The King's Might: A Legend of Averdan

Part Seven, Chapter Three

For DanleyR, who asked when the heck we were going to see a herpsicore again, and now has an answer.

THREE

In Which There Is, Finally, A Herpsicore

From inside the ancient stronghold of Sirili the remainder of Jalith's combined army watched the devastation bloom in the valley.

Relatively few had been left outside--thanks to Jalith's quick response and the labyrinthine tunnels under the fortress, most of the men had found their way in, and space to keep them. Jalith caught himself wondering, a little bitterly, if Telhir himself had once had to do something very similar to what he was doing now.

The keep, in spite of its dilapidated condition, held well. The walls, though full of chinks and cracks, were thick and strong. And something--the deep magic Jalith had sensed in the place before, he supposed--seemed to repulse these strange creatures.

Knowing this did not make it any easier to watch the deaths of the men outside .

On the ramparts with the remnants of his team, Jalith forced himself to watch the mountains all around them shudder and tremble, watch parts of them come to life and separate from the living rock. The creatures--man-shaped, he sometimes thought, gruesome in their half-hewn incompleteness--the creatures descended with a rapidity hardly to be believed from something as solid as rock. Their arms were thick and long, their rough fists hit the ground harder than canonballs as they threw themselves forward.

They had no faces. Only pits for eyes, mouths full of teeth like sharp pebbles. In a shower of earth and small stones they moved in, jaws grinding.

The screaming began.

Jalith forced himself to listen. Below, the luckier of his men pulled the stone gates of Sirili shut with a grinding crash.

"Herpakoril," Chari murmured from somewhere beside him. "Not one, but many. This is strong magic, even for the Sedat. What did he sell, for such power?"

Watching the creatures outside rend and grind, Jalith knew the answer. "The last part of his soul that was human."

Jalith felt numb. The air was growing colder by the second--the white frost, so briefly absent from this piece of land, crept forward in tendrils over the bloodstained ground outside. He felt the comb, Anmar Sedat's token, twisted into his yellow hair. It was as dead and cold as it had been the day he found it.

Even Jalith, not primarily a fighter, knew that no matter how well this fortress held, no matter how many charms of protection had been draped around it, they were now under siege. People under siege need supplies, and they had none. Not enough, Jalith guessed, to feed all these people for even one night.

There was death outside, and death inside. There was nothing waiting for them but death.

The terrible creatures below had finished chewing up his men, and were now circling the castle in a lithe and predatory fashion. One of them picked a stone from the walls, as easily as a palace lady plucking a leaf, and began to chew on it. Jalith had never heard the sound of stone splintering before; had not even thought it possible. He was hearing it now. It was awful.

There was a hand on his shoulder, gauntleted in black. "My lord," Karloi said. "You can't let it end like this."

"No," Jalith said. "But how do we fight them? A sword won't touch them. Fire won't burn stone, water won't drown it. Give me a way, Rekhat, and I'll gladly try it."

"Herpakoril," Chari whispered, almost dreamily. "The creatures of hefenta. They are said to be unkillable."

"Nonsense," Lukere said grimly. "There's a way to kill everything."