Ralan Bek reached out and took a huge handle in his left hand, his right holding his sword as he prepared to visit mayhem on whoever waited on the other side.
Pug could hear the sound of metal bars screaming as they bent in protest, yet the fasteners that had locked them out now broke free beneath Bek’s powerful pull as easily as if they had not been there, and with far less protest than had any siege device or engine been used. Pug wasn’t sure that his magic could have accomplished the task so easily.
A dozen men in Talnoy armour waited on the other side of the door: as one they launched themselves at Bek. Two died before they could take a full step; and a third as his second foot touched the ground.
Now, Valko and the other Deathknights of the White attacked.
Pug turned around and around, trying to ascertain where the next attack might come from. The chaos at the door blocked his view for a moment, as he dodged through the carnage while Bek slaughtered everyone in front of him, and Valko’s men surged on either side, streaming into the room, their battle cries ringing off the vaulted stone ceiling.
Pug knew here he would encounter the most powerful of the Dark One’s Deathpriests, for they would be ready to defend the TeKarana. The throne room was vast, a long oval with a door at one end through which they had just entered, a dozen massive stone pillars rising on either side and down at the far end, a mass of waiting men.
As Pug and Magnus hurried forward, they saw the Deathpriests who were gathered at the far end of the room, surrounding a powerful-looking figure arrayed in orange armour: the TeKarana. And between the TeKarana and the attackers stood a veritable army of defenders. Pug said to Magnus, ‘We don’t have time for this.’
Magnus said, ‘I understand,’ and rose into the air, above the battle.
As with everything else in this dark and twisted world, the TeKarana’s personal quarters were vast. He sat upon a throne on a circular dais situated on twelve concentric rings of stone, rising from the centre of the floor. Like every other room in the palace, the walls were bare of anything resembling human art, but here they sported trophies: the skeletal remains of hundreds of warriors, each still wearing their armour: a mute testimony to the power of the ruler of the Twelve Worlds.
Beyond the throne lay the entrance into the TeKarana’s personal quarters, where terrified Lessers and women of the harem dressed in seductive raiment peered through the door. Seeing Magnus rise into the air, many of these turned and fled.
If the sight of a Lesser flying caused any of the combatants to hesitate, they paid for that pause with their lives. Magnus sent lances of searing energy that burned everything they touched save the stones of the floor and wall. Flames erupted from the clothing and flesh of any Deathpriest too slow in erecting a protective barrier from the soaring magician.
Magnus had a mystical protective barrier in place, when the Deathpriests unleashed a wave of magic. Noxious-smelling tendrils reached out from their hands, long flowing ribbons of death spreading throughout the room. The Deathpriests were indiscriminate, killing defenders as well as attackers, for they knew that the defenders were not going to save the TeKarana, but that killing everyone else in the room until reinforcements arrived would.
Pug lashed out with a blinding silver-white flash that withered each tendril as it extended across the room and the Deathpriests shook as if in pain, some crying out as their spells were sundered, then turned their attention to the two magicians. Those able to respond sent forward a swirling cloud of black motes, as much like a swarm of flies as anything else Pug could put a name to, and he erected his own shield before Magnus and himself. While Pug defended, his son unleashed another withering attack on the Deathpriests and two more fell screaming as they erupted into flames.
Bek cut his way through the defenders like a farmer scything through wheat and the Deathknights of the White behind him spread out to engage the Talnoy. Valko moved to stand on Bek’s left, ready to leap forward and confront the TeKarana.
Pug and Magnus together were more than enough of a match for the Deathknights and father and son worked in concert like two beings with the same mind. Magnus seemed to know without being told when he needed to defend against the Deathknights, and Pug’s counterattacks quickly left them dead or disabled. Quickly, all magic threats in the room were blunted.
Within minutes only a handful of bloodied defenders stood protecting the TeKarana, a tall, massively-built warrior, of the same stature as Ralan Bek. He held a sword almost identical to the one Bek carried, save that it was decorated with precious metals along the blade and with gems on the hilt.