Mark of the Fool
Chapter 540: Taking the Bull By His Horns

“Kyembe!” Alex called, floating above the Spirit Killer.

“Ah, my friend! You are just in time for what is not my last stand!” the warrior stabbed a blazing sword through a tiashiva, blowing it to bits.

Alex raised his staff, conjuring a wave of hell-boars to keep the demons back, giving his ally some breathing room. They appeared instantly, rolling over the enemy, trampling as many as they could before they were cut down by pazuzites.

But the precious moments they'd bought Alex, served him well.

“I have a plan. If I buy you some time, could you charge up your ring?” Alex asked Kyembe. “I mean the big charge, like the one you used on his archivist.”

“I was just considering that.” he glared up at Kaz-Mowang as he skewered another tiashiva like an overripe fruit. “What is your plan?”

Alex nodded to a spot between Claygon and the Spirit Killer. “Charge your ring and aim it right there when I tell you.”

Kyembe glanced at Claygon, then gave Alex a grin dripping with malicious glee. “Simply say the word, my friend.”

The young wizard nodded, conjuring another horde of monsters. By now, he could feel the staff’s energies beginning to wane, but he wouldn’t need them for much longer.

As hellhounds and taraneas joined with Ezerak’s remaining painted monsters, they rampaged through the enemy, buying Kyembe precious seconds.

Alex flew up, hovering over his golem. ‘Claygon,’ he called through their link. ‘Prepare a blast of fire.’

‘Yes…father…’ the golem answered, punting a tiashiva across the battlefield.

Alex turned his attention back to Kaz-Mowang.

Overhead, the greater demon still struggled with Ripp as air elementals zapped his flanks with lightning bolts. The swiftling sped around his shoulders, using his daggers like spikes while rolling away from Kaz-Mowang’s trident and outstretched claws.

Alex flew toward them, planning to take advantage of Ripp’s distraction…when a huge mana shift fanned out.

Abruptly, the greater demon lit up like a burning pine tree, encased wholly in golden lightning.

Ripp screamed as bolts of electricity ran through him.

“Ripp!” Alex cried, sending air elementals forward.

But the enormous demon swept them away with a volley of sharpened spurs from his palm. He reached up, plucking Ripp from his shoulder as though he was simply removing a burr from his cloak.

“Here’s a lesson for you, jester. As your little friend can feel, my trident isn’t the source of my power,” the bull-headed demon was all confidence. “It merely conducts: the power is all mine, and I can release it as I please, which is unfortunate for your friend here.”

Fixing his eyes on Alex, he spread his jaws…

…and clamped down on Ripp’s thigh.

Bone crunched, and the stunned mercenary howled, blood running down his leg, pooling on the stone below.

“Let him go!” Alex shouted, conjuring more elementals, sending them at the demon. “Leave him be!”

Kaz-Mowang simply nodded. A voice spoke in Alex’s mind. “As you wish.”

He shook Ripp about like a dog with a toy, then flung him away with a toss of his head.

“No!” Alex shouted, shooting toward Ripp, waving his staff and conjuring another cluster of air elementals below the plummeting swiftling.

“Get him!” he shouted in a tongue of air elementals. “Catch hi—!”

A pazuzite reacted, launching itself between the air elementals and Ripp.

Golden lighting shot straight at Alex, preventing him from helping his companion.

“Calm yourself.” Kaz-Mowang snorted, rolling his eyes. “Remember, I’m trying to capture you, not kill you. What happened with your orc friend was unfortunate, as most accidents are,” his eyes were focused on the swiftling cradled under the pazuzite’s arm.

Ripp was in rough shape, his leg hung down, mangled with the thigh bone shattered.

His complexion paled as his lifeblood ran free.

Without aid, he’d have minutes at most.

“Stop fighting!” Kaz-Mowang roared. “I’ll see to it that your friend is given the proper healing he needs if you throw down your weapons and come back with me. Now. If not, my servant will tear open his wound further and he’ll be dead in heartbeats. Come now, I’m trying to be reasonable!”

“Reasonable, this,” Thundar’s voice boomed.

The minotaur suddenly leapt at the pazuzite hovering a half dozen feet above the battle, his mace swinging.

The creature whirled, an arm raised to defend itself.

…but it never saw the force bolt the real Thundar fired through a copy of himself.

The minotaur’s image shattered, as the bolt drove through the pazuzite’s skull. Ripp slipped from limp hands, and the air elementals were there, catching him on cushions of wind.

The mercenary was safe, but bleeding heavily.

Alex needed to be quick.

“Kyembe, now!” he cried.

“You need not even ask,” the Spirit Killer’s power blazed, his ring shining on his hand.

Alex flew right for Kaz-Mowang, sending instructions to Claygon. ‘Charge your fire-beams buddy, we’ll need your power. Aim for the spot in front of the portal!”

‘Yes…father!’ The golem’s excitement bled through their link, and the young wizard felt his power gathering.

Now it was Alex’s turn.

Kaz-Mowang—bleeding from dozens of wounds on his face—smirked down at him with a relaxed slouch to his shoulders. It was as though he was sure he was in complete control, yet Alex saw his gaze flick to Kyembe and noticed slight tension in his shoulders and trunk.

He was preparing to dodge the hellfire.

But Alex had other plans for him.

“Hey, why the hell would you think we’d work for you if you’d throw away your own subordinate to keep yourself alive?” he called, drawing on his staff’s ebbing energies to conjure a flight of air elementals around him.

“Because you have sense.” Kaz-Mowang casually raised the trident, golden lightning playing along its prongs. His other hand was levelled at the Thameish wizard, and barbs were already springing up from his palm. “Of course I would prioritise my life over my servants’, what emperor wouldn’t? But you’re competent enough not to need to worry about that, no? I’m sure you wouldn’t have let yourself be caught by hellfire so easily. You’re so…dodgy, after all! Case in point!”

