Shadows swirled around Brennus, mirroring his anger.

Magadon said, "Go. You have little time."

After they'd gone, Magadon returned to his place under the Source and kept deathwatch. He reached out first to Riven, through the mind link between them.

If you can perceive this, I'm on my way, and I'm bringing Sakkors with me.

With the power of the Source at his command, he'd be near a godling himself.

Assuming, of course, that the Source stayed alive long enough for him to make use of it.

He reached out with his mind from time to time to check on the progress of Brennus and Telemont. Augmented by the power of the Source, he was able to feel it as Sakkors emptied. Shadovar soldiers fled on veserabs. Those who had them fled on magical transport or via spell. Those who had no other way were transported to earth by Brennus and Telemont, by way of spell, by way of the shadows. They moved rapidly, efficiently, and within an hour the entire populace of Sakkors was gone. All but one.

Brennus Tanthul remained, a solitary figure standing at the edge of the plateau on which the abandoned city stood, the figurehead affixed to the prow of the ship-city. Magadon imagined Brennus looking east toward Ordulin, toward the maelstrom of shadows that darkened the sky, all the while sharpening his anger on the whetstone of his hate.

Magadon reached out for Brennus's mind. You'll remain, then?

I can't leave, Brennus said. I must see him pay.

Magadon had felt the depths of Brennus's hate for his brother. He did not feel like he could deny the Shadovar what he asked.

Don't interfere with anything, Magadon said.

To that, Brennus said nothing.

The wraiths and specters of lost Elgrin Fau blanketed the battlefield in a cloud of darkness. The undead native to the Shadowfell joined them, flowing forward like a dark tide around the towers and walls of the Citadel of Shadow.

Cania's armies stood arranged in precise formations, units of scaled and hulking horned devils, lithe, crouching bearded devils clutching glaives, buzzing wasp devils, a horde of spined devils, their bodies covered in a thick coat of long quills, and all the larger, more powerful armed and armored devils who commanded them. Pennons and oriflammes announced the units and their pedigree, and tens of thousands of weapons and horns and scales and fangs made a forest of sharp edges and points against which the cloud of incorporeal undead and Riven threw themselves.

As the forces collided, the moans of the undead vied with the roar of the devils, the beat of their drums, and the blare of hundreds of horns. Columns of hellfire flew in all directions, beams of baleful energy, clouds of poison. Missiles of bone and steel and magic from fiendish archers rose in shimmering clouds and fell in a dark rain on the undead army.

With each step Riven moved through the shadows, covering a spear cast of distance with each stride, appearing and disappearing with the rapidity and rhythm of a heartbeat. He appeared amid a squad of horned devils, a whirlwind of steel and darkness, beheaded six of them, and stepped through the dark. He materialized behind a towering, insectoid gelugon, and drove his sabers into the crease in its white carapace between its neck and the base of its skull. Dark ichor flowed as the devil spasmed, fell, and died. He stepped through the shadows and into the center of a horned devil regiment. With a thought he covered all of them in a cloud of swirling, deep darkness in which not even their fiendish blood allowed them to see. But he could. And he dashed up and down their ranks slashing, cutting, stabbing, leaving scores of dead devils in his wake.

He rode a column of shadow into the sky and from there took a moment to assess the battlefield.

Undead vied with devils for as far as he could see, their lifeless touch pulling the otherwise immortal life from the fiends. But the devils, powerful, organized, and well-led, held ranks and responded with barrages of hellfire, beams of magical energy, and organized charges of their ranks. The undead fell by the score, dissipating with a moan into dark, stinking mist. A nightwalker, a faceless undead, humanoid in shape, as black as a moonless night and taller than a castle tower, strode among a regiment of horned devils, crushing the devils in pairs and trios with the weight of its tread. Wasp devils swarmed it from above while a unit of flaming, armored devils on burning horses charged it from below. It fell, moaning, and the fiends cut it to pieces before it dissipated to nothingness. But still the undead came on, fearless, heedless, their numbers beyond count, and fiends fell to the dark earth, their bodies withering as the undead pulled out their life force. Thousands of fiendish corpses dotted the field.

