assault. He paused to look for his prey. The wizard reeled on the wall, the tiefling and the halfling alongside him, as the dragonborn paladin rushed to their aid. All of his enemies accounted for, but all in one place. His eyes narrowed. They would need to be separated.
A door in the building behind him opened.
He turned instantly and caught a glimpse of an old human woman peering out, her urge for safety probably overcome by curiosity at the screams. Her eyes went wide at the sight of him, then he was on her. The great talon on his right hand stabbed up through the woman’s belly and under her ribs. Her wide eyes grew wider. A dry croak emerged from the woman’s throat.
He felt disgust. “This one was made to kill greater creatures than you,” he said and twisted his hand. Life shuddered from the woman’s body. He let her fall inside the door and listened for the noise of others in the house. There was only silence. Stealth was not his primary concern, but the closer he was able to get to Winterhaven’s gate without being detected, the better.
The screams of villagers were replaced by the wail of a demon before he had passed two more houses. On the wall, the tiefling warlock stood with her rod raised and glowing, her attention fixed on a cold, white light that lit the darkness beyond. He felt the dying of the nightmare demon through the Voidharrow and quickened his pace. The creature had done its work, both with its attack and with its destruction. Almost all of Winterhaven’s defenders had rushed up onto the wall to battle the demons on the other side. A man in better armor than most was trying to call some of them back. The lord of the village, perhaps. The commander of its forces, certainly.
He recognized two figures standing close to the lord: an eladrin man and a human woman, both warriors by their weapons and bearing. They had ridden with his prey through the Cloak Wood. Allies of his enemies. He flexed his hands. He had his goal, the reason for his existence, but slaughtering these three would bring added distress to his true prey.
Beyond the trio, only two uneasy looking guards remained to watch over the counterweight that would lift the heavy bar from the gates. The defenders of Winterhaven had grown overeager and overconfident.
He hissed in anticipation and moved out from the shadows.
“What do you mean we’ve let a demon into the village?” said Tempest.
“Everyone’s up here fighting the horde. Who’s defending the gate? Who’s watching the other walls?” Albanon twisted away from the parapet, shoving through the villagers that had crowded in behind him. “Lord Padraig! Lord Padr-”
The warning died on his tongue as he reached the other edge of the walkway and the top of a flight of stairs back down into the village. Padraig was below, looking up, his attention drawn by Albanon’s shouts. Immeral and Belen stood with him. But perhaps twenty paces behind them another figure emerged from the shadows of the inn. Albanon heard Roghar, close behind him, draw a harsh breath of surprise. Their shock must have been plain on their faces because Immeral, Belen, and Padraig spun to look behind them as well.
The figure froze, just for an instant, but the sight of it burned into Albanon’s mind. It wasn’t quite like anything he had seen before. In rough shape, it was something like a dragonborn: draconic in feature but humanoid in body. The resemblance ended there. The creature was almost skeletally thin, its skull long and narrow. A whiplike tail lashed the air behind it and cruel talons extended from its hands and feet. It carried no weapons and wore no armor, but one of the talons on its right hand was enormous, as big as a shortsword and far heavier. The thing bore signs of the Voidharrow, too. Its talons and the straight, spiky horns on its head were red crystal. Crimson veins traced along its spine and concentrated in its tail, which also seemed made of crystal, splintering and reforming with every movement.
Its scales, while tinted with the red of the Voidharrow, were green, and there was a familiar, hateful intelligence in its eyes.
“Vestapalk,” said Albanon.
Somehow the creature heard him over the din of battle. It smiled cruelly. “This one is not Vestapalk,” it shouted back in a harsh male voice. “This one is Vestagix. This one will be your doom!”
He moved. In only heartbeats, faster than Albanon could call a spell to mind, Vestagix had closed the distance between him and the three standing below. The huge talon, completely out of proportion to the rest of his body, lashed out in a wide arc.
