Mark of the Fool
Chapter 541: The Last Rabbit in Hiding

“Hold on, Ripp, just hold on,” Alex called on Mana to Life, applying pressure to the leg wound as the swiftling’s lips moved silently.

The wee mercenary had lost a lot of blood. His teeth were chattering and his small frame shook as though chilled to the bone, his head had lolled to one side, resting against Thundar’s hand.

Alex’s Mana to Life spell poured life energy into him, encouraging his body to heal. While the young wizard knelt beside Ripp’s right side, Kyembe was on his left, his hand—sheathed in golden light—pouring healing magic into the mercenary.

Claygon watched, concern running through his link with Alex. “Will he be alright?” the golem asked, his voice now that of a frightened child. It was the tenth time he’d asked that question.

“I…I still don’t know,” Alex whispered, watching a cold sweat bead on the swiftling’s brow. “The break’s a bad one. His thigh bone was mostly shattered. Honestly, he should already be dead.”

He nodded to the Spirit Killer, his eyes fixed on the golden light around his hand. “Truthfully, if Kyembe wasn’t here, I think he’d already be in the afterworld.”

“My healing magics have some power to them: they slough burns, knit flesh and can replenish blood.” The Spirit Killer shook his head. “But they cannot mend bones.”

“They’re helping right now,” Alex’s voice was low. “The right divinity should be able to do the rest. We just need to keep him alive.”

“Oi, don’t go killing me off yet,” Ripp suddenly groaned, shuddering against the pain in his leg. His voice was weak. “Or, maybe you should do just that..I feel like that great big cow tore my body in two. …no offence.”

“Oh, thank the Traveller,” Alex said. “Thank the Traveller, I honestly thought you’d had it.”

“Aye, that was about as bad as any wound I’ve ever taken,” Ripp’s complexion was still pale, but no longer grey. “Probably by about twice over.”

“You are made of stern stuff to survive the demon’s bite for so long, friend,” Kyembe nodded, moving his hand away from the wound. “There is iron in your blood and bones. Perhaps even steel.”

“Well, thanks for that.” Ripp winced, his teeth still chattering, “I’m sorry to tell ya this, boss, but I don’t think I can walk.”

“Oh no, after what you did?” Alex waved over some air elementals. “You’re being carried.”

“I appreciate it,” Ripp grunted. “As long as they’ll be carrying me out of this hellscape and not into the afterworld.”

“Yeah, I second that.” Thundar took in the field littered with death around them. “I can honestly say I’ve had enough of Cretalikon to last me more than a lifetime. This place sucks!”

As the minotaur looked over the fallen demons, he watched Ezerak striding through the mounds of dead fiends. The former king was none too respectful of the mangled bodies, notably kicking some out of the way as he made his way back to his companions. His face was grim.

“This is all I could find of Guntile,” he said quietly, holding a scrap of fabric. It was a piece of the half-orc’s sack she carried her magical stones in. “It’s too bad. She deserved better.”

“Yeah, she did.” Alex agreed.

“She died well, though,” Thundar said. “Went out giving the finger to her killer. That’s not a bad way to go at all.”

“I would not know about all that,” Kyembe sighed. “Death on the battlefield is glorified a bit too much, in my mind. I would rather die in bed, preferably with a lover at my side.”

“You know what?” Thundar paused. “That’s pretty good, too. I like the way you think.”

“I do as well, though I must admit, I am somewhat biased.” The Spirit Killer gave the minotaur a grim smile before turning his attention back to the scrap of cloth in Ezerak’s hand. “Still…she had her vengeance and scored the first true wound on Kaz-Mowang. That is indeed glorious.”

“No, no, I like the other way better,” Alex said. “You know, all comfy in bed. Anyway, we can debate it some more later. Let’s get out of here before something else shows up.”

The companions got ready to leave the demon realm, planning for those waiting on the other side of the portal. Alex summoned a flock of aervespertillos and a few swarms of elemental beetles, sending the bat-like creatures through the portal first, instructing them to unleash their sonic shrieks the instant they passed through the portal. The elemental beetles followed soon after, attacking demons, cultists or any other unfriendly monster waiting in ambush. Claygon was the third to go through the portal, he was the cleanup crew. He stomped to the portal and vanished.

Aex and likely more than one other member of his team, waited with their breath held.

Minutes passed, the golem’s head suddenly poked through the swirling portal. “All the…demons are dead.” He announced.

“Good, now let’s go home,”

With a collective sigh of relief, the companions stepped into the portal, moving through planes, soon reentering the material world. Rain was falling, the scent of wet earth and blood reached Alex’s nose as he emerged from Cretalikon.

All around him an ancient forest, thick with trees that must have been half a thousand feet in height, stood. Broad, ancient trunks towered like Jaretha’s titans, their sweeping canopies caught the rain on rounded leaves, quieting the downpour that soaked the bloodied dell below.

The portal floated within a clearing, filled with mangled tiashiva and pazuzite corpses. Steam drifted from many on the fire-blackened earth; above, Alex’s beetle swarms, the aervespertillos, and Claygon hovered like clouds.

The golem watched the bat-like monsters, emitting waves of curiosity through his and Alex’s link. Rain pinged the iron covering much of his body. “We have…made it…father…”

“Yes, yes we have, buddy.”

Alex took a deep breath of cool, damp air as his companions came through the portal.

Thundar sighed, relieved to be back in the material world.

