Leitos slid to a halt, searching for a way around, but in every direction leaped roiling flames, and from those fires oozed terrible creatures of mist and shadow.
Seeing no other way, he ducked his head and ran into the ghastly deluge. Hot drops splattered over him, reeking of sickness. He gagged, bent over and retched a thin drool of spittle, but never did he cease going forward.
The tacky rain fell harder, forcing Leitos to squint. Where that fluid touched bare skin, a burning itch spread outward, until it seemed that he had been flayed from head to toe with stinging nettles. The stench intensified, stealing his breath, blurring his vision. And still he ran, a slogging shamble where every step seemed to stick to the ground, before pulling free.
Without warning, he burst through the other side of the rain, staggering, his skin afire. He swiped a hand across his eyes, fearing he would go blind if even one drop of that damnable wetness dripped in them.
Suddenly remembering Belina, he cast about. Instead of Belina, came the last woman he had ever expected to see. He told himself that her presence was impossible, but in this place of infinity, the domain of the Faceless One, who could say what laws could be bent, or shattered entirely? It struck him that none of this was real, and that she was but an apparition, a memory plucked from his dreams and placed here, in this realm of nightmares. A single thing bound all those ideas together, and that was the guilt he felt, now and forever, for killing her.
She loomed closer, green eyes ablaze with unforgiving malice, her face as beautiful as he remembered.
“Zera,” he gasped, “I am sorry.”
Her sword, rising to strike, paused, and a look of shock crawled over her features. “Dare not speak that name,” she hissed, the tone of her voice different than he remembered.
Leitos snapped his eyes shut, then opened them. This young woman before him resembled his first and only love, but she was not Zera. She had not her years, and by her garb and the long bow slung across her back, she was Yatoan. A mingling of disappointment and relief flooded him. “We have to get out of here,” he said.
The girl smiled darkly. “Only one of us will leave.”
“What?” Leitos said, alarmed. He took a careful step back, glanced over his shoulder to find Mahk’lar gathering like a great knot of entwined serpents, growing more numerous within that arc of fire and venomous rain.
“If we do not flee,” he said urgently, looking back at her, “we will die. We can deal with your concerns later, once we are free.”
“You are my sole concern, Leitos,” she said. “And by that, I mean your death is all that matters to me.”
One moment she stood rigid, the tip of her sword aimed at his heart, the next she swept in for the kill, her flashing blade alight with a thousand flames, her grace making Ulmek’s poise and skill seem clumsy by comparison.
Her first strike slashed toward his neck, and he leaned out of reach, barely. The tip nicked the skin of his throat. She reversed her swing with a flourish, and again her blade cut him, leaving a shallow scratch along his raised forearm.
“Where is Belina?” Leitos demanded, thinking to distract the crazed girl with what must be a familiar name.
“Safe,” she said in a clipped tone.
Fury burned in her eyes as she advanced, her whirling strikes coming faster and wilder. In moments, despite his best efforts, her steel had marked him with a dozen shallow scratches. Having failed to cut him down, or even wound him gravely, her anger grew hotter.
“If you wanted an easy kill,” he taunted, knowing it might well prove deadly to do so, “you should have set yourself before a bush, and chopped at its branches.”
With an inarticulate scream, she attacked in an unrelenting flurry, the blade blurring before his eyes, nicking him here, slicing him there. Leitos dodged and danced and darted like a serpent, ever a hair’s breadth from death. He knew he could not keep it up for long. He had to end this.
She abruptly lunged, emerald eyes burning like matching portals of hate. Leitos twisted, and the sword tore through his robes, skimming his ribs. Before she could draw back, he stepped close, wincing as the keen edge sliced deeper. That sacrifice was his only defense.
His fist pistoned forward in a short, brutal hook, and slammed against the point of her chin. His unexpected attack caught her off guard, snapping her head to the side. Eyes fluttering, she fell. Leitos grunted harshly as the sword, still clutched firmly in her hand, reversed its track along his ribs. By the slow trickle of blood down his side, he guessed the wound was not deep, and so not deadly.
Behind him, the sounds of the Mahk’lar grew louder. He tugged the sword from her now limp fingers, and thrust it into his belt. He debated whether or not he should leave her behind, then decided that was no option. He caught hold of one arm, and heaved her over his shoulder. She was slight but solid, and while he had grown stronger in the last year, he still bowed under her weight.
Leitos shambled toward the corridor, his footing more sure with each step. Soon he began trotting, then running. The girl bounced on his shoulder. Doubtless she would awake to aching ribs-not to mention a bruised chin and splitting head-all of which, to his mind, was more than fair trade for the wounds she had inflicted upon him.
As the cries of the Mahk’lar increased, he slipped through the tingly veil, and then into the archway’s welcome glow. He had not traveled far when he caught a glimpse of his hand and arm wrapped around the back of the girl’s knees. A revolted groan slipped past his teeth. His skin was welted and inflamed under a wriggling mass of gray, spiny worms with large heads and sharp, pinching jaws.
Reining in his disgust, he gently placed the girl on the floor. Only then did he tear off his belt and outer robe, and set to scrubbing away the squirming grubs, a horror-stricken moan lodged in his throat. The creatures made plopping sounds when they fell to the opal floor tiles, and quickly dissolved into thin air, leaving behind greasy smudges. He shook out his hair so forcefully that his teeth rattled, then went still, waiting to feel if any more of the worms remained. If they did, they had stopped moving.
The girl mumbled and raised a shaking hand to her chin. Leitos debated pummeling her again, but decided against it. He donned his robe and stuck her sword in his belt. The girl grunted when he slung her over his shoulder again, but did not struggle. He had not taken a first step when a low hissing sound alerted him to something rushing up from behind.
Leitos spun, drawing the sword. A seething mass of Mahk’lar filled the corridor, some driving toward him on misty limbs tipped in cracked yellow claws, other coming on webbed feet, or pulling with thrashing tentacles covered in weeping boils. Scores of eyes pinned him, orbs dead-white and dusky amber, or sunken pits filled with glints of baleful scarlet. Beneath all those hues flashed glimmers of dull silver.
Leitos turned and ran, the girl’s weight forgotten. For every pace his legs took him, the demons gained ten. He ran harder. Their rank odor, like acrid smoke and decay, poured over him. His lungs revolted, refusing to draw in that taint. His chest ached for breath, his vision darkened at the edges. If they caught him, so much as touched him, he would-
Frigid, crackling fire raced over his neck and down his spine. The held breath gusted from his lungs, as a waving tentacle thrust through his neck, as if his flesh were no more substantial than vapor. The ebon tendril waved before his face, dividing even as he sprinted along, became a hand crossed with raw fissures. Things moved within those red-rimmed folds, much like the worms that had savaged his skin. As that hand dropped onto his face, the darkness of the Mahk’lar’s essence was blasted away by surging veins of blinding silver, as if lightning were flashing within his skull. The host of Mahk’lar overtook him in a blinding rush, enveloping him, making him part of their whole. An involuntary shout erupted from his throat, and a high-pitched shriek sounded from the girl.