Deathstalker 05 - Deathstalker Destiny

his sword with both hands, and stepped carefully over the dead and dying bodies on the floor. His disrupter was fully charged, but so much sheer mass would soak up the energy beam before it could penetrate far enough into the crowd to do any real good. There was only one way through this hideous headless army, and he wasn't sure he was strong enough yet to pull it off. But he had to try. He hadn't come all this way, got so close to Hazel, just to be stopped now.
    And then he heard Hazel scream. Far away and close at hand, her despairing cry crashed into his mind, and that was all it took.
    Owen reached deep inside himself, an old door opened, and a familiar frightening power coursed through him. It burst out of Owen as though he were too small to contain it, and thundered in the air around him, like the beating heart of some great unstoppable colossus. The headless bodies before Owen stopped in their tracks, hesitating as the minds that drove them sensed the arrival of a new force in their ancient stone world. Owen laughed suddenly, a dark implacable sound, and his power surged forward, smashing through the packed bodies as though they were paper, tearing them apart and sending the bloody pieces flying down the endless stone corridors. Far away, Owen could sense the controlling minds screaming, and his death's-head grin widened for a moment. He strode forward down the newly opened corridor, stepping over the scattered body parts or kicking them aside as the mood took him, his power wrapped around him like a cloak of majesty.
    Hold on, Hazel. I'm here.
    He followed the mental link in his head, running now that he was so close to her. He plunged recklessly down turning after turning, never once doubting his way. At last he came to where Hazel was being held, her presence blazing in his mind like a beacon. And there in an open stone square, to meet him and block his way, were the Blood Runners, all assembled in one place to stop the outside force that threatened their world. It had been a long time since any danger had been great enough to unite them in a single purpose, but the Deathstalker frightened them. Perhaps because they knew he was what they were supposed to have been, if only they hadn't been too frightened to enter the Madness Maze when they had the chance. Now many of them were dead, struck down by Owen's last attack, only forty-seven Blood Runners remaining to stand between him and Hazel d'Ark. And Owen knew that wasn't going to be enough. There was a power roaring
    within him like a mighty song, a melody powerful enough to kill or madden all who heard it.
    "You don't want to face us, Deathstalker," said Pyre. "Your father was our ally.
    We made a deal with him."
    "I'm not my father," said Owen. "And his deal died with him. You've only got one thing I want, and we all know you're not going to give her up willingly. You're everything I've ever hated. Power without responsibility, heartless, self-obsessed evil. The last remnants of the old Empire. I suppose it's only fitting I should be the one to finally bring you to an end."
    "Don't be so sure, Deathstalker," said Pyre, in his dry whispering voice. "We are older than you ever dreamed of, more powerful than your worst nightmares.
    This is our place, our seat of power. And you should not have come here."
    The Blood Runners reached out to the Summerstone, and drew its power into themselves. Here in their own world of stone, they controlled everything that was. And now that Owen had entered that world, he should be theirs to control too. Their linked minds smashed out at his, surrounding and enveloping his thoughts, battering him into submission. But to their surprise his mind was deeper than theirs, and they could not plumb it. Owen threw them off, and they retreated in disarray.
    Pyre and Lament called them together again, and led the attack on Owen's body, trying to warp and mould his flesh as they manipulated the primal matter that made up their world and everything in it. But Owen had been changed by the Madness Maze, and nothing less would ever be able to alter him again, and again the Blood Runners fell back, defeated.
    Clinging doggedly together, they turned to the one thing they could still be
    sure of manipulating, and the cold stone around them rippled menacingly as their will moved through it. Great stone arms reached out of the walls to grasp and crush Owen, but he shattered them with a thought. Walls and floor and ceiling fluctuated eerily,