betrayer (battle teaser)

Chapter Three:
Bloodbath
They were ready soon after, Kryshen grabbing his blades and chain mail, Zaphh grabbing Stormscape and Syn, opting to leave his staff for his open hands, grabbed the boy, whose name was Benjamin, and was quite able with a bow.  The boy had been incessant on returning with them so he could pay back the demons, so Syn had cast powerful defensive magic on him.  Now they stood at the lip of a ravine, a blue, wavering portal in front of them, ready to charge into a village full of demons.  Syn sighed and wove for Kryshen to step in, Zaphh followed closely; with Velix on his heels, Ben followed him, his short bow clenched in one hand.  Syn, alone now took a steadying breath and followed his companions.  He always enjoyed the sensation of instantaneous travel, his body fell through a substance that felt like water, but was actually ether and for a moment, he felt his soul connect to all planes of existence, from the windswept dunes of Ghenna to the holy energy of the positive energy planes to the mixed powers of the borderlands, the plane that connected to all others.  Suddenly he realized what was happening, if he were in the borderlands while he was everywhere else, he would loop his essence around the planes; he would be in the same spot beside himself, and probably a million of himselves.  That sort of power was likely to drive him insane, or kill him outright.  He groped for the material plane and felt his essence being sucked through a rift.  He felt his soul slipping further into the abyss and he screamed in denial…and then he emerged beside the death slaad.  He breathed a sigh of relief and looked around, expecting to see concerned glances.  There were none.  He could only surmise that his struggle had actually not taken the eternity he thought it had.  He sighed again and looked on to the ruins of the town.
Flames ran unchecked and not a building was left unscathed, as they watched, a huge demon with four massively built arms approached a home and grabbed the wall.  With a roar his lower arms punched into the wall with crushing blows.  He burst through with the third punch and extended his left longer arm into the hole.  He fished around and eventually pulled out a screaming woman.  As they watched he lifted her to his mouth and tore off her legs with his teeth.
Benjamin vomited and Kryshen had to look away as well.  A more pressing problem presented itself to them then:  what were they trying to accomplish?  They could not possibly defeat all those enemies, so why were they there?
“Well, what do we do now?”  Kryshen asked when they had stood there for three minutes.
“We fight.” Syn said determinedly, having fully recovered from his earlier brush with death he was feeling a tad invincible, and he had a crazy idea, one that might actually work.
They then worked out battle plans.  They would work their way in to the town square, the centre of the village.  They would draw in every demon available and then Syn would cast his most powerful spell, a spell that created a void for all extra dimensional creatures.  Zaphh didn’t need to worry though.  He wasn’t really an outsider anymore, Kusaliin had made sure of that, and thus he wouldn’t be affected by the spell.  The only flaw was that the spell would require ten minutes to cast, a long time when you were being pressed by a veritable army, and you were just five people.
Kryshen grinned to Zaphh, this would be fun.
They approached cautiously, but may as well have gone in screaming, because their presence was already known.  They rushed to the town wall, a ten-foot mass of stone that was a proud invention of the people.  Syn offered a spell to get through the wall, but Kryshen shook his head, better that they climb, demons could smell magic.  Kryshen leapt to grab the ridge but suddenly he was falling backward as the wall next to him exploded, destroyed by a fist of a great demon.  The creature was at least as tall as two humans and built like one who had spent his life lifting gold blocks.  His torso was marked by hundreds of scars and a single eye permeated his head, his tiny head.  He wore a loincloth and bore a massive trunk of an oak that served as his weapon.  Before he could react to the obviously surprising appearance of the four humanoids and massive tiger Zaphh muttered an incantation and the truck suddenly warped the tip seeping to the ground at an almost ninety degree angle.  The stupid creature looked at his weapon in confusion, and realized it had become stuck to his arm.  As he pondered how to remove it Kryshen leapt to his feet and ran up his arm, dragging Ironis along his forearm, slicing him deeply from wrist to elbow.  He leapt off the beast’s arm just as the other one came around to launch him off.  He landed on its shoulder and then an arrow thudded into its sternum, he looked to Ben with sincere admiration: that was a nice shot with an unenchanted shortbow.  The creature howled in agony and three darts of pure energy slammed it in the chest, toppling it.  Kryshen held his balance perfectly riding him to the ground and then, leaping atop his head, he slammed both daggers in the demon’s lone eyeball.  A black flash accompanied the stab of Vescal as the blood of the Cyclops began to seep out of the pommel and the demon began to dematerialize, the demonic sword consuming its essence.  It seemed to flake way in black pieces, each flowing into the blade of Kryshen’s dagger.  Within a few seconds, the blade had absorbed the entire creature and Kryshen’s arm was coated in fast drying blood.  The blade radiated a black aura and a small pearl of black had blossomed in the hollow of the pommel.  The others looked at him with their mouths agape.  “What?  Never seen my sword eat before?”