A flight of shock troop devils-huge, blocky winged devils covered in red scales and dull iron armor, wheeled toward him. Each bore a huge sword and shield in its muscular arms. Riven hung there on his column of shadows and let them close in.

When they drew near he extended a hand and a wide net of sticky shadows shot from his fingers. The devils, too big to maneuver deftly, could not avoid the dark strands. It caught up all of them, wrapping their bodies and wings in sticky fibers of reified shadow.

Wings fouled, the devils roared and fell out of the sky. As they plummeted, Riven stepped through the darkness and onto one of the devil's backs. He drove his sabers into the base of the devil's skull, silencing its roars, then stepped to another, did the same, stepped to another, killed again. He killed six and stepped away before they hit the ground, their huge forms crushing lesser devils and throwing up clods of soil and grass.

Around him the battle raged. Devils and the dark hordes of the Shadowfell moaned, shouted, and died. Shadows spun around Riven. A green beam of energy and a column of hellfire shot out at him from his left, struck the shadows that shrouded him, and died in their darkness. He pointed a hand, loosed a line of life-draining energy from his palm, and withered an entire line of flaming devils and their mounts. They squirmed and shrieked and slowly imploded as his power stripped them of animus.

He'd killed dozens of devils and done nothing to cloak his power, but still Mephistopheles had not shown.

"Let's try this, then," Riven said.

Spinning and whirling his way through a score of gelugons, his sabers leaving a flotsam of insectoid limbs and heads behind him, he scanned the field for his target. He spotted him in moments, a pit fiend named Belagon, one of Mephistopheles's most powerful generals. Flames and smoke sheathed the heavily armored pit fiend the same way shadows shrouded Riven. The devil stood several times the height of a man, and his blazing sword and flaming whip slew undead by twos and threes with each blow.

Riven stepped through the shadows to stand before him.

"Godling," said the fiend. He beat his huge wings and they shed enough smoke and flame to engulf a village. Riven stood in their midst, unharmed.

"Dead thing," Riven answered, and launched himself at the fiend.

His sabers moved so fast they hummed, as he ducked, stabbed, slashed, and spun. Despite its size, the fiend answered in kind, its huge blade spitting flames as it parried, stabbed, and slashed. The two of them fought in a cloud of shadows and smoke and flame and power, and any devils or undead caught up in the cloud died screaming.

Belagon's whip cracked as the fiend tried to wrap Riven's legs in its flaming lines, but Riven leaped the attempt and slashed down with both sabers, severing the whip. He sidestepped a stab from Belagon's sword, pointed both sabers at the fiend's chest, and loosed a spiraling column of divine power. It slammed into the fiend, driving him backward several strides, tore through his breastplate, and tore a gory divot in the exposed flesh of his chest.

The fiend shouted with rage, the flames that surrounded him igniting into a conflagration. He charged Riven, blazing sword held high. Riven sidestepped the downward slash-the blade put a furrow in the earth-slid to the fiend's side and drove both blades through his armor and into his abdomen.

The devil squealed and collapsed, writhing in pain, ichor spurting from his gut. Riven rode the shadows to his side and drove both his blades into his throat. The pit fiend gurgled and his flames died, as did the fiend. Riven crouched atop the dead pit fiend's chest, an ichor-stained saber gripped in each fist, a cloud of shadows and smoke roiling around him.

"Come out, come out, whither you hide," he said to Mephistopheles.

Vasen, Gerak, and Orsin watched the battle in awed silence. Magical energy and fire lit the otherwise dark air of the Shadowfell, criss-crossed the field in blazing lines and pillars and columns and streaks of killing force. The undead blanketed the diabolical forces, so many and so thick that it looked as if a black fog had settled on the fiendish legions. The sound of shouts and screams and drums and moans was surreal. Vasen tried to keep his eyes on Riven, but Riven moved from shadow to shadow so quickly, covering as much as a bowshot in a single stride, that it was impossible to keep up. But wherever he appeared, the one-eyed man-god left dead devils in his wake.

