by Robert Ryan
But he did not flinch. He would fight, no matter what Lindercroft sent against him.
“For Dromdruin!” he cried, and he darted forward. His sword swept up, but at the last moment he checked himself. It was a feint, and it drew the reaction he wanted.
The Lethrin swung out with his axe. It was a blow intended to sever Faran in half, and it would have if he had gone through with his attack. Instead, he was positioned to strike down on the massive wrist of the creature that was now exposed.
Ancient steel, infused with sorcery, struck the long-dead flesh of a creature raised from the void. There was a dull thud, for hitting the Lethrin was like hitting a tree. But the hand severed from the arm, and the axe went flying to scrape and clatter across the floor.
The Lethrin recoiled and moaned, lifting high its head and venting its anguish. Reacting fast, Faran made his next move. With or without a weapon, this thing could still kill him.
He dropped down low, and then drove up his sword with all the power of his legs and arms. The tip of the blade struck the creature’s lower abdomen, and there it met with great resistance. The hide of the troll was like armor. But the point bit, sinking in, and Faran drove higher and higher, pushing up until he felt the blade come clear out his enemy’s back.
The troll stiffened, and maggots poured out of the open wound. Faran kicked out, pushing the creature back with his foot while at the same time withdrawing his blade.
The Lethrin thrashed and toppled. Too late Faran pulled the blade free and tried to leap back. The full weight of his enemy fell upon him, and it was like a mountain collapsing.
Then it was gone, the magic unraveling, and he was covered in a mound of dust and massive bones. He tried to stand, but the breath was knocked from him, and an elug skittered toward him over the debris.
Lòhren-fire flared, streaming from Kareste’s staff, and the elug writhed momentarily in flames before it too was gone.
Faran was on his feet again, and he glanced toward Ferla and saw that she had killed her own troll. But Lindercroft, somewhere in the midst of the enemy back up the tunnel, answered the intervention of magic with his own.
Choking smoke rose up from the floor, but with a word of power Faran drove it up the tunnel and at the enemy. They fell back, blinded.
“Nice work,” Ferla complimented him.
Her red hair had spilled out from beneath the rim of her helm, and dust and grime covered her. But she had never seemed so beautiful.
There was a momentary pause in the battle, and then the enemy rushed forward again.
So the battle wore on. The enemy seemed numberless, but they could only attack two at a time. The defenders held the tunnel, but they were forced back, grudging step by grudging step.
As the battle flowed and ebbed, they continued to swap places to allow themselves some momentary rest. Despite the enemy, they yet all lived, though twice Faran had nearly died and once Asana had only just escaped impalement on a Lethrin spear. This did not reflect their skill, but was just the luck of battle.
But they were all wounded. Faran bled from a gash to his right forearm. It throbbed with pain, but the bleeding had stopped due to a bandage that Kareste had applied while he rested. She herself had just managed to avoid a spear thrown at her, but it had still glanced across her shoulder and drawn blood. Asana and Kubodin had both received cuts to their bodies, but neither was fatal.
Faran had lost track of time. It must be nearing daylight outside, yet in the tunnel there was only the flickering light of the lanterns and the torches of the enemy. His arms were heavy, and his sword-strokes slower than they had been. Some beast came at him, part wolf and part man. It was a creature of dark legend, and it used no blade nor weapon, but fought with fang and claw.
Even when Faran had severed the head from its body, it still came at him with its claws. Ferla saved him then, disengaging from the elug she fought to stab the chest of the creature. In doing so, she had made herself vulnerable and the elug’s blade smashed against her helm, raising a shower of sparks.
Faran slashed at the elug, and so did Ferla. It fell in a whirl of ancient dust and rattling bones. But once more they were pushed back as other enemies came at them.
On the battle went, and they had to swap more often for their tiredness grew apace. They could not go on much longer. Nor was there much of the tunnel left. They had come close to the central chamber now. Asana and Kubodin were fighting, and with a hiss something rushed at Kubodin.
