She glanced back. The creature opened its mouth and exhaled winter.
The falling rain between her and the creature froze into hail, and the water slicking her skin froze into a painful crust. The cold burned first, then numbed, and she fell, gasping. She was a half-dozen paces short of Angul.
'F-fu-blood!' she gasped. Kiril was as chilled as if she'd stood a half day unclothed in a blizzard.
The horned giant laughed and pointed an ebony-tipped claw at her.
A thin black ray etched the air, but she heaved out of the way… even farther from the Blade Cerulean. Where the ray touched, the sickly sweet odor of rot bloomed.
The ground shuddered, and the booming clatter of falling rock pealed into the rain-soaked night. The ground shuddered again, and again. Boom-boom, boom-boom, boom-boom. Something very heavy rapidly approached.
Both swordswoman and demon glanced toward the geomancer and his circle. The silhouette of a humanoid creature, larger even than the horned attacker, blocked Thormud's lamplight. The moving heap of earth and rock, about the size of a small tower, lumbered forward in a clumsy run. Its fingers were curled into clublike weapons. Jagged stones studded its upper arms, shoulder blades, and head, which was a blunt, nearly featureless lump of stone. High on its head protruded a natural mineral crown of uncut diamonds, rubies, and other flashing gemstones.
The creature, pounding the earth with each step, rapidly closed on the horned demon. This was who had answered Thormud's call-a creature the geomancer called 'Prince Monolith.' The dwarf had many friends and pacts with entities of the earth, though his relationship with Prince Monolith and the others was nothing like a master and servant relationship.
The ivory-horned assassin whirled to face the earthen elemental lord, forgetting Kiril. It shamed her that her muscles were so chilled that she could barely crawl toward the Blade Cerulean.
The dark monster again exhaled a swath of limb-numbing cold. Frost bloomed across Prince Monolith, riming its face, chest, and upper arms, but the elemental's charge was true.
The earth lord smashed a fist down on Kiril's attacker. It squealed and rocked with the blow, but remained on its feet. Instead of retreating, it lunged at Monolith and embraced the earth lord within the grasp of its night-dark claws. Prince Monolith attempted to peel the horned creature off its chest, but its claws bit deeply and held.
Kiril crawled another few feet, gasping and cursing… and suddenly Thormud was beside her. The dwarf helped her stand and proffered an open vial. The elf grasped it and drank. Healing warmth exploded in her stomach and radiated outward into all of her extremities, easing the worst of her chill and stalling the frostbite that numbed her fingers and toes. She mumbled thanks, but the dwarf was already running toward the altercation that raged between the two towering creatures.
The horned beast continued to gouge and score Monolith's chest and sides with its claws. Monolith staggered. Kiril had seen the earth noble take stronger blows with less effect. How…? She realized the demon's life-draining miasma was potent enough to affect even an elemental noble.
Prince Monolith thundered several harsh syllables, speaking the language of the earth Kiril couldn't comprehend.
Thormud replied in Common, answering Monolith's question. 'No, you don't need to preserve it-destroy it if you can! The longer it survives, the more our enemy perceives! Be careful of the crystal in its chest-it is some sort of infection!'
The snarling demon, still gripping the elemental in its raking claws, growled in Common, 'Meddle not in affairs beyond your ability, geomancer. You're-argk!'
Prince Monolith clamped his grip onto his tormentor and raised the creature high, each massive hand wrapped around one of the demon's arms. The creature's legs kicked violently in the air. Monolith boomed, 'I free you from your bondage.' So saying, he pulled. The creature came apart with a sound like burlap ripping. The elemental flung the two pieces to either side.
Kiril swallowed and focused on the remaining threat amidst the shower of gore.
The purple crystal that had been in the demon's chest rolled free, glaring a sickly violet light. Thormud raised his rod to smash the crystal, but the earth lord reached one gargantuan hand down and touched it. Immediately, the glow was doused. 'I have power enough to suppress whatever infection hides in this fleck of stone,' the elemental proclaimed.
