“If they don’t?” Gill said.
Pharadon shrugged. “Eliminating them will be left to your kind now.”
“How dangerous are they?”
“They slew nearly as many of my people as humans did. It took centuries for dragonkind to bring them under control and then eradicate them. That they are present at all is … chilling. When your people are done with your wars, turning your attention to the Venori would be a very good idea. Before they become too numerous and powerful to stop.”
Gill nodded slowly. It seemed there was always a fight for another day. “Is there anything else I need to know?”
“They are intelligent creatures, but their hunger will be stirred so deeply by my presence that they will be driven by that, rather than calculated thought.”
Wonderful, Gill thought. Intelligent creatures driven by insatiable hunger. He knew Pharadon was trying his best to paint a bright picture of the task ahead, but his words did little to ease Gill’s concerns.
Gesturing at darkness, he said, “Can you do anything about that, Solène?”
She nodded, then frowned for the briefest of moments. A great globe of light appeared several paces away, filling the passageway with light and making it appear marginally less foreboding. Gill could still see nothing but bare rock ahead. Pharadon seemed to be expecting Gill to take the lead, so, with a curt nod, he drew his sword, held it at the ready, and stepped into the tunnel.
The whistle of the chill breeze cut off instantly. Sheltered from its cold touch, he instantly started to feel warmer. Wondering if the light had anything to do with that, he held his hand out toward it but couldn’t feel any heat being given off.
He edged forward, his footfalls echoing, heartbeat thumping in his ears. A moment later Pharadon’s and Solène’s footfalls joined his. Another globe of light appeared farther down the tunnel. Gill was glad that he didn’t have to rely on Leverre’s short-lasting trick that allowed him to see in the dark. Creatures that dwelled under the ground were going to be far more comfortable in darkness than Gill ever would be, and he hoped that the globes of light would put them off. As it was, the light would certainly alert the creatures to their presence, although Pharadon seemed to think the demons were already aware of them.
The passage led down at a shallow angle. At first one side of it looked similar to the rock face above the ledge—rubble and dust—but it soon took on the look of a natural cavity in the mountain, with jagged edges. The roof was high above and the tunnel was wide enough for two people to walk side by side. Gill wasn’t sure if that was really a good thing—after all, the narrower the passage, the harder it would be for the Venori to swarm him.
It was difficult to gauge how far into the mountain they were getting, or how far they had descended. Gill was beginning to wonder how far they would have to go before they encountered signs of the Venori, when his query was answered.
The noise was indistinct at first, something Gill thought he might be imagining, but it grew steadily, coming from farther down the passageway where darkness still ruled.
“They’re getting close,” Pharadon said.
Gill was tempted to ask what he should do, but he supposed the answer was obvious—kill anything that came toward them. He paused for a moment to steel his nerves, and adjust his posture to as relaxed a fencer’s stance as he could muster. A moment later, he saw the first of them come out of the darkness.
At first Gill thought it was a man, albeit a pale, naked man—but the differences quickly made themselves clear. The creature was completely hairless and looked emaciated. It had pointed ears, sharp, elongated teeth, and eyes that emitted a faint red glow. So this is what a demon really looks like? Gill thought. He wondered how many more creatures from childhood tales he was destined to encounter before the year was out. He would have to get out of the tunnel alive first, of course, before he could enjoy that particular pleasure.
He was so caught up in the sight of his first demon that he allowed the creature to get perilously close. Solène urgently calling his name startled him out of his bemusement; he shifted his weight to balance more readily on his feet and started to study the way the Venori moved, rather than what it looked like. It seemed slow, weak; not at all what Gill had expected. When he judged it within range, he lunged, taking a great leaping step forward and extending his sword with as much speed as he could muster.
The blade met thin air. Instinct pulled him back into a more balanced, defensive pose, as his senses searched for the creature he had been certain he was about to skewer. His eyes and the tip of his sword tracked the same spot as he looked from side to side. The creature had either vanished, or moved so quickly that Gill hadn’t been able to see—one moment it was there; the next, it was gone. So much for it being weak and starving. Was it too much to hope that he had connected with it, and the Telastrian steel had done its job, banishing the demon back to whatever hell it had come from?
The sick feeling in the pit of Gill’s stomach said otherwise, and paying attention to that sensation born of instinct had saved his life on more than one occasion.
“Does anyone see it?” Gill said.
“No,” Solène said. “It was a blur. Then gone.”
“The Venori were known for their ability to move faster than the eye can follow,” Pharadon said.
That tidbit would have been a bit more help a few minutes ago, Gill thought. Still, he couldn’t have executed his lunge any faster, and even in his prime it would have been a decent strike. As pleasing as it was to realise his form was coming back with ever greater consistency, it didn’t answer the question of where the demon had gone. The only comforting thought, as he stared into the darkness beyond Solène’s magical light, was that the Venori would likely go for Pharadon first. Not a particularly noble thought, but an attempt to feed might keep the creature still long enough for Gill to cut it down. Somehow, he doubted Pharadon would be open to the idea of being used as bait.
“Keep your eyes peeled,” Gill said. If the demons could all move like that, he knew they might be in trouble.
Gill’s skin tingled and his body felt as though it were held in a vise. He had thought he had known true terror walking into the first dragon’s cave, but this was worse. He wondered if his association with Pharadon had tempered those memories, and made dragons less a matter of nightmare. Perhaps it was simply that there were different levels of fear, and that once a danger had passed, the emotional experience inevitably faded. His first battle had been the most frightening thing imaginable—he had thrown up on his way to muster—but the first dragon had made that seem like a mild concern.
Now, he struggled to remember what all that fuss was about. What was an army of men, or a single dragon, compared to a horde of hungering demons? How do I get myself into these situations? Gill wondered. Are the gods punishing me for past hubris? It was difficult to get past the notion of divine intervention, though Gill had long since lost his faith. How could any man be as unfortunate as he, or have the world attempt to kill him so many times, if some great force was not behind it all? Might the powers of magic be conspiring against him?