The Sin War Box Set: Birthright, Scales of the Serpent, and The Veiled Prophet (14 page)

An area now filling with noxious smoke unlinked to the campfire…or any other source that could be seen.

Uldyssian had faced mesmerism, crushing force, and animated flame. He was not afraid of smoke. Taking a deep breath, he stepped forward. Once he was through the smoke, it would be a short distance to the cleric’s throat…

But from behind came an uncharacteristically shrill and worried cry from Lylia. “No, Uldyssian! Not like that! Beware the lurkers!”

No sooner had she called out than a macabre shape formed just before the farmer. Uldyssian caught glimpses of razorlike appendages above what passed for
three
arms and a bulbous head that looked too heavy to be supported by any natural body. Four glistening orbs burned a sinister ivory. The thing took a step toward Uldyssian—

And then, in the blink of an eye, a silver aura shone around the monstrous form. The creature raised its various appendages high and gave out a low, gasping sound…then simply
faded away
.

But even as Uldyssian was somehow relieved of that horrific adversary, two more shapes coalesced in the smoke, in their own ways more grotesque than the one that had just vanished. One was a thing whose body looked to have been freshly flayed, a body consisting of two legs ending in clawed hands and a sinewy, spiked tail attached to a tube-like body. There was no head, just a gaping hole atop, out of which nightmarish, toothy projections snatched at the air just before Uldyssian.

Its hellish companion was a skeletal figure with the face of a hungry bird of prey. Two leathery, vestigial wings thrust up from its shoulders. Its arms ended not in hands or claws, but in multiple suckers, and its legs were bent backward, like those of a grasshopper.

From somewhere farther back, somewhere beyond the smoke, Malic uttered a single word.
“Lucion.”

The avian leapt forward with a swiftness unbelievable. One second, it stood before Uldyssian and the next it was upon him. Even as he fell under the force of its jump, he heard a deep grinding sound from the direction of the second beast.

The suckered appendages sought for the human’s chest and throat and it was all Uldyssian could do to prevent them from reaching their targets. With his hands, he held the creature’s horrific limbs by the wrist, shoving the upper part of the beast up as high as he could.

Above the sounds of the struggle, Malic almost nonchalantly commented, “They will keep enough of you left alive, my child, for the Primus to work with. Just enough.”

Uldyssian tried to dismiss them the way he had the fire golem, but these were creatures more like the hunter in the forest. No, they were even more than that. Without understanding how, Uldyssian was certain that the fiend he had previously destroyed had been far inferior to these vicious horrors.

The long, sharp beak poised above Uldyssian’s head. He expected the creature to snap at him or even try to spear him in the skull…but instead it opened wide and let out an ear-piercing shriek that rattled every bone in the farmer’s body, a shriek without end or even respite.

It was all he could do just to keep from passing out under the intense onslaught. Ears pounding, Uldyssian finally released one of the avian’s arms and went for the beak. However, as he did, the suckers dropped down across his chest.

A ghastly, gnawing sensation arose wherever the creature’s suckers touched, but Uldyssian could not let that pain stop him any more than the previous. Straining, he seized the beak and, screaming himself, clamped it tightly shut. The avian shook its head, seeking release even as it continued to absorb what the human could only assume his life force.

Still feeling light-headed, Uldyssian attempted to shove his adversary off. Only then, though, did he realize that something now had hold of his feet, something that began dragging him…and the avian, in the process…toward where he last recalled the other demon to be.

Not at all wanting to know what horror the second creature offered, Uldyssian doubled his struggles, but could not free himself of his initial foe. The force that had so far protected him well now failed utterly and he could only guess that it was because he was not used to wielding it for so long in such a desperate manner. Given time, Uldyssian had no doubt that he could have learned how to easily overcome either abomination, but that time was now not his.

He did not fear death, for, again, he knew that Malic wanted him alive, but the high priest no longer cared what condition Uldyssian was in otherwise. A ragged, bloody stump that still breathed apparently would suffice to please the mysterious and clearly not so compassionate Primus.

The avian’s vampiric suckers began to have a debilitating effect. Uldyssian feared what would happen to the others if he failed. Lylia’s trusting face in particular burned in his memory. They would all be slaughtered…if they had not already been. He had no idea if any of the three were still protected or, for that matter, what had happened to Achilios, who had never returned from his hunt. It was likely that the archer had been the first to die, slain by the Peace Warders while in the woods.

A numbness began to spread from his feet up, a chilling numbness that Uldyssian knew was not the result of what the avian was doing. So, both demons had him now. Surely he was done for.

“L-Lylia…” he murmured. “Lyl—”

His body suddenly shook, but not because of anything that his monstrous foes were doing. A tremendous,
glorious
strength filled the son of Diomedes. In an instant, he felt not only refreshed, but more powerful than
ever
before. The combined might of the two creatures seemed so utterly insignificant now. It made Uldyssian laugh that he had been so worried about being defeated by the likes of them.

Invigorated, Uldyssian tightened his grip on the first demon’s beak. This time, though, he had no intention of merely trying to turn it to the side.

One squeeze was all it took to crush the beak. The demon let out a garbled sound and sought to rip itself free. Dark, green ichor flowed from its shattered maw, dripping all over Uldyssian. He ignored the burning caused by each rancid drop, eager to see what else he could do. The power surged through him like a roaring river, feeding him continuously. He felt his body swell. He was a giant in comparison to his foes, a titan.