They were in the town then, seemingly unchallenged, but all around them, dark shadows began to creep from the walls.
The screams of the few survivors echoed around them.  The smell of blood stung their nostrils, but still they pushed on and when the walls of surrounding buildings came alive with creatures they simply drew their weapons and prepared for a slaughter fest.
Hundreds of small blue-skinned demons ran along the walls and roofs of the homes and leapt down among them.  Creatures of all shapes and sizes flooded in from the ally ways.  Some demons swept down from the sky.  They knew they could not possibly defeat all the demons; there was no retreat, and only one solution…
“Fight through them” Kryshen yelled, “Break their ranks and make for the town centre, fight!  For our lives!”
  He ended by charging to the northern portion of the circle, but fell away as a bead of fire flew over his shoulder.  It hit the ranks of demons and exploded, tendrils of flame extending for forty feet in all directions.  Nearly one hundred demons fell.  A roar echoed out and Velix leapt over him spewing a line of ice from his mouth, felling more.  More devastating was his pounce, which scattered demons left and right.  Zaphh slammed his staff against the stone and suddenly a mob of creatures went down, being sucked into ground that was suddenly very soft.  It also hardened suddenly, trapping nearly thirty creatures almost up to their necks in solid stone.  Kryshen regained his feet just as the demons regrouped.  Charging at the defensive triangle the mages and Ben had formed.
Kryshen saw a swarm overrun their position and he yelled in denial, until he saw them, standing on a roof, not so far away.  He chuckled and rushed to the line, where Velix was thrusting himself forward and back, and now demons were more intent on getting away than fighting the devastating tiger.  Kryshen leapt into a throng of enemies, dretches mostly, the blue-skinned lesser demons slashing at him with their sharp claws.  He went into a deadly dance, then, spinning his blades and slicing hands, appendages, anything that came near enough to be hit, was hit.  Somehow, no claw found him then.  The throng scattered and the night elf emerged, covered in blood.
With a beat of their unholy wings, Kryshen was faced with two more enemies, these far more powerful.  They resembled women with raven wings the size of an angel’s, they were not clothed, not armoured, but the flaming longswords they carried seemed like a good defence.  They both raised their arms to summon more of their kin.  But both spells failed.  The comely women screamed in outrage and charged.  The left stabbed forward and Vescal knocked it away, he wanted to counter but the other one was there, pressing the attack, Ironis worked hard to fend off her attacks.  But each attack brought their sword’s flames near to his skin, because of the shortness of his blades.  Blisters rose on his hands and forearms, he realized he needed to end this battle, Velix could not hold off the horde forever.  He crossed his arms and leapt backwards, flipping end over end quite gracefully.  He sheathed his daggers and drew a shuriken and tossed it towards the nearest Erinyes.  It thudded into her and her frame exploded with electricity.  Her frame arched backwards and he unsheathed Vescal, whipping it into her forehead.  The bolts ceased and her form toppled to the stone.  Now there was only one.  The blade he had thrown reappeared and he brought the offence to the demon.  He stabbed ahead twice with his left hand, once powerfully with his right and then spun a circle crossing his blades to finish.  She blocked the first three strikes, but his cross left her defenceless, she blocked his right hand blade, but his left blade took her throat, severing arteries and nearly decapitating her.  The blood sprayed against his chest as the body fell to the ground.
