“That’s enough,” Sanara said.
“Oh, please, little sister. You’re nothing but an even more prissy version of our mother. I couldn’t care less for your condemnation.”
“Put the knife down,” Serapheim demanded, his tone like ice.
“Go to hell.”
He made a swift movement with his hands. The dagger Jennesta was holding became malleable, then melted like an icicle in a heatwave. It ended as a metallic coloured puddle at her feet.
At the same time, Vermegram wove her own spell. Thirzarr started, staggered and seemed to come to herself.
“Stryke!” Serapheim cried urgently.
Stryke dashed to his bewildered mate, took hold of her and dragged her away.
Alarmed at the speed of events, Jennesta’s perplexity turned to anger. Lifting her own hands, lips moving through some incantation, she prepared to retaliate.
“Get clear!” Serapheim shouted.
Stryke and the others didn’t need telling twice. They withdrew from the line of fire.
Jennesta hurled energy at her kin. They repelled it by instantly throwing up a glossy protective bubble, and answered with fiery bolts. These Jennesta batted aside as though they were no more harmful than a swipe from a kitten.
“What in hell is going on, Stryke?” Thirzarr asked. She looked exhausted as well as baffled.
“I’ll tell you later,” he promised, pulling her closer.
The duel built in intensity, so that even those fighting a short distance away took a step back from their opponents to watch.
Then there was a development from an unexpected quarter. The zombie Hacher, who had stood to one side, forgotten through all this, now stirred himself. Perhaps there was just enough humanity left in what remained of his senses, or enough unforgiving malice. Lurching towards her from behind, he grabbed hold of Jennesta, encircling her in a death-like grip.
“Get off me, you scum!” she shrieked, struggling to free herself.
When she failed to break his hold she resorted to a more extreme measure. A small hand gesture was all it took. What had once been Hacher let out a moan of agony and began to writhe. He let go of her and his hands went to his head. They weren’t enough to hold it together. It erupted as surely as a melon hit with a mallet. A sticky black liquid seeped through his fingers and down his chest. He collapsed, truly dead.
Serapheim and the others were still mounting their magical attack. It was all becoming too much for Jennesta. She reached into her gown and took out her ersatz set of instrumentalities. Four were already in place. Grinning triumphantly at her enemies, she quickly slotted the fifth into place and disappeared.
“I thought you said they didn’t work here,” Stryke complained. “You’ve let her get away!”
Jennesta’s parents and her sibling looked truly mournful. Vermegram and Sanara might even have had moist eyes, as was the way with humans.
It was Serapheim who spoke, his tone weighed down. “No, they don’t work here, and she hasn’t got away. That was our plan.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Working together, because that’s what it took, even with a counterfeit set of instrumentalities, we managed to alter them from afar. Jennesta thought she could use them to get away, and no doubt had the coordinates for a safe location. We changed those coordinates.”
“Where’s she gone?” Coilla asked.
Serapheim looked up at the sky. “I’ll explain.”
The world Serapheim created was in every respect artifice, fuelled and maintained by magic and the force of his will. But for all practical purposes it was real. The food it produced could be eaten, the rain that fell was wet, the perfume of flowers was just as sweet. Pleasure could be experienced there, and pain and death. The reality extended to its sun. It was no less the giver of warmth and light than any that existed in the so-called natural universe.
And so it was that as Serapheim explained what had happened to his depraved daughter, on the surface of the sun he had brought into existence there was the tiniest blip. A minute, incredibly short-lasting flare of energy as a foreign body, newly arrived, was instantly consumed by that terrible inferno.
Jennesta’s going had a number of effects on the battlefield. Her human zombies simply stopped functioning, and fell to dust. The entranced orcs had the chains binding their minds severed, and came to their senses. Others, of many races, also felt her influence seep away, and they threw down their arms. Yet others, those far gone in depravity who followed the sorceress willingly, fought on. As the battle descended into part dazed chaos, part fight to the death, it was one of the latter who was responsible for what happened next.
Stryke and Thirzarr stood with Coilla and Pepperdyne, a little apart from the others, watching the turn of events when a fighter on the battlefield took aim and unleashed an arrow.
Given the unpredictability of a conventional longbow, it could have struck any of them. It chose Pepperdyne. The arrow plunged deep into his chest, passing through the side of his heart as it travelled. He fell without a sound.
The cold hand of horror clutched at Coilla’s own heart. She went down on her knees to him, and if confirmation of what had just happened was needed, she saw his white singlet rapidly turning scarlet.
On the battlefield, the archer who sent the bolt, a Gatherer perhaps or some other form of lowlife, was cut to pieces by an avenging pack of Wolverines.
Stryke got hold of the arrow jutting from Pepperdyne’s chest, thinking to remove it. Pepperdyne winced and groaned. Stryke let go. Spurral caught his eye, and almost imperceptibly, shook her head.
Coilla took her lover’s hand. Pepperdyne’s eyes flickered and half opened. He stared up at her face.
“Take it easy,” she whispered. “We’ll patch you up and-”
“ No… my love,” he replied almost too softly to be heard. “ I’m… beyond… patching up.”
“Don’t leave me, Jode.”
“I’ll… never… leave you.”
Coilla squeezed his hand tighter. “How can I go on? How can I live without you?” She turned to Serapheim and his kin. “Can’t you do something?” she pleaded. “With your great powers, surely-”
Serapheim shook his head sadly. “There are limits to even our abilities. Some things must take their course. I’m sorry.”
Desolate, she returned her gaze to Pepperdyne. He tried to speak again, and Coilla had to put her ear to his mouth to catch what he said. Whatever it was, it brought the flicker of a smile to her face before grief replaced it.
Epilogue I
Stryke, Jup, Spurral, Pelli Madayar and Standeven stood in the semiarid wastes of a drought-ridden slice of Maras-Dantia. The sun beat down without mercy, the air was verging on foul.
“This isn’t fair,” Standeven whined. “You could at least have brought me somewhere other than Kantor Hammrik’s fiefdom.”
Stryke pointed across the desert. “I reckon if you walk for about three days in that direction you’ll be out of it.”
“I’ve no supplies, no proper clothing, no-”
“Here’s a bottle of water. You better make it last.”
Standeven snatched it. “I was as upset about what happened to Jode as any of you, you know.”
“Yeah, right.”
He was still whining and muttering curses when the others vanished and left him to it.
Stryke, Jup, Spurral and Pelli looked out at a considerably more pleasant world. It was blessed with fecundity and almost entirely unspoilt. In the valley below was a small village of round huts and longhouses. Smoke lazily