It was the creature they had seen briefly before, part lizard and part serpent. Its mighty jaw was agape, and venom dripped from its wicked fangs. Long coils of its body trailed behind it, and it rose up on these to tower above the little man, its head brushing the ceiling. Yet there were legs beneath its body, and these ended in twisted claws.
“It’s a dhrokuhl!” warned Kareste. “It can only be killed by magic. Step back and swap with me!”
Kubodin merely laughed. Then he launched himself in fury at the creature. His axe swung, attempting to sever the creature’s head from its neck, but it recoiled and the blow missed. Striking forward like a snake, jaw wide and fangs dripping venom, the dhrokuhl retaliated.
Dropping low, Kubodin raised the axe before him like a shield. Fangs struck metal with a screech, and venom spurted over the twin blades.
From the metal, smoke rose. So too did Kubodin. He leaped up as the dhrokuhl drew back in preparation to attack again, but the little man was on it. His axe cut and swung and hacked in killing strokes.
But none of them had much effect. This was a creature of the dark, some monster of legend rarer but more powerful than trolls or even elù-draks.
Kubodin was not dismayed. He laughed all the harder and was still laughing as one of the legs of the creature ripped its claws across his chest. The rags he wore for clothes were rent, and blood seeped into the tattered remnants. Yet still the little man fought on. But he laughed no more.
With a curse that rang through the tunnel, Kubodin struck back. Again and again his axe bit into flesh, but it caused no real damage. But even as the little man fought, he began to chant.
The language was strange and guttural. Faran did not know what it was, but it was no longer a curse. He stepped forward to help, if he could, but Kareste held him back.
“Wait!” she cried. “And watch!”
Faran did not know what was happening, but he sensed magic. Kareste must have felt it before him. Kubodin’s chanting was some kind of spell, and even as he kept swinging the axe it seemed to glow with a strange orange light, as though the metal of the blades was being re-forged in a smith’s furnace.
Again and again, Kubodin hacked at the dhrokuhl. It spat venom at him, but this ignited in the air like dry leaves on a fire as the axe-blades passed through it.
With one mighty stroke, Kubodin severed the head from the body. It clattered against the floor and the jaws went still, but the body writhed and twisted even as it burst into flame.
Fire roared in the tunnel like a furnace, and Kubodin staggered back, his hair singed, but he grinned. Asana reeled away with him, his expression, for the first time that Faran had ever seen, one of utter amazement.
“You possess magic?”
Kubodin grinned harder, but did not answer.
When the flames died down, there were no more creatures of the shadow. Only men remained, and Lindercroft behind them. But those men now held the entrance, for the defenders had fallen back into the central hall.
Lindercroft came forward. He was a figure of awe, wearing the armor of a Kingshield Knight, and there was power in his gaze.
“I have waited long for this,” he said. “We are far away from Dromdruin, but what was begun there will end here.”
“It will end,” Kareste answered. “But not as you wish it. You have only twenty men left.”
Lindercroft turned his cold gaze to her. “But they are twenty fresh men, and you are all wounded and exhausted. And I am a knight, granted power beyond your imagination b
y the king.”
Leaning on her staff, Kareste laughed. “You are a fool Lindercroft. The king has no power. None. All he has and all he gives now comes from the Morleth Stone. And it will not be enough. It was not at the founding of Faladir, nor will it be enough here.”
Lindercroft looked thoughtful. “You say that, now. You act brave, now. Even so did Aranloth. But at the end he was a coward. He screamed for mercy and begged for his life. But screams and begging availed him naught. I silenced the first and took joy in the second. So I shall do with you.” He cast his gaze around the room. “So I shall do with all of you, and you will wish you had not been born.”
Silence fell heavily over the room. The only sound was the shuffling boots of the enemy soldiers. They, at least, did not seem so confident as their master.
