Everything fades away.
My world, my existence is enveloped in darkness and strange silence. My only awareness is that empty space where Yok should be. Where I cannot make myself believe he is no longer.
But he’s fallen.
He’s gone.
A roar rips from the depths of my soul, echoes all the way up the chasm to the high cavern ceiling above. I tear a hand free of the stones and dangle one-armed from the wall. Heaving my body, I lash out, drive the spikes of my bracer into the nearest cave devil. The blow knocks it free of the wall, careening out into empty air, its legs still waggling uselessly. I don’t waste a breath. Releasing my hold on the stone, I drop to a lower ledge, just catch myself. Using my body’s momentum, I swing and land a solid kick into the side of another woggha. It too launches out into the void, shrieking as it falls.
It doesn’t matter. None of it matters. There are too many of them. The last of the devils pour out of the cave mouth below me and surge upward, a rippling wave of death. I see my warriors on their morleth circling above. They strive hopelessly to pick them off the wall one by one.
I look from side to side. Only a few straggling, weaker devils surround me. They scrabble up the wall as fast as they can. They’re so keen on their destination, they pay no attention to me. They have softer prey to hunt—all the unwary citizens of my city. All those men, women, children, whom those savage jaws will rend and rip with wanton abandon.
Black despair fills me. Maybe it would be better if I just . . . let go. Let myself fall. As Yok fell. Let the inevitable end claim me. It would be better. Swifter. Easier.
Faraine.
Her face springs to life in the darkness of my mind. Her name sits on my tongue, her scent fills my nostrils.
Faraine.
Faraine.
She’s up there. Defenseless. Against that ravenous horde.
Suddenly, nothing else matters. I don’t give a damn for alliances or kingdoms. I don’t care about lies and deceptions and trickery. Whether she’s a seductress or an angel, it makes no difference now. All that matters, is that I cannot let go. Not while there’s life left in my body. Not while there’s still some small chance I might reach her, save her.
“Gods give me strength,” I growl. And begin to climb once more, finding impossible handholds and footholds, inching my way up the cliff face.
A raucous bellow erupts in the air behind me. I crane my neck around to see Knar emerge in a puff of black smoke and manifest in midair. So, he hasn’t forgotten me after all.
“There you are, you foul brute!” I cry. “To me, now!”
Knar tosses his head and sends up streams of smoke from his nostrils. But he angles his shadowy body to fly through the darkness into the space below me. I watch his coming, time my moment. Then I leap out into empty air, catch hold of the saddle, and pull myself into place. My hands grip black whisps of mane as I bend over the morleth’s spiked neck. “Up now, Knar!” I cry, putting my spurs into his scaly flanks. “After them!”
In a streak of sparks, Knar speeds upward, cleaving close to the chasm wall. As we go, I shake my sword loose from its scabbard and swing the blade at several straggling woggha, sending them tumbling into the void. Knar soon catches up to the rest of the morleth. I surge in among my fellow riders, who shout with surprise at my sudden appearance. “Faster!” I bellow, pointing the tip of my blade. “To the top! Don’t let them into the city!”
It’s already too late. Though the morleth puff and pant with exertion, they cannot keep up with the swarm of devils. By the time Knar draws level with the high white wall, woggha already pour over and into the streets. Lur and a dozen others are battling along the ramparts, desperately trying to fend them off. The swarm is too great, too fast. For every one they manage to bring down, ten or twenty more take its place. This is far more than the numbers I glimpsed in the pit below. Every devil in the Under Realm seems to have been summoned by some unseen, malicious force, sent to ravage my city, to destroy every living thing they encounter. Soon, the streets will be bathed in blood.
“Ortolarok!” I raise my sword above my head, swing it forward. “Drag-or!”
Knar surges at the sharp kick of my spurs, gallops over the city wall and into the streets. I do not look back but trust my warriors to follow. We catch up to ten devils in the first street we enter. Two of them have already brought down a screaming victim. Three more scrabble at the doors and windows of a residence. I see a woman fighting to keep a window shut as the woggha batters at the shutters with its terrible curved claws.
I drive Knar close, strike the beast a blow to the head. Not a death blow, but hard enough to knock it to the ground. It’s up again in a flash, but I’m already angling Knar back to the two beasts crouched over their now-silent prey. They’re distracted for the moment. I drive my blade deep into the soft place at the base of the first beast’s skull. It drops dead, but the other takes a swipe at me, knocks the sword from my hand.
