Blackhand (25 page)

The monster was stronger and more experienced, but Quintel had his Abanshi upbringing.  His human side remembered a technique Aran had taught him when locked in a similar position with a larger opponent. Without warning, Quintel relented to the Agara's might, falling to his back, pulling the monster over his head using its own mass against it. Off balance, the Agara crashed headlong into a hardened tor, toppling the rocks like a stack of children's blocks.

The Agara somersaulted and came up on its feet, more agile than Quintel had guessed. Turning quickly, it smashed a pillar of stone, spraying projectiles across the landscape towards him. The missiles pounded Quintel's chest and head, but his flesh did not break. He jumped to the top of a butte, above the Agara's reach.

“Your agility only postpones your death,” Grom blared, but Quintel heard frustration in the rumbling voice.

The Agara shot upwards and struck. The blow missed and this time Quintel grabbed the crescent-shaped claw as it passed. He climbed onto the creature’s back and set himself between its beating wings.

Quintel had a plan. Wrapping his arms around the base of the Agara's leathery wing, he arched backwards, applying fathomless pressure against the creature's shoulder.

The Agara shot into the sky, trying to shake him off, and soon they were thousands of feet above the earth, corkscrewing through the sky at fantastic speeds.

Quintel pulled hard. Something snapped beneath the impenetrable scales and the wing tore loose at the shoulder, spraying a fountain of black blood into the sky. The appendage folded and they began to fall.

The Agara screamed. Below them, Quintel saw they had crossed many miles and were plummeting toward Jura. The Agara was going to crash them into the streets.

“Your people will watch you die!” it shouted.

The earth rushed upwards. Quintel kicked against the Agara's head, shooting off at an angle before they struck the ground, trying to deflect the impact. The maneuver did not work. Smashing through the stone roof of a bazaar, he felt his bones shatter and instantly heal. The Agara hit full force, shaking the entire city.

Quintel jumped through the hole he had made in the roof and stood atop the building, trying to spot the Agara's landing point. He had hurt it, but how badly? He still could not see a way to kill it. Tearing its wings off was not a practical strategy. He could not withstand too many more landings like that one.

A cloud of dust and debris revealed the monster's location. Quintel bound across the stone rooftops to reach the commotion.

As he arrived, the Agara shot from the dust into the sky, fully healed, its wing whole again. The creation's resilience matched his own. Quintel jumped into the air after the being, but fell short and dropped back to the ground.

“You are strong, Abanshi,” the Agara shouted as it circled above him. “But I have the sky.”

“That is only an advantage if you flee, Demonthane,” Quintel answered. “And in this world, you have nowhere to run.”

The Agara was infuriated by Quintel's arrogance.

“I have no intention of running, blasphemous insect!”

Abanshi citizens scattered throughout the streets, terrified of the gigantic winged monster that had fallen from the sky. Quintel wanted them as far away as possible. The Agara had not figured out the power a hostage could have over him, and Quintel did not want to give it the chance.

Tucking its wings, Grom plummeted towards him. Quintel stood still until the last second and then jumped backward to avoid the attack. The Agara was ahead of him. The dive had been a feint.

Just before Quintel shot backwards, the Agara changed direction, anticipating his move. It intercepted the dodge, smashing him into the cobblestone street like a hawk striking a pigeon. Quintel cart-wheeled into a wall at the end of the avenue.

His mind was scattered and he lost control of his power. It took energy to resist such force. The creature had every bit of his might and thousands of years more experience. While its body may be new, its combat skills were ancient.

A storm of arrows showered the Agara as it charged up the wide avenue towards him. A squad of Abanshi archers had converged on the scene. Quintel was not happy to see them. Their arrows bounced off the Agara's hide like stalks of straw.

“I see the god in your breast fears something, little rabbit,” the Agara said, ignoring the human archers. “Gods fear death and love life. Is the god in you afraid I may harm one of these humans?”

Quintel could not hide his reaction. The Agara saw him flinch. Knowing, it dived directly into the archers, its wings scattering the Abanshi like toys. Grabbing one of the men by the neck, it shot back into the sky.

Launching himself from a high roof, Quintel lunged into the sky. No part of him wanted the human to die. At that moment a figure bolted from an adjoining street. It was Aul.

“Brother!” she shouted and threw her sword to him in the air. It flipped end over end and filled his fist just before he met the monster.

The Demonthane held the Abanshi soldier by both arms and opened its fanged mouth to bite off his head. Quintel's sword slashed a single stroke. The blow cut across the black gums of the monster just above the top row of its sword-like teeth. Quintel crashed into the Agara’s face. A curtain of black blood dripped from the Agara's mouth.

He had found its weak spot. It was soft on the inside

The Agara dropped the swordsman to the street, injured but not dead. Clinging to the creature’s neck, Quintel fired a fury of sword strikes into its face, trying to get it to open its mouth, careful not to break his borrowed blade. With his newfound knowledge, he looked into its body again, reexamining the placement of its power stone.

The Agara struck with one of its bladed hands. Quintel deflected the strike but it still sent him crashing through the timber roof of a large storehouse. The front wall of the building collapsed into the street.

He was on his feet in an instant, inspired by his discovery. Grom circled overhead, raging, frustrated that Quintel had harmed it twice now. It was not in control of its anger. Emotion boiled from it dark heart. Seeing him in the street, it dived.

With his sister's sword in hand, Quintel met the Agara's charge flat footed. Grom slammed into him and Quintel latched onto its massive head. They vaulted upward into the cloudless blue sky. With his free hand, he gripped one of the Agara's fangs like a handle and set his foot against its lower jaw. It tried to claw him off, but could not get leverage.

