The Sealed Citadel

by Edward W. Robertson

  Her face was flushed, quite possibly from the fact she'd been about to be killed by a monster. "Tell me how."

  "Tell them to listen!"

  They—meaning the Order—were still in the middle of being overwhelmed by their merciless attackers, pushed back across the cavernous and many-pillared hall, leaving a trail of their own dead behind them. Cally and Rowe ran toward the next wight as it was in the act of ripping off a monk's arm.

  "The first step is to wound them." Cally brought both light and shadow to him. "Deep as you can. Send your mind in through the wound, into its nether."

  The wight hurled the severed monk's arm aside, stomping toward the screaming man. Rowe rammed his nethereal blade into the side of its gut.

  "Watch me!" Cally sent his focus swooping into the puncture. He roved through the wight's gut, headed right for the core of its being. There, he flooded the space with light, revealing the braid like a trio of snakes copulating in their den. "Do you see it?"

  "Yes!"

  "First you find it—then you cut it." He slashed a blade of nether across the cord. It disintegrated. And so did the wight.

  "Faithful of the Order!" Volarra strode toward the combatants, hands raised above her head, ignoring the pools of blood under her feet. "Cally knows how to destroy them! You must listen!"

  She was just a few years older than him (although she no longer seemed as old as she once had), and just an aide, not even a full monk. Yet despite her lack of seniority—and the fact that most of the Order's sorcerers were gripped in a vicious fight for their lives—men and women called out their acknowledgement.

  "You must wound them." Cally's voice wavered, threatening to stick in his throat, but he charged ahead and found his words growing steady. "Find the braid within them. And cut it clean!"

  Rowe charged another wight that had been ripping its way through a line of soldiers to get at a bleeding priest. The demon circled to face him, ready to leap back and then to counterattack, but the priest rooted it in place. Rowe's blade flashed silver. It spiked into the wight's trapped thigh. Once more, Cally demonstrated the process: the entry, the lighting of the braid. And its destruction.

  "This is all that it takes!" He thrust his fist in the air as the wight showered the ground with its innards. "Fight for the lives of your people! Retake your city!"

  With a roar, the Order surged against the line of wights. Streams of nether darkened the air, illuminated by complimentary sparks of ether. Only the Masters knew how to use the shadows to strike, but the monks used their power to bind the demons in place, opening them to attacks from the beleaguered soldiers. Several of the wights had already weathered too many previous attacks, their bodies now so hardened that plain steel could no longer scratch them.

  But Rowe bore a weapon far greater than steel. He moved among the demons like a culling wind, stabbing deep into bellies, armpits, exposed throats. Cally and Volarra ran in his wake, Volarra lighting the wights up with ether or locking them to the ground while Cally tore out what was inside them.

  Master Dana was the first to kill a wight other than Cally. When her foe fell apart in front of her, the soldiers bellowed her name.

  Yet even as other Masters repeated her feat, the wights merely stalled, refusing to yield ground. Their brutal claws still ripped through armor and flesh. Cally's grasp on the nether was starting to grow clumsier. For as much as his skill had grown, it remained quite finite, and he wasn't far from reaching its end. He thought that if he faltered, so would the Order's lines.

  Just as he began to fear their efforts were about to become a last stand, the wights' left flank folded. Priests splashed through the ichor with murder in their eyes, slamming into the sides of the remaining wights. One of the demons slashed Rowe down his chest, forcing him back; Volarra rushed to him with nether in hand, seaming the wounds back together.

  The wights seized the chance to fall back, either to regroup or retreat from the temple. Rowe laughed and ran to meet them. Cally stuck by him, slaughtering one wight, then a second. They stalled the retreat just long enough for the Order priests to complete the collapse of the left flank and meet up with them.

  From there, the wights had no escape. Humans would have surrendered to beg for their lives. But the wights made no such effort, and even the Order would never have accepted it. Soldiers and priests advanced on both sides, moving from demon to demon, until the last of them was no more.

