Gate drew tremendous power to it, swelling the lines as it drained the land. It was nothing at all for us to trace the flow of power to its origin in Queln, where so many of the lines meet in a great nexus. We could feel the power flowing through the Gate, and we were quick to divine its purpose. We moved but a few token forces through at first, testing our ability to use the passage. We grew bolder when we saw how poorly the Gates were protected on your side. Now many of my sisters have already passed through with their armies into your world, and our forces build on both sides.”
Xenoth did not reply, and the queen laughed in disdain. “What power you have bestowed upon us, all unknowing! You tapped into the arteries of this world, unable to rein in your appetite, and were unaware of the parasite you fed as you did so. The Nar’ath have grown stronger in recent years than in all the centuries that came before. Your greed and conceit have at last paved the way for your downfall, and for our ascension.”
Xenoth growled something in reply which Thalya was unable to discern, but the Nar’ath queen rumbled another laugh that grew hard and brittle at the end. “Do you take me for a fool?” she demanded. “You cannot change what will be. Your world is lost, and it gives me pleasure to have you die not in ignorance, but in despair!”
On the last word, her voice rose to a terrible shriek, and she sprang at the Adept. The black-robed figure threw his arms wide, and fire lanced from his fingers to slam into the charging queen. She crashed to the ground with a bellow, but pushed herself upright in an instant, cackling and fixing her emerald glare upon Xenoth. Tendrils of smoke rose where the fire had scorched her flesh. She hurtled forward, impossibly quick for a creature of such mass, and fire streaked out again to lash at her in response. This time she hunched forward, shielding her head with claw and limb, and drew most of the fire upon her heavy shoulders. Some of it struck home, but most glanced away from her plated armor.
The Nar’ath queen peered between her crossed limbs with a devil’s grin, eyes narrowed to slits. “Oh yes, Adept,” she hissed. “We have built up some resistance to your arsenal since last we met.”
She lunged toward him. Xenoth stabbed his hands toward the sky, and a thick wall reared from the wasteland ground before him. With a thunderous crash the Nar’ath queen hammered through it. She lashed out with a long, many-jointed limb at Xenoth. He crossed his arm in a warding gesture, and though her claws rebounded from the empty air before him, the Adept was sent flying through the night in a flutter of black robes. With a hiss of pleasure, the queen slithered after him.
“Come on!” Syth exclaimed, bounding to his feet.
Thalya tore her gaze from where the Nar’ath queen was leaving the pool of light, and blinked up at him. “Where?”
“To the swordsman! He is no longer bound. This is our chance to be away from here while those monsters tear each other apart.”
The huntress snapped her gaze back to Amric, abandoned for the moment on the sands. It seemed true; the warrior was no longer pinned flat on his back, but rather had risen to one elbow and was holding his head with his other hand. Thalya sprang to her feet and followed Syth, who was already sprinting across the sands.
As she ran, the titanic struggle between the Nar’ath and the Adept continued. The concussive force of a distant explosion nearly lifted Thalya from her feet, and the Nar’ath queen slammed to the ground partially in the light. She rose and twisted toward her foe, lurching into sinuous motion once more. Green fire sprang into sight across her armored carapace, spreading with voracious speed. The queen shrieked her rage but otherwise paid it no heed, and the unnatural fire dwindled and died away as she slithered back into the darkness beyond. Arcing threads of light illuminated her silhouette, raining down upon her like a volley of flaming arrows, and she swatted at them as she bore down upon her prey.
Thalya shuddered and ran on.
Syth, moving swift as the wind that was a part of his nature, reached Amric first. The Sil’ath warriors, Valkarr and Sariel, seemed to appear from nowhere and were at his side moments later. The three of them had the swordsman on his feet by the time Thalya reached them all. Amric swayed in their grip, but his voice was level and steady when he spoke.
“You have to find Halthak and be away from here,” he said. “The Adept means to kill you all by some scheme he has devised.”
Valkarr and Sariel exchanged a glance, and both opened their mouths to reply, but whatever they were to say was lost beneath a sudden, keening scream by the Nar’ath queen. Sand sprayed over them in a rolling cloud as her massive form was driven back into the light. Fire streaked from the darkness and tore at her flesh, and she twisted from side to side in a futile effort to avoid each new strike. The Adept appeared, following her and pressing the attack. Even as the fire continued to flay at her in relentless strokes, the ground about her rippled and hardened into great thorns of stone that speared into her serpentine body and held her fast. The queen roared in fury and tried to wrench loose for another charge, but a towering spike shot upward to pierce her midsection, transfixing her. She quivered with the blow and slumped forward onto the spike. Only then did the rain of fire cease. The Nar’ath queen drew short, ragged breaths and lifted her fearsome head to glare hatred at her foe.