The threesome on the rooftops were sorely pressed, creatures swept down from above and attacked them, Zaphh had dismissed his staff to his extradimensional holding place and his newly materialized blades and Ben’s unrelenting stream of arrows relentlessly cut them down, but still they came.  Ben’s quiver never emptied, Syn’s enchantment ensured that, and all in attendance had to admit that, for one only twelve years old, he fought brilliantly.  Then, a vrock, a blue skinned flying demon, dove towards Ben, and he offered no conventional defence.  The vrock screeched in victory.  Then slammed into a blue magical shield, it dropped to the stone, its neck broken.  If it was not dead, it was when Ben put an arrow between its eyes.  He raised his bow and took aim again.
Kryshen was engaged with more dretches, they were almost at the end of the demon line now, when suddenly, there was a much more concerning issue: a glabrezu that did not look happy to see him.  Glabrezus were huge, black, skinned-skinned demons with two huge arms topped by crab-like pincers that could snap a man in two, easily.  Below those massive pincers was another set of arms, regular human-like arms, albeit arms that were muscular and possessed of strength rivalling the strongest of giants, ones that denied him the ability to move inside the reach of the longer, more deadly arms.  Also, he was completely engaged by the swarming dretches all around him, denying him the advantage of mobility.  He saw another bead of fire come from the rooftops, straight towards him, he tried to get out of the way, but there were too many demons.  Did Syn not see him?  It was bad.  The fireball exploded, and Kryshen thought he was dead.  But it didn’t even come close to him, the fire rushed out to him, and parted around him, leaving him in a pocket of warm, but harmless air, the dretches around him however, were destroyed.  Now he was left to face the very angry, dog-faced glabrezu.
Zaphh knew he was not helping on the roof, the wizard and the boy were perfectly safe with their magic, but Zaphh boasted no such protections and it caused his allies to be more concerned about his safety more then theirs, or that of Kryshen and Velix’s.  With a wave to his companions he jumped from the ledge and into the throng of demons, searching for a way to reach Kryshen before the Glabrezu tore him limb from limb.  His conjured blades whiling, slicing through both the wall and demonic flesh, Zaphh made steady progress towards Kryshen and his heightening battle.
Kryshen dodged left as another pincer slammed down, cracking the stone of the road.  He rushed forward, hoping for an attack, but the small arms were there, punching at him and forcing him to again roll away.  The towering twelve-foot creature began casting and Kryshen launched Ironis in a spiralling arc, to come to a rest in the demon’s forehead.  Pained and angry, but hardly dead as he should have been the beast howled and launched a frenzy of attacks, sweeping its pincer-like claws in horizontal arcs that would have sliced the shadow blade in half, had it hit him.  Activating a powerful ring he wore on his right hand, Kryshen teleported behind the glabrezu.  Finally, being in position for a strike, he rushed a head, summoning his dagger and hoping to catch the demon unawares, but it was he who was surprised.  Somehow the glabrezu sensed him and he whipped around, one claw at waist height.  And there was no way he could dodge.
