Michael A. Stackpole Read Free

with their steel teeth. Boring worms made of fire burned tunnels through his bones, and ice-winged wasps flew through the holes to build their frozen nests where their larvae could feast on his marrow. Each hair in his pelt became an agate needle that pierced his skin from the inside out.
    His brain boiled within his skull. His eyes saw colors that did not exist, and his ears heard those same colors as the death screams of creatures yet unborn. Unable to think, left only to sensing, dread swallowed him, terror crushed him, and hopelessness ground him into nothingness.
    A bone-blasting impact jarred him partway out of the nihilistic darkness closing over his being. In one second he felt pummeled as a shock wave bashed him from all sides, and the pressure closed a tight fist on him. Then, in the next, the closeness vanished, and he knew a moment’s freedom as the ball bounced up. He could tell, from its lightness and speed, that the first impact must have ruptured the skin and sprayed the liquid from it.
    The sphere turned over lazily and hit hard again. The stressed cross braces snapped and stabbed through the upper part of his right arm. He screamed aloud and yet louder as the sphere took to the air again and ripped the wood from the wound. He pulled his legs up and hugged his arms in, then waited for the earth to batter him one more time.
    His journeycraft slammed into the ground, and the lattice gave way. Splinters peppered him back and flank. The harness’s straps snapped, and he pounded the ground a second after his broken vehicle, then lay stunned as it lazily rolled over and the hide collapsed on top of him.
    The tingling weakness in his limbs distressed him at first. He remained very still and forced his mind clear. Slowly, in a deep voice that echoed within itself, even when whispering, he began to speak a spell. As he did so, a reddish gold aura surrounded him, and in seconds he had an accurate assessment of his wounds.
    Aside from the hole torn in his right arm, he had not been damaged. Vrasha allowed himself a smile, and instantly banished the concern he felt over the draining effort required to sustain it. Flicking out the claws on his left hand, he sliced through the thongs binding him into the harness. Once he had freed himself from its confines, he slashed away the hides covering him and tore off the blindfold.
    Kneeling amid the ruins of his vessel, he blinked blood from his eyes and looked up. He saw constellations gleaming in a black sky that no other Chaos demon had ever seen. He instantly forgot the pain in his arm and found a new energy begin to course through him. Cradling his right arm against his side, he forced himself to his feet and stood, bloody, battered, but not broken, in a world that had forever been denied to his kind.
    Vrasha stooped and recovered a section of wood no longer than his forearm. With his claws he carved in it the runes for the message “I Live,” then hurled it long and high back through the Chaos Wall.
    “I live.” He breathed the words out like a talisman against all possible evil. “I live, and everyone in Wallfar will soon learn to live in fear.”
    H ere we go again!
    I snapped my head to the right, flinging
    sweat from my eyes. The dagger in my left hand rotated spasmodically in time with my heaving chest. I held my rapier steady and pointed at my brother’s throat, but I saw no fear in his bullock brown eyes. Poised on the balls of my feet, I waited for him as the afternoon sunlight glinted from his sword.
    C’mon, Dalt. I know you. You’re bigger than me. You hate waiting. He licked his lips and screwed his face into a fierce, angry expression. Sweat dripped down his chest and arms, coating him as it did me. His right toe inched forward through the barnyard dust, presaging the attack I had expected all along. The point of his rapier dipped abruptly, aiming at my left thigh. He lunged.
    I let my sword point drop, then I pivoted on my right foot and slid back a