"You are weak, mage! You cannot comprehend the power that flows through him now!" Her mental laughter was a chilling sound, echoing in the strange, subterranean space.
With a final, violent psychic shove, Vorenza expelled him. The alien landscape dissolved, replaced by the familiar, albeit blood-soaked, clearing in the Emperor's forest. Vellok staggered back as if physically struck, his brow furrowed in a mixture of frustration and a grudging respect for the demon's power.
He could no longer sense the rat-man's thread. It had been severed, pulled back into the abyss from whence it came. The connection was broken. Vellok, for the first time in a long time, did not know where his quarry was.
He turned his gaze to the kneeling Ogres, his expression hardening. Reaching into a pouch at his belt, he produced a heavy, obsidian badge etched with the Imperial sigil and imbued with a potent aura of authority. He tossed it to the largest of the four Ogres.