Zaphh was in dire straights, the demon swarm around him seemed to be getting thicker, not the way he had hoped.  He cast quickly, waving his arms and dodging the attacks of what seemed to be hundreds of the little monsters.  He finished the cast and a white form materialized twenty feet away. Its form was followed by two more and as they gained cohesion, the cries of demons changed form shouts of battle to ones of pain and horror.  Three Tyrannosauruses had materialized in their midst.  The massive green striped dinosaurs went into a rampage, scattering dretches, and flying vrocks alike.  Finally, the demons seemed to have receded minimally.  He activated another spell and charged through, suddenly twice as large as he had been a moment before.  He closed the gap between him and the glabrezu just fast enough to see the dull side of the glabrezu’s pincer slam into Kryshen’s ribcage and send him flying fifteen feet to crash into and through the side of a building.  Howling in denial Zaphh cast again, this time conjuring a mighty earthquake to rock the town square where they were.  Rocks erupted, exploded from the earth, tossing demons about like paper dolls.  Cracks rushed from Zaphh in four directions, opening into pits without a bottom, hundreds of demons tumbled inside.  As the earth turned, Zaphh began to cast again, focusing his entire will to not botch the complex chants and somatic components.  Above him, the wind began to howl, still he urged it faster.  He saw a vrock fly past him, its wings useless, to crash fatally into a wall.  He saw small dretches blown hopelessly towards the monumental fissure in the ground.  He saw the glabrezu that had killed his friend stumble to its knees and slide towards the crevice, howling even as it plummeted to its death.  He saw Velix dig his claws into the stone, halting his movement.  But as he turned to the roof on which Syn and Ben stood, he cried out in horror, dismissing his spell, for there were his two companions, Syn hanging on to the ledge for dear life and Ben holding onto Syn’s ankle. As his conjured wind dissipated, Syn fell towards the wall, Ben following close behind.  They hit the wall and held, Zaphh breathed a sigh of relief and shrank to his normal size.
The demons were gone, simply gone.  As were his summoned dinosaurs.  Even the bodies of the dead had disappeared; the dretches who had been lodged in the stone now left depressions in the shape of their bodies.  The dust and debris from the destruction gave the town an eerie, haunted feel.  Zaphh rushed over to Syn and helped him down; Velix joined them, growling low.
“I, know, I don’t like it either.” Zaphh said, “We need to find Kryshen.” He continued, turning to the wizard.
“Is he even alive?” Syn said, throwing Zaphh off his guard
“Yes… of…of course he is, if we can reach him his is.”  Zaphh stuttered
“Zaphh, my friend,” Syn said, putting his hand on the slaad’s shoulder “we are weary, I have expended much of my magic, as have you, our enchantments are worn out, Kryshen is beyond our help, I saw the strike of the glabrezu, he is dead, we cannot help him, his soul will rest easier in the afterlife if he knows we did not lose our lives to find his dead body.
“Damn you religious types and your afterlife stuff.  He will rest easier if we leave him, even if he may still be alive?  He has hundreds of years lift to live, wizard, we cannot leave him, as his friend, even if you leave, I will go to him, even if it costs me my eternal soul, I will not sacrifice his body to the abyss.  Do you know what they do to you there, wizard, they make swarms of centipedes, they place them on your skin and they burrow, oh so…”
Syn stopped him with a wave of his hands, surrendering easily; he hadn’t really planned to abandon his friend, he just wanted reassurance, “Fine, we will go.  To our deaths perhaps, perhaps to the life of our friend, but we will go, slaad, we will go.” Syn was not easily spooked, but the disappearance of the demons had been more than a little disconcerting.  Where were they?  Were they even there in the first place?
Zaphh nodded curtly and conjured his blades again and started off, Syn followed him closely and Ben stood behind him, gripping his shortbow tightly.  The boy’s face bore a curious expression, one part complete terror, one part determination and one part sadness.  Zaphh’s body displayed hundreds of scratches and gouges, blood ran freely from a dozen large gashes, but if he was hurt in the slightest, he did not show it.  His strides were full of purpose and took him directly towards where the body of his friend lay.  He ice tiger followed closely behind him, bearing his fair share of wounds.  Syn could only shake his head at the slaad’s strength and toughness.
The wall of the building was blackened by fire, the hole Kryshen’s body had made was out of reach, so they continued around.  The wall was forty feet long and the short wall connected to it was twenty, a small door rested in the middle of the wall and flames licked through the broken window and moved the nametag hung by a brass pole ever so slightly.  The name above the door was the Fox Tail.
Zaphh carefully opened the door and immediately spotted his friend.  The skilled druid could verily see his flight through the wall.  The debris had scattered across the floor and his body lay half on and half off a table, his legs bending at awkward angles at the knees and his torso looking strangely compressed from the crushed ribs.  By some grace of Mother Nature, he had not fallen face first.