They watched Riven fight a pit fiend in a fog of shadows and smoke and fire, watched him fell the devil with as much effort as it would have taken a skilled warrior to disarm a child.

Orsin held his holy symbol in hand and muttered prayers under his breath.

Gerak and Vasen stood with their mouths hanging open, waiting for words to fly in and give them something to say.

A boom sounded, so loud it shook the doors of the Citadel of Shadow, and for a moment stilled the battle. A line of fire formed in the sky above the battlefield, a slit in the fabric of the planes. Smoke and heat and power poured from it, the screams of the damned. The line extended laterally, then vertically, until it looked as if a flaming door hung suspended in the air over the slaughter.

A shadow filled the door, a towering dark figure of muscle and wings and horns and power.

"Mephistopheles," Vasen breathed.

Across the battlefield, Vasen saw Riven's face turned not toward the archdevil but toward the Citadel, toward them. Riven gestured and the darkness around the three companions intensified, fat ropes of shadow swirling around them. Vasen, sweating shadows of his own, closed his eyes, offered a hasty prayer to Amaunator, then snapped them open.

"Ready yourselves," he said. "We go."

The shadows engulfed them entirely. Not even Vasen's shade-born vision could pierce them. He felt a tingle in his stomach and a lurch as of rapid motion.

Chapter Fourteen.

Riven watched Mephistopheles hurtle out of the portal, a dark bird of prey, the archdevil's body surrounded by dark energy that crackled with each beat of his wings. The bare-chested, muscular archfiend eschewed any visible weapon or armor.

The devils on the ground roared excitedly at his appearance. A dozen shock troop devils, larger than those Riven had felled earlier, swooped toward their master. Mephistopheles hung in the air and surveyed the battle. His eyes fell on Riven.

"Let's dance," Riven said, bouncing on the balls of his feet.

The archfiend and the shock troop devils beat their wings and flew toward Riven like shot arrows. Riven surrounded himself in a protective cloud of shadows, rode the darkness into the air, and materialized to the side of the archfiend, slashing and stabbing the moment he appeared.

Mephistopheles anticipated his sudden appearance and pulled up, parrying Riven's blades with his bare hands and arms, which might as well have been adamantine. Riven's blades bounced off the archfiend's skin, barely scoring the flesh. The devil's fists and claws glittered with green energy as he punched, clawed, and grabbed at Riven. Green beams of power shot from the archdevil's eyes, vied with Riven's protective shadows.

Riven channeled more power into his blades, moved from shadow to shadow around the archfiend, appearing to Mephistopheles's right, slashing, disappearing and reappearing to his left, stabbing, throughout dodging the blows of the archfiend and the shock troop devils who flew around the combat and tried to get in slashes when they could.

Riven opened a dozen tiny gashes in the archfiend. Finally Mephistopheles reached through his protective sheath of shadows and grabbed Riven by an arm. Riven did not relent in his attack, hacking with his saber, gouging the archfiend's iron skin. Beams of viridian energy shot from Mephistopheles's eyes but shattered into a rain of harmless motes when they struck the shadowy shroud that protected Riven.

Roaring in frustrated rage, Mephistopheles beat his wings, spun a tight circle in the air, and flung Riven earthward. But the moment the archfiend released Riven, he flipped in mid-air, extended a hand, and a long rope of shadow formed from the air of the Shadowfell, one end in Riven's hand, the other looped around Mephistopheles's throat. Riven's precipitous fall pulled it taut, choked Mephistopheles, and swung Riven around and back up toward the archfiend. As the archdevil grabbed at the makeshift garrote wrapped around his throat, Riven slammed into him from behind, at the same time loosing two downward slashes that opened Mephistopheles's flesh. Black ichor oozed from the gashes, and the archdevil raged.

He beat his wings, whirled, and slammed a fist aglow with magical energy into Riven's face. The force of the blow, combined with whatever magic augmented it, penetrated Riven's protective shroud, shattered his nose, and sent him careening earthward, tumbling head over feet. A shock troop devil zoomed at him, hacked at him with its sword, and struck him in the side. The shadows protected him, but the impact made him spin faster.

