The 13th God (The Cycle of Galand Book 8), page 39
"Well, yeah."
"Okay, that might actually do the trick. But how are we going to acquire this village?"
"If this one existed, it can't be the only one. I don't think he knows where they are, either. That's what he was doing earlier: he must have seen something that made him think people were nearby, then started veering around trying to find where they were. You can do the same thing—only you can do it much better."
"With my scouts." Dante glanced up at the few scraps of sky he could see through the trees. "We'd have to get it done fast. Before he gets too far away. We don't have much daylight left, either. We'll have to get lucky."
"You can probably enhance your luck by using a thousand bugs instead of three."
Dante figured that trying to divide his attention between that many of them would drive him insane, but the general principle was true. There was no shortage of flies, either. He gently killed each one he spotted, reanimated it with a dab of nether, and sent it up into the skies, pressing them to buzz forward at speeds that would probably rip them apart within a few hours.
He wasn't even sure they had a few hours, though. And the flies were already dead anyway, so they were just going to have to deal with it.
As soon as he had two dozen up and on the move, they piled back into the canoe and continued their pursuit of the lich. Dante moved his mind from fly to fly, staying with each one just long enough to confirm there was nothing of special interest below it.
After another mile of travel, the lich stopped moving again. Dante directed two of the flies he had in the lich's general vicinity to beeline closer. A few hundred feet ahead of the closer of the flies, a pale glow arose from the water. Dante had been halfway expecting the lich had found another settlement to absorb into himself, but the only movement was the flight of bugs and the ripple of the water when fish breached.
Yet something had caught the lich's attention. He stood motionless, silent, waist-deep in the water, staring into the distance. If he had any of his new Blighted with him, they were keeping themselves underwater, and Dante didn't want to risk sending his scout close enough to confirm.
They were only a few miles away. Close enough to have a chance to catch up to the enemy without the need for any machinations. As Dante contemplated this, one of his flies caught sight of one of the last things he expected to see way out in the deep swamps, especially when it had been raining all day: a pall of smoke.
Smoke was typically one of those things you could spot right away from all the way across a valley. Yet he hadn't been able to see it until his fly had come within a single mile, presumably due to the fact the smoke had been broken up by the treetops.
"I think I just found another village," he said. "But there's no point changing course when the lich is just standing there staring—"
Even as he was saying the words, though, the lich broke free of his trance and slipped back under the water. He was headed eastward now, though, on a course that would take him not far north of the village. Dante reoriented their path toward the smoke.
He sent the fly in closer, too, on the off chance it was just a lone hermit or madman who would be of no interest to the lich. As it neared, a patch of trees wobbled back and forth. Dante would have taken it for the wind, but there wasn't any.
Just as he was about to get a bad feeling in his stomach, the trees went still. Then dropped straight down. A great gout of dark smoke tinged with yellow shot up from the ground. After the initial rush, its volume slowed, but more continued to pump forth. Where it touched, grass drooped and leaves wilted.
"What in hell?" Dante said.
Blays glanced back from paddling. "What's going on?"
"Some kind of hell. It just opened up in the ground. It's got to be Nolost's work."
"That's a bit strange, isn't it?"
"A poisonous crevice appearing from nowhere wouldn't even make the top five hundred strangest things I've seen in the last few weeks."
"But it's strange that it's here. Nolost doesn't have infinite power, does he? So he's been deploying it in the places and manner that will best crush any resistance to him." Blays twirled a finger at the trees enclosing the waterway. "Does it look like there's a lot of resistance brewing around here?"
"We're here. And so is the lich. Either one of us could be enough to draw Nolost's attention. In any event, we'll need to change course."
"To avoid sailing into the poisonous crevice? I think I can agree to that."
"That, and to avoid the monsters coming out of it." For the air had cleared just enough for Dante to make out the creatures dashing through the swirling smoke: deep slate in color, with vague features that looked only half-finished. They looked related to but not a full match for the bladelings, with long, sleek heads and limbs so loose they either had many joints or no bones at all.
"So what's the play here?" Blays said. "Lead the horde into the lich and let them do the dirty work for us?"
"Not sure how we do that without leading the horde into us. I say we forget about them and keep chasing the lich. We'll just have to hope he eventually stops or backtracks enough for us to catch up." Dante reoriented them away from the fissure that they'd unwittingly been paddling toward in favor of a direction that might possibly intersect the lich if he slowed down a lot.
"What about you, light?" Blays said. "I don't suppose you've got some insight into what ol' Bade is like that we can use to trick him and then kill him?"
The light brightened a bit. It still wasn't anywhere as lively as it had been when they'd first met, but it looked to have recovered a little. "I think you are right about him. This is likely the first time he's been scared in a long time. Maybe even since he became the lich. Whatever you do, you mustn't let him know you're following him. If he finds out that you are, I don't think he'll stop running for a long time."
"The Blighted," Dante said. "He's got a few score of them now. He could be trying to use them to watch out for us."