“Juk!” I hiss and urge Knar higher, out of the devil’s reach. Then I wrench the reins, turn my mount’s head back around, and stare down into the mayhem in the street. One of my warriors rides his morleth close enough to stab a crouching devil but doesn’t see another on his blindside. It leaps, pulls him from his saddle, and pins him under its bulk. Claws rip into his armor, a terrible, scraping sound.
With a roar, I drive Knar in hard and kick the woggha in the head. My man takes the opportunity to roll free. I don’t wait to see if he makes good his escape but keep Knar close to the ground. Leaning far out in the saddle, I swipe my sword off the ground.
Then we’re rushing on to the next street over. More bodies. More blood. One of my warriors lies disemboweled in the middle of the street. Glassy eyes stare up to the high lorst lights. All around me, hell has come to Mythanar. I hear the screams of men, women. Children.
There is no plan. No strategy. I spur my morleth on, saving those I can, killing every beast that comes within reach of my blade. There are too many of them, all savage and rabid. They kill for pure bloodlust, not even pausing to feast upon their victims. It’s just blood and more blood.
Every instinct tells me to take to the upper air, out of the streets. To fly as fast as Knar can carry me straight to the palace, straight to Faraine’s balcony. There I would catch her up in my arms and bear her away from all of this. All the way back to the Between Gate where I’d send her through to her own world as gods alone know I should have done long ago! How could I have been so foolish, so selfish? To hold her imprisoned here, making every damned excuse to keep her close.
Now she will die. Because I cannot reach her. Because I cannot abandon these screaming citizens to their fates, even as I know I cannot possibly save them all. Because I’ve failed her and failed them and failed all of Mythanar.
From the tail of my eye, I see a devil dragging a man from an upper-story window while his family screams and clings to his arms. With a cry, I drive Knar straight into the beast. We make contact. The impact jars it loose from the side of the building. It falls, but Knar staggers. I lose my seat, tumble from the saddle. Wind whistles past my ears.
Then I land flat on my back. For a moment, I cannot move. I have no breath. Every bone in my body rattles, and I wonder if they’re all broken.
Instinct flares. Death is coming, coming, now.
I roll, lose my helmet, and narrowly avoid the swiping claws of a devil. I lash out with one arm. Bracer spikes bash the side of a woggha’s snarling face. Pulling myself up into a crouch, I face three devils. They circle me. Their long tongues waggle and drag on the ground, dripping streams of greenish foam.
My sword. Where is my sword?
The first devil lunges. I get my hands up just in time, catch it by the jaws. As its sharp teeth pierce through my gauntlets, I force its jaw wider, wider. It roars. I roar back. The sound bellows up from the depths of my soul as I scream into that monster’s ugly face. Something cracks. The woggha falls at my feet, writhes. Goes still.
There’s no time for triumph. A second devil hits me in the side. I fall beneath it, twisting, fighting, lashing out with my bracer spikes. One razor-sharp claw glances off my breastplate. I cannot let it pierce my armor or I’ll end up gutted like the others. Somehow, miraculously, I find my feet again. Two devils close in on me, heads low. One of them growls softly. I brace myself, arms out, body low. The first one lunges. I hit it with the bracer spikes, knock it off balance, but the second goes for me in the very next breath. I don’t have time to recover.
I hit the ground hard. This time, I know I won’t get back up. This time, it’s got me pinned. Wrenching one arm up, I stick my bracer into the beast’s open mouth, drive a spike into its tongue. It doesn’t care. Its teeth crush into my armor. I feel the bones of my arm ready to break. Its claws scrabble at my chest plate, trying to crack me open like an egg. One gnarled hand slices at my head. I dodge, but a claw scrapes across my temple. Hot blood gushes.
The beast lunges harder. Foul breath blasts into my nostrils. I stare into that awful maw. It will be the last sight I see.
Faraine.
Her shining eyes, laughing at me from beneath that trolde-style tiara.
Lorst light soft and gleaming in her hair.
Her lips, curved in a warm smile, full of promise. Full of hope.
I’ve failed her. I’ll never reach her in time.
She will die. Horribly. Wondering where I am. Wondering why I do not come to save her.
