- Chapter 20 -

 

Mararen and Sshraada were ready to fight, but they felt compelled to retreat as Raven's powers manifested themselves as never before. Skin turning deeper red, the second pair of eyes becoming real, Raven started to grow, quickly exceeding Sshraada's seven feet. She was easily twelve feet tall, with almost an extra foot provided by boot-heels growing in proportion, by the time the Dravwyrn realised the challenge was genuine, and rose to his full height to meet her determined advance.

Mararen shivered. He had caught sight of Raven's magical reflection, and there was now nothing to distinguish between that image and the woman herself. The only exception was the blood, and he expected that would not be long in coming.

Blindingly bright scarlet flame leapt from Raven's extra eyes, but most of the flame splashed against a curved, invisible shield, only a few flickers seeping around the edges to burn holes in the membranes of the Dravwyrn's wings. The monster retaliated in similar fashion, exhaling a billowing stream of pure darkness that took Raven by surprise, catching her before she was even ready to defend herself. The darkness swirled around her like steam, and clung to her, but it was cold, not hot, and sent an aching chill down into her bones.

Raven flapped her wings, almost in a panic, and the darkness blew away from her, caught on the magical wind they summoned up. That same wind filled the Dravwyrn's wings, and forced him to step backwards, giving his opponent a chance to lunge closer, and get underneath his jaws and, more importantly, that numbing exhalation of darkness. The monster seemed to have no problem with close-quarters combat, and his claws, on both sets of limbs, were unsheathed to face her.

The upper claws snagged and tore at Raven's wings first, distracting her as the claws on his feet were raised to rip at her chest and stomach. One talon caught on the synthetic leather of her body-suit, and ripped it open from neck to hip, but Raven did not let the rest of her opponent's natural weaponry get any closer, throwing him back and bathing his underside with her magical fire.

The giant dancer's wings shrank back under her hair, and she grew claws of her own, shredding her long white gloves. Something more you must pay for, she told herself, during one brief moment when conscious thought bubbled to the surface, then the feral rage of revenge again took over completely.

Heslangithmanir brought his lower claws up as a razor-sharp greeting as Raven leapt at him, but the talons struck a stomach shielded by a layer of tough scaly armour that had not been there before. One weapon rendered ineffective, he brought his upper claws into play - but Raven's were longer, sharper...and faster.

"I was right", he snarled as she raked at his chest, spraying them both with blood. "Only a demon..."

"Shut up", spat Raven. "Shut up and die."

In the flurry of wings and hair, Sshraada could not tell whose blood was being shed, and she would have thrown herself into the fray on Raven's behalf had Mararen not stepped into the Naagian's path. "Stand down, warrior", he told her. "Prepare yourself instead to face the winner..."

"Even if it's Raven?", the snake-woman asked, but the wingless Dyal did not reply. Mararen wanted to lend his steel to the fight, too - it was his duty as a Waeribane - but an instinct deeper than duty told him to save his strength.

Raven was not in control of the battle for long. The Dravwyrn had one limb more - his tail - and with one flick of that sinuous, flailing member the tables were turned, rolling both of them over and pinning Raven to the floor with his superior mass. All claws neutralised, he was free to turn to another weapon...a mouth lined with savage sword-like teeth.

"Always wondered...what demon tasted like...", he hissed.

The dancer was trapped. She was his equal in height, but mass and strength were in the monster's favour, and his tail, winding about her legs, made sure she could not wriggle out from under him - her only hope was to draw all her power back into the deepest recesses of her being and pray that it would find some new means of expressing itself that the monster could not resist...

Heslangithmanir's teeth scraped against stone, instead of biting into flesh and bone. The constricting loops of his tail suddenly fell limp. Confused, the giant reptile glanced around quickly - and caught sight of a human-sized Raven running for open space...

The Dravwyrn lashed out a pawful of claws at her. The claws whipped through her long black hair, then caught on something that felt satisfyingly like flesh.

Her right leg briefly restrained, Raven stumbled and fell. Synthetic leather flapped about her knee and calf, her boot torn open down the back, almost to the knee.

All four of Raven's eyes blazed blinding white. "Enough...", she snarled, and leapt to her feet.

The dancer's wings sprang out wide, the membranes glittering with lightning-flashes of raw magic. They flapped once as white fire, laced with violet streaks, roared from all four eyes and the wind from her wings carried forth a frightful fire-storm...

Heslangithmanir crouched, making himself as small as possible, pulling in his wings to preserve them in case he found the need to flee. The effort was wasted, because the wings burned anyway, scorched down to the bone. The Dravwyrn shrieked in agony as the scales on the top of his head, his arms and his shoulders became molten, and started to boil.

Raven, blown back by the force of her own magic, picked herself up off the floor and stalked over to the gravely wounded monster, her boot repairing itself as the magic it was now saturated with responded to its wearer's subconscious. She became a giant again, almost instantaneously, and her strength was clearly the greater as she took hold of Heslangithmanir by his ruined wings and the root of his tail, and lifted him off the floor.

"You are the victor!", squealed the once mighty creature, reduced in panic to pleading for his life. "All I possess shall be yours! Great demon-lady, take pity on he would serve you...!"

"I", Raven spat, "am not a demon...!"

The dancer hurled the Dravwyrn across the room, against one of the panels of dark, glassy material set into the wall. The panel shattered with a sound not unlike a muffled scream, revealing an opening in the wall beyond which was only the air, the vast cavern...and the mewling masses of Glones far below. The broken Dravwyrn was quickly lost from sight, but his ultimate fate was beyond question, as the maggot-monsters rose up in a colossal, writhing pyramid to fight over the morsel Raven had sent them...

"I am not a demon", Raven repeated. "There may be 'demon' within me, but it is not all of me. If my parents were truly demon and mortal, their essences did not fully mix to form me. Both exist in me, but they are distinct, separate..."

The two warriors did not approach Raven straight away. They waited until the air had cooled, and she had drawn her wings back into her body, returning to human size in the process.

"A deserving end for a monster", remarked Mararen, going to the broken window and gazing down into the sea of Glones, which had now returned to grazing on whatever living matter they could find on the floor of the great cave. "But he carries our escape with him to his death. What do we do now?"

"His is not the only power here", said Raven, sounding somewhat sleepy. "Much of the trickery he performed was merely this place reacting to his desires - his own magic was rather limited..."

"And can you use this power?", asked Sshraada.

Raven replied with three words, directed not at the Naagian, but into empty space.

"Send...

"Us...

"...home...!"

The world of red rock and windows of black glass suddenly smeared, as though some celestial artist, unsatisfied with his work, had wiped a frustrated hand across his canvas, mingling the still-wet paint of what he had hoped would be a masterpiece. When that hand withdrew, a different picture came into being in its place - the deck of the Succubus, the star-sailors scattering to make way for the sudden return of the three triumphant adventurers.

Raven had been so eager to leave that she had not given any thought to how The Darkening would react to her expressions of power. She quickly forgot her experiences there, apart from her battle with the Dravwyrn, but The Darkening did not forget her.

From that time on, the entrance to the tower was framed by a different image. The bat-like wings remained, but the serpent was replaced by a beautiful female face with four eyes, framed by long streaming hair, all formed by the stone itself as it briefly took on something approaching life, then set solid again...

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