  The hall was suddenly silent except for the panting of the victors. They looked at each other with wide white eyes, faces slickened with sweat, red blood, and blackish ichor. Then they erupted into something that was less of a cheer and more of a primal scream.

  But there was still much left to do, and the cry faded. Masters ordered monks to see to the wounded. Soldiers formed up and ran to secure and brace the doors.

  Rowe sheathed his nether-rippled sword. Breathing hard through a strange grin, he nodded at Cally. "Not bad."

  "Not bad?" Cally said. "What would I have had to do to qualify as good? Locate a woman capable of tolerating you?"

  Rowe laughed and flicked a bit of gore from his sleeve. "You won a battle. Not bad. But it won't be good until we've won the war."

  Master Garillar stalked toward them, robes aswirl about his legs. Cally had seen him during the fighting, but they hadn't exchanged a word. The creases in Garillar's bald head were lined with blood. He had two deep bloody furrows down his cheek and his left arm was bleeding as well, held stiffly to his side. Yet he bowled forward as if he felt no pain at all.

  He looked Cally up and down. "Who let you out of the Wizard's Solution?"

  "I did." Cally gestured to the gory, wight-littered floor. "As it turns out I rather stand by that decision."

  "No one can escape the Solution without help. That is its exact purpose. Stop protecting your accomplice and tell me who aided you!"

  "Mr. Long Piece of Dumbwaiter Rope. That and Yobb, the kindly old norren woman who taught me to use the nether to break things. If you have a problem, you'll have to take it up with them."

  Garillar's jaw slid forward. "And where did you learn the demons' vulnerability?"

  Cally squeezed his temples. "I was tipped off by something Merriwen said. In that book of his, most likely. I can explain in more detail once we're done being invaded. But we haven't won yet. Lady Minabar of the Lannovians knows how to create more wights. Even if we drive her from the city, she'll come back with more—or use them to build an empire that can conquer us with steel instead of claws. We have to find her before she has the chance to retreat."

  Garillar raised an eyebrow. "And?"

  "Merriwen said—again, I must have read this in one of his papers—that all knowledge of the demons must be destroyed. Along with everyone who'd use them."

  "Lady Minabar will face justice for everything she has done. But the time for that is not now. We are too weak and have suffered too much."

  "All right, then Rowe and I will go deal with her. Where did you see her last?"

  Garillar's face reddened. Volarra cleared her throat. "Ever since she broke past the Pridegate, Minabar's been holding her people in reserve. I believe she presumed that there was no use risking her priests' lives unnecessarily when the wights would be more than enough to take the city."

  "A very smart decision, unless the underlying assumption it's based on is actually very stupid. Whoops. You know where she's been hiding, then?"

  "I know where she was. Just outside the Greenmarket."

  Cally sent his mind into his moth, which was circling idly high overhead, and redirected it toward the Greenmarket. "Shall we?"

  Rowe nodded. "Never pass up the chance to make someone regret their miserable life."

  They turned to go. Some of the monks and priests began to mutter. Cally assumed they were condemning him, but to his surprise, most of their complaints were directed at Garillar. Perhaps the battle against the wights had stirred up their spirits.

  "Garillar, we might be disheveled by figh
ting, but so are the Lannovians!" called Master Parda, a tall and skinny woman who'd just achieved Mastery a few years before. "They've murdered our brothers and sisters. Invaded our very home. We must bring them to account!"

  A swell of voices supported her. Garillar stood as motionless as a boulder buffeted by a swift stream. He seemed to be waiting for their complaints to die down, but their voices only grew angrier, more insistent.

  Garillar lifted his hand for quiet and nodded his bloody head. "Brothers and sisters, I have heard you. We will find them. And we will bring this war to its end."

  ~

  They marched.

  Several priests sent reanimated scouts flying across the night sky. Within three minutes, they located the Lannovians—who were headed south. Fast. Meaning to exit the city.

  Bells rang. Trumpets blew. Summoning the city's militia to the aid of the Order. Directing others to range ahead and harry the Lannovians, slowing their retreat. Recruits arrived in small bands. Some had swords and armor, but most had spears or bows, and some bore simple clubs and staffs.