Zaphh rushed to his friend’s side and Syn followed, though Ben remained at the door, his face sullen.  Velix guarded the door, just in case.  They quickly surmised that he was still alive by his groans of pain.  His eyes repeatedly rolled up into his head then back again and the area around him was steeped in blood, he needed healing magic, badly.  But their only healer was lost in this town somewhere, or dead, though Zaphh refused to consider that possibility.  Zaphh had a few minor healing spells, but the most they could do for him would be to repair a few of his broken bones and rouse him into consciousness, and that would just cause him a ridiculous amount of agony.  He lifted his friend’s legs gingerly to the table and let him rest in a somewhat comfortable position.
The slaad turned suddenly and spoke, “Boy, is there an alchemy or potion shop in this town?”
“Yes.” Ben’s voice was misted with tears.
“Where?” Zaphh asked sharply, not noticing of the child’s despair.
“Two streets away.”
Zaphh immediately started for the door, but Syn held him at bay, “Ben, how do you know where the shop is?  Do you practice the Art?”
“It was my father’s shop.”
“Ben, I am sorry, I did not mean to…”
“It’s fine,” the young human, said, somewhat irritably, “you need potions for your friend, I understand, this will be my father’s last accomplishment, we should hurry.”
Zaphh nodded and stepped out from the door and Ben followed, his gait stiff, Syn wondered if he had offended him more than he thought.  As Syn reached the door he looked back and quickly looked to Kryshen’s motionless body, he prayed that the night elf would survive long enough.  He felt an anxiety welling above his belt and he shook his head, it couldn’t be that bad, he would survive.  He had to believe that.
Just as Syn pulled himself outside, there was a loud crash and an explosion of heat from the door.  Syn looked back, scrutinizing the room.  It didn’t take him long to spot the disturbance.  A huge flaming log had fallen from the ceiling to come crashing to a rest not five feet from Kryshen’s head, about halfway up the tavern.  The log was blackened at one end and the flames leapt high.  The flaming side was not near Kryshen, so it wouldn’t bake him like a cake, but the log revealed one serious problem: the tavern was burning to the ground.  Syn only then noticed the explosive hole in the ceiling and the blackened walls.  There was a very real threat of the tavern completely collapsing, meaning the death of Kryshen.  Syn turned to the death slaad and the small human child beside him, “I will quench the fires here, go, retrieve the potions, we can afford no longer delay.”  Zaphh nodded and pulled Ben through the door.
Syn turned to the room and began casting one of his few remaining spells.  He had not had time to prepare any spells this morning, so he had to rely on the spells he had prepared the day before, which was, unfortunately not the perfect repertoire for today’s events.  He finished his spell and most of the fire blinked out of existence.  That should spare the tavern awhile longer, Syn thought to himself and he went to attend to Kryshen.
Kryshen slipped in and out of consciousness rapidly, but he was never lucid, so Syn could do nothing for him, he was no healer.  Many of Kryshen’s ribs were completely shattered and two protruded angrily from his skin, the white of the bone showing painfully against his black skin.  In retrospect, Syn could hardly believe that he had planned to leave him Quit it, he scolded himself, you would never abandon him if there were any hope.  And yet here he lies, not quite dead and you were going to leave him. No!  I needed reassurance, that’s all.  Syn worked himself out of his worry and looked around the tavern.  His gaze came to rest on the two blackened tables past the flaming log.  The tables had moved at least five feet and then were destroyed, and there was an explosion hole above them, this was the site of a battle.  The animation of objects was by no means and easy spell, and experienced caster had created these two, and whatever creature pinned beneath had managed to cast a particularly powerful fireball to destroy them both.  Syn noticed then the chunks of blackened meat around the room, he had mistaken them for wood, now he knew better, something had filled this tavern with flames that had not destroyed wood.  Syn knew of a spell that did such a thing, but only one caster who could accomplish it: “Alexia.”  He whispered.
He hurried past the flaming log and discovered two destroyed creatures he recognized, barely, as Inevitables.  One was an indistinguishable mass of melted steel, and the other was missing a leg and its head, as well a fair share of its torso.
