Jerking up out of sleep instantly, the Justicar rolled over and wrapped Cinders about his shoulders. He immediately slithered into the cold water and lay almost submerged. Nerves tingling, he searched the empty night, feeling Cinders bristling instinctively in hate.
“Cinders, where?”
Awakened by all the untoward activity, Escalla poked her head out of her nest of grass, saw that it was scarcely midnight, and made a huge, irritated yawn.
“What is it now? Don’t you bastards ever sleep?”
A chilling scream suddenly echoed over the fens. The howl sobbed and yammered in unearthly hunger as a palpable aura of evil flooded through the night. Summoned by the echo of Escalla’s voice, a hunting screechcame from above. With a rush of wings, something huge and terrible came plummeting wildly down out of the sky.
The faerie wailed in fright, instinctively turned invisible, and fluttered madly about inside her cage.
“Open the cage! Open this gods damned cage!”
High above the island, a dark shape banked and flung itself straight toward the sound of the faerie’s voice. With ragged wings spread wide,the monster lofted low across the water and screamed for Escalla’s blood.
Sickly moonlight sparkled from the water, illuminating the monsters face. A head shaped like a huge human skull gaped over a muzzle full of fangs. Huge bat wings held aloft a body that ran with mucus like an enormous rotting corpse. The beast hissed, chemicals slobbering from its mouth to drip a phosphorescent trail into the water. Escalla stared at the apparition in fright, trying to wrench apart the bars of her cage as the monster blasted a putrid column of acid straight toward the isle.
As the fiend neared the campsite, the water beneath its wings erupted. In a sudden flash, the Justicar’s black sword smacked a long gouge intothe creature’s wing. With an outraged howl, the monster sawed aside, spinningtoward the source of the blow.
A blast of stinking fluid thundered from the creatures mouth, eating away the plants and soil as it hosed across the campsite. Deflected by a handspan as the creature wrenched in pain, the acid hissed past the faerie’scage. Escalla made a dazed little sound as she saw one side of her cage simply slump and disappear. An instant later she flapped out into the open sky.
Surging up out of the water below her, the Justicar saw huge bat wings swerve to pursue the girl and gave a shout of warning. “It’s anabyssal bat! Get down in the water or it’ll see your body heat!”
Cursing, the Justicar hefted his sword and sped to the remnants of the campfire. He dug out the warm ashes with his helmet, tossing them across the tiny island until the place became a maze of coals and fine white dust.
High above the swamplands spindly trees, Escalla blurred herwings and flew as fast as her skinny little body could go. A savage, bubbling shriek revealed that the monster was coming up fast from behind. Escalla frowned, looked back across her shoulder, and let her brilliant mind deal with the problem. The monster couldn’t
Escalla decided to haul off and simply let the creature pass her by. She made one of the graceful loops for which she was so justly admired, looked derisively over at the monster, and saw a seething jet of acid coming right toward her eyes. The faerie screamed and made a mad tumble through the skies, the acid clipping her across the back as she tumbled free. She felt one wing collapse, and agony spasmed through her as she tumbled through the air. She hit the treetops, ripped through twigs and branches, then felt herself caught by a waiting pair of hands.
“Hold still!”
A blast of healing magic crashed into the faerie’s wounds.She gasped and jerked as her body reacted to the sudden, shocking absence of pain. The Justicar held her cradled against his chest, wiped her hair back from her astonished little face, and then stuffed her beneath a warm layer of ashes that lay across the ground.
“Lie still!”
Ashes lay everywhere-hot, gray, and choking. Escalla blinked,but the Justicar had disappeared into the dark. A screaming shape came whipping through the trees, and the faerie could only watch in fright as a huge beast hovered above the isle. With a vile sound, the creature spat acid once again, landing the deadly stream square upon a little humanlike shape sculpted out of embers that lay beneath a tree. The acid sent up clouds of toxic steam as it burned the sculpture into sludge. Shrieking in triumph, the monster landed on the acid-spattered ash to tear into its target with its claws.
An instant later, the entire island lit up beneath a pure, brilliant light. The Justicar launched a light spell, blinding the abyssal bat. The monster screamed and lurched into a tree, flapping its wings in an attempt to shield its eyes. Smoke hissed from its skin as the light burned into it like fire. Riveted with horror, Escalla lifted up her head and stared at the thing that flapped and gibbered in hunger for her blood.
The monster stood like a giant dessicated cadaver, its black skin stretched over an inhuman frame of jointed bones. It spread huge batlike wings, fixed its gaze upon the faerie, and gave a roar of pure demonic rage.
Lying stunned beneath the ashes, Escalla stared at the thing and felt her courage slowly deflate.
“Oooh,
Half-blinded, the monster reared aside as a human figure erupted from the ash below. The eight-foot abyssal bat dwarfed even the Justicar. Trailing dust, the Justicar’s black sword smacked into the monster’sgut. The blade rang as it chopped into stony flesh, black steel flashing as the blade beat aside the fiend’s claws and smashed down into its shoulder joint.Screaming in pain, the monster staggered backward, simply shook off a blast of flames from Cinders’ snout, and lunged to wrap its huge bat wings about theJusticar. Escalla gave a scream of fright and lifted up her hand, a spell half-formed, but froze in indecision as she saw the human warrior trapped inside the monster’s arms.
The Justicar’s face stood out in the stark shadows cast byhis own illumination spell. Trapped in the monster’s arms, the man roared andsmacked his shaven head straight into the creature’s face. He hit it a secondtime and then a third, blood streaming down his face from cuts made by the creature’s breaking teeth. As the creature’s grip loosened, the Justicar rakedhis boot down the beast’s long shin.
It relaxed its hold, and the Justicar wrenched one arm free to rip his fingernails down into the monster’s shoulder wound. The man rippedand tore at the exposed end of a bone, and the fiend threw the man aside in agonized rage.
The monster staggered one half-pace back. Gripping his sword halfway down the blade like a quarterstaff, the Justicar rammed the weapon’spoint into the beasts’ throat and twisted at the blade as it came free.
The monster still lived. The creature fought free and lumbered bleeding and howling straight toward Escalla’s hiding place. The faeriescrabbled backward and felt her back jam against a tree as she blasted her very best web spell at the creature. The monster ripped its way out of the web and lunged straight for Escalla, its needlelike teeth gaping wide enough to fill her entire world.
The Justicar’s shout echoed through the night. Steppingbetween the faerie and her demonic attacker, he decapitated the monster with one savage swing. Its fangs snapped shut an inch from the faerie’s throat. Escallablinked as the severed head thudded down onto the ash, gaping at her with its wide-open jaws.
Acid leaked from the corpse to burn a hole into the ground. With a shudder, the monster finally stopped beating its wings. The faerie stood up very, very carefully. With mincing, delicate little steps she withdrew from the monster’s maw. She wobbled her way over toward the Justicar as the manwinced and sank down onto the ash.
The girl blew out a dazed breath. She saw the Justicar holding onto his own ribs and came to stand at his side.
“You, ah, you do little spells, but you do good ones.” Shetouched a hand against her side where the acid had burned away a sheet of skin. Her flesh was now pure, seamless, and as perfect as ever. “Thank you. And the,uh, the warm ashes idea… pretty good.”
The man cursed and thumped a spell into his own flesh, hissing the invocation in annoyance.
The Justicar’s light spell lit up the island in a pure whitebrilliance. Covered in warm ashes from head to foot, Cinders, the Justicar, and Escalla looked like ghosts. The girl began to dust herself off, casting a frightened glance
