Euphoria filled him. Thank you, my lord, he thought in exhilaration, slashing a demon practically in half. A true servant could ask for nothing more than such blessings as these.
The body of the fiend tumbled away as Kael spun and hammered at another one, first shattering its blade, then taking its arm from it. The demon howled in anguish and tried to dart away, but a sudden swarm of hailstones slammed into it, pummeling it and sending it limply spiraling into the cloud bank below.
Kael turned to see his father give him a wry grin before he was forced to turn his attention to another pair of demons. They tried to flank him, using both direction and altitude to keep him confused. Kael shifted to one side as the closest of the two fiends jabbed at him with its spear. He yanked his blade down through the center of the weapon, snapping it in half. He kicked at the other, knocking its weapon completely free of the demon's grasp.
With a shout of elation, Kael whirled around, his blade whistling through the air. At the end of his rotation, both fiends bore mortal wounds and plummeted away from him.
With no more demons in the immediate vicinity, Kael sought Pharaun. He spotted the wizard surrounded by three more of the black fiends. With an urgency born of concern for his father, Kael willed his magic boots to get him close to the trio. He rushed at the nearest one while the drow twisted and dodged to avoid the creatures' attacks.
Kael took the head of the first one before the other two even realized he was there. As it fell from the sky, the knight rammed his heavy blade through a second one, which had turned to face him. Its expression went from smug glee to surprise as the sword impaled it, and it gave a plaintive cry as Kael shoved it back off the end of his weapon with his boot.
Pharaun unleashed a string of arcane missiles, very much like those Aliisza so often used. The swarm of glowing darts whistled as they homed in on the third demon, which watched them rush at it with wide-eyed fright. The tiny missiles struck the demon with a series of staccato pops and buried themselves in its bare chest, leaving smoking holes there. The demon gasped and clutched at its misshapen flesh.
Both demons plunged away into the clouds beneath them.
Kael cast a glance around, seeking more enemies to confront, but no more swooped or swarmed in the vicinity. It appeared that they had finished the wretched things off.
'You remember Ryld,' Pharaun asked, 'the weaponmaster I once fought alongside? Well, you handle a blade about as well as he did. I have to say, this little scrape has brought back more than a few memories. I'm downright giddy. Can you imagine if you had grown up with me in Menzoberranzan, instead of here in this detesta-Well, in this place?'
'I don't believe we would have found ourselves running in quite the same circles,' Kael said, but he caught himself grinning just the same. 'But thank you for the compliment.'
'Oh, by the Great Spider,' Pharaun muttered. 'Look.'
Kael turned to find what his companion had spotted. He gasped. The grotesque aberration that Zasian had described to Tauran and Kael, the fused beings of Micus and Myshik, soared through the air near the Lifespring. It made a wide turn and headed straight toward Tauran, who stood upon the beach near the water's edge, staring in horror at the thing. Eirwyn gaped beside him, her mace drooping at her side.
Vhok also stood there, one arm hanging limply at his side. Noting that the two celestials paid no attention to him, the cambion leaped over the side of the basin and flew into the mists beneath it, vanishing from sight.
'Come,' Kael said. 'We've got to help.'
Heeding Tauran's tactics, Aliisza tried to make her way toward Kaanyr. She shifted and dodged, zipping through the swarming demons, hoping to slip through their skirmish line and reach the cambion.
It was not to be.
The disgusting creatures with their bare muscles and raw sinew recognized her efforts and moved to block her. She engaged the first one, parrying a spear thrust with her own slender long sword. A second fiend swooped in behind her and she had to lunge to the side to evade a raking claw. As she maneuvered, she cast repeated glances toward Kaanyr.
Dread at seeing him again mingled with rising anger. She was not so much worried about his enmity as she was afraid of her own reaction.
She wanted to hurt him. She wanted him to feel the pain he had dealt her, which she was feeling all over again.
Here you are, she seethed, still trying to reach the Lifespring. Your bullheaded obsession with this place has cost you everything, and you're too blind to see it. She shook her head in disgust. Why couldn't you have cared about me this much? Half this much?
She saw Tauran appear next to the cambion and felt a pang of jealousy that the angel might do in her former lover before she got the chance herself.
Then a spear thrust ripped a small hole through one of her wings, and Aliisza gasped in pain. She turned her full attention to her own fight.
'That is going to cost you,' she snarled at the fiend that had wounded her. The creature leered at her. She poured all her pent-up anger and anguish into the attack, assaulting the demon with a flurry of sword thrusts and cuts.
The second demon saw her doggedness as an opportunity to get inside her defenses and maneuvered around behind her. Aliisza expected the ploy, though, and she kept orbiting around her quarry as she hammered away at his defenses. The constant motion kept the second one from closing in.
Her target tried to block the strikes, but her hatred lent strength to her efforts, and each blow that rained down on the beast rang with power and drove it backward. The demon grew desperate and began to retreat from her. Thinking quickly, Aliisza feinted another strike at the fleeing demon, then turned her rage fully onto the second one, which was still attempting to get around behind her.
Suck on steel, you pathetic vermin, she thought, twisting suddenly and lunging into a somersault. The maneuver brought her blade under the pursuing creature and it dug deep into its thigh.
The demon screamed and writhed as it yanked itself backward. Aliisza rolled over and came after it, eager for the kill. The demon spun and fled. Aliisza chased it, twisting and turning through the air as she tried to keep up with its frantic maneuvers to escape her. When it suddenly flipped over and dived into a cloud bank, she wheeled around to keep up. It was only after she lost sight of the fiend within the cottony white that her innate sense of imminent danger struck her and she hesitated.
Ambush, she thought.
Her fears were well-founded. Two more demons loomed around her, one from the side and the other from behind. They attacked. Aliisza squirmed to evade the first sword strike, but she couldn't quite parry the second and the blade cut into her hip. The wound did not feel deep and she tried to ignore the pain.
Desperate times… she thought, bringing her hand up and channeling her magic.
A burst of blue fire shot from her fingertips. The glow surrounded her, making the fog of the clouds turn azure.
The inferno drove the demon back, screaming. Aliisza doubled over in pain.
Gods and devils, that hurts!
It was worse than she ever remembered. She folded her wings and dropped like a stone to avoid being struck by another enemy. She fell through the bottom of the cloud into open sky and continued to plunge for a few more heartbeats. The pain ate away at her, like some beast dwelling in her gut and devouring her from the inside.
She desperately wished for Zasian's healing touch. Or Tauran's. Please make it stop.
The pain finally subsided enough for Aliisza to catch her breath and regain control. She fanned her wings and glided levelly.
The three demons had followed her. The one she had wounded originally and the scorched one that had tried to surprise her both lagged behind, but the uninjured one closed in fast.
She could not fight all three of them, even in open space where she could see them clearly. She also could not escape.
I don't want it to hurt!
Do it.