Syn was calling for Alexia now and he had to restrain himself by leaping for joy, she was alive, she had to be.  His joy stopped like a rock when he saw her discarded bow.  His joy melted into a feeling of pure dread.  She never would have willingly discarded that bow.  The darkwood longbow she had nicknamed Firas after a red dragon because of its explosive properties, had been enchanted by Syn and although she always said that it cost her and arm and a leg to enchant, it had really only cost her one thing: her love.  He had enchanted it for her in exchange for a single kiss, and their first.  The memories brought a surge of emotions and flashes of their relationship.  But the memories were quickly overwhelmed by horror and anger that she had discarded it, then by a surge of fear that she may have had no choice.
His gaze slowly rose to the fallen staircase.  At first he saw nothing, then he saw a feather, like that of an angle wing.  He looked closer and saw her.  He cried out in horror.  He knew that there was no way she could have survived that.  His mind screamed in denial because his mouth wouldn’t.  He found himself open mouthed, and then falling to his knees.  His mind wouldn’t stop denying it, he found himself mouthing and groaning the word no over and over.  Somewhere deep inside him he heard an animalistic snarl and he reached forward and slammed both fists on the staircase and the agony jarred him back to his senses.  He realized that there might be a bleak hope of saving her and he rose casting.  He suddenly felt prodigiously strong, as strong as a giant, and he put two hands on the staircase and lifted, the strain threatening to snap his arms like the twigs they were.  He heard a grating, agonizing squeal and the wood separated, and the staircase rose about two feet.  He pushed with his whole body, recalling the memories of their relationship to aid his fire and the wood cracked and rose higher.  Resting the staircase on his shoulder he grabbed Alexia and pulled her out.  He transferred the stairway to his arms and suddenly his arms gave out and the staircase came crashing down, missing his face and then his toes by inches.  The near-death experience hardly seemed to affect him and he looked over to Alexia as if it had never happened.  He took a deep breath and began his most powerful spell.
He stood wide legged and began by waving his arms in a wide circle.  This opening cast was simply to connect himself to the Astral plane and focus his mind.  Once that was complete he began casting in earnest, he began with a steady chant.  Magical light danced on his shoulders and head and a disembodied wind flipped his long white hair over his shoulders and ruffled his robe.  A feeling like a light shock coursed pleasantly over his skin and a low whine came into existence.  A halo of brilliant white light materialized around him and the whine increased.  Slowly his feet left the earth and he hovered two feet in the air.  Now the whine was deafening and incessant and Syn’s chanting increased.  Blue bolts appeared around him in a ten-foot aura and his eyes glowed golden; his chanting gained volume and tempo.  The pleasant goosebump raising power along his skin changed into a full blown, spine-curving blast of ecstasy and flames danced along his arms.  He drew his arms toward his chest and pushed them out to the sides.  Here he drew two pentagrams in ethereal green light, then he drew three more, each contributing to a picture of an overall larger pentagram.  His chanting abruptly stopped and the entire room was filled with pure white light.  Hovering there like some idol to a beautiful God he whispered the final words to his spell: “I wish Alexia Velcor were alive and in perfect condition.”  The room went deadly silent and all Syn’s magical effects faded into his being.  The light seemed to recede into him and he was left standing on the wooden floor, but not for long.  There was a whine of power and Syn’s face contorted in agony, god-like magiks building in him.  He realized that he could contain it no longer and he released it, and the magic exploded out of him like some deadly spell.  Bolts of purple electricity flew from him and he rose into the air again, his body shaking erratically and his face bulging.  He screamed and the bolts turned to Alexia.  They hit her body and her wounds began to disappear, the bones disintegrated and reappeared in their proper place and the blood receded into her flesh, flesh that was rapidly losing its red or black tinge.  Syn went silent and then gave one last great shriek before the bolts ceased suddenly and he drifted to the ground.  Alexia jerked and her eyes opened, just in time to see Syn touch down, and then fall face first to the floor.