Chapter 9: The Slayer

I'm not ready to let go
Cause then I'd never know
What I could be missing
But I'm missing way too much
So when do I give up, what I've been wishing for?

I shot for the sky
I'm stuck on the ground
So why do I try, I know I'm gonna fall down
I thought I could fly, so why did I drown?
I'll never know why it's coming down, down, down.
Oh I am going down, down, down
Can't find another way around
And I don't want to hear the sound, of losing what I never found -Down, Jason Walker

Ilyrana

Ilyrana stumbled back, nearly falling, the wound in her hip where a mercenary's blade had sunk to the bone sent shockwaves of pain down her right leg. Her back hit Sarevok's, his hand reached around to steady her, and they both paused, breathing heavily, leaning against one another for just a moment, needing the respite, however brief.

The sun glared mercilessly down upon them from it's peak in the sky. Countless bodies were strewn across the hot springs and carrion birds whirled high above as they waited for the battle's conclusion. The entrance was choked with corpses, human and horse, and had become impassable, forcing the armies to split and come at Ilyrana and Sarevok from the holes blown into either side of the springs. Fighting back-to-back, they had held their own for far longer than either expected; aided by their new-found soul ability.

Exhaustion and dehydration, though, as well as the wounds they were accumulating, were beginning to take their toll. Putting weight on her right leg was agonizing for Ilyrana, and her speed, which was her greatest asset, was hurting because of it. Sarevok had taken a nasty hit to his ribs, the plate of his armor dented in so that just breathing was painful.

Ducking to avoid the slash of an axe, Ilyrana pivoted on her left leg, bringing her sword up to cut across the soldier's unprotected face. Behind her, Sarevok cleaved down two more men with one swing of his sword. Glancing around, she saw that the streams of mercenaries flowing into the hot springs had dwindled. She couldn't help the flutter of hope in her chest that they just might survive this, if only that Protection from Evil spell would drop, they could make a break for it.

Movement on the far side of the springs caught her eye. A man, mounted, surrounded by what she presumed to be his guards. He motioned with a gauntleted hand and Ilyrana felt the protective enchantments in her armor...falter, somehow. As if dispelled.

That cleric.

As her gaze darted around the battlefield, searching for the priest that had thrown up the Protection from Evil spell, and had just rendered her nigh defenseless, the thunder of approaching horses smothered the remaining embers of hope she had been trying to kindle. Turning, she could just make out the new arrivals in the distance, charging toward the hole in the right wall. Another wave of cavalry.

Before Ilyrana could even open her mouth to tell Sarevok about the mounted man, the hidden cleric, or the nearing horsemen, the crossbow bolts hit her. Like hammer blows, the quarrels drove deep into her chest, stomach, and right leg, which immediately buckled as her femur shattered. On her knees, eyes wide with disbelief as she looked down at the end of the shafts jutting from her leather armor, the shock of being hit momentarily drowned out the pain.

She rarely ever took an injury in battle. She was too fast; her armor, some collected from powerful beings she had slain and others forged by some of the best armorers this side of Toril, was infused with layer upon layer of defensive magics designed to deflect the most accurate of arrows and the sharpest of enchanted steel.

Breathing suddenly became laborious, a sign that one of the bolts had hit a lung. Fighting the overwhelming urge to gasp, cough, or hyperventilate, knowing that blood was quickly filling up at least one of her organs, she raised her head, her vision swimming, and looked at her half brother.

The impacts of the missiles had been loud enough for him to hear, and he knew, without having to turn around, that Ilyrana had been fatally wounded. He could practically feel the life ebbing from her through their shared soul. Running a mercenary through, his vision red with fury, Sarevok twisted the blade sideways in the man's gut, gripped his head with his other hand, and used it as leverage to tear the weapon out through the side, severing the soldier nearly in half.

Ilyrana watched him turn and approach her. Her hands still gripped her swords, though they laid uselessly on either side of her. Focusing on breathing and conserving her draining strength, she began to withdraw her half of their soul from his. She didn't want him to feel what she was about to do. What she was about to unleash.

