“Ignite!”
The word flew from his lips with the force of a hurricane, awakening the ancient knowledge of the demon he’d swallowed. From his raised hand came a spiraling tentacle of shadow, spurting upward and outward, an extension of himself. The tentacle raced over the dead earth, fast as a bolt of lightning, and then descended on the first of the grayhorns. The beast was thrown backward as if walloped by a boulder, the shadows pouring into its eyes, its snout, its ears. Velixar grinned as the creature’s taut flesh became bloated, and smoke rose from its every orifice. The grayhorn-man then exploded, destroyed by fire from within. The air was filled with flaming blood and bits of meat, and the nearest of the creature’s brethren were impaled by jagged bone fragments. Those few fell screeching to the ground, their great bodies slumping, their elongated snouts trumpeting in pain as their newly created hands tried to rip the shards from their hides. The other grayhorns raced past, casting only cursory glances at their fallen comrades, their eyes alight with rage.
The beasts were close now, too close for Velixar to perform the same trick twice without endangering himself and the elves. Pulling up on the reins and halting his horse mid-stride, he allowed Shen and the Ekreissar to pass him. Shen shouted commands, and half the rangers splayed out wide, lifting their bows with practiced ease, calmly nocking arrows. Their discipline was awe inspiring, and Velixar promised himself that he would help teach the human army to display the same control. The elves released their bowstrings, and shafts flew through the air, the elves’ aim just as impressive as their discipline. Each arrow found its mark, embedding in the thick hides of the charging beasts. Three grayhorns died immediately after being impaled through the eye, and their bodies tumbled down. The dead earth was torn up by their graceless descent, and a few of their brethren fell after colliding with them. Still others clumsily maneuvered around the piles of flesh, the ground shaking beneath their cumbersome weight. Velixar shouted more words of magic, his hands performing a dance before him, and two more of the beasts were cut down, their bones snapping, their innards liquefying, their gray, hard flesh splitting at the seams and pouring out blood.
Shen charged, the dexterity of the huge elf a sight to behold as he held his wicked-looking black swords out wide and raced his horse toward a pair of grayhorns. The muscles in the beasts’ shoulders rippled with each lumbering stride as they raced for the Ekreissar chief, deadly tusks and horns pointed forward. Shen pulled his right foot from the stirrup, planted it firmly on his horse’s back, and at the last moment launched himself into the air, tucking into a roll. His horse ducked its head, and the creatures’ tusks passed over it, slicing through the empty space where Shen had just been moments before. The two beasts roared in pain when Shen fell from the sky, his swords held out like daggers, and buried both blades into their backs. The elf’s downward momentum added force to his attack as he dragged his swords along the creatures’ hides. Flesh sliced open in a wide arc, spilling the grayhorns’ guts in a macabre red rain. Shen landed and rolled away as the two dying beasts collided with each other and collapsed, their blood and entrails soaking the dead ground. He was on his feet a moment later, leaping back atop his horse and charging the next grayhorn. His fingers never lost traction on his two swords. The whole while, arrows launched by his underlings rained down around him, yet he never seemed in danger of being struck by one.
A breathtaking spectacle, indeed.
Inspired, Velixar ripped Lionsbane from its sheath and urged his steed forward. Nearly half the remaining grayhorns had fallen, and the Ekreissar, who continued to pummel the beasts with their arrows, were encircling the others. One of the creatures stampeded the circling elves and managed to gore a ranger through the midsection. The elf shrieked as he was lifted high into the air on the grayhorn’s tusks, and then impaled by the horn on the beast’s snout. The elf fell limp as the grayhorn roared, thrashing this way and that, blinded by the flopping dead thing attached to it.
Velixar raced behind the creature and hacked at it with Lionsbane. Its hide was tough, but his blade sliced, severing the tendons on the back of the thing’s tree-trunk legs. It collapsed to its knees, while a blast of panicked air left its elongated snout, filling the air with its trumpetlike bleating.
It was silenced by a wave of Velixar’s hand, which turned both creature and impaled elf inside out. The tide of the battle seemed to be turning, with the grayhorns pushing the Ekreissar back now. Two more elves were killed, their bodies trampled and broken in the dry brown grass, and while Shen and the rangers continued their assault, the grayhorns seemed to be learning. When the twang of bowstrings sounded they dropped their heads, allowing the shafts to enter their thick hides while protecting their more sensitive areas. They also formed defensive positions, grouping shoulder to shoulder with one another, their flailing horns and tusks keeping the elves’ khandars at bay. For mere animals, their survival instinct was remarkable. In many ways, Velixar began to admire them.
Just not enough to let them live.
Bringing his horse to a halt behind the eviscerated grayhorn and its victim, Velixar sheathed Lionsbane and accessed the deeper recesses of the demon’s knowledge. As he twined his hands together, he felt Karak’s strength surge through him, and his eyes rolled into the back of his head. Arcane words left his mouth, and a liquid feeling of connection permeated his being. His vision returned to him, and he saw the blood and bone of the elf and grayhorn he had eviscerated circling in the air, a funnel of ruin that twisted with the force of gods, ever widening, ever spiraling. The funnel lashed across the ground, guided by Velixar’s own hand, collecting the ruin of the dead that were strewn about until it was nearly as wide as Tower Honor itself. As if sensing the potency of the spell, the grayhorns packed tighter into their defensive circle. The elves, who had ceased with their rain of arrows, backed their horses away. It seemed all eyes were on him, including his divinity’s. Now was the time for him to prove, once and for all, that Karak’s faith in him was not misplaced.
He leaned forward and then thrust his interlocked hands toward the huddled beasts. The death funnel surged into motion, ripping up chunks of dirt and grass as it spiraled toward the beasts. The base of the funnel grew as it went, the bone fragments within becoming sharper and more deadly with each revolution.
The grayhorns turned to flee, their primal gazes filled with fear. Their giant rumps rose and fell with each leaping stride, the creatures deceptively fast given their size.
They weren’t fast enough.
The death funnel swallowed the slowest grayhorn, ripping the beast off its feet and into the massive spiral of blood, tissue, and bone. Its shrieks were deafening, and Velixar could see the shadow of its form whipping back and forth inside the cyclone. When it was ejected, flesh and muscle flayed from its bones, it landed on the dead ground in a steaming lump.
The funnel’s density grew with each beast it devoured, until it became so large that it seemed to swirl nearly a thousand feet wide. The fleeing grayhorn-men were annihilated, one by one, until a scant few remained. Velixar watched from a distance as they disappeared into the skeletal forest, their massive bodies colliding with the dead trees in their horrified flight. He snapped his fingers and the death funnel abruptly ceased to spin. Each bone fragment, each strip of blackened flesh, each drop of blood hung in the air for a precious few seconds before falling to the ground in a deafening rain of gore.
Shen glanced over at him, his wide-set eyes alive with fear. The Ekreissar chief then dismounted, crossed his black swords over his chest, and fell to one knee. The rest of the rangers followed their chief’s lead, showing subservience to the swallower of demons.