slowly, chipped and less bulky than before but triumphant. It tittered. The sound prickled Marrec’s spine.
It was then a brutish, hollow voice echoed from the darkness. It said, “Lackey of she who is frozen in darkness: be still!”
Their chaperone demon staggered as if struck, then stood unmoving, frozen indeed, its icy body no longer animate.
“Who said that?” queried Ususi.
Marrec peered ahead, trying to ascertain the same thing. He thrust his spear tip forward, trying to will more light down the hallway.
Into the light came a shape. It was similar in form to the horned ogres they’d faced, but it was far larger and more sinister. A crown of horns protruded from its head like barbs. They glowed with a light Marrec knew instinctively was hellish. Marrec’s face prickled with the evil that pulsed away from the thing with steady beats, like a heartbeat ringing up from the depths.
It spoke again, “The queen learns from her earlier forays. She finally has the wit to send those other than creatures I can command at my least whim. Still, it won’t avail her.”
It ceased to speak, and took no other action but to stare a challenge at them. That seemed a potent enough threat to Marrec.
The cleric moved a step closer to the newcomer and addressed it, “We have no quarrel with you. Let us pass.”
The monstrosity responded. “I disagree. I think you do have a quarrel with me, though you may not possess acumen enough to know it. You’re traveling with one of the queen’s children. I presume you are on the errand she has set them on so many previous occasions.”
“What’s that to you, creature?”
“If you are foolish enough to address me, mortal,” said the creature, “You will address me by my proper title, or I’ll sew your skin to my trophy tapestry out of turn. I am called Eschar.”
Marrec repeated, “Why do you care if we travelers do the bidding of the Queen Abiding, Eschar?”
“Because,” growled Eschar, “it is my task to guard the approach to the Sighing Vault. This tunnel that you transgress has only one destination. I’ll grant you one guess where that is.”
Marrec could guess easily, but he tried to stretch out the conversation further. “Your task? You mean, you’re bound here, same as the Queen Abiding, by some long-dead Nar sorcerer’s magic?”
Eschar said nothing, but the luminosity of his crown of horns doubled. Marrec had to squint to look at the creature.
Even had he an unfettered connection with Lurue, Marrec doubted he would have had strength enough to pray for a spell to banish demons directly out of the world, but he was familiar with the task. That possibility was out of the question. He knew that simply slaying the creature would accomplish the same task, if he could but manage it, but Marrec tried one more tack.
Marrec said, “Surely you have had time enough since your binding to find a way to subvert the intent of your original task. Let us through Perhaps this last lapse will break the age-long binding that holds you here.”
The demon laughed then said, “You are full of assumptions, human. As a matter of fact, I quite like it here. I am not bound quite so tightly as most of my brethren, and may even walk freely for a time in the world above. That is how I gained the Queen Abiding’s token of control when the newcomer above at Dun Tharos’s center foolishly lost it.
“And,” added the creature, shining with red delight, “It’s been far too long since I’ve been able to slake my thirst. I think I’ll rather enjoy sucking the meat of each of your bones. I’ll mount your skins in the Vault with the others.”
Gunggari, freshly healed, was following the conversation closely. When the crowned demon lunged forward as he screeched the last portion of his speech, Gunggari was ready with his dizheri. The Oslander sounded a great, reverberating tone from his instrument of combat. The sound crashed forth, almost visible in the red-lit tunnel, its racing wave-front impacting the charging demon before the creature moved more than ten feet. Marrec had seen that same trick lay out lesser creatures for full minutes. It was sufficient to cause Eschar to pause, growling.
“Gunny, Elowen, Ususi, take him out!” yelled Marrec.
He would have continued with more explicit directions, but the demon was suddenly next to him, somehow standing over the cleric without having moved physically through the intervening distance. Eschar tried to bite him, but Marrec blocked just in time with Justlance.
Another bite, two feints, and a head-butt nested with cruel hornsthe cleric fell back with each attack, keeping Justlance between himself and the demon. He couldn’t afford to return an attack. The creature was too powerful, too strong. If Marrec opened up his defenses with an attack of his own, he didn’t doubt Eschar would instantly expose Marrec’s innards in a way sure to upset his friends. A few more seconds, and Ususi was sure to blast the creature…
A foot, dagger-clawed, streaked past his spinning spear. The kick lifted him and sent him rolling back tens of feet. The hard ground cudgeled him as he tumbled along the tunnel, his hands momentarily empty of the comforting haft of Justlance. Shadows narrowed his vision as his momentum was finally absorbed by the floor.
Justlance returned to his grip. The spear’s return reminded him of the reason for the pain. He gasped and tried to sit, using Justlance as a prop. Any additional effort was beyond Marrec’s power. Even his secret talent seemed distant and unavailable as he sought for any weapon to throw against the demon. He could only watch.
CHAPTER 20
Gunggari was done with using his dizheri as an instrument; he gripped his weapon in both tattooed hands and swung with a vengeance. The blows did little to slow Eschar’s fury.
The elf hunter waded in, ready to try Dymondheart against a foe mightier than any she had before faced. As she closed on the demon, a light like the sun illuminated her and her blade, as if the daylight above had decided to ignore the intervening forest and rocky floor.
The demon flinched, focusing all its attention on Elowen, and snarled, “You have a potent weapon. I think FU kill you before you figure out how to really use it.”
A clawed hand flashed out, as if to pluck the blade from Elowen’s grasp, but she fell back, dragging the length of Dymondheart across Eschar’s extended forearm. Where the blade touched, the skin peeled back, revealing an inky blackness. Eschar howled.
With its unflayed arm, the demon formed a great fist and pivoting its entire body, delivering a stunning hook to the side of Elowen’s head. The light surrounding Elowen flared up, became for an instant blinding, then faded to nothingness. Elowen, Eschar, and Gunggari stood for a moment, blinking, in the sudden return to near darkness natural to the tunnel. Of them all, Elowen was most surprised by her continued upright posture; by all rights, she should be splattered across the tunnel wall.
Eschar growled, said, “Already learned a few things, eh? Not enough!”
It lunged again, completely ignoring Gunggari, whose efforts were becoming frenzied. Elowen brought up Dymondheart; it seemed strangely dull and heavy. No light played along its length. Whatever it had just done to save Elowen from the demon’s first blow had exhausted the blade’s elan.
Eschar didn’t at first recognize Dymondheart’s lowered vitality, and despite his tough words, he seemed oddly tentative for such a hulking atrocity. The demon threw just a few quick, probing attacks that Elowen managed to deflect aleng the length of her disturbingly heavy blade.
Eschar’s single-minded attention on the elf hunter finally paid off for Gunggari. The tattooed warrior wound up then swung, putting all the weight of his body behind the blow. The edge of his dizheri connected squarely under Eschar’s jaw with a sound that could only herald breaking bone. Eschar’s scream was high and piercing.
Ususi finally made her presence known, too. She had studied the fight, trying to gauge which of her powers might be most effective. Not completely unschooled in the ways of demons, the wizard knew that evils as obviously potent as Eschar were often resistant to magical attack. What would blast a mortal foe into a stain of blood and splintered bone might wash off a demon of Eschar’s caliber like rain.