Kneeling in front of her, Sarevok examined the bolts, then began ripping off his gauntlets.

"No," Ilyrana panted. "They're too deep."

"There's enough healing draught left to close the wounds if I can draw them out," he said, not looking at her as he drew the red bottle from his own Bag of Holding.

"Sarevok."

"This is going to hurt. I need you to try and hold still. If you faint-"

She raised a hand to his face and brushed her fingers against the stubble on his cheek. He stopped moving, stopped breathing, his eyes still averted from hers.

"Potion isn't strong enough to stop internal bleeding," she said softly, struggling to get the words out when it felt like she was drowning.

Her time was nearly up. In another minute, perhaps two, her lungs would finish filling with blood and it would be over after that. She couldn't stop herself from thinking about what she would be leaving behind. There wasn't much, in truth. A small mountain of gold and trinkets she had squirreled away in various hidden caches throughout the realm. A cabin in Windspear, the only place other than Candlekeep that she had called home, however briefly. Her sister, who was smart enough, and strong enough, to live to see this war ended. Her friends, who would eventually go off and pick their lives back up. And, perhaps, one last thing.

"In a moment there will be a short window of time where you can slip out past the mercenaries," she gasped, desperate to get the words out. "Go. Do something worthwhile with my soul. I don't want to see you in the Abyss."

He finally looked at her, brows drawn with some emotion she didn't have the energy to decipher. It was too late to try and put into words the conflicting way she felt about him and their history. Too late to ask him the questions she had needed answers to. Too late for either of them to work past their hate, resentment, and bitterness in order to find out what could have been. She lamented it; the not knowing. Recalling the way her body had responded to his, how his dominating strength had made her want to yield to him when no one had made her feel that way before, there was little doubt what one of those possible outcomes were. And, in their final hour, she had glimpsed the power they could have wielded together if they could just trust each other enough to fight side by side like that in the future. There was still so much to explore; and now it was too late.

She could see the same thoughts mirrored in his eyes. Slowly, he raised his hand and grasped hers.

"Go," she whispered.

"What are you planning to do?"

Before she could answer, his head snapped up at the sound of a small cadre of soldiers rushing toward them, hoping to finish the pair off while they were down.

"Sarevok, wait, let them come."

It was no use. Ignoring her, he rose, bringing his sword up with him, and went to meet them.

"No, damn you! Get out of here!"

Coughing, she slumped forward, one arm braced against the ground to hold herself up. White spots danced behind her closed eyelids, only to turn black when she opened them. Spitting out blood, she heaved for air and raised her head to watch Sarevok fight off the other men.

The last grains of sand in the top half of the hourglass were trickling down to the bottom. No cavalry was coming to save them. It was time.

Reaching deep inside herself, inside the very core of her torn soul, she began to unlock the metaphysical chains that held the gates shut on the part of her that she had fought so long to keep at bay. It was almost a relief to finally surrender. There was no effort required, all she had to do was just stop fighting. As the gates swung wide on rusty hinges, she called to the fury inside the blackness behind those barriers. Felt it stir at her summons. Watched it begin to rise out of the depths, building speed, tearing and tainting everything it touched; her memories, and personality, everything that made up who she was, as it clawed its way toward the surface.

A snarl and the sound of something heavy hitting the earth forced her attention back to the world around her. On one knee, with the bodies of the recently slain spread out before him, Ilyrana watched Sarevok slowly begin to try and remove the half dozen crossbow bolts that had shattered through his plate armor. The cleric, a middle aged man of nondescript features, stood a few yards away, hands still raised from the spell he had just cast. The same one that had torn her own magical defenses down.

"No...you fool," she hissed, amber eyes locked onto Sarevok as they began shifting to red-gold in color, her teeth nicking her lips as they began to sharpen. "I'm tired of watching you die!"

"Finish off the bhaalspawn, we won't get paid unless we have her swords as proof," the mounted officer's voice carried to her. "And put the Deathbringer down, he's just as rabid as she is."