Faran felt anger rise within him. But he did not believe Lindercroft’s words. He was a liar. Aranloth was no coward.
At a signal from Lindercroft, his soldiers suddenly attacked. They rushed at the smaller group of defenders, seeking to overwhelm them with their numbers. But numbers alone were not a substitute for skill.
Steel rang against steel. Kubodin’s axe cleaved a head off a soldier, the first one to go down. But Asana killed a man a moment later, spilling his bowels onto the floor, and both Faran and Ferla killed men too. To lose so many of their number so fast must have sent a chill of fear into those who remained, but they only attacked all the more desperately. No doubt, they knew if they tried to pull back Lindercroft would kill them, and they feared him even more.
They had reason to. Raising his left hand, crimson fire dripped from his fingers. Lòhren-fire struck at him, brilliant blue in the dim chamber. Against this he contemptuously raised a shield of sorcery, and flung his fire at the defenders.
Lindercroft was grown greater than he had been before. Once, Kareste would have defeated him in a battle of magic, but now he was above her. Or rather, the Morleth Stone gave him that power. Faran could feel some connection between man and stone, and even as he glanced at Lindercroft’s eyes, he knew he was looking also into the heart of the stone itself, for his enemy’s gaze was like two black pits of evil.
The sorcerous fire scattered and spread. Against it, Faran and Ferla raised their own shields. Kubodin and Asana leapt out of the way. The defenders were safe, this time. But one of Lindercroft’s own men went down, writhing and screaming as the red fire shriveled his face and turned his hair into a gruesome torch.
Kareste ran forward, charging against Lindercroft with her staff before her and lòhren-fire flaring. She smashed into his shield, thrusting her staff into it and blinding light flared, accompanied by a mighty boom. The floor heaved. Rubble fell from the ceiling. Both her and Lindercroft were thrown through the air.
Kareste fell, rolled, and then lay still, her staff clattering away from her hand. But slowly, Lindercroft rose.
At that moment, Asana yelled and drew the sorcerer-knight’s attention. Crimson fire flared to life again in his hand, and he straightened to his full height.
Even as Lindercroft and Kareste had fought, so the battle with blades continued. But the soldiers were outmatched. They fell and died, and of all the horde that the sorcerer-knight had summoned, only he now stood alive.
But he was a towering figure of rage and power, and his dark eyes shone with the force of the Shadow, black and malevolent. His sword he held in one hand, yet his sorcery was more dangerous. But against whom would he direct it?
Lindercroft cast his gaze around the chamber, and his eyes were maddened by what they saw. His force was destroyed, but his enemies, though tattered and wounded, still stood in defiance. Even Kareste began to stir.
Asana remembered his vision. The moment of death was upon him, and he felt his detachment slipping. He did not want to die. But Ferla and Faran must live. So too Kareste who must yet guide them. And there was also Kubodin, the best friend he had ever had the honor of having.
The knight straightened. The great sword in one hand but sorcerous flame in the other. He could fling it anywhere, but he must assume Kareste his greatest threat. She would be the first to die.
But not if Asana could prevent it. “Die, coward!” he shouted. He was too far away to intervene with his sword, but he slipped a knife out of its sheath and flung it in one swift motion.
Lindercroft battered it away with his sword. It was no real threat, for it would not have penetrated the man’s armor, and Asana was too far away to try to hit the throat.
But it drew the knight’s ire, which was its true purpose.
Lindercroft raised high his hand, a ball of flame swirling within it, crimson as blood and roiling with sorcerous life. He flung it at Asana with a snarl.
Death hurtled at him. He saw it coming, and the fireball expanded and grew as it tore the air. This was his last moment. He began to leap out of the way despite knowing he could never move fast enough to evade it.
But even as he moved, Kubodin was already running. He chanted as he stepped directly in the path of the sorcery, and held high his axe.
