Nikos overhanded a branch, torn from one of the burning trees, into the creature's back as it was wrenching a long spear from a legionnaire's hands. The oak leaves, wreathed in their own sputtering flame, struck the back of the homunculus and the phlogiston that had clung like black oil to the rippling muscle and flesh and sinew flashed alight. Khiron leapt straight up, howling in despair, and then burst into flame like a flower opening to the sun with impossible speed. The legionnaires scattered.
Khiron slammed back down to earth, a frenzy of thrashing limbs, rolling frantically and clawing at the earth. The phlogiston crackled and hissed, burning furiously. It wailed in a high-pitched voice like a baby frying in its own fat. The ancient flesh, held together only by will and sorcery, burned with an amazingly hot blue flame. The creature staggered up, wreathed in a corona of almost invisible fire. Nikos fell back, holding his hand up to shield his face from the intense heat. The thing took a step, but its flesh and muscle were already dissolving into a burning jelly.
Thyatis fell back, too, turning her head away from the gruesome sight. She had unfinished business. She sprinted back toward the Prince.
Maxian's heart stuttered and stopped and then, as the last flicker of thought curdled down into a black abyss, something bright and burning like the sun rose up. Hate flared in the man's heart, and something enormous was shrieking at him, demanding release. The fragile last tendril of will stabbed out into the cold darkness and found power waiting for it: colossal untapped power that had been restrained for centuries, building and building in strength, deep under the earth.
Gods, raged Maxian, my brother kills me? My family treats me as a mad dog?
The crumbling lattice of his thought and will flared to life, stitching itself into a feeble semblance of its full shape. His body was destroyed, ruined, slashed and cut, pierced. Flames lapped at his feet, burning through his boots. But in the earth below him, a brilliant green flood of power surged up, slipping through cracks and crevices in the binding that had lain upon it for so long. The Prince, lying near death at the summit of the mountain, reached out, spending the last of his own rage to touch the heart of the volcano.
Thyatis staggered, nearly losing her footing. The ground rumbled from a massive shock. The green turf had lifted up, sending her toppling and then slammed down again. All around her, the air was filled with a great creaking sound and then the rattle of falling rock and the grinding of boulders sliding into new positions. A despairing scream echoed across the grotto. One of the archers had been thrown from his perch and a seventy-ton boulder had shifted, grinding him into paste against one of its brethren. The woman gingerly got to her feet, keeping her hands low to the ground.
She looked up and saw the Prince and a snarl cut her features.
Life flooded him, rushing through his limbs like a mountain freshet in full spate. Broken bone, torn muscle and sinew, shattered organs rippled with virulent power. His torso convulsed and the arrows spit from his flesh. Ragged edges of the entry wounds turned pink, drinking up clotted blood, and then crawled back together. Internal organs knit themselves anew. Awareness poured into his darkened mind, banishing phantoms of pain. He stood, whole, feeling light and almost giddy with the escape from death. He saw the woman with the knife, running full tilt at him, the blade shining in her fist. The Prince smiled, taking joy from the movement and play of his muscles, now restored to full vigor. He raised a hand and blue fire spun out in a tight ring before him.
Thyatis was smashed to the ground again, crying out as her broken ribs ground against one another. Her armor had stopped the brunt of the flare but now it popped and sizzled with tremendous heat. She rolled over, groaning, seeing the knife sticking from the ground a dozen feet away. The breastplate of her cuirass was glowing like an ember and she could feel her flesh crisping in the heat. Frantically, she tugged at the straps that held it closed, feeling the burning sensation spread across her chest.
At the edge of her vision, the Prince walked forward, his steps light on the ground, almost floating. He raised his hand again and ultraviolet lightning snapped and cracked from his palm. Out of her field of view, a man shrieked briefly and there was the roll of thunder. The Prince was glowing slightly, surrounded by a corona of shuddering indigo fire. Men, heedless of imminent death, rushed forward. Arrows filled the air around the Prince.
Thyatis managed to get the straps on her left side undone and prised the breastplate away with trembling fingers. Underneath it, her felt jacket was smoking and tiny flames were licking along the cloth. Gasping at the pain, she tore it off and threw it aside. Beneath that her linen tunic was soaked with sweat and steaming. Luckily, the perspiration trapped in the layers of her clothing had kept the fire from her skin.
Nikos dodged in low, a spatha bare in his hand. The glowing man had swiveled as he advanced and the flare of that black coruscating lightning flooded the air. One of the archers, still hanging onto his perch on a tipped boulder, exploded in a red spray as the bolt licked across him. Behind the dead man, trees bloomed into flame and joined their brothers in the conflagration raging around the circumference of the grotto.
The Illyrian leapt into the Prince, hacking sideways with all the strength in his broad shoulders and powerful back. The keen edge of the spatha bit through the corona of fire and then, with a greasy sliding sensation, into the neck of the Prince. Then it stopped, jarring against the man's spine. Nikos dropped down, wrenching the blade away. The Prince turned, his eyes burning with carnelian flame. The Illyrian gaped, seeing the mortal wound gel and the skin rush closed like water over a stone striking the surface of a lake. The Prince smiled and there was nothing human in his face. Arrows slapped through the air, striking the indigo corona and shattering as if they had struck a wall of tempered steel.
Maxian let the tiniest fragment of the roaring, shrieking power that flooded into him from the heart of the mountain fly forth from his fingertips. The essence ignited in the air, unfolding into a ravening burst of flame that caught the swords-man half-turned to dodge aside. The molten air enveloped the man for a brief instant, then seemed to sink into his flesh and armor. Fractions of a second later, the body incandesced into a blue-white pyre and then ash exploded in all directions, filling the air with a haze of dust.
"No!" Thyatis halted in her headlong rush, seeing Nikos die. Efraim and Kahrmi rushed in on the other side of the Prince, their faces masks of death, their legs pumping as they sprinted across the grass. Thyatis was unable to move, seeing her beloved friend shatter in the wind and drift downward in a rain of gray particles. Her limbs seemed made of lead, impossible to move.