The blood dripping from her mouth and oozing steadily from her wounds began to smoke, obscuring her view of the mercenary captain she was mentally marking for a swift yet painful execution. Through the darkening haze she glimpsed Sarevok grasping his sword where it lay beside him, readying himself to rise, a few of the crossbow quarrels still inside him. In the distance, the mounted soldiers thundered closer.

As screams of rage and triumph echoed across the Abyss and up through her very soul, so loud she felt it vibrating in her bones, she sent out a desperate command at her other half.

Feeling her skin begin to burn, as if the blood coursing beneath it had caught fire, Ilyrana closed her eyes and succumbed to the madness shredding it's way out of her.

Sarevok

STAY DOWN.

Ilyrana's voice echoed across their soul, fading before cutting off abruptly. When he reached back to brush his half against hers in order to get some clue as to what mad idea she was about to put into motion, his blood ran cold at what he felt.

Nothing.

She was gone. Just...gone.

In her place… a tidal wave of fury and bloodlust crashed against him, with an alien mind behind it, but there was no trace of Ilyrana's soul. As if the thing had swallowed her, absorbed her, and erased her.

He saw the faces of the men charging toward him turn to horror and disbelief as they stumbled to a stop. Saw the cleric frantically scramble back, mouth gaping.

He didn't turn and look. He knew what it was. Not what it looked like, he hadn't seen it before, but from what he briefly felt of it. He knew Ilyrana had used the last of her will, the last few seconds of her life, to summon up the Slayer.

To allow him the chance to escape.

"Go. Do something worthwhile with my soul. I don't want to see you in the Abyss."

The knowledge of exactly what she had done would have brought him to his knees if he weren't already there.

He had been confused when she mentioned the Abyss. Surely she didn't honestly believe that she had done enough evil to outweigh all those acts of self-righteous heroism? He knew what evil looked like, it stared back at him every time he looked into a mirror. He shared her very soul; she was tainted, and there were shadows and scars certainly, but there was nothing within her that warranted an eternity in the Abyss.

Except that he had been wrong. There was something dark lurking inside her that had enough unholy strength to drag her down. That something was a small part of why Ilyrana couldn't even face herself in a mirror without shattering it to avoid glimpsing the darkness waiting behind her eyes. He knew most of that was because she hated what she looked like, or rather, what had been done to her because of it. He also knew that she feared, and despised, what was inside just as deeply as she hated the outside.

She could have just allowed herself to die. Had she done so, had she kept that thing locked away as she faded to dust, the plane of existence she would have gone to would have certainly been far less horrible than the Abyss. Instead… she willingly let it take her place. Willingly strode into that hellish plane to give him a chance to survive.

No. Not to survive.

To live.

"Do something worthwhile with my soul."

The memory of the last time he saw her before Gorion stole her from him rose up inside his mind. Of Ilyrana moving in front of him, facing off against the old man, knowing she was powerless, but prepared to fight to protect him just the same. Even though Sarevok had been the one who vowed to protect her. Even though she had been the one Gorion wanted.

The shouts of the approaching riders had him gripping the hilt of his sword hard enough that his knuckles popped. The unfamiliar ache in his chest, brought on by the emptiness left in the wake of no longer being able to feel the other half of her, now his, soul, as well as the memory, fueled his wrath. He wanted to rip them all apart; exorcise the pain by murdering every single one of them.

Reaching up, he wrenched another bolt out of his chest, ignoring the wave of dizziness that he assumed was due to blood loss. As soon as he removed the last of them, he would take the rest of the healing draught.

The foot soldiers standing between him and the horses fell away, not wanting to fight what was manifesting behind him. Gritting his teeth, he tried to obey Ilyrana's last command and stay down, trusting that she had known what she was doing.

He ripped another quarrel out. There was only one left now.

With weapons raised, the cavalry were almost upon him, galloping with enough speed to run down anything in front of them. Just as he could discern the eye color of the nearest sell sword, something whistled over his head and slammed into the line of mercenaries. The wrenching sound of steel plate and chainmail crumbling was deafening. It blended with the screams of the horses and their riders as all of them were sent flying back.

