15
Fletcher didn’t bother hiding. Instead, he moved further from the lava, where the air was cooler and he could hear himself think. If he was lucky, the orcs would stop here, instead of following Sylva. She needed as much time as he could get her.
He could feel Athena struggling within him. She wanted to be summoned, to fight alongside him. He refused – better to keep the injured demon safe within him.
As for Ignatius, this time the Salamander was using up Fletcher’s mana as swiftly as he had in the lava pit beneath the pyramid, but somehow gaining it even faster from some unknown source. It was as if the demon was converting the volcano’s heat into mana.
Fletcher loosened his khopesh in his scabbard and pulled his pistols from their holsters. Three shots – relatively useless against the armoured skin of the Wyverns, but they might take out a shaman, if he aimed well. Perhaps even Khan himself.
He’d save Blaze for that one – the longer, rifled barrel would give him a more accurate shot. Then his death wouldn’t be for nothing.
At the thought of his death, Fletcher felt a tight knot of fear in the pit of his stomach. He fought to ignore it, even as it seemed to swell within him.
The first Wyverns swooped in on the other side of the lava pool, their dark shapes shimmering in the hot air. They must have been able to see him, yet none approached. Instead, the shamans dismounted and spread in a half circle on the other side of the bubbling lake, giving Fletcher a wide berth. Too bad they were out of pistol range.
It did not take long for Khan to arrive. He had only been waiting for them to secure the perimeter. Fletcher watched him land, his pale form stark against the black volcanic soil.
To his dismay, a single Wyvern and what looked like the entire flock of Shrikes, Vesps and Strixs flew on overhead, high above him. They had spotted Sylva – he only hoped she had enough of a head start to lose them.
Fletcher tried to power up his shield spell, but the pull of mana from Ignatius was too strong, so much so that even Athena’s supply had already been drained. Spellcraft would not help Fletcher now.
He heard Khan bark an order, and saw something strange happening across the lava. White light was streaming from the shamans, twisting across the earth and around the pit towards him. It was like a flood of opaque water, flowing a few inches above the ground. Shield spells.
Fletcher retreated, but in seconds it had reached him. For a moment he thought the wave was going to engulf his body, but then it reared up a few feet away and wrapped around him like a bubble, leaving him contained in a sphere of translucent light. He was trapped.
Athena would be able to break through it – the energy that demons were composed of tore shields apart – but it would take a few seconds for a demon of her size to get through one so thick. He sheathed Gale, his double-barrelled, shorter pistol, and curled his hand into a fist, so that his pentacle tattoo was hidden. It was the one card he had left to play.
It was only when the shield completely encompassed Fletcher that Khan began his approach, walking casually along the outer rim, his skirt fluttering in the hot air. He was holding the largest macana war club Fletcher had ever seen.
It was almost as tall as a man, but thinner than the broad clubs the orcs normally used, a single hand breadth wide rather than two. Instead of the usual rectangular shards of obsidian embedded intermittently along the sides, this club’s shards were aligned to leave a single sharp edge all the way around. It was a deadly weapon, and the orc handled it with practised ease, resting it on his shoulder as his long legs carried him onwards.
Fletcher’s breath caught in his throat, and he forced each one down in tight gulps of air. This was his enemy. His nemesis.
This was it.
The gun was slippery in his hands, though whether the sweat was from the heat or his nerves he could not tell. All he knew was that the shield that surrounded him was too thick to penetrate with a gunshot. He leaned his forehead against its wall, feeling the slippery cool of the spell on his skin.
All eight feet of the albino orc stopped beside the shield. He towered so high that Fletcher had to crane his neck to see his face. The red, baleful eyes stared down at him, with the twin tusks on either side of his mouth framing a cruel smile.
To Fletcher’s surprise, Khan dropped to one knee, so that the orc’s face was but a few inches from his own. Then, the orc spoke.
‘Just a boy,’ he growled, the words guttural in his mouth.
Fletcher gaped, and the orc unleashed a deep, throaty laugh at his captive’s expression.
‘Yes, I speak your tongue,’ Khan chuckled.
His speech was clearer than the matronly Mother’s had been; the smaller tusks he sported were less of an impediment.
‘How?’ Fletcher asked, the question leaving his mouth before he could bite it back.
‘The woman you stole from us,’ Khan said, pointing a finger accusingly at Fletcher. ‘A useful teacher,’ the orc continued, scratching his chin. ‘She thought we had her baby, so I said I would kill it if she refused. That was enough. Of course, when she outlived her usefulness, I told her we had killed it anyway. I’m sure you’ve seen what that did to her.’
He laughed again, but Fletcher noticed that he never broke eye contact. The orc was goading him. The words cut Fletcher to his very soul, but he forced down the anger. He needed the orc to lose his temper, lower the shield. Just long enough for him to get off a shot.
‘My name is Fletcher Raleigh and I am that child,’ Fletcher said, defiantly. ‘I slaughtered your goblins and buried your shamans’ demons in the rubble of your most holy place. I copied your keys to the ether and stole your slaves. Me. Just a boy.’
It was his turn to laugh, though it felt fake and forced.
Khan’s face was expressionless, but Fletcher could see he had struck a nerve, for the orc’s hand had tightened on his macana. Fletcher pressed on.
‘You brought all of your Wyverns to hunt me down. I bet our forces have been running rampant across your homeland, while we’ve led you on a merry chase across the face of another world. I bet—’
‘Enough!’ Khan slammed his fist into the side of the shield. It cracked ever so slightly. ‘Your mother was a dog that we fed on scraps,’ he hissed through the shield, spittle spraying from his mouth. ‘She barked for us and slept in her own filth. We beat her for the joy of it until she lost her senses, then we beat her some more. I piss on her memory.’