No matter. Every shadow in the Shadowfell belonged to him; every shadow was part of him.

He rode the darkness out of his fall and into the shadows above Mephistopheles. He reversed his grip on his sabers, pointing them down, and as he fell drove them into Mephistopheles's back, just above the wings. The blades sank in half their length and ichor spurted from the holes.

The archdevil roared, arched, his wings beating furiously, their impact knocking Riven away and once more sending him earthward. Three shock troop devils tucked their wings and fell with him, swinging their blades as they plummeted. Riven, his back to the ground, parried with his sabers as he fell. He felt the ground rushing up and knew that a hundred more powerful fiends were waiting to pounce on him the moment he hit.

He channeled divine power into the cloud of shadows around him, turned it acidic to non-divine beings. Caustic shadows left him unharmed but melted flesh from the shrieking shock troop devils. They beat their wings frantically, but the cloud had already reduced their wings to shreds. In mere heartbeats, they'd been reduced to bones, and a shower of gore fell on the waiting devils below.

Riven rode the darkness back to the Citadel of Shadow, just inside the open double doors. The shadowstuff in his flesh reknit his nose, healed the other minor wounds he'd received during the battle.

Mephistopheles wheeled over the battlefield, his own wounds already healed, black energy firing from his fists, annihilating undead by the score. He was searching for Riven.

"Show yourself, man-god!" the archfiend shouted. "I'll rip your godhood from a hole in your throat!"

Riven thought himself a match for Mephistopheles, at least in the Shadowfell, but the archdevil's legions were slaughtering Riven's undead forces. None of the lesser devils presented a threat to Riven individually, but thousands of them, in combination with Mephistopheles, posed a threat. And Mephistopheles was immortal, and had lived for ages. He knew how to draw on his sliver of divine power in ways Riven did not.

Of course, Riven didn't need to defeat Mephistopheles. He just needed to hold him and his army off long enough for Vasen to rescue his father.

"Hurry up, Cale the Younger," Riven said, and darted back out into battle.

Cania hit them before the shadows lifted. A wind so cold it felt like knives sent Vasen's teeth to chattering. Screams filled the air, the stink of burning flesh, the smell of brimstone. Distant cracks boomed, the sound so loud it seemed as though the bones of titans might be breaking. Bestial grunts and growls carried on the biting gusts.

When the shadows that transported them dissipated, they all three stared in horror at the terrain. They stood on an icy promontory, exposed to the wind. A sky the color of blood glowed above them, the sun that lit it little more than a distant torch. Ice extended in all directions, huge jagged shards jutting from the cracked, windswept landscape.

Thick rivers of magma cut through the ice, glowing veins of flame in which tortured souls writhed. Devils stalked the river banks, stabbing at the damned with their polearms, pulling impaled souls from the magma. Huge, malformed devils blotted the sky in distant flocks. Vasen could not make out their forms at such a distance, but their squirming, awkward flight made him vaguely nauseated.

Vasen had seen it before in dreams, but still it sickened him. "Don't look," he said, but Gerak and Orsin seemed transfixed, overwhelmed by what they saw. Vasen grabbed each of them by the arm and shook them harshly. "Look at me. Look at me."

They did, and he saw from the look in their eyes that what they'd seen had marked their souls. They'd never unsee it. If they lived, it would haunt their dreams for the rest of their lives.

It would fall to him to keep his companions grounded. His dreams and his faith had armored him against Cania's horror. The fire in his spirit could not be quenched, not even by the Eighth Hell. He held his shield forth and uttered a prayer to the Dawnfather.

"Strength to our spirit, Dawnfather. And resolve to our purpose."

He channeled his faith through his shield, and it glowed with a rosy light that touched each of them, warmed them, comforted them. Immediately Vasen felt his spirit lighten, felt the darkness and cold retreat. Gerak and Orsin, too, seemed less haunted.

