The Borchstog hordes roared fervently, and Mogra smiled, showing her fangs. The Dark One had an armored arm about her waist, and two of hers rested on his back.

  The two Dark Gods—mother and son, husband and wife, father and mother of demons—stood there at the brink of the terrace overlooking their hordes, their children. They were at the apex of their power, the height of their success. They stood, side by side, the wind whipping them, rain lashing them, lightning illuminating them, basking in the worship of their creatures, creatures who at any moment would be given the order to go north, to sweep all opposition aside, to bring ruin to the world.

  What was Baleron waiting for? The two gods’ backs were turned; he’d get no better chance than this.

  But if he acted, there could be no going back.

  If he did nothing, he and Rolenya could yet wed and live out their lives, immortals both, as the rulers of some distant land—at least, after he finished playing general; the notion was not unattractive. Indeed, he longed for it, for spending eternity with his beloved.

  He placed his hand on Rondthril’s hilt.

  Coldness exploded in his chest. Icy tendrils shot out from it and drove deep into his soul, into his mind.

  You fool! he heard in his head. Slaying Gilgaroth is impossible. You’ll only earn his wrath. If you think the plight of humans will be grim now, just wait!

  It was a strong voice, a voice that brooked no argument, a voice that boomed so loudly within him that there was not room for any other.

  And yet one came. It was not so loud, for it was not woven over eons with the power of a god, but it was no less strong, and it said, No.

  Baleron said No. Without the Moonstone, you are weak, and I am free.

  I am not as weak as you think. You WILL obey.

  He thought of the Flower of Itherin and tried to summon its might, if any still remained within him. He felt it stir.

  The explosion of ice shrieked and writhed, and that freezing tendril withered. The Flower could not kill the coldness, but it could distract it while he did what he needed to do.

  Baleron stepped forward and drew Rondthril with a glorious ring. The battle still raged within him, but he ignored it.

  Time seemed to slow.

  His guards were so entranced at being this close to their Lord and Lady at such a momentous occasion that they did not immediately notice their prisoner’s movements. Only Ustagrot felt something amiss, and he looked over his shoulder, just in time to see the Fanged Blade coming around in a bright, steely arc—

  Baleron cut off the necromancer’s head with savage glee, and the head and body fell in separate directions. The neck stump spouted a geyser of black blood as the body fell.

  Hearing the prince’s voice with godly hearing, the Dark One himself began to turn around. Lightning sizzled behind him, and rain beat on his black, spiked armor. His veil of shadow deepened, and from it his eyes burned redly. He was huge, a towering god against a puny mortal.

  As soon as Baleron completed the arc that severed Ustagrot’s head, he reversed his grip on Rondthril, holding it by the blade in his naked hand, slicing into his tender flesh. He grit his teeth and drew the sword over his head, cocking his arm for the throw that would determine the fate of the world.

  The Dark One had half spun around when Baleron released the sword. Rondthril spun, end over end, flashing in the night, spitting tongues of lightning reflected off of its steely surface. Rain lashed it.

  Rolenya’s blue eyes widened.

  The Borchstog guards wheeled on Baleron, but their attention was so fixed on the flying sword that they did not immediately attack him, giving him the chance to wrench a blade loose of its owner’s grasp. His hand bled freely.

  Mogra still faced the worshipful horde, basking in their love and awe.

  Throgmar had seen movement on the terrace and had witnessed Ustagrot’s decapitation without stirring. When he saw Rondthril hurled towards his father, he could have sent a lance of flame to incinerate the sword or knock it off course, but he did not. Baleron had not thought he would; after all, he was the Betrayer.

  Rondthril flew ...

  Rolenya gasped. She’d known this would happen, but it still seemed to come as a surprise to her.

  Baleron, who’d been planning his next steps while listening to Mogra’s and Gilgaroth’s speeches, slashed out with his new weapon, spearing a Borchstog through the throat. With a boot, he kicked another off the terrace. Yet even his eyes were fixed on Rondthril!

