The creatures charged down the ridge as one. Three moved along the ground in an awkward but surprisingly swift gait. The fourth unfurled insectoid wings and took to the air, flying toward the dragonet that circled above the ridge.
Adrik shrieked as he dashed away from the newcomers. The three creatures on the ground bore down on the fleeing sorcerer. The flying creature pointed at Xet. A black spark easily jumped up to the crystal dragon. The tiny constructs color turned to red then black, and the dragonet dropped from the sky.
'Xet!' screamed Kiril. The little creature was more annoyance than companion, but. .
Raidon tore forward, moving dozens of paces in the blink of an eye. As a creature wrapped a tearing, clawed tentacle around one of Adrik's flailing arms, the monk launched himself into the air. He delivered a snapping side kick directly into the attacking creature's knoblike head.
The other two monsters surged into the mix.
Kiril advanced, but she kept her eyes on the single creature that remained aloft. A nilshai. It must have been responsible for summoning the sentient flame from the burning citadel.
It chattered an obscene blend of music and syllables. With an audible crack, blue-green lightning suddenly connected the tips of its tentacles with Kiril's metallic armor. She screamed as the electric surge drew tight all her muscles into a single, full-body cramp.
She could put off the inevitable no longer.
Angul woke to blue fire in her hand.
The luminosity of the stars above tripled, and all shadows fled the field, or so it seemed to Kiril.
The swordswoman yelled again, her voice stripped of uncertainty and pain. It was the cry of a warrior certain of her eventual victory.
Kiril fell upon the creatures' flanks as they attempted to smother the monk, who in turn protected Adrik's prostrate form.
When her blade contacted the flesh of the first nilshai, she not only hewed through its tissue, but the cerulean flame from her blade immediately set it alight so robustly that its destruction was a small explosion. Flaming, white-hot bits were propelled in every direction. The nearest nilshai also caught fire, and a moment later, it too was consumed by Angul's cleansing influence.
Rarely was her blade so effective-only when Angul's true enemies were flushed from dark corners. These were aberrations! And Angul was forged for one purpose before all else: the eradication of all atrocities such as these whose mere existence so tainted the world.
The final, cowering nilshai uttered an ululation that Kiril understood as terror for its evil soul. She swept her blade through its abominable carcass, consuming flesh and spirit simultaneously with her unforgiving length of steel.
The last abomination continued to hover above the ridge. It spoke, and its voice was a synthesis of high- pitched squeals, grinding teeth, and tentacle flesh rasping across itself. Kiril heard it say, 'I foresee my end. As I foresaw the deaths of my lesser sisters you've just slain. But I rejoice! For each death, even mine, is another stone in the path that leads ineluctably to Xxiphu's emergence! Even as I breathe my last-'
Kiril reversed her grip on Angul's hilt, then launched the burning blade as if he were a javelin. Angul punched through the air tip-forward, a series of ever-widening, flaming halos in his wake. The prophesying aberration's body was consumed in the cleansing inferno that followed contact.
Raidon Kane bent to one knee to support Adrik's head. The sorcerer shivered and gasped, 'My arm! It… it hurt like fire, but now it's numb.'
The monk examined the man's injured limb, easily visible through the shredded sleeve of his robe. Sucker marks made ugly circles across his flesh. At the center of each circle beaded a tiny drop of blood. The arm's color was fading toward a sickly green hue.
'Poison runs in your veins,' declared Raidon. 'Hold still.' So saying, he tore away Adrik's shredded sleeve and used it to tie a tourniquet around the sorcerer's arm above the elbow. He cinched it tight, making the man wince. He hoped it was tight enough to slow the venom. Better the loss of a single arm than death.
The swordswoman walked up, her sword already tucked in her belt. Her blade had surprised Raidon with its incredible display. He wondered why the sword had been so ineffective when he'd first met Kiril at the Mere.
In her arms, Kiril carried the tiny creature she called Xet. Its iridescent color was slowly returning, and its wings flexed. The swordswoman cradled it with a tenderness Raidon hadn't guessed belonged to the elf.
He observed, 'You said before that 'threats' wandered Sild?yuir. Are these what you spoke of?'
Kiril said, 'Yes. The nilshai. Damned monsters that wield formidable sorcery. They are recent invaders, only becoming a nuisance in the last few years. Word of monsters in the lonelier stretches of the forest circulated, though most thought these 'nilshai' stories were jokes.'
The swordswoman scowled at the burnt cinder that was once Moonveil Citadel. 'Soon enough, we realized the nilshai were all too real. We discovered they were poisoning Sild?yuir for years.'
'Poisoning?' asked the monk.
'They kill our children and steal away tracts of land that are never seen again.'
Concern clutched Raidon's stomach. He had discovered his mother's home realm only to find it under attack by vicious invaders. Was she safe?
Adrik looked up from his ravaged, darkening arm. He asked, his teeth gritted against pain, 'Where do they come from?'
Kiril gazed at the burning citadel. She said, 'No one ever knew. Our sages said they hailed from a spectral reality that underpins our own. But Sild?yuir was disjoined from cosmology when it first took shape. It has always puzzled my folk why the nilshai exert so much effort to enter here, when Faer?n is far easier to reach.'
Kiril paused, then continued. 'But I know the truth, now. If any of my people were around to hear it, I would explain that the blood-flecking nilshai are agents of the Traitor, adherents who worship, as he does, the gods- damned aberrations of the primeval world. They are servants of the cursed Lords of Madness who seek to regain the realm denied them by the first gods.'
Adrik grunted and said no more. Raidon took it as a warning, considering that the voluble sorcerer typically would have launched into a dozen questions. The monk tapped Kiril on the shoulder and said in a quiet voice, 'This man requires a healer's craft.'
Kiril frowned and hesitated, but she said, 'Aid can be petitioned from a place near here.'
Adrik smiled despite his pain.
They crested another ridge. Raidon supported the ailing sorcerer. Before them stood an elegant tower of pale white stone and glass. A sturdy granite wall ringed the structure. Blue lamps gleamed from the windows and the treetops surrounding the tower.
'Healing can be had in Tower Aerilpe,' murmured Kiril. 'Also, Lord Ilsevele has shown sympathy to the Keepers of the Cerulean Sign in the past. Now that the nilshai are unmasked as agents of the Traitor. . everyone needs to know.'
They followed the path down the silvered slopes of the grassy hillside, crossed a river on a bridge of luminous stone, and stood before the mithral gates piercing the wall surrounding the tower. The gates were closed, and in the high weeds that had sprung up around the entrance, they found the rotting bodies of the half-dozen elf guards, still in knee-length hauberks of white scaled armor. All were missing their eyes.
Kiril's hands tightened into fists as she looked at the slaughter. But all she said was, 'I was wrong-we have no time.'
Raidon said, 'What about Adrik's arm?'
Kiril said, 'We are days away from the next closest keep I know of in Sild?yuir. The sorcerer's best hope remains with us. One of the Cerulean Order keeps watch on the gate leading to Stardeep's forgotten underpassages. He knows healing arts.'
Raidon replied, 'Then let us make haste. Adrik wouldn't be here but for me.'
He didn't give voice to his growing anxiety. How safe was his mother in a place that grew less sylvan and more like a war zone with every mile they traveled?
They went afoot for miles, heedless of the shining stars or the pearly gray glimmer that ringed the horizons.