Fletcher recoiled from the sudden torrent of hatred, all pretence of his bravado forgotten.
As if surprised by his own outburst, Khan smoothed back his long hair and stepped back. There was a mad gleam in his eye and he broke into a smile.
‘Where is your demon?’ he asked.
‘Dead,’ Fletcher replied, his mind racing. ‘And she took many of your demons with her.’
It made sense too: that Fletcher was alone and had no mana to create a shield of his own.
‘The Canid, yes?’ Khan mused. ‘A shame, I was hoping …’
He paused, then asked, ‘Which of you has the Salamander? Is it your friend?’
He motioned in the direction that Sylva had flown. His question was casual, but he was watching Fletcher too closely.
It was all Fletcher could do not to flick his eyes to the pool of lava. Ignatius was still pulsing with mana. It was hard to think, for the demon’s consciousness was growing so large that Fletcher thought his mind would burst.
‘Well?’ Khan asked.
Fletcher didn’t answer, simply meeting Khan’s gaze as confidently as he could.
‘No matter, I shall find it soon enough,’ the orc declared.
‘Why do you care? You want another of them?’ Fletcher asked.
This time it was Khan’s turn to look surprised.
‘We saw you with it, in the central chamber. We were hidden in the beams above you.’
Khan wrinkled his nose with irritation.
‘Salamanders are my property, by birthright,’ Khan growled. ‘It is written on the walls of our temple.’
Fletcher eyed the crack in the shield. Another blow might allow Athena to break through fast enough. The hole would be sufficient for him to shoot Blaze through. He kept the pistol still by his side and went back on the offensive.
‘I have seen these carvings,’ Fletcher said, layering his voice with disdain. ‘From what I saw, a Salamander could belong to a freak like you or a human. Not that there’s anything special about Salamanders anyway. Powerful for a level-five demon, but a Wyvern would eat one for breakfast. Or a Canid for that matter.’
‘Do not speak of things you do not understand,’ Khan snarled. ‘The significance is not what a Salamander is, but what it can become.’
‘You’re talking out of your arse,’ Fletcher said, shrugging. ‘The heathen beliefs of savages.’
Khan bellowed with anger.
‘Do you know what a Drake is, boy? Or a Dragon?’ Khan asked, his eyes wild. ‘A human might be allowed to dream of controlling a Drake, the first stage in a Salamander’s metamorphosis. But the next – a Dragon. No, only one of my kind, a “freak” with my summoning level could do that. This is why the prophecy foretells a Salamander as the key to victory. And now I will take them both.’
Khan was babbling, the mask of reason gone to leave only raw insanity behind his red eyes.
‘I was born to destroy your kind. We will burn your cities to the ground and salt the earth behind us. Blood will run in the streets. None shall be spared, not the infants nor the elders. We will leave Hominum a wasteland. In a hundred years, nobody will remember your race even existed.’
Fletcher ignored him. Drakes? Dragons? He had never heard those words before. They were probably the orc’s ancient gods, or some such rubbish.
It was so hard to think. Ignatius’s consciousness was huge, as if the heat of the volcano had inflated the demon’s presence. Thankfully, it had stopped growing, having filled the constraints of Fletcher’s mind. Together, they had reached some milestone, but there was another one that Fletcher could feel Ignatius desiring, far beyond what he had already achieved. Fletcher felt like his mind would shatter if they continued on.
Not that it mattered. All that mattered was that he kill Khan. Perhaps if he tried to take mana from Ignatius again, or weakened the crack with two shots from Gale first …
As Fletcher tried to grasp his connection with Ignatius, Khan stood and sighed, his angry tirade seeming to have exhausted him. Then he grinned slyly as Fletcher’s hand strayed to his holstered pistol.
‘Perhaps you would like me to widen that crack for you, Fletcher,’ the orc said.
Fletcher’s eyes flicked guiltily away from the shield’s fissure, and Khan’s smile broadened. A stream of white light flowed from his long fingers, spreading another layer over the shield, until the surface was clouded white with the thickness of the sphere.
Fletcher watched Khan lift his curled fingers and slowly clench his fist. To Fletcher’s horror, the shield began to shrink, constricting and thickening as the white walls moved closer and closer. He smashed Blaze against the side, but it was as much use as punching a brick wall.
Then, something stirred in the recesses of Fletcher’s mind. Ignatius had sensed Fletcher’s panic – Athena’s consciousness seemed to be screaming, pulsing signals down her own connection with the Salamander. Ignatius was coming.
‘Wait!’ Fletcher shouted, pounding the slippery shield with his fists. ‘I’ll tell you who owns the Salamander.’
The shield stopped contracting, though Fletcher had to hunch to stop his head from scraping the top. He could sense Ignatius swimming towards the surface, powering through the lava with furious abandon. The demon would be on them in seconds.
‘Tell me,’ Khan growled, his baleful eyes shining ruby red through the opaque surface. ‘And I’ll make your death a quick one.’
Fletcher leaned in close until his face was inches from the orc’s own.
‘Me,’ Fletcher whispered.
Ignatius breached the lava in a burst of molten orange. Fletcher saw a flash of burgundy as the shield was slashed apart, felt a sinuous neck slip under his legs and heave him on to broad shoulders.
He swivelled and fired Blaze, saw the white orc jerked back by the impact of the bullet.
Then he was over the edge of the caldera and falling into empty space.