  Gilgaroth was nearly fully turned around when the Fanged Blade struck him, and he had one arm half-raised. If the sword had struck that arm, it might have been deflected, and Baleron’s plan would have failed utterly.

  Instead, Rondthril, the Fanged Blade, pierced the Dark One’s armor at the chest and drove through the Shadow’s corporeal body with mindless hunger. Baleron doubted he could have achieved this if his Doom had still been in full force and not the fading remnant it was now. If the Moonstone had not been destroyed, this act would not have been possible. He would have been overwhelmed with pain and would have sunk to his knees, as the Dark One’s mercy, or lack thereof, and that would have been that.

  But the Moonstone was gone, destroyed with, Baleron was certain, great sacrifice, giving him this chance. This one moment. And he would make the best of it.

  Rondthril impaled Gilgaroth through the black heart and buried itself all the way to the hilt so that its tip, dripping black blood, stuck out below the Omkaroggen’s left shoulder blade.

  Gilgaroth, the Dark One, the Wolf, the Shadow, threw back his head and roared. His living shadow began to thin. The tower shook, and the terrace trembled.

  Mogra began to turn around, her violet eyes widening.

  Light, reddish gold light, poured from Gilgaroth’s wounds, as if the very fires of the Second Hell were being let out, and perhaps they were. Indeed, seconds later a plume of flame shot out from around Rondthril’s hilt and another from around its tip. The Dark One’s inner fires were being loosed. When he opened his mouth to scream, more red-gold light poured out.

  The tower trembled violently.

  Baleron could not believe it. It had worked! His plan had worked! It crossed his mind that in a way Ungier, even in death, had finally struck at his father. Baleron silently thanked the souls of Logran and Elethris for preparing him, for giving him hope.

  Gilgaroth just stood there, roaring, as flame jetted from his wounds. His armored hands gripped Rondthril’s handle ... and tried to pull it out.

  Baleron blinked. No, he thought. Gods, no ...

  Gilgaroth still lived. Ungier was not mighty enough to craft a weapon that could slay his father.

  Baleron had been a fool.

  While Gilgaroth tried to remove Rondthril, Mogra turned about to face the prince, and lightning danced in her eyes.

  Chapter 12

  Baleron did not, could not, stop in his fight with the Borchstogs. He slashed one across the face. Hurled another from the terrace. He dodged one heavy axe, which thunked into the chest of another, spraying blood. He tackled the one who had struck at him and flung him from the terrace. The Borchstog screamed as he fell.

  Baleron turned to fight the next one.

  This was a battle he knew to be futile and pointless—there was a whole army against him, plus two gods!—yet he could not just surrender. He could not just die.

  As he parried the thrust of a Borchstog’s sword, sweat flying from his hair, his face contorted in a grimace of concentration, part of his mind reflected that soon he would be with Salthrick, burning in the fires of Illistriv forevermore.

  * * *

  Rolenya, seeing the desperateness of their plight, picked up the sword of a fallen Borchstog. She was far from a trained fighter, but she was motivated.

  A gaggle of Borchstogs clamored around Baleron, who was fending them off breathlessly, weaving his sword in a fury of bright, bloody arcs and thrusts.

  One Borchstog sword embedded itself accidentally in another Borchstog’s head, and Baleron kicked the body away. Rolling, he knocked another of the hellspawn off its feet. His sword darted up, spearing another through the gut. He fought as if a man possessed, though surely it was quite the opposite.

  The soldiers ignored Rolenya. She determined to teach them that this was unwise.

  Gritting her teeth, she plunged her blade into the side of one of the Borchstogs battling Baleron. The Borchstog gasped, spasmed on the end of her sword, and slumped to the floor. She yanked at her weapon, trying to pull it free, but it seemed to be stuck; it had lodged between two ribs.

  She grunted, trying to pull it loose. Cold rain lashed her, pasting her dress to her skin. Blood from the Borchstog had sprayed her, and she felt sick.

  * * *

  Mogra turned from Baleron to her beloved, Rondthril still sticking from his breast. He needed her attention. She gripped Rondthril’s handle and pulled. Reluctantly, as if it had been feasting on his essence and was not quite sated, it moved, and at last she pulled it free. A gout of flame licked from the wound, then subsided.