The demon fired a lightning spear, the young wizard’s skin tingled as he rolled past it. With a wide grin spreading over his bloody face, Kaz-Mowang unleashed a torrent of bone spikes, tryingto lead himas the young wizard ducked and rolled through the air.

Alex’s hair sparked, lightning crackled around him, missing him by breaths. Spikes whizzed by his head, the aeld staff pulsed in fear as one narrowly missed setting it ablaze.

The young wizard’s heart thundered in his chest: Kaz-Mowang’s life draining magic was hitting him hard, fatigue was building, threatening to force him from the fight. His lungs burned.

His muscles were weakening, but he pushed on, getting closer to the bull-headed fiend.

Moving ever closer.

Forcing Kaz-Mowang to take his eyes off of Kyembe. His bloodied ears twitched, flaring nostrils blowing black tinged puffs of air.

Alex appraised him from up close. ‘He’s waiting for me to teleport,’ the young wizard thought. ‘He wants me to teleport, then he plans on blasting me where I appear. But, I’ve got a surprise for him.’

Tucking and rolling past another volley, Alex reached into his satchel.

Using the last of his staff’s magic, he grabbed a piece ofwaybread from the bag, then cast invisibility on himself and muttered the incantation for Call Through Ice.

Pain shot through his side; the Mark’s interference rose, breaking his concentration for an instant when a bone spike scraped along his torso.

But, what he’d planned to do was done.

The staff pulsed.

The Traveller’s power pulsed.

And the bread vanished in the same instant he did.

“Aha!” Kaz-Mowang grinned, feeling the Traveller’s power. “Nice try, my new jester!”

Convinced that Alex had teleported through the planes, the bull-headed fiend raised his trident, spun around and lashed his lightning at…

…a piece of bread that appeared behind him.

“Wha—?” the surprised demon muttered.

And Alex appeared—he’d already been whispering the incantation for Planar Doorway—and his hand touched his enemy’s back. The Traveller’s power rose, pushing through The Mark’s interference, joining with his spell array and iron will.

Energy flooded out, meeting Kaz-Mowang’s natural resistance to magic and ancient will of steel. For a terrible moment Alex found himself in a contest within a mind that might have been older than his entire kingdom.

His training, determination, and distaste for the monster clashed against the ageless willpower of a thing that had watched realms turn to dust. And his will was wanting. He could feel Kaz-Mowang beginning to shake off his magic, and Alex clenched his teeth, pouring more mana into the struggle.

Then Hannah’s power was with him, pushing against Kaz-Mowang’s with a vengeance that Alex could only describe as personal. With a torrent of energy like a bursting dam, it shattered both the demon’s will and his resistance to magic, flashing out to wrap around the massive form.

And then, wizard and demon vanished.

They tumbled through space between space, Alex felt Kaz-Mowang’s power gathering. The young man’s hair prickled on his scalp: lightning was coming.

‘Come on,’ Alex’s mind screamed. ‘Come on!’

He appeared a breath before the demon, landing right beside the portal.

“Now!” he shouted, rocketing into the sky.

An instant later, Kaz-Mowang appeared where Alex had been. Golden lightning erupted all over the demon’s skin, as confusion marked his bloody face.

“Wait…how…” he murmured.

Then his world turned to flame.

Claygon’s three fire-beams struck his side, washing over him in a wave. Burning. Robbing the monster of sight.

He tried waving the golem’s flame away with his trident, but suddenly stiffened: realising he was between Claygon and Kyembe.

And as the fire rays lashed into him from one side…

…a deadly beam of hellfire streaked from the other.

Its crackle was hungry, striking the hulking demon’s flank, burrowing into his flesh. Pinned between Claygon’s fire magic and Kyembe’s hellfire, the arrogant greater demon could do nothing but scream, once.

Fire magic and hellfire wove together, roiling with a life of its own; demons around their master burst into flame. Stone beneath his feet melted, bubbling like lava, his trident wilted like a flower hit by the first frost, metal dripping like candle wax.

Even from his distance, high above, Alex felt like he was choking.

For an instant, his mind flashed back to the alehouse.

Watching it burn, struggling in Mr. Lu’s grip, desperately fighting to get to his parents.

But this was not the same fire.

This fire had reduced an enormous demon—a slaver and tormenter of mortals from across the planes—to a column of ash. His army gaped as the ash blew away on the wind, leaving nothing of their master but hoofprints in the molten rock.

“That’s right!” Thundar roared, holding up a broken tiashiva beside a victorious Claygon. “Your great master is dead! If you don’t want any of this—” he gestured to the golem and Kyembe. “—then get the hells gone, before we get realnasty!”

The demons looked around, unsure.

They briefly watched the cloud of ash that was once their ‘invincible’ master drift away. Then they looked at their dead, lying in mounds around Thundar, Claygon and Kyembe. Lastly, their eyes fell on the dozens of summoned monsters and Ezerak’s painted beasts hungrily watching them.

As they hesitated, the former king rose, his jaw clenching.

Someone cleared their throat.

All eyes turned to Kyembe, his ring still blazed, his face lit up. The Spirit Killer grinned, the light of barely restrained hellfire reflecting across his white teeth and crimson eyes.

“Boo,” was all he said.

It was more than enough.

The mania field flooded into the fiends’ minds, and they fled as one, screaming back into the depths of the maze.

And so passed Kaz-Mowang, greater demon, and one of the most powerful of Ezaliel’s many servants.

There would be a turf war over the ruins of Jaretha in the coming days.

A certain bull-headed demon would not be participating in it.