“Others?” Soryn whispered then curled up behind Ashiyn’s towering form as they crept down the tunnel. “I don’t want to be here. The sword isn’t worth it, Ashiyn. Let’s go face the god-dragon instead.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Ashiyn chided, as he stepped into a cavern. A large bat swung down, wings wide and fangs bared. Ashiyn let out a startled noise and hit it with the common blade he carried and watched it fly across the room. “Damn it! I hate things with fangs.”
“Spiders have fangs, too!” Soryn huffed.
“Not that kind of fangs.” Ashiyn shuddered, rattled a little bit now, too. “Did I ever tell you the story of how I destroyed the vampires? Nasty bloodsuckers. I killed every last one. I have a chain of their fangs hanging down in the torture dungeon.”
“Wait,” Soryn said, and tilted his head. “You have a torture dungeon?”
“Of course, I have a torture dungeon.” Ashiyn gave him an incredulous look. “Doesn’t every villain?”
“I wish you wouldn’t call yourself that,” Soryn murmured as he stepped past Ashiyn and into the wide cave. There in the middle of the room lay a sword on a slab of stone. “Is that it?”
“It must be,” Ashiyn decided, as he strode boldly forward. He took the steps up to the platform two at a time. This blade lay on ordinary stone, no runes, no protections, no glass. Just a very plain looking sword on an equally plain slab of rock. So plain it was suspicious. Ashiyn stopped and considered it, stroking his smooth chin. “It’s going to be trapped isn’t it?”
“Oh, most definitely,” Soryn agreed, as he turned his back to Ashiyn and started to back up. “I hate to rush you to a dangerous decision, Ashiyn. But I must ask you to use some haste.”
Ashiyn turned to look at the walls. They crawled with spiders of all sizes. Several looked big enough to eat a man. Ashiyn rolled his eyes and considered the sword again, using his magic to try to figure out what the trick was. Soryn whimpered as he backed up to the stone next to Ashiyn. “They’re going to eat us, Ashiyn. I’m going to die wrapped up in a web and sucked dry.”
Ashiyn gave him an annoyed look. Then he turned to face the spiders. With a shouted magical command, his magic broke loose from him like black flames and scorched the spiders to ashes that rained down around them. He wrinkled his nose against the horrible smell of burnt spider and turned back to the sword. “Help me figure out what’s wrong with this thing, would you? That’s why you’re here.”
Soryn gave him a skeptical look as the spider-ash drifted in the air like snowflakes. Then he reached down and picked up the sword. Ashiyn cringed, expecting a trap to spring. Nothing happened. They stood there for several moments, but still nothing happened. Soryn shrugged and handed Ashiyn the blade. “It’s junk, Ashiyn. Like the last five. It seems Sihtaar was the only real possessed sword.”
Ashiyn cursed as he shifted the blade in his hands. The rusted metal flaked away in his hands. He cursed and threw the sword. Darkness flooded the cavern and made Soryn’s light flicker.
Soryn grabbed the light and held it protectively in his hands, narrowing his eyes at Ashiyn. “Be careful uttering words like that. You’ve already caused two apocalypses. Don’t you know your power?”
Ashiyn turned to answer, but he caught movement out of the corner of his eye. The air rippled just slightly. He dodged, but still the gleaming silver elven blade still got shoved between the plates of his armor and into his flesh. He stumbled as the Harm stepped out of her invisibility spell, her pale eyes cold with murder.
“Harm, you fool. You know you can’t kill me,” Ashiyn wheezed as he fell hard against the stone slab and slid to the floor, blood pouring from the fatal wound.
“We will see how you fare if I take your head and lock it in a box, villain!” Harm declared, as she drew her other blade back to strike.
“No!” Soryn shouted from behind her, and a gale wind slammed against Harm and threw her across the room into the wall. She crumpled against the wall with a sickening crunch.
Ashiyn grunted, pulled the blade out and tossed it aside. He felt dizzy and light-headed from the blood loss, but as soon as the weapon was removed, his flesh and blood began to regenerate.
“Not so fast,” a voice warned, as more elves stepped out of invisibility spells and threw silvered magic ropes around Soryn.
Soryn cried out in pain and fell to his knees as the ropes bound tight. Harm dusted herself off, readjusting a few broken bones as she strode toward them. “Take them. Both of them. They will suffer now.”
Ashiyn coughed. Darkness swam at the edge of his vision, and he didn’t have the strength to fight her guards as they hauled him to his feet. “Let Soryn go. He hasn’t done anything. He’s a celestial. He’s on your side, fool.”
“He aids you. That makes him my enemy,” Harm growled and hit Ashiyn in the face with her sword. Darkness claimed him.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
Ashiyn woke to a world of pain. Every part of him ached in new and interesting ways. Chains jingled as he shifted his sore arms. He cracked an eye open to see a very displeased looking Harm sprawled over a chair. She tapped a whip against the floor with a scowl.
“Do you know that your immortality works even if your head is removed? Either your body regenerates from it or it regenerates too fast to separate,” Harm spat, as she glared at him.
So that was why his neck hurt the worst. Ashiyn fought a shudder. He hated being decapitated. “I
