chapter X
KREIOS BEGAN TO FEEL something new. Rushing wind in his ears. The sensation of falling. He was not dead; he would not awaken to see his beloved bride. Not yet.
He opened his eyes. He was still alive and falling.
The drain…it was ebbing away. What was it he felt now? Vague but familiar. It was like the Sword of Light, only different. It was profound; it felt so similar to his beloved old weapon, yet it was clearly not somehow. He looked at his hands. They were empty. He felt it, though. The drain had stopped.
He was gaining strength.
He could fly again.
He corrected his descent and shot into the air, feeling all his strength beginning to return; he was being filled with power. El?
“Just watch.”
Then he saw what El was talking about. A blue streak cutting through the Nri horde. It was supersonic, and an attendant pure white light went with it. A great number of Nri demons were struck in the collision and began the long fall back to earth. They broke apart, turning back into ash. The blue streak circled back around again and again, taking more with every pass.
El, what is that? Kreios was genuinely bewildered, and what caused him to shake his head in amazement was that he had not felt bewildered for ages.
He could feel the delight in El’s voice: “Just watch.”
He did.
Kreios was safe. He could fly again; he was awake and aware, I could tell that much with my new super eyes. That left me free to use the Sword on the Nri.
And use it I did. Squalembrato; I sliced diagonally across the torso of a hideous and stinking wretch, then brought the blade back around and up, ready for the next one. Fendente; from 12 o’clock at the crown of its horned head with the temperato of my blade straight down the nasty thing, splitting its miserable carcass in two clean halves. I roared in vengeful fury, letting my love for my grandfather power my every move in midair.
Light from the Sword interlaced in three streams on the flat of the blade, winding down onto the hilt and onto my hand, up my arm. I was conjoined to the weapon; for the first time I felt that it belonged to me, that I possessed it, that it was mine to wield, mine to use. Together with it, I was aglow in the ash storm of demonic debris it created by my hand. None could withstand what I had now become.
Already supersonic, I began to pick up speed.
The streak of blue light wound its way around the cloud of the Nri, hemming them in on all sides; they had nowhere to go. Gradually as the streak went around and around, it began to take on the shape of a glowing blue globe, the trail of blue light passed through them so quickly. Huge amounts of demon detritus were grist in this mill. They fell out from the bottom of the globe as wings, trunks, limbs; now prey only to gravity and the surface of the earth miles below.
Kreios was overcome with emotion, coughing out an incredulous guffaw. El had utterly routed them. And quickly. “What is this new thing?” he asked.
Then he heard, “Just watch!”
Kreios waited and watched still more, and then the blue light slowed as the last of the Nri clan fell away beneath. The streak became still, a point of light, a round blue aura beneath pointing downward, the unmistakable pure and bright light of the Sword of Light above.
Kreios was stunned for the second time that day. The Sword!
“Go,” he heard, so he went to it.
The sun was beginning its ascent in the east now. It threw its first rays upon the clouds where the battle had taken place, lighting them on fire in brilliant silver, red, and deepest midnight blue. Set like a jewel in a crown of magnificence was the radiant blue light, now just visible as a figure. It held aloft the piercing and pure Sword of Light, symbolic of victory.
He could not have imagined for anything in the world what he would behold when he drew near. There, with face burnished to glowing in the warmth of the Sword, was Airel. She smiled proudly at him.
He could do nothing but go to her and weep for his beloved granddaughter, his darling girl. She was dead, but was now alive. He shouted to the heavens with exultant joy, “She is alive! She is alive!” He fell on her shoulder and wept more, wept like a small child. The sun cast them in relief, a shimmering and pure sight.