Children of Fire

  “That’ll take weeks,” he protested. “We’ll have to cross the entire breadth of the Southlands!”

  “Yes,” Jerrod agreed. “And the Order will be hunting for us the entire way. We’ll have to avoid the larger settlements and the more traveled routes so that reports of our passing are not relayed back to the Pontiff.”

  “We do make a rather conspicuous pair.”

  The robes they were still wearing from their escape were plain enough, but Rexol’s staff destroyed any illusion that they might be simple travelers. It was strapped to one of the pack horses, the empty eyes of the gorgon’s skull staring out and marking at least one of them as a wizard to any who saw it.

  “We can always hide the staff,” Jerrod said, as if he were reading Keegan’s thoughts. “And I have learned to alter my own appearance in subtle ways.” His unmistakable eyes shimmered and slowly transformed into a common brown. “A simple illusion that helped me conceal my identity during my years in hiding.”

  “Magic?” Keegan asked in surprise. “I thought the Order disapproved of such things.”

  “You will learn that I am more tolerant than most of my kind on this subject,” Jerrod replied with the hint of a smile. “In any case, my skill is a simple alteration of myself. The power comes from within, and it is wholly contained. My talent is far more limited than the act of unleashing Chaos upon the world.”

  “Which is why you need a wizard like me to be your champion,” Keegan said, slowly wrapping his head around Jerrod’s mad reasoning. “Even if you had the power, you don’t know how to unleash it.”

  “You need to sleep,” the monk said by way of reply. “We have a long journey ahead of us.”

  Keegan lay down, burrowing his body into the soft sand until it shaped itself to the contours of his body. He closed his eyes and immediately felt sleep overtaking him. Before he slipped away he managed to ask one final question.

  “You still didn’t tell me where we’re going,” he mumbled. “Which of the Free Cities?”

  “We’ll go to Torian,” came the reply. “One of Rexol’s former students was recently given a prominent position there. A man I met once long ago, though only briefly. A man named Khamin Ankha. Hopefully he will help us.”

  Chapter 34

  Storms were rare in the desert, but this was no ordinary thunderhead. The winds carried the scent of destruction. The unnatural clouds crawled over the desert sand until they hovered above the Monastery like a dark ceiling. The air seethed with an almost palpable hatred as the green sky broiled above. A crack of thunder and a flash of blue lightning arced down to strike the ebony walls, scorching the invincible rock—a test of their strength, a warning of what was to come.

  The members of the Order stood undaunted along the battlements, gazing with their second sight into the eerie darkness, seeking in vain for any sign of their enemy beneath the black clouds. A dozen monks manned each of the south, west, and north walls. The remaining members of the Order within the Monastery, a group of a mere two dozen led by the Pontiff, had gathered in the courtyard to guard the east wall should the enemy somehow breach the massive gates.

  The rest of the monks, along with the supplicants who gathered outside the walls, were gone. The Pontiff had sent them out as Pilgrims to spread the word of the coming Cataclysm, to hunt down the traitor Jerrod, to choose a new Pontiff—and to keep the Order alive when the Monastery inevitably fell.

  Beneath the rumble of the storm an endless litany of rhythmic chanting could be heard, an ancient ritual of the Order, the same one used to bind the Chaos within the Monastery walls. But now the chant was directed out and upward, forming an invisible shield of power overhead to ward off the evil of the storm.

  The monks were armed with staves inscribed with mystic symbols and ancient glyphs of power copied from texts that predated the Cataclysm. They wore no armor to protect them, but instead had donned simple cloaks adorned with runes of protection designed to negate, absorb, and shield against the Chaos their enemy would unleash.

  Over the past days similar markings had been carved into the interior walls surrounding the Monastery, to strengthen the latent energy within them. Even the ground had been etched with symbols to ward off the spells of the Minions, the Pontiff drawing upon the vast resources of the Order’s library to uncover the knowledge of a lost age to help defend the sacred fortress. But it would not be enough.

  The Minions were out there, hidden by the power of the storm they had conjured. And soon, the Pontiff knew, they would lay siege to the stronghold of the Order.