Thormud lowered his rod and nodded, but eyed the apparently quiescent crystal. He addressed the earth lord. 'Prince Monolith, you have my heartfelt thanks for honoring the accord we made so many years ago. You came to my summons quicker than ever before, and your unexpected celerity is appreciated.'
'I sensed something wrong in the vacuous spaces above the mantle,' replied the prince. 'I came to see what you knew of it, and found your elf embattled with a seed of the very trouble I detected.'
Kiril interrupted, shaking her head. 'Still one for impressive-sounding words. What're you a prince of, anyway? I've always wondered.'
Prince Monolith rotated his body to face Kiril. 'You've grown crueler over the years,' he observed.
She shrugged. 'The world's a tough place when your flesh is mortal.'
'The world tries those whose flesh is mineral, too.'
She snorted and turned to retrieve Angul. She carefully avoided touching the blade's hilt as she slid him into his sheath. The blade steamed and hummed in frustration. So like a child in his unwavering, uncompromising desires. The old heartsickness welled up as she accidentally recalled what Angul had been.
'Tell me, then, Thormud Horn-what do you know about the poison shard controlling the flesh of your attacker?' As the elemental noble spoke, Xet winged in from the rain-shrouded darkness and alit on Monolith's shoulder. 'Prince, it is a long story.' The elemental nodded. Thormud continued. 'We've traced twisted telluric currents and a disturbance I can't describe. That disturbance is related to these crystals. We've seen crystal of this sort before, integrated into a monstrosity different from what you just defeated. It seemed infected with an evil presence. I don't know if each crystal holds a separate evil, or if each stone is a portal through which a single presence can reach out and influence the world around it. I summoned you because we are near a potential nexus for this crystal, although perhaps not the true source of our troubles. I was hoping to ask for your aid when we arrived there.' Monolith gazed down at the crystal with the empty caves of his mineral eyes. 'I can tell you this. The mineral is not native to our earthly orb…' 'Where's it from?' asked Kiril. Thormud motioned for her to be quiet, but the elemental lord took no notice.
He continued to stare intently at the dark, blood-slicked shard. Kiril muttered, 'I'm thirsty,' and reached for the flask of the verdigris god. She was still a little shaky after being so overpowered by the horned interloper. A couple of sips was just the thing to lift her spirits. 'It is a mineral whose nature is quite strange,' Prince Monolith finally stated. 'It appears to be the sort of encrustation that might occur along the edges of an… expanding demiplane.'
'Demiplane!' exclaimed Kiril. She wiped her mouth with her sleeve, the contents of her flask still bitter in her mouth. 'Yes,' said Monolith.
The earth lord pivoted to face east, the direction they'd been traveling, toward Adama's Tooth. 'I sense some resonance with the crystal in that direction. 'But…' Monolith slowly pivoted again until he faced north, toward the line of mountains whose foothills they were already traversing. '… the largest, most malignant intrusion of this putrid crystal into the orb lies on the surface, that way.' 'East is the way to Adama's Tooth, not north!' exclaimed Kiril. Monolith shrugged his mountainous shoulders. 'I believe you should reconsider your destination, lest you fail to find the true author of your misfortune and it instead eliminates you.' 'North lies Raurin, the Dust Desert. Certain death for any who are not desert-born. Or so I've heard,' observed Thormud. 'That may well be.
But the infection has its true source to the north.' The dwarf nodded.
'North it is.' Kiril said, 'Thormud, we're so close to Adama's Tooth.
We should mop up whatever's brewing there, then head north afterward.'
'I can lead you directly to the infection's source in Raurin,' interjected Prince Monolith. 'If you follow me, I will overstay the limits of our original pact. I will aid you until the infection is cut away from the orb, or until my ultimate destruction.' Kiril paused in her protest, considering. In her experience, the amount of time that elementals even half as powerful as Prince Monolith persisted was usually counted in heartbeats, never days. 'Prince Monolith,' responded Thormud, 'your generosity, as usual, is without bound. We accept your kind offer. Please lead us north and help us heal the earth of this wound.' 'I will.' 'Great,' muttered Kiril. 'Let's head blindly north, into the desert. Sounds like a dripping great idea.'
