Wings Over Talera - Charles Allen Gramlich [37]
The Sporns were—vaguely—insectoid, with eight limbs and eight eyes in a chitinous face that otherwise seemed full of feelers. The antlers that I had first thought to mark a helm were part of their exoskeletons, like the horns of a rhinoceros beetle on Earth.
The creatures ran on their lower four limbs, carried weapons in their upper four. One of them reached me, and attacked. A lead-weighted mace hammered down at me; a curved sword, like a yataghan, slashed across toward my side. I ducked under and around, came up to slam my dagger in beneath my attacker’s mandible. The thing loomed over me by a foot but the power of the blow nearly tore its jaw off.
The being’s claws clicked at my shoulder and I slapped them aside, my other hand reaching, catching the Sporn’s bone-like wrist. I whirled, using my weight to tear the yataghan free of the dying thing’s grip, and continued the spin, sword coming around just above its thorax, slicing through the thin neck, sending the head leaping. A jet of silver blood fountained, prickling on my skin where drops struck me, the smell like a corrosive acid in my nostrils.
All around me were clanging blades and swift movements. I knew this kind of fighting. I’d been afraid of the laith. Not now. I dropped to one knee, hacked sideways at another Sporn’s lower limbs. Two of those parted beneath the blade’s curved edge and the creature dropped with a high pitched squeal, its other limbs thrashing. I silenced it with a stroke that cut through its body and struck sparks from the floor.
A shadow passed over me; a sudden breeze stirred my hair. I sensed it and then it was pushed out of my mind as Diken Graye yelled in pain and I jumped to my feet. A Sporn swung at me with its mace and the weapon grazed my thigh even as I tried to dodge, the glancing blow still enough to numb flesh and bone.
The pain enraged me. My hand shot out, locked around the creature’s throat. The Sporn’s feelers lashed and tore at my wrist, but with a snarl I dashed its domed skull open with repeated blows of the sword hilt. I hurled its corpse away and heard the clatter of it falling. Gore dripped from my fist and sword, and ran on my face. I could taste it, like burnt milk.
My eyes sought Diken Graye then. Found him. He was wounded, bleeding streams at shoulder and leg. But he stood over the sprawled form of Kreeg, fighting off two Sporns to save my friend’s life—if there were any life left to save. In that moment I forgave the mercenary for anything I’d once held against him, and I started forward, limping. But Valyan was there before me, taking out both foes from behind with quick movements of a sword that already streamed silver blood.
My gaze dropped to Kreeg. He wasn’t moving.
Then, in the streets beyond the temple, through the half fallen wall, I glimpsed torches blooming as the villagers were aroused and began to gather. We had to get Kreeg out of here. Ourselves as well. But then that breeze from above caressed me again. And with it came a grating noise from the direction of the altar. I turned. The old caretaker’s body was gone, but other items of interest had appeared.
Though the villagers would surely be angered at what we had done, it was clear now that the greatest threat to us lay within the temple. For the altar had shifted to reveal the flickering mouth of a tunnel. And a demon squatted at that mouth, lesser devils wheeling above it on membranous wings.
Worst of all, the demon had a rider, masked and gloved and clad all in yellow silk—with eyes that seemed to bleed.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THE RIDER
The winged devils had the faces of angels with horns. They had the wattled necks of vultures and