  As they closed on the Lannovians, a few hundred fighting men had rallied to join them. It seemed like a lot, but Rowe eyed them with dissatisfaction. "Should be five times this many."

  Cally glanced across the volunteers. "Suppose most of the people have fled the city?"

  "Some. Most are too afraid of the wights to take the field."

  They marched hard through a neighborhood of row houses. Smoke ghosted through the streets and Garillar called to the people to join him in battle or come out and put out the fires. Pale faces appeared in the windows, watching the column of priests, soldiers, and militia pass by. Then the citizens came forth from their houses to do their duty to the city.

  The Lannovians had scouts of their own and soon discovered they were being followed. Some of them dumped supplies to let themselves march faster, but they didn't know the city as well as the defenders, and seemed to be dealing with wounded and stragglers.

  The enemy made it past the Pridegate into the vast and largely uninhabited sprawl beyond it. But the Order was almost upon them. The Lannovians broke course—not to try to flee, but to choose the ground they would make their stand upon.

  They selected Tannagar Square, taking up both wings of the L-shaped market building that enclosed the square on two sides. The Lannovians were still arranging their lines and taking cover when Garillar led his little army into the open ground.

  "We stand now against former friends," Garillar declared, using some trick of the nether to make his voice boom across the square. "But you have violated all bonds and trust. You have murdered good Masters of the Order who pledged their lives to bringing peace and purity to the world. Now you will face judgment for what you have done!"

  His people roared their approval. His eyes glittered in the torchlight. "Priests of the Order! Use the powers granted to you by the gods above to protect our brave soldiers as they deliver us from these traitors—these backstabbers—these defilers of trust, nether, and our sacred home! To victory!"

  He thrust up his fist, aglow with ether. His people roared again, even louder than before, and charged.

  The militia followed the lead of the Order's soldiers, who had drilled often for such an engagement. Swordsmen and spearmen formed the vanguard, with priests spaced just behind them to shield them from sorcerous attacks. Archers ran at the infantry's flank. Most of the square was open ground, but the right side of it bore a column of trees and another of statues and the soldiers used these to cover their advance.

  Arrows flew from the third floor of the building. The city's archers took cover behind tree trunks and stone heroes and answered the volley in kind. Cally had been placed near the very edge of the formation with the aides and the least of the monks, where the action was expected to be lightest. His position left him with an almost clear view of the action as the city's soldiers neared the building—and the air in front of them became a storm of death.

  He had thought the explosion of sorcery during the treachery in the Bowl of Seasons had been frightening in its fury. This dwarfed it. Bolts of nether darted from the ground floor, a flock of murder zooming toward the city's troops. Behind the front lines, the Order's priests lifted their hands, singing a prayer to the twelve gods as they responded with a vast wave of shadows.

  Nether met nether and erupted like exploding stars. The air around the soldiers sizzled as bright as day. Silver sparks rained harmlessly onto clothes and skin. The Lannovians' soldiers leveled their arms and ran to meet the Narashtovikers. Metal clanged against metal and crunched into bone.

  Two wights ran from the darkness of the building. The front line screamed, indenting itself to escape from the monsters, who tore down militiamen as quickly as they could swing their claws. Rowe nodded to Cally and sprinted forward. They had one wight cut open and braid-gutted before it knew what was happening. Arrows and nether raged around them as they ran to the second wight. It scampered back, but a priest from somewhere in the throng lashed it to the ground. Rowe stabbed it and Cally cored it, sending it splashing to the stones.

  Nether pounded toward them from the windows of the building. Rowe turned and ran. Cally did the same, bringing up a cloud of nether to throw behind him, but the priests from deeper within the formation were already hurling counters at the incoming strike, bashing it into sparks.

  He retook his place in the safety of the middle ranks. Even with the full might of what remained of the Order working to stymie the enemy's sorcery, one attack after another snuck through, slamming into the helpless militia. But the men-at-arms were only helpless against the nether, of course. They were perfectly able to kill the enemy soldiers, and were doing so steadily, making a grim push toward the doors into the building.