  The sky boomed with the thunder of Chaos, and the clouds looming dark above the Monastery erupted in a spectacular explosion of blue lightning. Searing electrical strikes knifed down toward the monks defending the walls, only to be deflected by the invisible barrier. The will of the monks within shuddered but held, their chanting continued in an endless refrain.

  The deadly bolts flashed down again and again, until the earth outside the Monastery walls began to smoke and smolder from the constant barrage of blue lightning. But inside the Monastery all was calm; the blue fire from the sky could not enter. The collective will of the Order had held firm against this first assault.

  As suddenly as it had started, the lightning stopped and the clouds burst. Sheets of rain pelted down. The monks’ magic only protected against that which was harmful, so the rain passed unhindered through the barrier. Within seconds they were all drenched through their cloaks with the chill waters of the storm.

  From the clouds three winged Minions swept down, becoming visible to the Pontiff’s second sight as soon as they left the concealing power of the storm. All three were humanoid in appearance, but eons of exile in the Slayer’s blighted realm had mutated them into perverse monsters. Generations of ancestors subjected to the terrible whims of Chaos had turned the three into hideous creatures, each unique and alien to the mortal world.

  The first had the head of an alligator; green scales covered its body from the ends of its clawed feet to the tips of its taloned hands. Its leather wings flapped in a slow rhythm, keeping its reptilian form aloft. The second flew on the wings of a great eagle, but had the body of a man. The body may have been human at one time, but now was hairless and withered as if it bore the age of a thousand years. The skin was drawn tight against the bones of the skull; the lips had receded to reveal a savage rictus of sharpened fangs. The joints protruded prominently beneath the dry, desiccated flesh that covered its limbs, and the ribs could be seen on its sunken chest. Its naked skull was adorned only by a pair of hollow eye sockets; the nose had long since rotted. Its skin was the sallow color of a mummified corpse.

  The third Minion was barely more than a shadow, even to the magical second sight of the monks watching from the battlements. Jet black from head to toe, its wings made no sound as it glided on the currents of the storm. The dark, naked body was in the form of a beautiful woman, but her head was that of a giant bird, the mouth extending into a cruelly hooked beak. Its eyes, two flaming red points set into the black forehead of the beast, pulsed with sinister power.

  The macabre trinity hovered over the monks, the heavy beat of their wings audible even above the sounds of the storm. But these were creatures of Chaos, its foul power ran thick in their blood, and they could no more pass the Order’s shield than the bolts of blue lightning. In unison they howled to the sky in rage and frustration, piercing the torrential downpour with their screams. Blood trickled from the ears of many of the monks, but they kept their will firm. As one voice the Order chanted the mystic words of power that banished and rejected their magic, and the Minions could not enter.

  Outside the gate four more Minions approached across the rain-soaked sand—the Pontiff could see them in his mind’s eye, his second sight penetrating through the dark walls of the Monastery. They marched forward in pairs, the first two identical twins except that one was dark blue and the other was bright red. Like their airborne brethren this pair were humanoid, but they scuttled on
all fours, crawling across the sand on freakishly long arms and legs, the muscles of their limbs flexing as they scrambled forward. They had the heads of boars, but they were completely hairless and had no ears. On reaching the gate they paused and rose up, waving their claws in the air, sniffing the wind with their snouts.

  The pair behind them did not scuttle forward, but walked upright through the mud that minutes earlier had been desert sand. The one on the left was eight feet tall, its body a bizarre cross between a gorilla and a bear, its fur the brownish red of dried blood. Two short horns grew from its forehead, and a long whip-like tail trailed behind it in the sand. Its serpent tongue flicked in and out with each step, and its tail swished from side to side.

  The other Minion stood only slightly taller than an average man, his body cloaked in a heavy cloth cape wrapped close about his form. His skull was hairless, too long and too narrow. His features were bat-like, his ears pointed and pinned back, his nose small and sunken, his thin, lipless mouth lined with too many sharply pointed teeth. Yellow cat’s eyes peered out hungrily from his chalky complexion. He reached a long thin hand out from his cape to signal the others above, inch-long nails gleaming at the ends of his long, elegant fingers.

