'Ow.'
Though it clearly pained him, he twisted at the waist, widening his own wound as he moved, and jabbed two fingers into the ragged flesh that had once been Jassion's nose.
The baron shrieked, stumbling back with both hands to his face, leaving the sword sticking clear through Khanda's torso. And Khanda himself could only laugh at the stunned consternation in his enemies' eyes.
'I have complete control over my body, Corvis, save for those limitations the summoning spell imposed on me. Why would I possibly choose to make myself mortal? Don't you understand, you cretins? You cannot kill me!' He extended a hand as though tossing a ball, and Jassion staggered farther-but only a few steps. He levitated for but an instant, clearing the earth by only a few inches before he fell once more. And for the first time, Khanda looked genuinely concerned.
'No.' He spun, and there was Corvis, standing once more. Sunder slammed hard into Khanda's ribs, cracking bone and sending the demon hurtling aside. 'But it looks like we can hurt you, doesn't it? Seilloah!'
The dog looked up sharply, peered at the rubble toward which he was pointing. She needed no more than the long years they'd worked and fought side-by-side to figure out what he was asking, and she nodded. Again the stalks burst from the earth, this time lifting the heaviest of the stones and planks.
Beside the road, features now twisted in an agonized rage, Khanda was rising once again.
'Jassion!' Corvis called. 'It's the Kholben Shiar! Their magics must interfere with his!' And again he pointed, not at the rubble Seilloah's plants were hefting but at the hard-packed earth below.
Please, gods, make him understand!
And though he twitched visibly, perhaps in frustration at the thought of taking orders from Corvis Rebaine, he obviously did. Jassion leapt the intervening detritus and slammed into Khanda before he could find his balance. The baron grasped Talon's hilt and twisted, forcing demonic blade and demonic body downward. They toppled, the tip of the Kholben Shiar plunging into the earth. Jassion leaned on it, thrusting with all the strength he had left until it slid as far as it would go, the crossbar lying flush with Khanda's skin, staking him to the road.
The plants slackened their grip. Wood and stone rained down to bury Khanda in a makeshift cairn-and would have buried Jassion as well, had he not anticipated what was coming and rolled desperately aside. Obviously, and perhaps understandably, Seilloah held a grudge.
He rose, somehow directing both an infuriated glare at Corvis and a wistful, longing look where his weapon lay interred.
'Is he dead?' Irrial asked shakily.
'You heard him,' Corvis said, turning away. 'We can't kill him. That probably won't hold him for more than a few minutes.' He began to run, but managed only a few paces before his aches and bruises and burning lungs reined him back to an unsteady, stiff-legged walk. The others fell quickly into step behind him.
'Can we possibly get far enough in a few minutes?' Irrial wondered aloud.
'That depends-on him.' Corvis halted abruptly, raised Sunder's edge to hover within inches of the startled Jassion's throat.
'Where's Mellorin?' FOR LONG MINUTES THE STREET WAS STILL, the nighttime silence broken only by the creak of settling rubble and the fearful cries of distant villagers too terrified to leave their homes. Low-hanging clouds began to thin, moon and stars peeking out to see if the chaos had ended.
A peculiar snapping, combining the whistle of a sharp wind with the crackling of a bonfire, sounded a few yards down the road. The dust swirled as though kicked by a giant invisible foot, and a shape-human, feminine, lost in slumber-materialized in the dirt. It would have astonished anyone watching, had there been anyone watching, but the street, and the surrounding windows, were empty.
Again, silent moments passed. The debris shifted, stone screeching on stone, wood breaking, and something that had once appeared human rose from the wreckage with a scream to shame the damned. Limbs hung at agonizing angles, splintered bone protruding through rents in the flesh. Blood caked its skin, flowed from a hundred tiny wounds. From its body, unmarred by the impact of the rubble, protruded the Kholben Shiar.