Kyembe’s stretch was long and unhindered, like a lioness after running down her prey.

Ezerak cracked his shoulders; most of his tattoos were greyed now, but colour was returning to some. Celsus floated beside him, his body supported by air and ice elementals.

And Ripp, cradled by air elementals,simply took a deep, trembling breath of fresh air. “Makes you appreciate being alive, times like these do.”

“Yeah,” Alex agreed, adjusting the Traveller’s sword hanging from his back. “Yeah, they sure do.”

The mercenaries had given the weapon little more than a glance of curiosity, though Alex could tell that Guntile had wanted to ask him about it. But she hadn’t, she’d remained professional to the end. He owed her and Celsus a debt, more of a debt than goldcould ever repay.

They had numbered eight when they entered the Hells.

With Celsus and Guntile dead, only six returned. Both died protecting the party from the enemy and had given their killers one last shot before falling in battle. Alex silently asked the Traveller to look out for them as he turned to the portal and spoke a single word.

It shuddered—its energies rippling—then the tear in reality slammed shut with finality. There would be no demons following them into the material world.

With the growing fatigue that often comes from relief, the companions moved through the woods, passing an invisible ward that Baelin had conjured to keep demons from escaping into the forest.

Evidence of its grisly work lay strewn on the ground at the ward’s border: the blackened corpses of some sort of hells-dwelling residents, struck down when they touched it.

Passing by with only a quick glance, Alex led his party through another one of Baelin’s wards, this one was hidden in a clearing. Within it, a camp waited, well-stocked with food, supplies, firewood, waterproof tents and even a covered firepit that Baelin had constructed with a single spell.

The encampment would have been comfortable enough for a party of at least twenty adventurers.

For six who’d made it through the hells alive? It was utter luxury.

“So now we wait for your friend to arrive?” Ezerak asked.

“Yeah, that’s the plan, so go ahead and pick any tent you want.” Alex chose one for himself, setting his satchel on a bench near the tent flap, and dropping into a comfortable seat beside it, allowing himself to simply enjoy the drizzle that seeped through the dome of Baelin’s ward. “He should be here soon: I don’t see him taking too much longer.”

“And what are we to do if he does not rendezvous with us?” Kyembe put his pack near another tent and drew his sword, taking a soft cloth from his bag. He methodically wiped the blade. “I do not recognise this forest.”

Alex gave him a wry smile; with all he’d learned in the last while, he doubted any of them would have recognised the forest.

‘We’re probably on another world somewhere,’ he thought. ‘Whirling around some distant sun…I’ll have to ask Baelin when he gets here.’

“I can tell you this,” Alex said. “Baelin will be along. It’s not a matter of if he’ll be here. It’s a matter of when.”

Chancellor Baelin rained fire down on the ruins of Jaretha.

His incantation had conjured a swarm of enormous meteors, each aflame, plunging to the ground at tremendous speed. Where they struck, the earth split, cracks spider webbing through the stone.

Anaxadar had called a firestorm that showered a downpour of endless flame on the remains of the city. Cra brought a deadly tempest, with winds far more powerful than any mortal storm. The hurricane stole the air from demon lungs and shredded flesh, stone, and even steel with countless pieces ofshrapnel. Sanii’s tiny constructs filled the air with whirling beams of red light, each capable of burning through tungsten.

And Magun-Obu had shaken the land as his hands reached to the sky, birthing a half-dozen volcanoes from the earth of Jaretha. He snapped his fingers and one by one, each erupted, spewing lava on Ezaliel’s allies. Those few abyssal knights remaining in the ruins of Jeretha, vanished in a blink with the dregs of their armies in tow. Earth boiled, fierce winds carried lava across the land.

Only Magun-Obu’s obsidian tower was untouched by the deluge.

Hopefully, soon all that would be left to do would be to salt the earth…that’s once they smoked the final rabbit from its burrow.

Baelin scanned the fiery spectacle raging below, searching for Ezaliel.

“It has been three days, Ezaliel,” the chancellor was clearly annoyed. “Your cowardice has turned this encounter from justice, to amusement, to futility and now, into the hell-realm of tedium. You know as well as I that we will find you: you cannot escape. You are running out of allies.”

He laughed. “Even if I let you go, your demon lord’s wrath will fall upon you. Stop wasting my time. You are done, now show yourself.”

Baelin’s goat-like eyes watched the inferno below as he reached out with his mana senses. There was no sign of Ezaliel, and the ancient archwizard suspected that he was hiding in the spaces between spaces.

He felt the air for any sign of dimensional magics, but—so far—he hadn’t detected any. It would only be a matter of ti—

Baelin paused, feeling a slight pull on his mind.

He glanced down, noting Magun-Obu subtly pointing his staff at smouldering ruins in the distance. There, the debris of Kaz-Mowang’s palace lay. Earlier, Baelin had felt his portal to the material world close deep within the maze, and only Thundar and Alex knew the word to close it.

With his students gone, he and his cabal had no reason to hold back: the greater demon’s palace was now rubble atop more rubble that was once Jaretha. Magun-Obu seemed to be indicating that something was hiding there. Baelin reached out with his senses, feeling for hidden rabbits in the spaces between spaces.

He smiled. A bolt of satisfaction struck the ancient wizard, lighting up his eyes like a child who’s long-anticipated treat is finally before them.

“Found you,” Baelin whispered.