  Cally understood the Order's theology perfectly well. Using the nether to shed blood, to harm others or yourself, only corrupted it further, worsening the conditions of the physical world the nether occupied as well, dragging everything deeper into woe. But it was perfectly fine, even virtuous, to use the shadows to protect life—even if those lives were currently in the act of attempting to kill other people.

  Yet in a battle, it meant that those most capable of carrying the day weren't fighting to anywhere near what their talents allowed. It also meant that they stayed safe from harm while all of the hurt and death fell on the soldiers and common citizens fighting for them. Neither of these things any longer felt right.

  A sorcerer should do more.

  A few dozen more militiamen had shown up to reinforce the soldiers, drawn by the horns and the fighting. Garillar directed them to the front. The Lannovians held on, fighting for their very lives, yet something about it felt off. Even more reinforcements would show up shortly. The Lannovians ought to be running.

  "Horsemen!" A priest near the back of the scrum ran toward Garillar, who was overseeing the battle from the rear. "They're bringing horses!"

  "That's what they were waiting on," Rowe said; he'd had the same thoughts as Cally. "A way out."

  Garillar called to the militia, withdrawing many of them along with a few of the soldiers. Cally's moth spotted the horsemen: they were riding in from the southwest, perhaps eighty horses in all, many of them unmounted. Not nearly enough to bear all of the Lannovians to freedom. But plenty enough for the priests and the nobles.

  Garillar ordered the armsmen he'd recalled to run west for a block, then head straight south. The troops took off at a run. Acting on his gut, Cally sent his moth lower, until it was soaring just above the buildings.

  He swung his head toward Rowe. "Lady Minabar's captain Vassimore is with the riders. He's a sorcerer. How is our infantry supposed to survive that?"

  "They're not meant to."

  Cold understanding took him. "They're just meant to slow the riders down. Buy Garillar time to maneuver."

  "Right."

  "Then you and I are going to go fight alongside them."

  Rowe ducked a stray arrow, then looked at Cal
ly in delayed surprise. "Make your move. I'll be with you."

  Garillar was in the process of shifting his troops about to prevent Minabar from attempting an escape and it was no trouble at all for Cally to slide out of the line. As he broke away, Volarra watched him with wide eyes. Cally pressed his finger to his lips. She nodded.

  He walked swiftly from the ongoing battle. As soon as he deemed it safe, he broke into a run. In the distance, the enemy cavalry was thundering down the street and he wasn't sure that he'd catch up to the militia before they were trampled down. Rowe ran right beside him, smiling.

  The ring and roar of battle dimmed behind them. With the cavalry nearing, they came around a bend in the street and caught sight of the militia. Most had spears and polearms, at least, and with the horses' maneuverability hampered by the urban environment, the militia might even have been able to make a stand. Except, of course, for the enemy sorcerer about to blast a bloody tunnel straight through their ranks.

  Just past an intersection, the captain of the militia yelled out orders. His men came to a stop, hastily forming lines and dragging out whatever debris they could find to clog the street and block the riders.

  The cavalry thundered into the street not two hundred yards away. Seeing the resistance, they cohered into formation. The militia had only gotten a few chairs out into the street. It wouldn't even slow the enemy down. Cally was still running toward the soldiers from behind, closer to them than the horsemen but moving at a fraction of the cavalry's speed. The riders raised longswords, bellowing a war cry, hooves shaking the ground, so loud it made you want to press your hands to your ears. The battle before had been frightening enough, but facing down a line of galloping war horses made Cally want to drop and curl into a ball. If Rowe hadn't been with him, he might have turned and run away.

  Cally bit his lip once more, met by the increasingly familiar taste of blood. Even with it, the shadows hesitated slightly—he wasn't far from the end of his limits—before pooling in his hands. He formed six bolts, arcing them over the heads of the militia and into the cavalry's front line. One missed its mark. The others struck true, knocking five men dead.