their weak points, and attacked. It was only a moment and they were unraveling like a spool of thread. Their curling slowed, their song wavered. And then they stopped altogether.
The Mother commanded him to her.
I’m coming, he said. But he was talking to his wife and daughter, deep in the Mother’s cave, still caught in his stomach. I’m coming!
Argoth watched the woman catch Hogan’s arm midstrike, preventing his blow.
Hogan pushed her back against the wall, throttling her. The lines of his body blurred at the edges, blurred even her form. She was choking. Her ribbon familiars seemed to shudder with a sympathetic pain.
For a brief moment her visage flickered. One moment she was a woman whose face shone with such beauty it almost took Argoth’s breath. The next, the woman was gone, and in her place was something horrible with a round sucker mouth full of teeth that looked like it belonged on a leech or lamprey. Her undulating creatures seemed to swim with less vigor for a moment. And then the goddess was back.
She held a pointed weapon in her hand. With a quick jab she thrust it at Hogan’s gut. There was a flash, but it didn’t look as if it had penetrated the mantle.
Argoth began to believe they might win this fight.
But then the monster flickered in the corner of his eye and Argoth turned. It held up the two hag’s teeth in its rough hands.
Argoth watched in dismay as the teeth stilled their movements. Then the monster crushed the teeth and threw the lifeless twists of metal to the dust.
“Hogan!” Argoth yelled in warning.
But it did no good. Hogan was too focused on the woman.
The monster charged. With three enormous strides it covered the distance between it and Hogan. Then it dropped its shoulder and crashed into Hogan, its large bulk hurling him away from the woman.
Argoth wanted desperately to join in the battle. But the crown yet drew from him. He would be surprised if he had enough energy to walk.
Hogan turned on the monster. With deadly violence, he struck it in the head with his stone.
The monster reeled to one side.
Argoth marveled at the power of Hogan’s blow. He’d seen the dreadmen attack this thing. He’d seen the Skir Master. None had come close to this.
Hogan followed with another blow, the very air seeming to bend before him.
The monster fell back to the floor.
There was more in those blows than the simple force of stone. The mantle was at work. He could see the stone glistening with the power of it.
The ribbons of light swirled about the room. A number still clung to Hogan, and Argoth could see they’d eaten partway through the mantle.
Hogan raised the stone once more and suddenly jerked back.
The woman had penetrated the mantle with her weapon. It stuck deep in Hogan’s back.
He twisted around and caught her with an elbow.
She flew backward, but Hogan dropped to one knee. He tried to rise, but the monster scuttled over and fell upon him. It ripped the stone away from his grasp.
Hogan struggled. He delivered two more mighty blows to the monster, but they were not what they had once been. Argoth could feel a weakening in the binding between him and the crown. The monster caught the second blow in its rough hand, and wrapped Hogan in its long arms. Then it took him down to the floor in a full body hold. Hogan thrashed, but he did not break free.
The woman walked up to Hogan, a number of her shining school of light still writhing, hissing, and whispering about her. She reached down and clutched at the golden square of the crown.
Hogan twisted in the monster’s grip.
Argoth felt the woman through the bond of the crown. It felt like something gnawing on his bones. She was breaking the crown.
How was this possible? This was a victor’s crown. It was supposed to be impenetrable. And then he realized the crown was, but the bond was another matter entirely.
The bond suddenly changed. The harmony that sang through him departed, replaced by something painfully off-key. Then the bond snapped altogether.
The Creek Widow cried out.
Argoth felt a great gust of his essence whirl up and away. The break had rent him. In panic, he tried to close up the leak.
Hogan grunted and struggled once more against the monster’s grip.
Argoth stemmed the break. A portion of his strength returned, but it felt as if a sword had just sliced through him.