  The three in the air flew down to meet their companions at the edge of the east wall. The Pontiff could not sense if there were more than these seven hidden somewhere within the clouds. The Minion in the dark cape spoke briefly with the shadowy flier, revealing two rows of pointed yellow teeth. Their conversation was a mixture of human speech and animal grunts and squawks. These two approached closer to the gate—the dark bird-like creature leaving no footprints as it glided over the wet sand half a pace behind the pale, thin man. After several seconds the caped Minion spoke in a loud, clearly human voice.

  “I am Orath, right hand of Daemron. The dark one is Raven, chief counselor to our Lord. Give us the Crown and we will spare your lives. This is my promise.”

  The Pontiff made no reply—none needed to be made. The Order understood the Slayer’s true nature; none among them would willingly surrender to such an evil, even though none of them expected to survive the coming battle.

  For several seconds there was silence; then Raven whispered something to Orath. Again he called out, flashing his tiny, sharp fangs as he spoke.

  “Raven holds great sway with our master. Surrender and she will see you are rewarded when our Master comes again to reign over this world.”

  The Minions would ultimately destroy the Monastery and everyone inside. The Pontiff knew this, as did all the monks. They fought not to win this battle, but to buy time for Cassandra. Again the Pontiff made no answer, though he raised a single hand high in the air. At his silent command the monks focused their spirits, further reinforcing the shield along the perimeter of the Monastery that was sustained by their ceaseless chanting.

  Orath at last realized no reply would be forthcoming. He turned back to his followers, speaking again in the strange half-human, half-animal language. Raven remained by his side, but the other two winged Minions took to the air, circling high above the Monastery walls, darting in and out of the obscuring clouds of the storm.

  The crawling twins circled around to the west side of the fortress, shuffling back and forth eagerly at the foot of the wall, held at bay by the Chaos barrier emanating from the dark stone. The gorilla-bear lumbered off to stand at the base of the south wall, its tail swiping back and forth, its tongue darting in and out in anticipation.

  Orath and Raven linked hands and raised their arms to the sky as they began to speak a slow litany of mystic syllables. Above their heads a small ball of sickly green light formed—the gathering of Chaos. As the chant continued the ball grew in size and intensity. The winds began to howl, turning the driving rain into sheets of water that fell sideways. Cracks of thunder drowned out their foul words of evil sorcery. The ball of summoned Chaos was now nearly five feet across. Still, they chanted.

  The floor began to tremble beneath the feet of the monks guarding the still-sealed gate of the east wall. The faint rumblings increased into powerful tremors; the earth heaved and buckled, throwing many of the monks to the ground. The very walls of the Monastery began to sway as the earthquake gained force and spasms swept across the desert sand like waves over a storm-tossed sea.

  The Pontiff could do nothing but focus his will on trying to maintain the protective shield around the Monastery, channeling the power of the entire Order through him in a futile effort to resist the increasing magic of the two Minions beyond the gate.

  Raven and Orath stood motionless but for their chanting mouths, unmoved by the earthquake that rocked the foundations of the Order’s stronghold. The ball of Chaos above them swelled to twenty feet across, burning with the intensity of a green sun. Moving in perfect synchronicity the two wizards threw their upraised arms downward, then dropped to their knees. The burning ball of Chaos dove into the ground.

  The sky erupted into deafening peals of continuous thunder; a huge fissure appeared in the ground, running from the feet of the two Minions to the wall of the Monastery. The east wall burst asunder, the stone gates twisting and melting and tearing apart with a sick, wet sound.

  The shield was breached, the spell of protection broken, the force field surrounding the Monastery instantly dissolved. The Minions on the ground leapt onto the Monastery walls, using their claws to scale the perfectly smooth surface even as the night exploded in brilliant blue and white lightning. Bolts of fire shot down from the clouds, striking the monks atop the battlements.

