Chapter 32
The gods unleashed their plague.
Wherever the blood mist touched demon hide, it sizzled and smoked. Blisters formed across the demons’ bodies, growing larger, and larger, until they burst and sprayed. Demons who had feasted upon the casteless vomited up their own stomachs and then fell over and spasmed as the blood curse rapidly tore its way through their bodies. The soldiers of hell flailed and clawed at themselves, desperate to peel off their own infected skin, but that just exposed the vulnerable meat beneath to the caustic death that was now floating unseen through the air.
All the demons ran, even the fearsome Rakshasa.
Ashok roared, “Let none escape!”
He intercepted the demon king. Angruvadal flashed. The spear caught it, but the Rakshasa faltered as patches of its body began to hiss and bubble from the curse. All around them, mighty demons were crumbling into pieces.
Ashok got ahead of the monster. He blocked its thrust, slid Angruvadal up the spear, and cut it deep across the arm. As it stumbled back, Ashok kept on it. Weapons crossed, it grabbed hold of Ashok with its extra hand again, but this time he was ready, and Ashok slammed his palm against the Rakshasa’s head. The leather glove inside his gauntlet had been soaked in casteless blood, and it burned a handprint into the demon’s face, hot as when its molten spear had scorched Ashok’s chest.
Disoriented, overwhelmed, the demonic king staggered away.
Ashok struck it down across the torso, immediately recovered, and then slashed it upward, twin cuts, perfectly parallel. White blood spurted, but sparked in the air as it met the gods’ curse and ignited. The edges of the cuts immediately began to foam and gurgle as the plague devoured flesh.
Ashok hit it again, and again, and again.
Desperate—dying—the Rakshasa raised the flaming spear high. All the dead demons near them were instantly consumed in a flash, as terrible magic was ripped from those bodies and gathered into the tip of the spear.
Ashok didn’t need instinct to tell him the Rakshasa’s final spiteful act would be to obliterate them all. It was what a creature designed for malice would do.
The demon thrust its flaming spear toward the ground.
Ashok caught it.
The point stopped inches from impact. The collected energy immediately burned through Ashok’s glove, but Angruvadal was already descending toward the demon’s arms.
The Rakshasa lurched back. It didn’t have time to be shaken at having now lost three hands, because Ashok immediately drove the spear—and all its destructive magic—straight into the monster’s heart.
The energy that had been meant to take Ashok to the grave with it was instead directed into the demon who’d called it forth. A ball of scalding light engulfed the Rakshasa, so bright its bones could be seen through its hide before all of it was wiped away in a wave of destructive force. Walls came apart. Trees were uprooted. A vast chunk of the artisans’ tower was pulverized into dust.
The lord of hell was gone.
Ashok remained.
The demon spear turned into ash and crumbled into bits. Ashok threw down his burning gauntlet before it could melt the flesh of his hand.
The glowing lines of the gods’ pattern slowly dissipated. The clouds of blood fell in a great splash, drenching Ashok in red. The gods’ vengeance spell was unleashed. Their curse was already on the wind.
There was a groan as the high tower began to lean to the side. Cracks spread up the walls. Rocks broke free and tumbled down.
Ashok looked toward the top and saw that haughty Omand still remained there, but a wizard of such power would never allow himself to die in a manner so ignominious as riding a collapsing tower to the ground to be buried in the rubble.
“I am coming for you, Omand! Fight me!”
Omand made it so his voice could be heard easily over all the noise. “The demands of your honor mean nothing to me, but in his fury would the unkillable Ashok pursue me, thus allowing some demons to escape, to render his woman’s death meaningless? Will Ashok finish what the gods have started, or will he let victory slip away?”
The surviving demons were running, desperately trying to reach the safety of their watery tunnels as the plague spread between them. The Sons of the Black Sword continued to fight them, and every beast they managed to delay was quickly devoured by a retribution a thousand years in the making, but many more were going to get away.
Even now foul Omand manipulated him by his sense of honor, but worst of all, he was right. “We are not done, Omand!”
Ashok sheathed Angruvadal, then went to Thera and gently picked her up. Her body was empty, the fire gone out, but he would not leave her here to be crushed.
“Of course, Ashok. We are not finished, for three of the six remain,” Omand shouted as Ashok walked away. “Only one of us can rule the next age.”
The Grand Inquisitor vanished as the tower toppled.
Ashok set Thera’s body down gently in the garden, among the fallen leaves. He wanted nothing more than to remain here with her, but to do so would be to leave her obligation incomplete. She would not want that.
Some of the Sons were nearby and they began to wail when they saw the fate of their beloved prophet.
“Watch over her.”
Drenched in casteless blood, Ashok left to carry the plague to the river.