As he climbed the road, Varen saw dead bodies littering the landscape. Perhaps that was why he felt so good. There was so much death everywhere that he had been able to leech away fleeing life here and there. These Dasati were like children when it came to death-magic; very powerful children, granted, but their ability to find the subtle side of magic was non-existent, and they operated in a very wasteful fashion. But at least their waste had left enough ambient life-force lingering that he was physically rejuvenated to the point of no longer needing a walking stick – though Wyntakata really wasn’t much of a specimen, to be truthful. Once Varen found a good lair, he’d start building up the things he needed to seize another body. He idly wondered what he could accomplish with the level of slaughter these aliens achieved.
He wondered why he was feeling the need to go back and visit the Dasati again. His initial contact with them had seemed a wonderful opportunity, but once they had established their first little dome on this world, and after he had delivered Miranda to them for study, they were downright inhospitable. He had exited without a farewell, fairly certain they were getting ready to study him. And he was certain they thought less well of him after he had killed two of their Deathpriests on his way out of the door.
Still, his time with them had not been a complete waste, for he knew he could work necrotic magic they could only dream of. And now appeared as good a time as any to do so, since a Dasati patrol was thundering down the road towards him.
He drew on a spark of the rage he harboured within, called up a large supply of the life-force he had recently acquired and waited. There were twelve Deathknights riding at him, and as they approached they slowed, perhaps wondering why a lone human would stand waiting for them.
‘Hello,’ he said in passable Dasati, learned from the Deathpriests he had negotiated with after he had discovered their little probe-creature.
The leader pointed his sword at him. ‘You speak our language?’
Sighing theatrically, Leso Varen said, ‘By the gods you are a master of the obvious.’ His hand shot out and a dozen tendrils of green energy sprang forth, each cocooning a Deathknight’s head. Instantly swords were dropped as they reached up, clawing at the suffocating head-covers.
Within moments, they were falling from their saddles, writhing on the ground in agony as their lungs burned. Varen could feel their lives pulsing up the tendrils and his own vitality increasing. Just to be thorough, Varen did the same with the milling varnin, killing them all by draining their lives. When the last of them was dead, he smiled. ‘Well, that was refreshing.’
He started humming the song again as he resumed his trek to the Black Mount.
Pug was nearly exhausted. Even after the return trip from the second plane he had not felt this depleted. The creation of rifts was a difficult enough task when carried out under normal conditions; but conditions as they stood were hardly normal.
He took a deep breath and nodded to Magnus. His son still showed the price paid by the foray into the second realm, but he had insisted on accompanying his parents to give whatever help he could.
Magnus lifted his father up, raising him so that he could see the thousands flooding across the plains. In the distance, to the north, loomed the Black Mount. It had grown again twice in the last day, its most recent increase bringing it miles closer. Pug calculated that it now covered two major cities and a score of towns along the river, as well as overlapping a huge portion of the northern plain. It rose up so high that its top vanished into the clouds: to Pug it looked like nothing so much as a giant black wall advancing down on them.
He motioned to Magnus, who lowered him.
‘Can we do more?’ Miranda asked.
‘No,’ said Pug. ‘We might open another rift or two from the far west, but there are not that many people there.’ He sighed. ‘I fear all we can do now is wait and see how many we can get through the rift and how long it is before we must close it.’
Magnus looked into the distance, ‘That thing will fee down on us in two or three days.’
Pug looked at the first and largest of the rifts to the new world, and saw that people were streaming through it, but there were so many frightened, tired, hungry people waiting that the line was miles long. He had made it clear to everyone that as soon as people were through the rift they had to move off, for the valley on the other side of the rift did not have sufficient capacity to hold all these people. He also knew that soon the people going through would be too exhausted once they were on the other side to move very far off. He turned to Magnus and said, ‘Hold them up for a few minutes.’
Magnus passed orders to the Imperial Guards, who ordered the halt to people passing through. This brought instant grumbling and complaint from the otherwise dutiful and obedient Tsurani.
Miranda said, ‘The next time you do that, we’re going to have a riot.’
Pug nodded.
‘How many have gone through already?’ she asked.
He shook his head. ‘I don’t know, really. Two hundred thousand today, maybe. Half that many yesterday when we started.’
‘Not even the population of one good-sized city.’
‘Enough to start a new civilization,’ said Magnus.