  The goddess stared at the sword’s black-blooded, smoking length, while her Son, her Husband, leaned against her for support.

  “How could this happen?” she demanded, then frowned. “This is Ungier’s blade.”

  With a moan, Gilgaroth said, “Treachery.”

  Infuriated, she flung the Fanged Blade at Baleron, but he was rolling on the floor locked in combat with a Borchstog, and the sword missed him, bounced off the terrace, and skipped into the interior of the Main Hall.

  Mogra screamed in rage. Her eyes fell on Rolenya.

  * * *

  The scream curdled Rolenya’s blood, and she shivered at the hate in the Spider Queen’s voice.

  She turned to see Gilgaroth, one hand over his punctured heart, sink heavily to his knees. The other hand tore his helmet loose from his shadow-veiled head.

  Rolenya succeeded at last in jerking her sword free from the Borchstog and turned to face the dying Gilgaroth, if dying he was, the one who had both killed her and raised her from the dead, the one who had presided over her many afterlives—the one who’d eaten her, savaged her, threatened her, and loved her, and listened enraptured as she sang.

  Gilgaroth’s eyes stabbed into her. He became her entire world. The sounds of battle faded, and she no longer felt the rain on her skin.

  “Rolenya,” he said, shaping the word as though it were a foreign delicacy. He said it as though he were a lover betrayed, and indeed she felt a pang of guilt.

  She pushed his influence away, though it took all her effort. Behind her, she could hear the surviving Borchstogs continue to slice at Baleron, who must still be rolling about on the floor, but she could tell from the sounds of metal on metal that their weapons were striking the terrace, not him.

  Rolenya wanted to help him, but she found her eyes irresistibly drawn back to Gilgaroth. His flaming gaze bound her to the spot.

  “My songbird ... Did you know?”

  “I ... I ...” She could not get the words out. For some reason, part of her actually felt bad about betraying Gilgaroth. She had to shake herself. “You’re evil!” she said. “You’re an abomination! You’re the enemy of everything I could ever love. Now lay down and die!”

  He howled in anguish.

  “This cannot be,” said Mogra.

  “But it is!” the princess said. “Your time is over.”

  A terrible wrath seized Mogra as she fully comprehended the enormity of the events around her, and she stepped forward, fuming in her anger, toward Rolenya, who still held her sword, though limply, in her hands.

  Rolenya dropped the weapon in her fright, and it clattered to the slick stone. Stifling a cry, she fell back before the advance of the Omkarog. There was no way she could win. She was dead.

  Mogra’s shadow fell over her. The goddess opened her mouth as if to release a roar but instead webbing flew out from the back of her throat and shot through the air; the sticky strands knocked Rolenya to the terrace and bound her there. The princess struggled, but the silk was too strong.

  The air flickered and Mogra shifted forms, changing into the giant arachnid form of the Spider Goddess. The platform was more than large enough to accommodate her. Now twenty-five or thirty feet tall, an undefeatable monster whose hulking shape blotted out the electric-ribboned clouds above, she stalked towards the princess.

  Rolenya struggled against the web, and it tore, but not enough.

  One of Mogra’s eight legs lifted high and poised over her, ready to spear her to the floor.

  Rolenya felt the blood drain from her face. She waited for Gilgaroth to stop his bride before her fury could spell an end to his songbird, but he just stared at Rolenya with his eyes of flame, the eyes of a lover betrayed.

  Mogra paused with her leg over the she-elf, waiting for something.

  “Yes,” Gilgaroth hissed to her, granting her permission.

  If a spider could smile, she did so. “At last!” she said. “I’ve wanted this since the first day I saw you, Rolenya, infecting my spawn with your ... Grace.” She spat the last word nastily, as though it were an insult, and perhaps to her it was.

  Rolenya, who had died many times already, prepared herself for it yet again. It was always painful, and always horrible, and this time she did not expect to be remade. This ... was it.

  Mogra’s leg started to descend.

