He pushed himself up to one elbow and concentrated on the strident forms around him. They wavered into focus. Halthak, white-faced and rigid, pressed against the glass wall. Bellimar, slouching exhausted against the wall, one pale hand spread against its clear surface as if trying to touch someone or something on the other side. Syth, shouting and hammering his fist against the wall as his robes whipped violently about his taut frame. Amric squinted past them and through the glass wall, searching for the cause of their distress.
He saw Valkarr, beyond the glass wall, thrashing on the ground beneath the mass of savage Wyrgens. He saw gleaming fangs flecked with crimson froth, and smoldering claws stained with blood as they raked repeatedly at the Sil’ath’s body. He saw the mindless fiends ravaging the body of his dying friend, and for Amric, in that instant, everything else ceased to exist.
A scream of anguish was torn from his throat, and all the fire churning inside him rose with it. The thing within him came gibbering to the fore, flaring with power that scorched through his veins and threatened to burn him to ash. Amric sensed a kindred rage in the thing to match his own, and a wild desire to help. Beyond reason, he embraced it, and felt its fierce exultation even as he was filled with the rush of power. Then everything dissolved before his eyes in a blaze of white fire.
Bellimar’s hand slid down the glass wall and fell to his lap. He had revealed himself and worse, broken the strictures imposed upon him. He would pay dearly for it, he knew. Already the need worked at the edges of his will, and still it had not been enough. Perhaps if he had acted sooner, he thought; but nay, there were limits he could no longer ignore, no matter how grave the circumstances.
A scream from Amric brought him sharply about. There was an unnatural quality in the timber of the swordsman’s voice that sent a chill coursing through him, and he had not thought anything in this world could still have that effect on him. The shout parted the air with a razor edge, beginning as a cry of grief and loss and becoming something else entirely, infused with rage and thrumming with intensity.
Amric rose to his feet, blazing with power. His eyes radiated dazzling white fire like miniature suns, and that terrible gaze was fixed upon the grisly scene outside the chamber. He stretched out one hand toward the glass wall with fingers spread wide, and Bellimar’s hair lifted from his head as a strange pressure built there. Sudden instinct warned him to dive aside, and he shouted a warning to the others. Syth grabbed the gaping Halthak and yanked him out of the way.
Seeming unaware of their presence, Amric strode forward. He clenched his hand into a fist, and the wall exploded outward with an ear-splitting report. Massive shards tore ragged swaths through the Wyrgens crowded without, sweeping scores from the terrace. Deafened and taken aback for a moment, the creatures crouched frozen as he approached. Their baleful, unblinking stares were fixed upon him, and their glowing eyes against the sea of hulking forms were like a constellation against a velvet midnight sky. Then they surged forward as one with a throaty roar, hurling themselves at their bold prey.
Amric never broke stride. Crossing his arms before him, he then whipped them apart in a vicious cutting motion, as if he held his swords in both hands and was cleaving into a foe.
The ripple of power tore at Bellimar’s robes, even behind the swordsman as he was, but it was nothing compared to the devastation before him. Scything forces swept through the Wyrgens, peeling them from the stairs and hurling them back by the hundreds. Twisting and clawing madly for purchase, the Wyrgens were scattered like dry leaves over the edge of the terrace, where the creatures tumbled through the empty air toward the amphitheater floor far below.
In the blink of an eye, the broad steps before the viewing chamber were clear but for the broken figure of Valkarr, lying in a spreading pool of his own blood, untouched by the reaping forces that had cut through the Wyrgens.
Amric knelt at Valkarr’s side, gathered him into his arms, and stood. Those flaming eyes swung back to the viewing chamber.
“He still clings to life,” he said, his voice cracking with grief and yet carrying an eerie resonance at the same time. “Help him,” he pleaded.
Behind him, in the cavernous amphitheater, one of the great columns burst with a crack of thunder, spewing granite fragments in every direction. Halthak swallowed, his gaze flitting between Amric and the burden he carried.
“I–I do not know if I can heal injuries so severe,” he stammered. “I do not even know how he still draws breath. He-or he and I both-may not be strong enough to withstand the process.”
Amric climbed the steps, carrying Valkarr. He strode through the shattered portal and into the chamber. Bellimar’s eyes narrowed. A faint nimbus of light surrounded both of them. Amric halted before the healer, and Halthak shrank before his fiery scrutiny, but the swordsman’s next words were solemn and surprisingly gentle.
“All I ask is that you try, Halthak,” he said. “I think that you will find the strength here, in this place.” He laid Valkarr on the floor at the Half-Ork’s feet.
“Come, Halthak,” Bellimar urged. “I have some medical knowledge, and I will assist you however I can. We have very little time, if we are to perform a miracle.”
As the two bent over the ravaged form of the Sil’ath, the forgotten Grelthus found his voice from the corner of the viewing chamber.
“What have you done?” he moaned, shuffling out onto the steps and casting his stricken gaze all about. “What have you done to my people?”
He whirled toward Amric, hunching over and spreading his claws wide. Hatred and madness twisted his features as he spat his words through bared fangs. “You have slain them all, human!”
“Not all, Grelthus,” Amric said. “Not yet.”
The incensed Wyrgen dropped forward into a crouch, bristling and bunching to leap.
“Your traitorous ways have cost the lives of many, Grelthus,” Amric continued, his voice a ringing pronouncement of doom. “The time has come for you to join your people.”
The Wyrgen sprang at him, launching his powerful form through the air with jaws frothing and curved talons outstretched. Amric lashed out with one hand, palm forward. The brutish creature was struck in midair by some invisible force and swatted aside like an insect. Spinning and twisting, Grelthus was hurled across the terrace edge and out of sight, his howl of rage dwindling away.
The swordsman strode over to where the glass wall had been. He bowed his head and spread his arms. As if in response, the Essence Fount leapt skyward, surging and swelling until it nearly filled the amphitheater. It thrashed violently, spinning like a cyclone of flame and sending tendrils of blazing energy curling about the colossal stone columns in the vast circular chamber.
One by one, the pillars shattered and exploded, crumbling into ruin. As the last of them fell, Stronghold itself shook in protest, quivering in the throes of its agony. With a rumbling roar, the great domed ceiling of the chamber split and fell. Ton after ton of rock poured into the chamber. The Fount was obscured as the avalanche continued and the very heart of Stronghold collapsed in on itself.
Bellimar, still kneeling over Valkarr, gaped in awe. On impulse he brought up his Sight and tried to look upon Amric’s aura. His vision filled with intense, flaring white light, and he fell back with a startled cry as his eyes were nearly seared from his head. He dropped his Sight, flinging up one arm to shield his tightly shut eyes.
Long seconds later, when he could see once more, the deluge of rock had ceased. The Essence Fount was lost to sight, and the vast chamber housing the experiment that was the demise of the Wyrgens was filled with stone. A rippling cloud of grit and dust carpeted the viewing chamber, causing everyone to cough, and fragments of stone skittered and danced upon the partially exposed stairway outside as the mighty fortress still trembled.