She nodded understanding. “I’ll fetch the girls then.”
Girls? Mikahl wondered what he was getting into.
A glance back down the hall revealed that the two zard guards and the young zardess had fled.
Mikahl hoped that Phen was all right. He’d given the boy plenty of opportunity to rejoin him. The idea that maybe the priest or the dragon had done the boy harm crossed Mikahl’s mind, but if that were the case, there wasn’t anything he could do about it. He had faith that Phen was capable of taking care of himself. King Jarrek and the eastern army needed him. He needed sleep, and time to think too. He didn’t really have time to be carrying women to safety on his magical stead. At least that’s what he was telling himself when three young girls ranging from two years to maybe seven came scurrying into the chamber. Each one of them was a bit smaller and more afraid than the last. They looked terrified just to be in Mikahl’s presence, and suddenly, getting these teary-eyed angels to safety was the only thing Mikahl could think about. To his surprise another face, one he recognized, and the huge bosom that went with it, came into the room with Lady Able. A pair of nervous servant men carrying large kitchen knives followed protectively.
Missy, the kitchen girl whose breasts were so large that they were often spoken of around campfires all over the realm, gave him a dirty-faced smile, and then went to herding the young girls into a tight group.
Not long after, Mikahl, with two tiny bodies in front of him, and the third slip of a girl clinging to his back as if her life depended on it, rode the bright horse off of the balcony and began winging their way eastward. Mikahl had promised Lady Able and Missy that he would return when he could. He explained that there was an army waiting on him in Dakahn and that he would have to stop there for a time. The two men understood and one of them went down to the kitchens to get more supplies in case they had to hole up in the chamber for a few days. Mikahl waited until he returned and was glad to see that a few more castle folk had joined the group.
During all of this, Phen lay down in the bailey yard, half under a shrub at the corner of the garden with Talon nested on his chest. The High King had passed them by half a dozen times through the night but hadn’t seen them because they were invisible. Even if they’d been conscious, neither Phen nor the hawkling could have moved. Before flying away on the back of the black dragon, the last red-robed priest had turned both of them to stone.
Escott, commanding the fifteen thousand troops sent to Oktin, had taken the city the day before Queen Willa and King Granitheart arrived. Now a force that was over thirty thousand strong was turning south to march toward O’Dakahn. The first night they made camp was the only night they met any resistance. The huge gorax demon came stomping through the encampment in the predawn hours and killed nearly a thousand men with its brutal club and potent spells. But the great black-chested beast was only passing through.
Nothing the humans did managed to do so much as irritate the hell-born creature. Even Queen Willa’s witchy spells did little other than rankle it as it pounded a bloody path through the ranks. But it didn’t stay and fight, it continued north as if it had an agenda, as if the time spent killing thousands of men had made it fall behind schedule.
In Lokahna, Master Amill and Commander Escott watched as Queen Willa and her formidable army came marching in from the north. Once the two forces combined, they numbered over thirty-five thousand men and dwarves. Now that they held the two main crossing points, getting more troops from Seaward was only a matter of making the orders.
They didn’t know it in Lokahna yet, but already the Queen of Seaward was mustering up another sizable force to join them. After learning that her daughter was safe in Dreen and that Rosa had been tortured and maimed, Queen Rachel vowed to give the High King her fealty and to help him eradicate any who held even the slightest bit of loyalty to the lightning star.
Queen Willa let King Granitheart and Commander Escott take command of the huge force and left Master Amill in charge of communicating with King Jarrek and Master Sholt, who were now marching their men and dwarves south to meet them. She decided to return to Dreen. General Spyra’s situation was affecting his judgment, and Lord Gregory had no designs to rule over Valleya in his stead.
King Granitheart and Commander Escott agreed that a direct march on O’Dakahn was best. Their forces were far too large to try to sneak around. They figured that they could easily push Ra’Gren’s might behind O’Dakahn’s walls and force a siege.
They underestimated the enemy, though. Neither of them counted on Flick and the Choska demon, or the young black dragon. If they had, they might have been able to save half of the great army they commanded from the horrible death that awaited them.
Hyden was only a dozen paces away from the source of the light he had been staggering toward. The very instant he realized it was the ring his brother had found on the hawkling nesting cliffs so long ago, he also realized it was on something’s long claw-tipped finger. What the long dark insectoid creature was, he couldn’t say, but he felt sorry for it when it started to attack him as if it were the one springing the trap.
Behind the creature, in the dim light of the ring, Hyden saw Gerrard coming down claws first. The mantis-like demon wearing the ring crumbled and screamed beneath the self-proclaimed Warlord of Hell. Hyden had to dive out of the way to keep from falling right into the fray. He was mortified at the savage power that Gerard unleashed on the creature. It took the same amount of time for him to stumble to the floor as it did for Gerard to tear the thing into slimy shreds.
The light of the ring faded as the life of its wearer leaked away. The victor began feeding on the greenish gore of the creature, which helped Hyden disassociate the little brother he had loved so much from the monster before him. This wasn’t Gerard. It might have eyes that looked like Gerard’s. It might even have fleeting thoughts that stemmed from some piece of Gerard’s memory that survived deep down, but it was not Gerard. It was some malformed demon beast that was content to be feeding on the ruined body of another hell-born creature.
Hyden managed to crawl to the edge of the bloody mess and locate the ring on the dead beast’s finger. He reached for it and grabbed hold of the elbow that was still attached to the lower part of the limb. As he pulled it toward him, Gerrard saw the dying twinkle of the ring and roared. His huge head loomed down and peered at it.
Looking up at Gerard’s soft-eyed gaze, Hyden saw recognition flare in those eerie orbs again. Hyden yanked the limb to him and began fumbling with the ring, trying to get it off the limp bloody finger.
“No!” Gerard thundered. “Mine!”
Hyden almost let go of the limb and fled. The beast’s voice, though deep and as powerful as shattering stone, still sounded somewhat like Gerard. The pleading look on its face cut through Hyden’s resistance straight into his heart. Still, he managed to get the ring from the dead thing’s finger, and when he did, its glow vanished completely. Darkness enveloped them again.
Hyden rolled over half a dozen times, trying to put distance between him and Gerard. The dizziness that followed caused him to fumble the ring from his hand. Terrified and confused, he felt out in the direction he heard it tinkling on the floor. He couldn’t see it. The world was spinning and he was starting to cough up his mushy guts again. He could feel Gerard coming up behind him. He could almost feel his brother’s savage claws tearing him to pieces. The heat and moisture of the evil creature’s breath grazed his neck. Desperately, he felt for the ring, but his hands found only flat cold stone. Defensively, he rolled to his back and looked up. The slick glistening shape of Gerard was there. And in the darkness those eyes looked nothing like his brother’s. Deep inside them, reddish orange flames flickered and glinted prismatic hate. The Warlord, the Abbadon, the new Master of the Hells took a long step toward him out of the bloody gore of its kill and huffed out a low growl.
“Minnnne,” the word sounded so inhuman and evil that Hyden felt his heart stop. Whatever this thing was, it was about to destroy him. He hoped it would be over quick. He had suffered terribly and he didn’t want to die thinking of how he had failed the White Goddess. All he could do was throw an arm protectively over his face as the thing that was once the brother he loved, lurched down at him to feed.
