With insane speed even Jen would have envied, Sloan blocked every attack and somehow found openings to carve chunks out of the griffins.
Another vein burst in the bandit’s forehead.
Blood ran down his face, but it didn’t seem to faze him.
Damien fired an energy blast.
If he could score a hit or even distract the warlord the griffins would tear him to shreds.
If someone asked, Damien would have had no way to describe how Sloan twisted his body to avoid the blast. Bones weren’t supposed to bend like that. However he managed it, the golden blast brushed past Sloan’s chest with a fraction of an inch to spare.
Sloan turned his twisting dodge into a pivot that brought the edge of his burning sword across the neck of a griffin. The construct’s head fell away and vanished, though that accomplished nothing beyond removing one of the beaks Sloan had to dodge.
When the bandit turned his attention to the more-intact griffin Damien sent a surge of power into the damaged construct. Ten blades of energy sprang from its severed neck to plunge at Sloan.
He dodged and deflected, but couldn’t avoid them all. Two swords scored deep slashes on his back and chest. Dark fire dripped from the wounds.
The injured bandit gasped for breath. His sword wavered.
The griffins lunged. With a final effort Sloan cut them in half with a single stroke of his corrupt blade. Three quarters of the way through the second griffin, the steel shattered. Sloan collapsed under the dissolving beasts.
Damien eased over to the dying bandit, cautious of any potential deception. When he stood over the unmoving bandit it became clear Sloan had nothing left. Thick, black blood covered him from his hairline to his waist. He stared up at Damien.
“I lost.” Sloan coughed up blood and spat to one side.
Damien nodded. “You put up a good fight.”
The bandit laughed, his voice hoarse and bitter. “Not good enough. My master promised the demon fire would defeat any opponent.”
“Did he tell you it would burn away your life as well?”
“So what. Wining is all that matters. If you’re going to die, better to send your enemies to hell before you.”
Damien shook his head. It isn’t winning if everyone died. “Where’s Marris?”
“Dead. I gutted the pig and left him on the side of the path. He was slowing us down.”
So much corrupt energy swirled around Sloan’s head Damien couldn’t tell if he was lying or not. The part about slowing them down was certainly true.
“Finish me, boy. At least allow me the dignity of dying by the hand of my enemy rather than being consumed by these black flames.”
Damien raised a hand and drew deeply from his rapidly refilling core. He didn’t do it for the dignity of the fallen bandit or anything else so ridiculous. The corruption needed to be cleansed to eliminate the possibility of Sloan rising again as some undead horror that might threaten the area.
Golden flames roared from the air in front of Damien’s palm. Sloan’s body disintegrated in an instant and his shattered sword followed a few seconds later. Damien incinerated everything in the vicinity of Sloan’s body then hunted down every drop of black blood on the ground and burned those away too.
He didn’t stop until every trace of corruption was gone. Exhausted, but nowhere near finished, Damien turned his gaze southeast.
Chapter 41
Damien allowed himself an hour’s rest after the battle with Sloan. He wished he’d taken the time to bring his writing supplies so he could let his master know what had happened. He settled for tearing a relatively clean strip of cloth out of one of the dead bandits’ tunics. He conjured a pen and dipped it in the corpse’s fresh blood. A gruesome way to write, but Damien had limited options. He sent the message on its way and stood up.
Most of his power had returned and he figured the rest would regenerate during the short flight south. He leapt in the air and moved along at a modest pace. Below him the hardwood forest gradually gave way to patchy, twisted evergreens. Soon enough the vegetation went away altogether, save for the occasional clump of scraggly grass. Hot, dry wind struck his face.
The badlands spread out before him in shades of brown, gray, and dull orange. Towering mesas dotted the otherwise featureless desert. One of them must house the bandits’ fortress. Damien assumed from the directions the dead bandit had provided that the first mesa he came to flying southeast would be the target.
He wrapped himself in invisibility and flew toward the stone tower. The trip only took five minutes and he soon found himself hovering fifty feet off the ground facing a massive wood-and-iron double door. A well-worn path led up to the gates. It looked like they received regular visitors.
Higher up on the rock face narrow slits looked out over the approach. Damien peeked inside and found every third one had a lookout. They all seemed alert and their bows well oiled and in good condition. These men resembled real soldiers rather than scruffy bandits.
Damien landed a short distance away behind some boulders and wracked his brain trying to think how he could get the women and children out in one piece. He could blast the place to pieces easily enough, but at the first sign of trouble the hostages would be killed. That wouldn’t do at all.
A little ways to his left, movement caught Damien’s eye. A narrow head covered in tan fur popped up out of a hole, looked around, and vanished again. A second later the little guy popped up from another hole twenty feet from the first. Damien grinned. The prisoners were underground. A tunnel would be the perfect way to slip them out.
He tipped an invisible salute to the critter that inspired him and flew away. Damien would need a hidden place to dig. The terrain was so open the lookouts would notice at once if he just started flinging dirt around.