A long, serpentine tail, deep red in color and covered with long black spines, finished it's deadly arc, disappearing back into the smoke, leaving the horsemen scattered and broken like wooden toys.

Sarevok turned his head and looked behind him. It took a moment for the Slayer to emerge from the smoke, rising to it's full height of fifteen feet, that lethal tail twitching like a cat's. It took another moment for his mind to comprehend what he was looking at.

Several pairs of horns swept up and back from it's head. Protrusions of blackened bone jutted from it's back, almost like wings. More spines jutted from it's shoulders. Plates of chitinous bone protected it's vital areas. It had two sets of arms, one smaller pair, and one larger pair, with bladed spikes protruding from its elbows and forearms.

It was terrifying.

It was beautiful.

The Slayer stepped forward, strangely graceful and fluid in it's movements, tail swishing slowly back and forth. Burning reddish yellow eyes, devoid of emotion, locked onto the remaining mercenaries.

A panicked male voice rose off to the side. The Slayer turned it's horned head, looked at the cleric, and exploded into motion. It was fast. Impossibly fast. Before the priest could complete what he was casting, one large, clawed hand raked down his body, leaving gouges deep enough to expose the bones left splintered beneath.

As if a spell had been broken, shrieks of terror suddenly erupted from the remaining mercenaries as the cleric's mutilated body hit the earth; some of them turned and fled, while the braver, or more foolish, ones rallied around the captain. The Slayer hissed, it's eyes tracking the fleeing men, before turning to look at Sarevok.

Yanking the last of the accursed crossbow bolts out, he pulled a bottle from his bag, uncorked it, and drained what little remained of the contents. There was just enough elixir left to close the wounds. His armor had stopped the projectiles from doing as much damage to him as they had done to Ilyrana, but there had been more in number.

The Slayer watched him, then took a step forward, readying itself to spring. Sarevok staggered to his feet, nearly losing his grip on his sword as his muscles sluggishly tried to obey his commands. His vision blurred, and just the act of standing seemed like a near impossible feat to maintain.

Cold dread joined the numbness creeping through his limbs as the realization sank in that the crossbow bolts had been poisoned. The healing brew had closed the wounds, had stopped the bleeding, but it could do nothing about the toxin. At that exact same moment, a shudder ran through the Slayer's body. Hissing, it jerked back, shaking its head violently enough that it nearly lost its balance. Sarevok could only watch in confusion as he tried to focus on remaining conscious and upright.

Turning away from the Deathbringer, the demon set its sights on the group of soldiers and their captain. Sarevok didn't know why it hadn't attacked him, why it had suddenly changed its mind, but he doubted it would spare him once it had run out of lives to take. He had a few more minutes now, enough time to escape, but he didn't think he had the strength to make it very far before the poison finished him off.

A group of crossbowmen emerged from behind one of the larger rocks, firing their weapons at the creature. The quarrels bounced ineffectually off it's bony armor. With a high pitched roar of fury and ecstasy, the Slayer leapt into the middle of them, slashing out with its claws and the blades on its forearms. Arterial blood seemed to stain the air, and the ground was soon saturated with the spilled innards belonging to the unfortunate fools whom the beast had pulled apart.

Sinking back down to one knee, the weight of his greatsword now too much to bear, Sarevok watched the butchery with a mix of awe, jealousy, and fear. He had read about the Slayer, back when he had been compiling information about the prophecy. He knew it was the divine avatar of Bhaal himself. Knew, just by looking at it, that what little he had discovered about it had been vastly understated. It was the perfect vessel of destruction. Of murder.

When he had first heard the whispers from Ilyrana's companions about the Slayer, he had been nigh insane with envy. How could she have attained the ability to take its form? Why had it been her? Why was it always her? And, of course, she shied away from speaking of it to him, and refused to acknowledge how fortunate she was to have that kind of power. He couldn't understand how someone could be so blind, so utterly foolish, to not embrace a gift like that.