"Stay strong," he said to them, as he drew Weaveshear. Both nodded. "It's an awful place, but it's just a place."

"Just a place," Gerak said, clutching his bow, his voice higher than usual.

A line of shadows poured out of Weaveshear and flowed down the side of the promontory, toward the plains below. Vasen followed its path with his eyes and saw where it was headed.

A mound of snow and ice rose out of the frigid plain. Dark lines swirled around the mound, ropes of shadow that were unmoved by Cania's wind.

"There," he said, and pointed with Weaveshear.

He tried to feel the correspondence between the shadows where they stood and the shadows near the mound, but he couldn't quite feel it. Perhaps he needed to practice the skill more, or perhaps the wards around the mound prevented the connection. Either way, they'd have to move on foot.

"Let's go," he said.

A bellow sounded from above and behind them, so loud it nearly knocked them from their feet. Ice cracked in answer to the sound. A huge shadow darkened the earth.

Vasen turned, looked up, and gasped.

A huge form blotted out the sky behind them, a flat, undulating carpet of doughy, black-veined gray flesh a bowshot across. Tiny eyes stared dumbly out of a ridge of flesh in its front. A mouth like a cave hung slackly open, showing a diseased, malformed tongue and rotting, pointed teeth each as tall as a grown man. Vasen had no idea what kept the creature afloat, but each tremulous beat of the fleshy folds that served as its wings sent a wind groundward that smelled of corpses.

The three men gagged, pulled cloaks over their mouths.

Forms moved atop the creature, red-scaled devils, a score or more. If they saw the three companions . . .

"Down!" Vasen said. "Down!"

But it was too late. The huge beast bellowed again, the sound dislodging a shower of ice and snow from the earth, and angled downward. Dozens of the muscular, red-skinned devils leaped off the creature's back, falling through the sky like a red rain. Each of them bore a vicious looking glaive. A squirming nest of short tentacles grew from their faces and jaws like a grotesque beard. They whooped as they hit the ice and pelted toward the companions.

"They saw us!" Vasen said. "Run! Now!"

While his two companions leaped over the edge of the promontory and slid down the side, Vasen aimed his shield at the oncoming wave of devils and intoned a prayer to the Dawnfather. His shield flared white and a wave of holy energy shot forth from it in a wide line. It struck the leading devils and knocked them off their feet. Of those coming behind, some leaped over their fallen brethren, while others tripped on them and fell in a tangle of limbs and claws.

Vasen turned and jumped down the edge after his comrades. He'd misjudged its steepness and hung for a terrifying second in open air before he slammed back down on the edge and skidded down the slope on his backside. He tried to slow himself with his shield and blade but could not get purchase in the ice. Hitting the plain below sent a painful shock through his legs. Orsin pulled him to his feet. Gerak had two arrows nocked and sighted back up the ledge.

"Move!" Vasen said. "Move, Gerak!"

From above came the whoops and hollers of the pursuing devils. One of them leaped high over the lip of the promontory, glaive glittering in the red light of the plane. Gerak loosed both arrows at once and the devil's whoop turned to a pained squeal.

Vasen grabbed Gerak and Orsin and ran for the cairn of his father as the body of the devil Gerak had shot crashed to the ice beside them.

Hollers, growls, and snarls sounded from behind them. Vasen spared a look back to see a score of devils pouring over the ledge, scrabbling down its side, reaching the plain and pelting after the companions.

"Don't look back!" he said. "Just run! Run!"

They careened over the ice, slipping as they ran, their breath pouring out of them in frozen clouds. Gerak fell once, as did Vasen, and both times Orsin, surefooted even on the ice, helped them rise and keep running.

The growls grew louder behind them, the sound of their fiendish claws digging into the ice. They closed on the mound, the shadows from Weaveshear mixing with those emanating from the mound.

A shadow fell over the plain-the huge, flying devil looming over them. It bellowed as it flew over and past them, the sound like a thousand war drums. The three companions gagged on the stink of the creature. It swooped low and they all three dived onto their bellies to avoid getting hit, sliding along the ice.