"Then we'll just have to steer clear of any misshapen freaks starving for our flesh," Blays said. "I don't think he'll try much long-range scouting with them, to be honest. Doesn't have enough of them to pull that off. I think he'll use them as a screen. When we're ready to close on him, it will have to be in a way where he can't just bolt from us, because that screen might give him advance notice."
Dante wasn't sure how they could do that. Under cover of night, maybe? With enough darkness and a shadowsphere, the Blighted probably wouldn't even be able to see them. All right, not as difficult as he thought—it just shrank the window they'd be able to attack the lich in down to less than half the day.
"The creatures from the Becoming," Dante said. "They're on the move."
"If you're about to tell me to paddle harder, it's going to be with your skull," Blays said.
"They're not coming our way. Or toward the lich. But they sure act like they've got a job to do."
"Send one of your flies ahead of them?"
Dante nodded and redirected two of his scouts. The flies likely wouldn't have been able to keep up with the creatures on dry land, but there wasn't much of that to be found in Tanar Atain, and he quickly outpaced them. After a few minutes, he blinked.
"What in the world?" He peered through the eyes of one of the two flies. "There is another village here. And the people in it are still alive."
Blays took in his paddle for a minute to rest his arms. "Think the White Lich knows it's here?"
"I think he might suspect as much. But Nolost's little horde definitely knows it's here. If we don't beat them to it, there won't be anything left for the lich to be interested in."
"Ah. So we're paddling harder after all."
Dante was no happier about this than Blays was, but he still hadn't figured out a way to use the nether to make boats go faster, so more paddling was all they could do. While the creatures weren't especially great swimmers, they weren't confined to the water, and when they came to an island they scampered ashore and galloped across it, moving much faster than the canoe ever could. This, combined with the fact they were traveling in almost a straight line instead of having to weave around the islands and contend with the undergrowth that sometimes clogged the channels, gave them a significant advantage.
"They're going to beat us there," Dante said. "Within two minutes of arriving, they'll slaughter the entire village."
"Can you throw a wall in front of them?" Blays said.
Dante shook his head. "Too far away for that."
"You may not be able to stop them physically," Gladdic said. "But you may be able to do so mentally. Use your illusions, and show them an image of their master."
"Nolost?" Dante rubbed his mouth. He double-checked the creatures' current advance and opened a small cut on the back of his hand.
He wreathed himself in a mass of nether and threw the shadows up above the trees. As they came to the far range of what he could control, he brought them to a skidding halt, closed his eyes, and envisioned Nolost—or, since they'd fought him in several forms, the version they'd faced in the tunnel, the long grasping hand with its vicious claws.
The skill wasn't one he practiced enough, and the distance made it yet more of a challenge. But these difficulties were offset by the fact that Nolost was virtually the same color as the nether, as well as the even more useful fact that he didn't have a face to replicate. The illusion hung in the sky, immense and commanding, its fingers reaching and curling in the direction of the oncoming horde.
The creatures halted like they shared a single mind, sitting back on their haunches and staring up at their lord. They appeared so rapt that Dante halfway thought they might stay frozen there until he dismissed the illusion. The canoe sliced through the swamp, paddles stirring the water to both sides.
They passed the horde at a distance of a few hundred yards. Still the creatures waited for the orders of their master. As the canoe gained distance on them, Dante's command of the shadows began to falter. The huge illusion flickered to a flat gray. Several of the creatures looked to each other in confusion. But it wasn't until the image of Nolost disintegrated into a shower of black dust that they finally sprung forward and continued their race toward the village.
This was now just ahead of the canoe. Like the one the lich had Blighted, it was hidden, with simple thatched structures nestled in the thick brush. The people here were still alive, though, which meant they still had to undertake the business of keeping alive, and many were out and about, checking fishing lines and nets, gathering greens, and drawing water, some of which they poured through simple filters of pebbles and sand.
They were coming up on a pair of inhabited islands and as they broke clear of the shrubbery the people there stood and stared at them. Two of the locals turned and sprinted away while the rest hurriedly produced wooden spears and short, simple bows.
Dante held both hands up above his head. "Demons!" he shouted. "The demons are coming!"
Technically, the bladeling-like beings weren't really demons, but he doubted the people living in tents made of leaves would quibble about the subtleties.
"There are demons?" said a man with a spear who was quite tall by Tanarian standards but would have been about average in Narashtovik. "And where are they?"
"Right behind us. Let us ashore without stabbing us and we'll help you fight them off."
"But there are only three of you. And one of you is old, and you do not look so strong."
Dante had resumed paddling and glared at the man as they neared the bank of the island. "We're sorcerers. We've killed many things like these before. But if you don't want our help, I'll be happy to let them hack you into dog food."
The man frowned and glanced at the others, several of whom looked like they had no business being warriors, and was met with shrugs. He nodded and stepped back from the bank.
Blays drove the canoe right up into the mud and vaulted into the shallows. "Go round up your people and bring them back here."
The man's forehead wrinkled. "But we must fight for—"
"Go! Before they're overrun!"