Seeing it now, in all it's blood-stained glory, he wasn't as firm in his convictions about it. Or about her.

Damn you, Ilyrana.

As children, she had been the only light in the darkness of those years at the temple. As a man striving to become a god, she had been the thorn in his side that eventually became his undoing. As his ally, she had become his obsession; tirelessly watching, calculating, scheming to bring her down.

And in death, as in life, she would have haunted him till his last breath, were he not soon to draw it.

More shouts, and the sound of steel, made him look up, swaying a little as just that small movement brought on another wave of dizziness. The Slayer was now ripping into the soldier's around the captain. It picked up one man and tore him in half. It's tail smashed three more into the granite wall, leaving smears of blood on the rock as the bodies slid to the ground in a broken, pulpy mess.

The captain slammed his horse into the demon, the blade of his spear driving deep into its shoulder. Howling with rage, the Slayer backhanded his mount, sending man and beast tumbling to the ground in a crunching heap of broken bone. It fell upon them, it's fangs sinking into one or both of them, Sarevok couldn't tell which, as the screams sounded much the same. Those still alive tried to hack at the Slayer from the sides, dancing around it's whipping tail, but they just didn't have the strength to break through it's hide.

The sound of footsteps coming up behind him had him fumbling for the dagger at his belt. He couldn't feel his hands, but damn if he was going to sit there and let a nothing sellsword claim the honor of killing him.

"If you strike at me, male, I'll let that poison finish it's job then feed your corpse to the Slayer, I swear to Shar!"

"I thought you were dead, drow," Sarevok snarled back, letting the dagger slip from his fingers, and not turning to look at the woman so she wouldn't have the satisfaction of seeing his relief at her sudden appearance.

"Merely stunned. Though, I am insulted you would think that that jaluk's mediocre spell could kill me. Perhaps I should let you die."

"If you were going to let me die, you wouldn't be here trading words with me," he paused to catch his breath before continuing. "Now, heal me or begone."

Viconia shook her head at the man, choosing to ignore his arrogance this time, as she needed him. Resting one dark hand on his armored shoulder, she murmured the words to the necessary spell that would neutralize the poison. Seconds later, as her goddess cleansed the toxin out of his body, she bit out a healing spell to repair the rest of the damage.

Rising to his feet, he watched the Slayer eviscerate what little remained of the mercenary army.

"Have you tried to reach her?" Viconia asked, her voice softened somewhat.

"She's gone, drow."

"Have you tried?"

"Yes! I've tried! Her soul is gone!"

Hissing, Viconia grabbed his arm and jerked him around to face her.

"Her soul isn't gone, Sarevok, it's being used. She doesn't disappear when the Slayer takes over, she's just suppressed."

Sarevok looked down at the drow, then shrugged his arm out of her grip and turned back around to study the demon.

"I know the two of you can feel each other through her soul," Viconia said, coming up beside him. "Don't reach out to her soul, reach out to her."

Could it really be that simple? Was she still in there, somewhere? Did he want to bring her back if she was?

"She was dying when she transformed-"

"Then she's probably been too weak to control the thing," Viconia snapped. "But judging by the fact that it hasn't killed you already, when it easily could have, there's obviously enough of her left in there to influence its actions."

That explained it's odd behavior earlier. When it was about to attack him, then stopped, and seemed to be struggling with itself.

She's still alive.

Sarevok closed his eyes and focused on the Slayer. Bloodlust, almost sexual in its intensity, and an otherworldly consciousness met his seeking touch. He ignored it, and instead sought what he normally felt when their two halves made any contact. That spark that was unique to Ilyrana alone.

Minutes ticked by, but he didn't notice. Lost inside their soul, he dove deeper and deeper into those murky waters, forcing his will through the growing pressure around him.

He could hear screaming. An animal's screams, he thought, though he didn't know if they were in his head or outside. Beneath that sound was another; a deep, cavernous voice that thundered throughout the depths. Bhaal's voice. He recognized it from when he had still been a bhaalspawn. When that voice once boomed inside his dreams.