“I know your weakness, Demonthane,” he whispered. It was not enough that he had found the being’s vulnerability. He wanted the Agara to know it.

With every grain of strength he possessed, Quintel pushed the Agara's jaws in opposite directions, forcing its mouth to open. The Agara launched into a violent series of aerial acrobatics trying to shake him off. They climbed so high that blackness opened above them and all light remained below. They had soared to the top of the world.

The monster fought to close its jaws. Quintel shoved the sword inside its mouth, wedging the tip of the blade into its palate, the hilt against its jaw. If it closed its mouth the blade would penetrate its skull from the inside.

Then Quintel reached down the creature's slimy throat. The Agara figured out his plan and plummeted toward the ground. It shook its head and gagged. He felt the webby tissue enwrapping the great obelisk that held its soul. Quintel's fingers sunk into the webbing and tore out a fist-sized swatch of tendons and nerves. The Agara choked and convulsed, losing control of its limbs. Quintel's hand fished again, this time finding the smooth, warm surface of the power stone. His finger constricted ove
r the stone and he pulled hard.

The ovoid ripped from its nest and black fire exploded from the Agara's chest. The shadowy spirit that filled its legs and arms snapped violently back into the black stone. The Agara's body went limp.

Falling to the earth, his arms wedged inside the Agara's mouth, Quintel tore the last few ligaments from the stone and pulled it free.

When he did, the Agara’s jaws snapped shut and bit
off his right arm at the elbow. The shining tip of the sword pierced the top of the creature’s head.

Quintel felt pain. The stump of his arm shot jets of red blood that flew away in the wind as he plunged to the ground. He separated from the Agara and tried to stop the fountain of blood, but could not. He struck the ground at full velocity and bounced into the air. His guts tore from their holds and his bones pulverized. After another bounce, he settled into a twisted heap, shattered, but alive.

He lay there for some time, trying to stop the bleeding throughout his body and reform his bones. After a few minutes, his innards found their proper location, his bones knitted and he stood. The stub of his right arm ceased bleeding.

He walked over to the Agara’s body. The large black stone protruded from the fanged mouth like a strangled man's tongue. His severed hand still gripped the stone.

Quintel looked at the end of his arm -- two white bones protruded from a nest of mangled red flesh. It was a messy amputation.

He studied his wound and considered what could be done. There was no way to reattach the lost limb but he could not go without a sword arm.

Tapping into knowledge he did not fully understand, he sent his will into the stump and commanded his body to form a new hand. The laws of nature groveled, but obeyed him. Bone and muscle reached out from the severed member, weaving and stitching themselves into existence, crawling and twitching outward with a life of their own. A hand and fingers took shape. Tendon and muscle covered new bones. Soon, a fully formed arm and hand appeared.

But something was wrong.

As the forearm and hand took flesh, he saw there was no color to the appendage. The hairless arm was as black as the Thog stones. The palms, under the nails, the veins, everything was the color of coal. He moved the fingers and wrist to make certain he could control them. The hand was his but it was not like the one he had lost. A part of him cringed at the change.

Quintel picked up the large Agara stone and pried his old arm off. He had lost his hand, but the Agara had lost its entire body. He could see the creature's red soul inside the elongated sphere, swimming back and forth like a fish in a bowl, still wanting to fight.

Holding the stone at arm’s length, Quintel studied it in a way he had not before. His spirit's eye traced its surface and shape. He deducted its origins by tapping into the primitive memories of his god half. From there, he discerned how Ru conceived and created the object. While the Thog stones were produced in mass, Quintel saw this one was unique. It had been painstakingly crafted and nurtured. It was the prototype for all the others.

Ru must have hated letting the Agara crawl inside it. The thought brought a part of Quintel pleasure, but it was not his human part.

He was not sure what to do with the object. The Agara was still inside, and Ru could grow another accommodating body -- an improved one -- in very little time. He could not leave the stone with the Abanshi because they could never defend it. And his trust of the Lanya was thin.

The stone would have to stay with him. As Quintel probed the miniscule grains that formed its physical appearance, he realized that in some way, the stone was not actually there. It was a piece of the spirit world pulled into the tangible world. Although solid, it vibrated upon another plane. That’s what made the stones indestructible.

He tucked the heart under his blackened arm and turned toward the city. Time for him to rejoin his people. The battle was won but the war still spread before them like an uncharted desert.

Leagues in the distance, he sensed the Vaerian army arriving from the most-western end of the world. While their ability to mobilize their forces was impressive, they were days late. Quintel wanted to speak with their leaders about Siyer and his situation with Yuul. They might have priests who could help him control his power.

The return of Lanya would also interest them.

Chapter 30

A dozen mounted Abanshi rode down an escarpment to meet him. Armed with pikes and lances, they had intended to help him with the Demonthane. Again, their action was only a brave gesture. There was no way they could have aided him; Quintel saw them as a liability. As long as they were near him, their lives were in danger. Watching the soldiers' dancing lifelight Quintel knew what needed to be done. He just wasn't ready to do it.

“The Agara's corpse is over there,” he said to the mounted warriors. “See if we can learn anything from it.”

The soldiers galloped by and he felt their awe. All of them believed in his divinity. All felt as if they viewed the incarnation of a god when they looked upon him. The sensation made Quintel stop. He had massacred fifty thousand Thogs, he had slain an Agara w
ith his bare hands. He realized that indeed these were great feats. Why didn't he feel pride over their doing? The tasks had been automatic to him. While he had desire, both human and divine, to destroy the unholy creations, he felt no sense of accomplishment now that he had done so. He believed they were only obstacles between himself and Sirian Ru.

Quintel hoisted the Agara's stone upon his shoulder.