Bladesinger - Keith Francis Strohm [105]
As battered and bloodied as her friends looked, the summoned demon looked even worse. The matted feathers of its wings were rent with several holes, and even from her vantage point, Marissa could see gaping wounds that disgorged black blood and slime. The demon, however powerful, was the least of their problems, Marissa knew. Yulda, the renegade hathran, posed the truest threat. Anger washed over her, made more intense by the voice of the Staff of the Red Tree, whose agitated buzzing reached new heights. Ever since she had carried the staff, Marissa felt as if it had grown to be a part of her. Even now she wasn't sure where her own anger and loathing ended and the Staff of the Red Tree's powerful emotions began.
Readying her own power to assist Taenaran in his fight with Yulda, the druid sensed something she hadn't noticed in the first flushed moments of battle, or perhaps this was a gift from the Staff of the Red Tree itself. Either way, the druid could now make out a thin tendril of energy that erupted from Yulda's back, stretching deeper into the shadow of the cavern beyond. In each moment before the witch cast a spell, Marissa could see power travel along that tendril until it poured into Yulda's body.
Someone or something was feeding the withered crone power-power that threatened to destroy them and all of Rashemen. It took only a moment to call upon Rillifane's gift and transform herself. She felt the familiar dislocation as the shape within her mind took form. In three heartbeats her flesh had completed its transmogrification. The sounds of battle sounded impossibly distant to her new senses, more vibration than anything else. Deftly she scuttled forward on seven legs, maneuvering around the outer edge of the cavern, crawling closer and closer to where the tendril originated. When at last she stood before an alcove completely shrouded in darkness, Marissa returned to her original form.
Gripping the Staff of the Red Tree, she summoned light. At first it did little to pierce the veil of ebon darkness that hung over the alcove, but the voice of the staff swelled and the light grew in power. The darkness tore like thin vellum. When at last she could see what lay in the alcove, Marissa nearly cried out in horror.
An emaciated, wizened old man hung spread-eagled in the air by four obsidian chains. A writhing tendril of pure energy penetrated his skull, right between rheum-glazed eyes. The captive stared at her, pain obviously etched in every line of his face; his breath came in great ragged gasps. At once, Marissa knew that this was the vremyonni, the Rashemi wizard that Yulda had kidnapped. The wychlaran thought that Yulda had merely taken the wizard to glean vremyonni secrets. She knew now that the truth was much worse than that. Whatever spell had forged this unholy bond, it was sucking away at the wizard's power and feeding it to Yulda.
She reached out in an attempt to help free the enslaved wizard-and snatched her hand back in pain as it touched a wall of energy. Her fingertips still tingled with the force of the spell. Marissa tested the wall with elemental fire and the fury of winter itself, pouring forth her god's power in an attempt to shatter the defensive wall. The druid knew that breaking whatever bond joined the vremyonni and the hathran was the key to defeating Yulda.
"It… it's no use," the ancient wizard gasped as Marissa struck the magical wall with the full force of the Staff of the Red Tree. "The spell is wrapped in both of our power."
Marissa shook her head in denial. "Then how I can I free you?" she asked and felt desperation rise in her voice.
The wizard coughed and sputtered for a moment before answering. "Only my death can free me now."
"No," she nearly shouted, "there must be another way!" Destroying the telthor had been horrific enough; she would not kill another part of this wild land. Not if she could help it.
The vremyonni shook his head. "There is-" he started to say then gasped