He saw flashes of images, memories, impressions. A thousand different faces of people Ilyrana had murdered. Some of them shone differently in the darkness than the others. And he somehow knew their vibrancy was based on how she had felt about killing them.

He saw the blood-stained table with the straps that she had once laid upon while Irenicus did unspeakable things to her body, mind, and soul.

He saw Candlekeep. And Gorion.

He saw the temple they had lived at together as children.

He saw their tree. A vivid picture of shapes and words they had carved into its trunk and branches, memories he had forgotten about.

He saw himself, as a young, haunted boy, with golden eyes filled with exasperation and a fierce possessive love. He saw the man he had become, through her sight, his eyes now filled with hate, and devoid of any warmth or affection. Watched her try and reconcile the two, as if they were two puzzle pieces that should connect to make a larger whole, but she couldn't figure out how they were supposed to fit.

He saw her staring into a broken mirror. Filled with fear, and anguish, that she couldn't tell if it was her reflection staring back, or her mother's. Her mind splintered like the glass, and he felt the creeping madness she was afraid she had inherited.

He saw a candle, burned down to just a small stump of melted wax, it's flame so low that anything more than a sigh would extinguish its light.

And then… he realized that that small flame was her. That she was almost gone. Soon to be nothing more than a whisper in the darkness. Desperately he reached for her, wrapping himself around that tiny spark to preserve it.

"Sarevok!"

The drow. Her voice sounded miles away. He opened his eyes. Saw the Slayer charging across the springs toward him, its eyes burning brighter than the candle's flame.

Gritting his teeth, he began pulling her towards the surface, blocking out what he saw before him so he could concentrate on what was happening inside. He felt her strain against him, trying to descend once again. Tightening his hold, he forced her higher. He felt her exhaustion, her pain, her grief. He felt her desire for oblivion. Felt her conviction that she wouldn't suffer anymore if she just let go and finished falling.

Sarevok knew what waited at the bottom. He refused to let her make that final plunge into the Abyss. Weakly, she struggled against him, but he only held on tighter.

"Sarevok!"

Was that Ilyrana's voice or the drow's?

A howling scream, like the one he heard moments ago in his mind, rang out again, this time from outside his head.

The Slayer had come to a stop only feet away from him. Shaking it's great horned head, its claws digging into its temples, it staggered. That long tail braced against the ground to keep it upright, but the demon listed sharply and collapsed heavily to the earth. Roaring, it dropped its claws to its torso, and started trying to shred itself open.

Sarevok stumbled back, unable to see through the chaos as he brought Ilyrana to the surface and she began fighting for control of her half of their soul. Wearily, he felt her start to wrest it back from the Slayer, and it's roars of fury turned to shrieks of pain. Those shrieks then turned to hoarse, wracking sobs.

Furiously blinking his eyes to focus, he felt Viconia push past him. As everything sharpened back into view, he saw the drow kneeling beside Ilyrana, the smaller woman's head in her lap. He took a step closer, needing to see her. Needing to see her alive.

Her wounds were healed, mended from the transformation, he assumed. She looked paler than usual, though, and her long, tangled hair was lusterless. Tears tracked down from her closed eyes, and there were shadows as dark as bruises beneath them, and she breathed shallowly.

"She'll be fine," Viconia said, reading the question in his eyes. "She's weak, and will probably be in and out of consciousness for a while, but she's back, Sarevok."

Nodding, he sat down several feet away, putting his back against a rock, not taking his gaze off the girl.

She was back.

He didn't know how to feel. About that, or her, or what he had seen and felt inside her part of their soul, or the Slayer, or anything else. Right now, he just wanted to rest.

Glancing around the area, he observed the mounds of corpses and the vultures who were just now finding the courage to descend. Not seeing any other signs of life, he once more looked at Ilyrana, watched the rise and fall of her chest, the surest sign she was indeed alive, then leaned his head back against the rock, closed his eyes, and immediately fell asleep.