Of a sudden, the root-serpent rammed forward, its mouth gaping wide with a roar, and smashed into Kian. He landed on his back and tumbled down into a shallow gulley before splashing into a bog. He came up sputtering and searching for his lost sword. The root slithered toward him, lurching now, as if struggling. Just before it fell on him, Kian lashed out with his fists; it was like striking a tree, and just as useless. Tentacle-like roots fell on him, swarmed over his skin, pulsing with an unnatural heat. The reek of mold and rotted vegetation filled his nostrils. They wrapped him about, tightening … before those appendages could tear him to pieces, they abruptly fell away.
Kian, gasping, cracked his eyelids and stared. The swamp had abruptly ceased shaking, and the thick root-serpent stretched over the lip of the gulley and down to within a foot of him. It lay like a dying animal, quivering, its hide sagging with fast-moving corruption. Mold quickly covered its length, and putrid sap oozed from the many wounds he had given it. By heartbeats, it crumpled further under the pace of its own rot. Whatever dark powers had given it life, had fled.
Kian did not waste a moment to ponder his inexplicable good fortune. He jumped to his feet, cupped his hands to his mouth, and cried words he had never before uttered. “Withdraw! For your lives, flee!”
Near and far, the order was frantically repeated, but he took no measure of relief that he was not alone in his alarm. After a hasty search, he dragged his sword out of the murky pool, then obeyed his own command to retreat. It went against every instinct he knew concerning battle, but it made no sense to waste lives against an enemy of which he knew nothing about destroying-and the next root-serpent might not die.
Of Varis, Kian now saw him as an enemy, rather than a nuisance who had offered him a king’s wealth of gold for some grand expedition. Kian would protect a stranger for payment, and his friends for nothing, but either would face his wrath should they betray his trust. Varis had earned that fury, in the most explicit terms, when he had attacked Kian and his company.
Kian sloshed through the pool and scrambled up the slope, keeping as low to the ground as he could, just inches from crawling on his belly. Searching through the screen of bramble, he found Varis on his knees, weariness plain on his wasted features. As well, there was a loathing for all life written plainly in his expression. Like a physical manifestation of what bred behind his white eyes, ebon streamers curled around him, wolves of smoke and spirit. For the barest moment, Kian sensed that the greater danger lay in those ethereal shapes-then his mind shifted again toward escape.
Running Asra a’Shah paid the prince and his dark companions no mind. Like Kian, the gold paid to defend Varis mattered nothing now that he had tried to murder them, and succeeded in slaughtering a number of their brothers. Kian knew the only reason Varis had not yet lost his head to a sword stroke was because of the awesome, fearful power he had displayed-such a power only spoken of in stories of gods….
Of Hazad and Azuri, Kian saw no sign. If they were alive, they knew where to go.
With a last look at the youth, fighting off another wave of loathing so deep that it set his heart to pounding, Kian began to move. Keeping low, he stole from bush to bole, until he was out of sight of Varis and those vaporous figures swirling around him.
Once he was well away, bruised and battered, Kian began trotting east through a swamp that looked vastly different than it had just an hour earlier, toward the previous night’s camp. Unless stated otherwise on the line of march, the last camp always served as the point to regroup the company in case of trouble. And, without question, this was the most dire and confusing trouble Kian had ever encountered. What he had seen was beyond the realities of mortal flesh, something from a nightmare … it was something from the Thousand Hells. No priest or magus had ever warned that Geh’shinnom’atar could be breached, let alone unleashed upon the world by the hands of man but, seemingly, just such an event had occurred. Kian had a sickening feeling in his gut that all he had ever known was now changed, for the worse.
Chapter 6
The damp gloom of night was falling by the time Varis came around. He lay in the mud, exhausted. He could not have said how long he rested there before Peropis’s whispers filled his mind, urging him to rise. With a great struggle, he gained his feet, shaking like a poisoned cur. The powers of creation, he realized with shock, had nearly killed him.
In all directions, shattered trees lay atop one another. He vaguely remembered their falling, but that and all else was a jumble in his mind. Trees still standing were naked of leaves, limbs broken and twisted, as if torn by a gale. Evening shadows cast a pall over great slabs of broken stone that had thrust from the floor of the swamp amid geysers of stinking black water. Despite the extent of the swamp’s destruction, he had never thought to seek safety. He had been consumed by an unbidden rage against his enemies, a fury so powerful that what he had done to them was now lost on him.
At the moment, the how of it did not matter. What did was that he knew the source of his rage: the Izutarian, Kian Valara, who had somehow escaped his wrath. Even now, loathing flared anew in his heart, and he wanted to pursue the man. If he could but get his strength back, Varis would have gladly tortured the man to death, simply for the pleasure of it. He did not consider why he should hate the man so, only knew that he did.
At a loud gurgling noise, he turned about like an old man, hissing at the unfamiliar pains wracking his wasted frame. Where the temple had stood, now a spinning soup of steaming black mud and floating leaves churned around and around in a broad pool. The edges crumbled into the whirlpool and were instantly pulled down. More of the edge crumbled into the swirling morass, forcing Varis to ease farther away. He had no doubt the currents of this particular bog would take its victim to the bowels of the world, perhaps even to the Thousand Hells. For himself, Varis never intended to make that journey again.
Considering Geh’shinnom’atar, he looked about for the dark wisps that had followed him back from Peropis’s lair, but found no evidence that the souls of the Fallen were near. All were gone now … freed into the world of men. If he had not been so drained, he might have wondered what effect the presence of demons in the realm of the living would have.
“Peropis?” Varis called in a dry croak, unsure she could hear him. Always, it had been she who came to him, not the other way around.
“You have done well,” she said in answer, her voice drifting to him as if from an impossible distance. “However, you have much to learn, and you must learn quickly.”
Just the thought of expending more energy made Varis want to groan in protest. Instead, he whimpered, “I am tired. So weary….”
The last syllable dwindled to a sigh, as Varis unconsciously listed to the side. One foot, seeking balance, dropped into a deep furrow, and he fell. He sprawled there wheezing, almost too tired to breathe, let alone able to muster the strength to climb again out of the shallow grave.
Not a grave, he thought dazedly. This hollow marked the place from which his creation had risen to destroy Kian.
“He must be destroyed,” Peropis whispered then, as if reading his thoughts. There was a hint of uncertainty in her voice that bothered Varis. The Eater of the Damned should have no worry over a mortal.
“Destroy Kian?” he wheezed. “The man should die-I carry the desire in my heart-but he is nothing, an insect … and fled in cowardice besides.” He almost believed the bold statement, but he saw in his mind a vision of Kian fighting and prevailing against all that Varis had thrown against him. How could that be?