In the witches’ cabin, the young folk grimaced in pain, shoulders hunching under the strain as a huge, black amoeba strove to fold itself over their minds.
Rod and Fess galloped up the series of rock ledges that led to the High Cave, and found Brom waiting.
Rod reined in, frowning up at the dwarf where he stood on a projection of rock a little above Rod’s head.
“Didn’t expect to find you here, Brom. I’m glad of it, though.”
“Someone must see thou dost not play the fool in statecraft in the hot blood of this hour,” the dwarf growled. “I fail to see why thou wilt not trust these beastmen allies by themselves; but, if thou must needs fight alongside of them ‘gainst the Kobold and, mayhap, against them, when the Kobold is beaten, I will fight by thy side.”
“I’m grateful,” Rod said, frowning. “But what’s this business about beating the Kobold? It’s only a wooden idol, isn’t it?”
“So I had thought, till I came here,” Brom growled. “But great and fell magic doth lurk on this hillside, magic more than mortal. Mughorck is too slight a man for the depths of this foul power, or I mistake him quite. I feel it deep within me, and…”
There was a yell up ahead of them within the cave, then the clash of steel and a chaos of howling.
“It’s started,” Rod snapped. “Let’s go.”
Fess leaped into a gallop as Brom hurtled through the air to land on the horse’s rump. Rod whipped out his sword.
They rode into a mammoth cave more than a hundred feet deep and perhaps seventy wide, coated with glinting limestone, columned with joined stalactites and stalagmites, and filled with a dim eldritch light.
Three Neanderthals lay on the floor, their throats pumping blood.
All about the cave, locked pairs of Neanderthals struggled.
But Rod saw none of this. His eyes, and Brom’s, went straight to the dais at the far end of the cave.
There, on a sort of rock throne, sat a huge-headed, pot-bellied thing with an ape’s face, concave forehead, and bulging cranium. Its limbs were shriveled; its belly was swollen, as though with famine. It was hairless and naked except for a fringe of whiskers around its jowls. Its eyes were fevered, bright, manic; it drooled.
Two slender cables ran from its bald pate to a black box on the floor beside it.
The spittle dribbled from its chinless mouth into its scanty beard.
Behind it towered three metal panels, keys and switches, flashes of jeweled light, and a black gaping doorway.
At its feet, Yorick and a short skinny Neanderthal strained, locked in combat.
Its eyes flicked to Rod’s.
Icicles stabbed into Rod’s brain.
The monstrosity’s eyes flicked to Brom’s, then back to Rod’s.
Brom moved slowly, like a rusted machine, and the Kobold’s eyes flicked back to him. Brom moved again, even more slowly.
The Kobold’s jaw tightened; a wrinkle appeared between its eyes.
Brom froze.
In the witches’ cabin, the air seemed to thicken next to Agatha, like a heat haze. It began to glow.
A young witch slumped unconscious to the ground. A fourteen-year-old warlock followed her into a blackout, then a fifteen-year-old. A few moments later, a seventeen-year-old witch joined them, then a young warlock in his twenties.
One by one, the young psis dropped, to sprawl unconscious.
Agatha and Gwen caught each other’s free hands, bowing their heads, every muscle in their bodies rigid, hands clasped so tightly that the knuckles whitened.
Then Gwen began to sway, only a centimeter or so at first, then wider and wider till suddenly her whole body went limp and she fell.
Agatha dropped Gwen’s hands, clenched her fists; her face tightened into a granite mask and a trickle of blood ran down from the corner of her mouth.
Above her, the heat haze brightened from red to yellow. Then the yellow grew brighter and brighter.
A blast shook the tent, a hollow booming, and Galen knelt there before Agatha. He clutched her fists, and his shoulders heaved up, hunching under some huge, unseen weight. He bowed his head, eyes squeezing shut, his whole face screwing up in agony.
The heat haze’s yellow dimmed, became orange.
On the beach, the soldiers began to move again, slowly at first, then faster and faster, stepping aside from ax-blows, returning pike-stabs.
The beastmen howled in fear and fought in panic.
But the High Cave lay silent, like some fantastic Hall of Horrors in a wax museum. An occasional whine or grunt escaped the Neanderthals frozen body-to-body in combat, straining each against the other—Kobold’s men to Eagle’s partisans, Mughorck locked with Yorick.
Rod and Brom stood frozen, the Kobold’s glittering, malevolent eyes fixed on them, holding its frozen prey in a living death.
There was agony in Rod’s eyes. A drop of sweat ran down from his hairline.
Silence stretched out in the glimmering, ghostly elf-light.
On the beach, the soldiers slowly ground to stasis again, their muscles locking to stone.
The Neanderthals roared and swung their axes like scythes, mowing through the Gramarye ranks, their victory song soaring high.
In the cabin, Galen bent low, the black weight pressing down, squeezing, kneading at his brain. The other soul was still there with him, fighting valiantly, heaving with him against the dark cloud.
And the High Cave lay silent.
A crowing laugh split the air, and a wriggling infant appeared on Rod’s shoulders, straddling his neck, chubby hands clenched in his hair, drumming his collarbone with small heels. “Horsey! Gi’y‘up! Da’y, gi’y’up!”
The Kobold’s gaze focused on the baby boy.
Magnus looked up, startled, and stared at the creature for a moment, then darted a glance at his frozen father. Terror started to show around the edges of the boy’s expression; but hot, indignant anger darkened his face faster. He clutched his father’s temples and glared back at the monster.
Rod shuddered, his neck whiplashing as the dark mantle wrenched free of his mind.
He tore his eyes from the Kobold’s, saw Mughorck and Yorick locked straining in the embrace of hatred.
Rod leaped forward, ducking and dodging through the paired immobile Neanderthals, and sprang. His stiffened hand lashed out in a chop at the back of Mughorck’s neck. The skinny tyrant stiffened, mouth gaping open, and slumped in Yorick’s arms.
Yorick dropped the contorted body and lunged at the black box, slapping a switch.
Slowly, the Kobold’s eyes dulled.
Galen’s body snapped upward and back.
His hands still held Agatha’s.
For a moment, minds blended completely, point for point, id, ego, and conscience, both souls thrown wide open as the burden they had strained against disappeared—open and vulnerable to the core. For one lasting, soul-searing moment, they knelt, staring deeply into each other’s eyes.
Then the moment passed. Galen scrambled to his feet, still staring at Agatha, but his eyes mirrored panic.
She gazed up at him, lips slowly curving, gently parting, eyelids drooping.
He stared, appalled. Then thunder cracked, and he was gone.
She gazed at the space he’d filled with a lazy, confident smile.
Then a shout of joy and triumph exploded through her mind. Her gaze darted upward to behold the heat haze one last time before it vanished.
On the beach, the Gramarye soldiers jerked convulsively and came completely to life, saw the carnage around them, the mangled remains of friends, brothers, and leaders, and screamed bloody slaughter.
But a howl pierced the air, freezing even the soldiers. They stared as a beastman in the front line threw down his ax and shield and sank to his knees, wailing and gibbering to his mates. They began to moan, rocking from side to side. Then, with a crash like an armory falling, axes and shields cascaded down, piling up in waist-high windrows.