  Those who were strongest were only knocked from their feet, their cloaks smoldering from the lightning’s heat as they resisted the terrible powers of Chaos. Those who were not strong enough to resist—well over half the monks atop the battlements—were consumed by the bolts, their bodies exploding into ash and cinders.

  The reptilian Minion dropped from the clouds onto the south wall where only two monks had survived the initial assault. A second later the deformed gorilla clambered over the battlement as well, the inhuman howls that rose from its jaws drowning out the heavy beat of the other’s bat-like wings.

  One of the surviving monks rose to his knees, his staff spinning above his head in preparation for the coming combat. The reptilian Minion stepped forward, mystic words of power falling from its scaled lips. The monk tried to rise to his feet, but could not move his legs. The Minion’s words continued and a second later the monk was frozen in white marble—a statue with a scream of horror etched on its face for all eternity.

  The second Minion on the wall, the great gorilla-beast, lashed out with its tail, driving the poisoned tip deep into the throat of the second monk before she could bring her runed staff to bear. Her body tumbled lifeless from the battlement, crashing to the stone floor of the Monastery fifty feet below. The creature leapt from the parapet, landing on all fours on the Monastery’s interior grounds. The reptilian Minion followed, gliding down on its bat-like wings.

  On the north wall three monks fought desperately against the Minion that had descended like a macabre angel from the heavens to confront them, its desiccated body reeking of musty death. The monks charged their emaciated foe, their staves spinning, whirling blurs as they attacked. Each time a staff struck the battlement wall a chunk of stone dissolved into dust, disintegrating instantly when struck by the devastating power channeled through the glyphs etched upon the shaft of the monks’ weapons. But their enemy was elusive: The Minion ducked and dodged, leaping over one attack while sidestepping a second blow. The air was filled with putrid feathers shed from its decaying wings; they fluttered and spun crazily in the wind before settling gently to the stone floor.

  The Minion chanted and wove its withered hands in the air as it danced away from the deadly blows of the monks’ staves. The stone floor of the battlement melted into mud, and the surprised monks sank up to their ankles before they realized what had happened. And then the floor became stone again, trapping them in place.

  Their enem
y began another chant, his atrophied arms raised to the dark sky above as he slowly backed away. The monks struggled desperately to free themselves as an inky mist floated down from the black clouds above. The Minion watched in silent satisfaction as the mist settled on the helpless monks. Safely outside the toxic cloud it listened to the screams of the humans as the mist ate away their flesh, stripping away their skin and muscle, turning their blood into thick red steam. Seconds later three skeletons collapsed, the bones of their feet and ankles still encased in the stone floor.

  To the west the crawling twins climbed over the battlements. The four surviving monks rushed to attack them, but a ten-foot wall of ice materialized to block their path. The monks lashed out with their will, the ice melting as they dispelled the Chaos. But the delay as they unbound the magic of their foe gave the twins time to invoke a powerful channeling of Chaos. Even as the ice wall melted away a gust of enchanted wind swept the monks from their feet, tossing them like dry leaves before the hurricane. Their bodies were hurled from the battlement and thrown across the courtyard, slamming into the far wall of the Monastery. The echo of the crash masked the sound of shattering bones and cracking skulls.

  Raven and Orath rose to their feet, still linked hand in hand. At a signal from the Pontiff, the monks guarding the east wall rushed forward through the breach to attack. Bolts of black fire shot from Raven’s eyes and drove them back. The monks managed to throw up a magical shield to deflect the dark and deadly flames, a localized variation on the shield used to protect the Monastery earlier. But some were too weak to withstand the sorceress’s spell and were instantly consumed by the arcane flames ripping through their personal protective barriers.

  Orath threw back his head and bellowed to the sky. The monks closest to him fell to the ground upon hearing the ghastly sound, their bodies racked by convulsions and seizures as their brains melted into gray pulp within their skulls.

  None of the monks manning the battlements was left alive, and of the two dozen guarding the east gates almost half were dead or dying. The survivors fell back and surrounded the Pontiff in a desperate attempt to protect their leader. But before they could mount a counterattack, the Minions fell on them.