time and time again. He knew their names. Albanon. Uldane. Shara. Tempest. Roghar. Quarhaun. Kri. And he knew they were in Fallcrest, lending their swords and spells-and their improbable luck-to the town.
They’d tried to kill him, although they’d succeeded only in uniting him with the Voidharrow. They’d killed Raid, the first of his exarchs, and two of them had even resisted his attempts to make them into exarchs as well. But most recently, they’d killed Nu Alin, the ancient bodystealer who had been herald to Vestapalk and Voidharrow alike, as he led an attack on Fallcrest. Vestapalk had sensed his destruction as a human might have experienced the sudden loss of a finger.
Had Churr sensed it as well?
He shifted in the Voidharrow, reversing the course of the slow ripples across the pool. “Why?” he asked.
A look of concentration crossed Churr’s small-eyed face, as if he was trying to remember what he had planned to say next. Few of Vestapalk’s demons had much intelligence. The transformation seemed to burn it away, leaving most with only a feral cunning. Churr had the size and strength of a juggernaut, but the muscles might have filled his head for all the wit he showed. “Send me,” he said at last. He thumped his chest hard. “Crush!”
“You think you could crush Fallcrest?” said Vestapalk. The Plaguedeep remained silent as the other plague demons watched the exarch confront his master.
“Nu Alin failed,” the big demon said.
“You wouldn’t?”
Churr straightened, squeezing a massive fist tight. “Kill who killed him.” He pumped his fist in the air. “Kill who killed Nu Alin!”
His voice rose in an echo through the Plaguedeep. The watching demons responded, a few at first, then more, hooting and howling their enthusiasm. But not all of them were caught up in the madness. Vestapalk looked around at those who remained silent. Once again, they turned away from his gaze. Vestapalk drew back his neck so that he glared down at Churr.
“No,” he growled.
“No?” Churr demanded. He pounded his chest with both fists. “Small things kill Nu Alin. Churr Ashin crush small things.”
So that was how it was, Vestapalk realized. In the never-ending struggle for primacy among the plague demons, slow-witted Churr had come to believe that only by killing those who had killed Nu Alin could he assert his own power. For a moment, he was tempted to loose the huge demon on Fallcrest just to see what Albanon and his band would do.
But it was possible Churr Ashin might actually kill them. The continued existence of those who dared think of themselves as his enemies nipped at him like a mite burrowing under his scales. Against the great wave of the Abyssal Plague sweeping over the world, their resistance meant nothing. Vestapalk was still dragon enough, however, that hate gathered, rolling and stinging, in his belly. When the time came to destroy his enemies, he would do it himself.
He lowered his head until he glared into Churr’s eyes. “No.”
Churr stumbled back, hopping from one stepping stone back to the next-then he stopped himself and met his master’s gaze for a second time. “Vestapalk says no,” he said, loud enough to make his words echo, “because Vestapalk is afraid.”
A hiss and a stir swept around the watching plague demons. Vestapalk sensed their unease and their eagerness through the Voidharrow. In a hierarchy of raw power, no one was immune to being challenged. Denied the chance to advance himself by killing Nu Alin’s killers, Churr Ashin was prepared to take on the only other demon that outranked him.
And in the instant it took Vestapalk to recognize that, he realized something else: Churr was more cunning than he’d believed. One of Churr’s thick hands had reached behind his back and jerked out something wedged under the crystal plates there.
In the ruddy light of the Plaguedeep, a golden skull gleamed between his fingers.
Vestapalk didn’t bother to glance to the corner of the shaft where the gold skulls that had once been the treasure of the Temple of Yellow Skulls sat heaped like so much trash. There was no doubt that Churr had stolen one of them, probably while Vestapalk’s mind had roamed across the world. Nor was there any doubt what he intended. Each gold skull contained the essence of a powerful demon of the Abyss, and was a source of great energy. Vestapalk had drawn on them to empower the transformation of his exarchs and again to create the Plaguedeep itself.
Churr Ashin raised the skull swiftly to his mouth and drew a deep breath, sucking at the power within.
Except nothing happened. Vestapalk gave Churr a moment to realize his ploy had failed.
Then he lunged.
Even without the power of the golden skull, Churr’s size, strength, and crystal armor made him dangerous. Vestapalk struck in a rush. His snapping jaws closed on Churr’s free arm and bit it off at the elbow. His shoulder slammed into Churr’s chest, knocking him back. Vast wings, glittering red with crystal and droplets of the Voidharrow, swept out and beat down, giving Vestapalk enough momentum to bowl his rebellious exarch onto his back.
The golden skull flew from Churr’s hand, bounced off one of the stepping stones with a clang, arched over the Voidharrow pool, and landed spinning on solid ground. Plague demons nearby scattered as if the thing were poison.
Churr tried to fight back. He punched with his remaining hand, a blow that might have put a hole in a stone wall. Vestapalk twisted and the punch slid past him. A foreleg raked down and severed the muscles of Churr’s shoulder and chest. His powerful arm flopped back uselessly. He tried to kick, but Vestapalk bent his lean body double-as if his bones had become as fluid as the Voidharrow-and gripped Churr’s legs with his hind feet. The weight of Vestapalk’s entire body resting on top of him brought a gasp even from the massive demon.
Vestapalk turned his head to spit out Churr’s arm. “You are cunning,” he said, looking back to his struggling captive, “but not cunning enough. It takes strength greater than yours to draw on the skulls. Their power responds only to greater power. Vestapalk’s power.”
Churr glared at him, rage blinding him to pain. “You are afraid.”
Vestapalk roared into Churr’s face, his talons clenching the demon’s flesh. “This one fears nothing! Those who killed Nu Alin are of no concern. They will be overrun. They will be a part of the Voidharrow as everything will be a part of the Voidharrow!”
Shrieking howls filled the Plaguedeep, the plague demons mimicking his fury as it spread through the connection between them. Even the pool of the Voidharrow grew agitated. He snapped his teeth in Churr’s face. “This world belongs to Vestapalk now,” he snarled, “and Vestapalk is the Voidharrow.”
His tongue emerged from his mouth, wet and glossy. It darted across Churr’s face, leaving behind a smear of Voidharrow. Vestapalk smiled. “As are you.”
He opened his mouth and, just as Churr had over the golden skull, drew breath.
The demon convulsed as a glittering red mist emerged from between his lips and streamed up to Vestapalk’s muzzle. A thin scream went with it. The convulsions lasted only moments, then Churr fell back, his eyes dull and glazed. The scream faded away to nothing.
Vestapalk didn’t stop inhaling, however. If he were a mortal creature, his lungs would have burst. But he was far from mortality. The wisp of mist became thicker as the substance of Churr’s flesh-transformed and empowered by the Voidharrow-began to sift away. Vestapalk stepped back from his former exarch’s body and opened his jaws wider. His drawn breath became a gale, shredding Churr’s remains until they flowed into his maw like liquid. Like the Voidharrow itself.
When the last traces of Churr Ashin’s existence were a few shards of red crystal, Vestapalk closed his mouth and let out a slow exhalation. He lifted his gaze to the demons around him.
They fell silent instantly, their eyes dropping. Vestapalk snorted and slid back into the pool. Noise slowly returned to the Plaguedeep as the demons returned to their chitterings and brawlings, their primitive battles for meaningless supremacy.
A wave of the Voidharrow washed from the pool over the floor of the shaft to pick up the fallen gold skull and carry it to Vestapalk like a piece of wood on the tide. He ignored it, his thoughts turning in another direction. Churr Ashin had shown him something valuable: Albanon, Shara, Kri, and the others who defied him were a distraction.