Shattered hands, aquiver not so much with agony as rage, clutched at the blade. He could feel the insatiable hunger within the metal, a power that flowed from the same infernal wellspring as his own. He bit back a hiss of revulsion at its touch, all the while promising Rebaine and Jassion a thousand deaths.
He'd expected that the Kholben Shiar could likely hurt him, even if they could not kill; known that the magics of other demons, no matter what form contained them, would cause him pain. But until he'd felt the weapon sliding through him, piercing mind and body, pinning him to the earth, he'd not truly understood what that meant. Khanda had not worn his human form long enough to comprehend mortal anguish, and nothing-not his various minor wounds, not even the torment of Nenavar's ire-had prepared him for an agony the equal of any found in hell.
Inch by inch, fingers shredding themselves even further against the edge only to form anew, he pressed back upon the blade, driving it out. Finally he felt the pressure and the pain ease, heard Talon clatter to the ground behind him, and he gasped in very human relief.
On legs that bowed like saplings, that should never have supported his weight, the inhuman creature in human form staggered from the cairn. With each stride his body twitched, reshaped by the demon's will. Step, and a leg ceased bending, bones knitting together and kneecap sliding into place. Step, and an arm snapped back into its socket, its fingers straightening with a series of pops. Step, and the blood fell from his face, revealing not the demonic visage that Corvis had recognized, but the more mundane features that had borne the name Kaleb.
But though the greatest wound, the mark of Talon itself, had closed, it did not fade entirely. For all his control over his corporeal body, he lacked the inner strength to finish the job. Soon, yes, when he'd had the opportunity to rest, to recover from the unexpected torment. But not now.
Leaving the weapon where it lay-hoping that some villager might be stupid enough to come out and try to claim it, offering him an excuse to tear someone apart-Khanda moved along the road, following the scents of fear and pain and very familiar blood. Past several houses and a smattering of shops he walked, until he came to a large wooden structure with a great hole battered in the side.
Subtle, Corvis. Do you even know how to use a door?
He didn't need to enter. The scent wafting from within was more than enough to identify it as a stable. Nor did he need to examine the hoofprints that emerged, for he could literally see the magic rising off them like early-morning mists. Clearly, his prey meant to put as much distance between them as possible. Wise of them, that. Futile, but wise.
With a deliberate, unhurried pace, he returned to the wreckage, drumming two fingertips on his lips as he thought. He'd misjudged Jassion, assumed that the baron's burning hate would blind him to all else. Of course, he hadn't intended that Jassion even hear his words to Corvis. He'd thought the baron safely unconscious, if not dead. Still, it was a mistake that had cost him, and-though he'd never have admitted it-shamed him. Once, Khanda had been a far better judge of mortal souls. His long association with, and his smoldering anger at, the Terror of the East had obviously clouded that judgment. Not again. His most important ally remained, and of her he would make absolutely certain.
And there she was. Khanda jerked to a stop, staring at the ground beyond the rocks that had imprisoned him. He'd not seen her when he first emerged, too distracted by his pain and fury, but there she lay, asleep, not half a dozen yards from where he'd been buried.
Ah, Corvis, you big softy. You went after her, didn't you? For that was the true nature of the spell he'd cast upon her when she first joined him in his travels. Not to protect her, as he'd allowed both her and Jassion to believe, but to conjure her to his side should her father come too close, ensuring they had no opportunity to reconcile.
Wincing, he knelt and lifted Talon by the hilt. He could feel the weapon squirming, and the skin of his own palm crawled at its touch. It had not been forged for his kind; its shape did not change, for he had no soul to taste. For his own sake, Khanda would have gladly left it behind.
But Kaleb would not have, and for a little longer, Kaleb remained essential.
Clutching the Kholben Shiar in one hand, gathering the ragged remnants of his clothes with the other, Kaleb moved to her. He knelt, removing the enchantment that kept her in slumber, and then collapsed to the road beside her, waiting for her to awaken.
