moment, Atreus dared to hope Yago had ended the battle with a single bloody stroke.
As the ogre stomped over to finish what he had started, a goat-sized boulder came flying up at him. He raised his scythe to block. The rock smashed through the wooden handle and caught him full in the chest, bowling him over backward. He came down hard, a sharp crack echoing off the cliff as his head struck the flat of a stone.
Tarch clambered into view and staggered toward his groaning foe, a flap of scaly hide dangling from the gruesome wound in his side. Rishi was a dozen paces behind the devil, creeping across the boulder pile as silently as a cloud. Atreus wanted to shout at him to hurry but did not dare. The Mar's only advantage was surprise.
Tarch stopped a pace shy of the groaning ogre and lifted a hand, preparing to incinerate him. Atreus opened his* mouth to shout. In the same instant Rishi braced himself and flung his net, wrapping the devil's arm in a mesh of coarse rope.
Rishi gave the draw line a terrific jerk and leaped down behind a boulder. Tarch was spun around, his hand spraying a crescent of flame across the talus field.
'Filthy Mar!' The devil shook his arm free of the net's charred remains, then started toward Rishi's hiding place. 'That's the last time you skrag me!'
'Then it's…' Yago paused, drawing in a breath so deep Atreus heard it fifteen paces away,'… my turn!'
The ogre sat up, heaving the boulder on his chest toward Tarch. The devil brought his arm up and spun around, but the stone's momentum blasted through the block and sent him tumbling headfirst down into the talus.
Yago was up in an instant, flinging himself across the jumbled stones with scythe in hand. A scaly hand emerged from between the boulders. The ogre stopped short, twisting aside just as a long gout of orange flame shot past.
Then Atreus was there, climbing over the talus from the opposite side, holding the kettle lid in front of him like a shield. Tarch lay down in a hollow between three boulders, one leg trapped under the heavy stone he and Yago had been hurling back and forth, struggling to twist around so he could bring his crackling flames to bear on the ogre. Though his side lay flayed open from sternum to spine, his scaly face betrayed nothing but anger. Atreus leaped down, turning the iron lid flat and lowering it over the devil's hand.
The flame stream reversed itself and roared back into the hollow and billowed up in a huge, orange halo. The acrid smell of scorched leather filled the air. Tarch howled in anguish. Atreus dropped the lid and leaped away, one arm raised to protect his face from the searing heat.
The roar died as abruptly as it had begun, as Tarch started to rise from his fiery grave.
Atreus jumped down to meet him, wielding his axe with both hands. Tarch, now a withered and blackened thing that seemed nothing but scorched claw and charred fang, lashed out with both claws. Atreus slipped the first attack and caught the second on his axe head, then brought the sharp blade around and buried it deep in the devil's shoulder.
Tarch bellowed and brought his uninjured arm up to unleash another of his conflagrations. Yago's scythe arced down from above, severing the scaly hand at the wrist. A gummy syrup of fire oozed from the stump, rolling back down the devil's arm and engulfing it in flame.
Tarch's blazing arm went limp and fell back toward his scorched chest. Atreus and Yago were on him with their flashing blades, hewing and chopping and slicing until the battered devil finally stopped struggling and lay in his hole charred and bleeding, barely conscious and clinging to life only by the thinnest strand of wicked will.
Atreus stepped over next to Tarch's mangled head and raised his axe, preparing to finish the battle. The devil glared up at him out of one blood-shot eye, his vicious stare expressing the hatred his tongue was too weak to speak. Atreus bent his knees, gathering the strength he would need to chop through the tough sinews and thick bone of Tarch's neck. Then a pair of small voices gasped from the edge of the hollow.
He looked up to see Tarch's kidnap victims standing on a boulder above him, staring down at him with two pairs of horrified brown eyes. They were as beautiful as all the children of Langdarma, and in their puzzled expressions he saw both the innocence and the peaceful repose that had first attracted him to Seema.
Rishi rushed up from behind the two girls. 'What are you doing?' he said. 'This is not for the eyes of little girls.'
The Mar pulled the girls back from the edge of the hollow, but Atreus could not bring the axe down. Instead, he motioned Yago to his side.
'The Sannyasi should be here soon.' Atreus handed the axe to the ogre. 'Until then, you're in charge.'
The ogre frowned, then glanced in the direction of the retreating girls and seemed to understand. He hefted the axe over Tarch's throat, sneering down at his prisoner.
'I doubt you can move,' he said. 'But just so you know, I'd enjoy taking your head off if you try.'
CHAPTER 15
By the time Seema arrived at the Turquoise Cliffs, all the streams in the basin had turned the color of blood. The stain was creeping down into the main valley, lacing its way through the trees as though some huge spider was spinning a scarlet web over Langdarma itself. Atreus could see by the alarm in Seema's eyes that such a thing had never before happened, and that she blamed herself for this horror. Had she known what would come of bringing strangers into paradise, he wondered if she would still have saved his life.
As Seema came up beside him, Atreus gestured down into the hollow, where Yago still held the axe over Tarch's neck.
'He's pretty beaten up, but we didn't kill him,' Atreus said, glancing out over the red-laced basin. 'I don't know if that will mean anything for Langdarma.'
'Who can say?' Seema sounded drained and numb. 'It is good you spared him. A second murder does not undo the first. What of the girls? Are they injured?'
Atreus shook his head, then pointed toward the base of the cliff and said, 'Rishi has them up in a cave. They're not hurt physically, but they're not saying much.' He looked down at Tarch's mangled form. 'They saw a pretty bloody fight'
When Seema glanced at the devil, her eyes grew hard and surprisingly ugly. 'At least they did not see a vengeance murder,' she said. 'They will heal better for it, but I am not sure I will. I wanted him dead. I still do.'
Atreus looked away, not knowing what to say. Had she expressed such sentiments in Rivenshield he would have handed her Yago's axe and told her to take as many swings as she liked. But they were not in Rivenshield, and Atreus was as lost with his emotions as she was with hers. He had spared Tarch's life only because he did not want to corrupt the innocence of the two girls watching. Now that Seema had lost hers, he had no idea how to give it back.
Instead, he said, 'Maybe you should check the girls. You'll be more comfort to them than Rishi.'
The suggestion seemed to lighten Seema's burden. Her eyes grew brighter and she said, nodding, 'Of course. They will need to know their mother is well, and perhaps I can explain to them how this happened.' She squeezed his shoulder. 'Thank you.'
Seema started up the slope. Not long after, Atreus noticed a silver comet over the main valley. For a moment, it seemed to hang motionless near the far end, then it gradually began to swell and brighten. A faint sizzling echoed up the canyon, growing louder as the comet enlarged, and at last it became apparent that the shiny ball was actually moving, streaking through the air toward the Turquoise Cliffs.
The sizzle built to a roar, and the silver ball became a platinum blur arcing down toward the talus slope. Tarch's bloodshot eyes grew large and angry. He tried to roll to his feet, but Yago hammered his head with the flat of the axe blade and beat him back into submission.
The platinum blur resolved itself into a milky white oval supported by two shimmering wings. Seema and Rishi came down from the cave with the two sisters and stood next to Atreus. Together, they all waited respectfully as the figure slowed and took on the more humanlike form of the Sannyasi, then circled overhead, creating a pearly halo over the hollow where Tarch lay trapped.
