The Broken Pieces(22)

The gate was only half open. Men could crawl under, but they’d be helpless against any sort of defense. Turning the wheel, she ignored the mercenaries approaching to guard the gate. They couldn’t hurt her. None of them could, not with their feeble mortal blades. She had no flesh to pierce. But when the lioness let out her cry, and its sound was terribly close, she knew she’d failed her task.

“You dare return here?” Lilah roared, and then something struck Valessa hard from behind. A terrible sensation of burning swarmed across her back, and she flew forward, through the wheel, through the wall, and exited rolling across the grass. Letting out a scream, Valessa fought against the pain. Glaring at the gate, she watched as the mercenaries quickly shut it. Looking north, she saw Darius leading a charge, his glowing blade held high. In moments they’d arrive to find no way inside.

“Is that it?” Valessa asked, even as she felt a form of madness overtake her. She approached the gate, where Lilah glared at her through the bars. She was just as large as she remembered, an enormous feline with molten fur and fire burning where her eyes should be. Only metal separated them, but it seemed the lioness still feared the forces arrayed against her, otherwise she’d have kept the gates open so she could attack. “Is that the best you can do to me?”

Valessa showed the flesh rent by the lioness’s claws, which wept shadow, and no matter what form she assumed, would not change to match it, instead remaining a wicked scar.

“Your body is a gift, one I can take away,” Lilah said, nose hovering just before the gate.

Valessa walked closer, closer, and she made her form change to match her lunacy. She wore silvery armor, a crown, and a purple cape around her shoulders that flowed down to her ankles. She stared into Lilah’s eyes. They were so vivid, yet somehow dark, as if they were windows into a deep place in the earth filled with fire and molten rock. She saw no mercy in them, no understanding, only fury and disgust. At her closeness, Lilah bared her teeth, and her very breath was burning heat across Valessa’s body.

“Take it,” Valessa whispered as she put her hands on the bars of the gate. “Take it, all of it, and let me die if that will grant me peace.”

“You’ll know only pain.”

Valessa laughed at the lioness.

“That’s all I know now.”

Daniel’s army was close, so close, and already she could hear panic rising as they realized the gate was shut. Arrows had started to rain upon them, and they’d grow thicker as the army gathered together in defense. Refusing to look, not wanting to see them dying, Valessa instead pressed closer, almost daring Lilah to strike.

“Greet me when I enter the Abyss,” she told the lioness. “Because you’ll be there before me.”

She was strong, stronger than ever. Her body was not tied to concepts of muscles anymore. Everything was fluid, changeable, becoming the form she imagined. And what she imaged was a woman with the power of a god, and her hands pulled. The gate groaned, twisted, then broke in half with a sound that shook the wall. The mercenaries stood stunned, but Lilah never hesitated, leaping through the permanently opened portcullis. Valessa’s sight filled with stark white teeth. She thought to fall through the world, as she had when Cyric attempted to kill her, but Lilah seemed aware of her strategy, and her teeth closed around an arm.

It held firm, and Valessa could not pull free. She struggled, and the teeth sank in deeper. A strange black fluid poured from her body, and she felt herself becoming loose. Maintaining her shape grew increasingly difficult as Lilah shook her side to side, tearing deeper, jarring Valessa’s body. The pain increased tenfold. A scream exited her mouth, though it sounded like it belonged to another. And then her scream was overwhelmed by the sound of more than a hundred men howling at the top of their lungs.

Darius’s glowing blade sliced through her Lilah’s jaw, and with a yelp from the great best, Valessa was free.

I am anyone, she thought. I am anything.

It was madness, but she had to try. The lioness roared with heightened fury. Mercenaries were rushing out of the gate, seeking to protect Lilah, for she was the only real hope they had left. They were met by Daniel’s men, and the blood quickly flowed. Only Darius faced Lilah, as if the rest instinctively knew it would be the paladin who must deal with the creature, and if he failed, there was little any of them could do. Darius stood between Valessa and the lioness, and though the light from his sword hurt, there was still comfort in its sight.

“Fly away,” Valessa whispered.

Darius swung, and Lilah reacted with the speed and reflexes of the cat she resembled, dodging aside. Instead of lunging at the hated paladin, she remained focused on Valessa, who stood there, a smile on her face. Lilah would risk everything, even defeat, to kill her now. But she wouldn’t. Lilah was just a giant cat. Giant cats couldn’t fly.