A
god,
even…

Malic frowned as, not for the first time, he sensed something amiss. First there had been the nigh instantaneous attack by the fool just as the demons had first been materializing. Uldyssian’s destruction of the razorlike pyrioh, the most foul of the servants given into his service by the master, had stunned the high priest more than he had let on. He had not even sensed the farmer’s power rise up, so immediate had been the results.

But the other two demons had acted according to his desires and had looked ready to make short work of the prey. Malic had kept his own heightened senses at their peak in order to make certain that the creatures did not get carried away—as demons were wont to do—and kill Uldyssian. Indeed, the high priest had almost been as much a part of the struggle as if he had been physically involved…and that was why he, too, noticed the astounding and impossible surge of power abruptly coursing through what, a breath before, had been a flailing, lost buffoon.

Noticed that surge…and could not comprehend just
how
it had come about. It almost seemed to Malic as if it had been fed to Uldyssian from another source…

Tearing himself from the struggle, he glanced at the three other figures. The cleric immediately dismissed Serenthia, who barely sensed the force growing within her, and the perplexed-looking fool, next to the girl, whom he had determined to be Uldyssian’s brother. There
was
something peculiar about the brother, but he was not the source.

And then Malic looked at the only person left, the one he had taken at first to be the least of interest to him. He looked at her very close, seeing her as only one of his skill could.

Seeing something that he could never have guessed that he would see.

“Great Lucion!” he blurted, for once unable to maintain the appearance of complete confidence and disdain. One hand came up to point and the words of a spell formed on his lips—

A sharp pain struck him in the back next to the left shoulder blade. Well-versed in the human body and the various points of lingering or instant death, Malic’s mind routinely calculated that if what had hit him—an arrow, he surmised—had gone an inch more to the center, then even his power might not have been enough to save him. As it was, he immediately set about using the gifts of his master to keep himself from not only bleeding to death, but passing out as well.

Unfortunately, that meant that he could no longer maintain control over the battle or deal with the other, shocking discovery. Malic teetered back, trying to maintain focus. As he turned, though, it was to witness Brother Rondo instead falling, the Peace Warder slain by a bolt through the throat. The cleric caught a glimpse of a lithe figure darting along the edge of campsite, a mere
archer
of all things. It insulted Malic to think that he had come close to perishing because of someone without
any
skills in the art whatsoever.

Then, from where Uldyssian struggled, there came an odd and unsettling sound. Malic at first thought that perhaps one of his creatures, now rid of his control, had torn the farmer asunder. Instead, though, Uldyssian once more stood
free
. Worse, in his left hand he held the limp form of the beaked demon…but who now had no beak whatsoever. As the cleric watched, Uldyssian tossed aside the dead monster and used both hands to seize the third demon by its thick, sticky tongue. That tongue Malic had last seen wrapped around the fool’s legs, there to inflict such cold as would have frozen most mortals solid in a heartbeat.

Yet, not only had Uldyssian survived that cold, but now he had dragged the last of Malic’s infernal minions to him. The grinding teeth of the demon clamped down upon the farmer’s wrists and for a moment the high priest thought that Uldyssian had made a fatal error.

Instead, the savage teeth
shattered
like brittle glass against the human’s bare flesh.

Gritting his own teeth, Uldyssian pulled one hand free, then grabbed the gore-soaked pieces of beak from the first demon. Wielding the long, pointed fragments as he might a dagger, Uldyssian plunged them into the fleshy area just above his foe’s monstrous maw.

The demon squealed…then dropped in an ungainly heap. Thick, black fluid coursed down over its body from the great wound.

As that happened, the arrow in Malic’s back—forced by his will—popped free. The cleric felt the last of his wound seal shut. Some pain remained, but most of his weakness now came from the combination of his healing and his previous efforts to control the demons.

This was not how it was meant to be,
Malic thought as he watched the finish of his final demon. The Primus would be enraged with him. The high priest shuddered at what form that fury might take. He particularly recalled witnessing the form his master’s anger had taken against one of the previous high priests of another order. There had not been much left to dispose of afterward.

But what should have been a simple task was not. Malic still could not say where things had gone awry, but he could not help feel that there had been a piece in the game that not even the Primus had sensed, impossible as
that
should have been.

Uldyssian looked up at the cleric, and spreading across his sweat-soaked countenance was an expression that reminded Malic very much of the anger of which he had thought only the Primus capable.

Unmindful of his minions, Malic quickly sought to protect himself.

The force that struck him and his Peace Warders was a hundred times greater than that which had earlier thrown the warriors. This time, bodies went flying as if shot from catapults. Men screamed as they collided with tree trunks or tumbled through the woods. One Peace Warder struck so hard that the oak’s trunk cracked and the tree crashed into its neighbors.

Only Malic remained standing…if barely. He watched in disbelief as Uldyssian grimly strode toward him. There was blood in the farmer’s eyes and the cleric knew that his would-be prey intended something far worse than anything unleashed so far.

And knowing that, Malic did the wisest thing he could.

The dust devil whirled to life just in front of Uldyssian, swiftly raising up whatever loose fragments of dirt and debris it could. The makeshift storm filled Uldyssian’s face, momentarily blinding him.

The cleric concentrated…

Uldyssian swatted away at the thick cloud, angry at himself for having not expected something of the sort. Blinded, he prepared himself for the worst, certain that Malic had a second and far more insidious attack to follow.

But the dust settled almost immediately…revealing in its aftermath no sign of the high priest.

The son of Diomedes stood bewildered, awaiting some trick, yet Malic did not suddenly reappear and attack. Instead, slim hands took hold of him from behind and Lylia’s voice declared, “You have done it, Uldyssian! You have saved us all from the cleric and his demons!”