  “NO,” said a voice from above, and the long jointed limb paused.

  For suddenly Throgmar was there.

  * * *

  The vast Worm had lifted off his balcony and flown up to the scene of battle, eyes locked on the mother who’d worked against him, who’d seduced him and used him to further her master’s ends. He had expected such behavior from Gilgaroth, but not from her, the one who had brought him into this world and invested so much power in him, coddled him and raised him to believe in his own grandeur.

  Baleron had been right, it pained Throgmar to admit. He had brooded on the prince’s words for days and saw the bitter truth of it. Now, thanks again to Baleron, he had a chance to act, and he would take it.

  Mogra had used him and betrayed him, and for that she would pay.

  * * *

  Mogra’s great black bulk swiveled to face the approaching dragon.

  “Don’t you dare!” she said.

  His claws dug into her back and with a mighty pump of his wings he wrenched her loose from the balcony, lifting her up into the air. Rolenya watched, awed and grateful, as they receded toward the clouds, Mogra thrashing in Throgmar’s grip all the way, but Rolenya did not stop in her efforts to tear loose of the white shroud.

  “YOU USED ME!” Throgmar cried, high above. “YOU WERE FELESTRATA!”

  “Fool!” the Spider Goddess snapped. “Of course I was! Now set me down or I will break you!”

  She twisted, wrapping her eight legs about him, and her wicked fangs sank into his chest, injecting him with her venom. He bellowed in pain. The two dwindled with distance.

  Gilgaroth, clearly enraged, clenched a fist and a dozen tongues of lightning stabbed into Throgmar, who shuddered and began to lose altitude, his scales smoking. His wings stopped beating, and he spiraled down and down. Then suddenly, his wings beat once, then twice, and Rolenya breathed a sigh of relief.

  Gilgaroth made another fist, but this time only one tongue of lightning struck down, and it missed its target. Rolenya did not know if Gilgaroth were truly dying, but he was weakened.

  Throgmar, smoking, still bearing his eight-legged burden, began once more to fly away.

  “I WILL FIND YOU!” Gilgaroth roared at the dragon, or perhaps to Mogra, Rolenya wasn’t sure.

  Panting, he tore off the last piece of armor on his torso, revealing his wounds, and as Rolenya looked on in wonder he changed shapes as well, assuming the black, sinuous form of the Shadowdragon, perhaps a hundred feet or more long and, in a strange way, beautiful to look upon. He was exotic and wild, and full of power. Fires still poured from his twin injuries in great founts, one from his breast and one from his back.

  Angry but weak, he slithered toward Rolenya. Flame licked his lips and between his sharp teeth. His eyes blazed with fury.

  “No!” she cried, ripping away the last of the spider-silk.

  The tower shook and pieces of it began to crumble off. She started as a gargoyle broke at her feet. What was this? The terrace rocked beneath her. She saw then what must be happening: with the waning of Gilgaroth’s power, Krogbur was beginning to fall apart.

  Weakened or not, Gilgaroth still looked quite lethal to her as he loomed over her. Desperate, she looked over her shoulder to Baleron. By then, he’d dealt with all the Borchstogs who had not fled at the appearance of the Leviathan and was breathing heavily on the floor, regaining what energy he could. He bled from a score of cuts, and the blood mixed with the rainwater all about. His dark hair was plastered to his skull, and he looked exhausted both mentally and physically, but his dark blue eyes still burned with determination.

  She heard the rasp of black scales and, very slowly, turned to face Gilgaroth. She could feel his heat and smell his musk. In fear of her life, she skittered back on her hands and feet, slipping on the wet surface.

  “Out of my way!” he bellowed.

  She saw that she was directly between him and Baleron, and she knew that this was exactly the wrong place to be if she wanted to survive the next few moments. Gilgaroth wanted to roast Baleron where he lay, but for some reason he was unwilling to slay Rolenya to accomplish it. He may have given Mogra permission to kill her, but it seemed he could not do the deed himself. No matter how much he hated Rolenya, the echoes of her songs still played in his heart.

 

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