Belen grabbed Lord Padraig and dragged him to the ground, both of them rolling out of the way of the terrible claw. Immeral stood his ground. His sword already out, he parried Vestagix’s blow. Crystal rang against steel. Vestagix’s smile didn’t falter. His left hand, the talons smaller but still sharp, raked at Immeral’s belly. The eladrin swayed back to avoid them.
In that moment, the great talon thrust past his guard. It hooked into the flesh of his shoulder. Vestagix wrenched his arm back and the talon tore through flesh and leather armor, shoulder and throat. Blood gushed out. Immeral’s free hand went to his throat as if he could stop the flow, but his sword was already sliding from his grip.
Albanon felt like he was falling, just as he had under the nightmare demon’s attack, except that this was no illusion. The force of the blow had spun Immeral around. As he sank to his knees, his eyes rose. Albanon imagined that the hunter was looking at him, that his gaping mouth struggled to form words one last time. My prince…
Beside him, Roghar bellowed in fury. “Demon!” he roared. “Face me! Bahamut’s strength will drive you back where you came from!” He rushed down the stairs in a clatter of armor.
Vestagix looked from the charging paladin to where Padraig and Belen were rising warily, then bared white teeth and sprinted toward the wall-but not toward Roghar. Before Immeral’s body had collapsed onto its face, Vestagix had disappeared under the walkway above Winterhaven’s gate. Roghar roared again and disappeared after him.
The need to act forced focus upon Albanon’s mind. “Tempest, Uldane-get some people off the wall and back down to the gate!” He didn’t wait for their response, he just followed Roghar. His mind raced along with his feet. What in the three worlds was Vestagix? They’d all seen Vestapalk take control of and speak through plague demons, but Vestagix was different. He didn’t look like any other demon and he didn’t act like he was being controlled. He acted like Vestapalk himself.
A weight settled on his shoulder and needle-sharp claws gripped his skin before he reached the bottom of the stairs. “A wizard’s place is at a distance,” Splendid shrieked in his ear. “Stay on the wall. You’ll be safe there.”
“I can’t see what’s happening on the wall,” Albanon told her, “and I can’t help Roghar if I can’t see him.” He reached the bottom of the stairs and spun toward the gate. The sound of the demon horde outside was intensified below. The thick wood of the gate shook and thundered with every misshapen body that was flung against it. Two human bodies lay before the gate: the guards who had stayed at their posts had fared no better against Vestagix than Immeral.
Roghar had caught up to the intruder though, and it appeared that Vestagix had more respect for his new, heavily armored opponent. The two circled each other like weird reflections, Roghar bright and noble, Vestagix dark and savage. It seemed to Albanon that they knew it, too. There was a hatred in Roghar’s eyes that he wasn’t used to seeing.
“You mock the shape of dragonborn and dragon alike,” said the paladin.
Vestagix sneered at him. “And you,” he said, “have angered one greater than the gods.”
Roghar growled deep in his throat and lunged. Vestagix, still sneering, caught and turned the impulsive thrust with his outsized claw-leaving himself open to a powerful and fully controlled slam from Roghar’s shield. The blow threw him against the gate and Roghar closed in, his facade of anger replaced by deadly focus. The sneer vanished from Vestagix’s face, replaced by a snarl. He pushed off from the gate, slashing at Roghar in a frenzy that drove the dragonborn back pace by pace.
Albanon clenched his teeth and drew a spell close to the surface of his mind. Sliding sideways, he tried to find an opening to cast it, but Vestagix’s whirling attack was too quick. One moment he had a clear line, the next Roghar was between them. Splendid clung tight to his shoulder. “Back away,” she begged. “You can attack from a greater distance.”
He ignored her. Roghar was beginning to look harried. Vestagix had him on the defensive and Albanon knew in his gut he wasn’t going to get his opening. He’d have to risk throwing his spell, even if it meant catching Roghar by mistake. As Vestagix turned around the paladin again, Albanon exhaled, concentrated, and released the spell with a flick of his fingers and a whispered word. Two thin blue bolts streaked at the demon-who sprang back with the same lithe quickness that had been Immeral’s doom. As he leaped, he turned and his tail snaked around