Startled, the Tanarian rocked back on his sandaled heels, then spoke quickly to the others. Some ran down to the shore and hopped into canoes while others scampered back across the island. The tall man and two others stayed put, either to aid in the defense of their home, or to watch out for treachery from the outsiders.
"They are here," Gladdic said.
Down the channel, dark shapes plowed through the water, their flexible limbs spinning behind them like the wheel of a mill, driving them forward. The Tanarians shouted out in shock: they had managed to go all this time without having seen such monsters. Dante brought the nether to hand. Blays extended the spear to its bright glory, drawing a second round of shouts from the men, who backed up the shallow slope.
"Probably a good idea," Blays said. "I tend to have too much fun with this thing."
Dante lobbed a few exploratory bolts at the closest of the beasts, testing how hardy they were. The nether punched through their shiny, chitin-like hides without trouble, but they only showed minor signs of pain, and hardly slowed down. A second round of bolts stopped them dead, however, their corpses sinking gradually below the murky surface.
"Looks like we'll be able to take care of them," he declared.
Blays leveled the spear. "You had doubts?"
"There's kind of a lot of them."
Ether flew from Gladdic, shredding into the creatures. Their limbs thrashed at the water in dying spasms as they drifted below the surface.
Blays brought his spear upright and set its butt against the ground. "At the rate you're going, I won't even need this thing."
A group of the things split off from the main body, making way to the nearest island, where they'd have better cover. Dante picked off several of them, but it didn't do anything to deter the others, who launched themselves from the water and into the undergrowth.
Gladdic was still battering the ones coming straight for them and the water was growing thick with purple viscera and dark gray body parts. Dante joined him, turning the scene into a charnel house. Just as he was starting to think Blays might be right, the horde, acting as one, slipped beneath the surface.
"They're learning," Blays muttered. "They're monsters. They shouldn't be able to learn."
The three of them backed away from the shore. The three Tanarians looked shaken but stoic. The water rippled everywhere and all of the disturbances were heading toward them. Dante shot a handful of darts into the water before deciding it was pointless.
"They are almost upon us," Gladdic said. "Stand ready."
Mere feet from the waterline, the creatures leaped forth, rushing up the banks. Dante and Gladdic cleaved into them as Blays stepped forward and dropped into his crouch, the light of the spear gleaming on the water and the shiny carapaces of the enemy. A few of the beings made it past the storm of nether and ether and Blays flicked the spear back and forth, eviscerating them.
The next wave flung themselves over the falling bodies and scrabbled at Blays, trying to grab hold of the spear. Dante and Gladdic blasted them apart. Blays yanked the spear clear of their tentacles, reared it back, and slammed it down on the next batch of them. It struck with a blaze of light. Guts and muck spewed dozens of feet in the air.
This gave them enough breathing room to back up a few steps further. Despite the carnage before them, the creatures were relentless and fearless, and another score of them surged forward, acting more like a wave crashing into the shore than a pack of living creatures. Blays snapped the spear across them, cutting several in half and sending bits of them spinning away. Dante and Gladdic put down the rest.
"Friends!" called the man with the wood-tipped spear. "They go for our people!"
Up the shore, the swamp boiled as the group of creatures that had split off from the initial advance emerged from the water, heading inland. Dante threw some nether at them, but he had no hope of striking them all down before they got out of range. Instead, he reached down into the earth and lifted a wall in front of their faces.
Several of them plowed straight into it and bounced off, stumbling the ones behind them. Befuddled, the others hesitated, trying to make sense of what had just happened as Gladdic fired a volley of ether into their backs. Those that weren't immediately killed ran alongside the wall, but Dante extended it before them, curving it back toward him. By the time some had the sense to turn and run the other way, Gladdic's ether was already on its way toward them, cutting them down as they fled.
During this, Blays had just been able to hold off the horde in front of them, but he was bleeding from his elbow and forehead and his teeth were gritted tight. It was usually a bad sign when he stopped talking. His injuries didn't look to be hampering him, though, and so Dante lashed into the creatures, adding more carcasses to the carpet of them that lay between Blays and the water.
Yet he'd only just got to work on this when the ones before him, when they dropped, were no longer replaced by more. Instead, the humans stood in a sudden silence, watching the troubled waters of the swamp begin to calm.
Blays straightened. "Suppose that's all of them?"
"It felt about right," Dante said. "I'm not seeing anything through my scouts."
The spear-carrying Tanarian trotted over to join them. Though he hadn't done any fighting, he was breathing hard. "What were those things?"
"Oh, just beings from another world." Blays shrunk down the spear. "You haven't run into anything else like that recently?"
"If they had, they would not be standing before us now," Gladdic said.
"You might be right, but you still shouldn't say it."
"This is happening all across the world right now," Dante said. "And it's only going to get even worse. That's what brought us here. We need to speak to your leader."
The spearman looked him up and down. "I suppose you've earned that much, yes. Come with me."
He marched up the low hill of the island. His two countrymen kept a slight distance from the foreigners, watching constantly from the corners of their eyes. Trees rose before them, branches heavy with scraggly green and white moss that obscured what lay behind it. The spearman parted it like a set of curtains, letting them through.