A mighty boom filled the chamber as though thunder rumbled from an angry sky. The earth heaved and shook. Crimson sorcery flared and smashed up into the ceiling, bringing down massive chunks of stone. The axe in Kubodin’s hand pulsed like red-hot metal in a smith’s forge, then clattered to the floor as Kubodin reeled back and fell.
Asana was stunned. He crashed into the floor, landing badly, but rolled to his feet and ran to his friend. Kubodin had saved him, and he lived against all hope, but the little man lay still.
The sorcerous light was too bright to look at, and when it winked out Faran’s eyes could not properly see. But they focused a moment later, and when they did he saw Kareste on her feet, staff in hand. Asana crouching down beside Kubodin, and Ferla engaged in a sword duel with Lindercroft.
He hastened toward Ferla to help, but Kareste grabbed him and held him back.
“No! This is fated. They must fight.”
Faran tried to break free, but she held him with an iron grip.
“What if he uses sorcery?”
“He cannot,” Kareste answered. “He is spent for a few moments. The fight will be sword to sword, and knight to knight. This is her destiny, Faran. Watch, and be proud of her.”
Faran sensed that more was going on here than he knew, but he trusted Kareste, and to try to help Ferla now might only endanger her by breaking her concentration.
The room was still except for swirling dust and the two battling warriors. No one else moved.
Lindercroft struck out, his sword darting in a disemboweling thrust, but Ferla shifted her weight back and avoided it. Even as she had done so often while sparing Faran, she had not really retreated though, and her movement backward merely positioned her to spring forward and attack.
This she did, and her blade swept the air in a glittering arc. Nearly, the tip of it cut Lindercroft’s throat, but he staggered back just in time, surprise flaring to life on his face.
Ferla allowed him no respite. She was greatly skilled, and she pressed home her attack moving into Tempest Blows the Dust.
To this, Lindercroft seemed to have no answer. He retreated, swaying as he did so to present a less predictable target. It seemed that Ferla had his measure, and her stepping quickened and her sword strokes cut the air.
Lindercroft stumbled slightly. The point of his sword lowered, but Faran’s heart pulsed in his throat. He knew the move. It was Cherry Blossom Falls from the Tree, and it was designed to lure an attacker to be overzealous.
Ferla struck at his head, but at the last moment stifled her stroke. Even at that moment, Lindercroft swayed to the side, and then drove his blade up at her stomach in a killing blow. Such strength was behind it that even Ferla’s chainmail might not resist the point of the blade.
But she had seen the trap even as Faran had, and she flung herself backward just in time. She was off balance though, and Lindercroft pursued her eagerly.
At first, there
was a great clash of blades as she retreated. Lindercroft pressed as hard as he could to ensure she was not able to regain her poise. Yet she did, and gradually the clanging of blades softened as she began to deflect his strikes rather than block them.
Lindercroft was surprised once more, and then frustrated. At last, anger showed on his face and he renewed his attack with blows of great speed and power.
No longer retreating, Ferla avoided them where she could and deflected where she could not. But she gave up no more ground. Instead, she advanced.
Faran silently willed her on. She was a match for Lindercroft, and the knight knew it and hated it. Forward she advanced, attacking and probing, seeking a weakness in his defenses, and forcing him to retreat.
Lindercroft feinted, moving his shoulder as though he intended a mighty blow, but instead the tip of his blade darted forward at Ferla’s throat.
She was not deceived. Swaying to the side, she brought her blade down toward Lindercroft’s wrist. It was a blow intended to sever his hand, which was now well forward and exposed. She did not hit flesh, for at the last moment Lindercroft turned his wrist so that the hilt caught the blow. Even so, his sword was jarred from his grip and clattered away over the floor.
Lindercroft did not move. Perhaps he was stunned, or maybe he feared that any movement might trigger Ferla to attack, for she stood before him, the point of her blade poised and ready to strike.
“You are a worthy opponent,” Lindercroft said. “I underestimated you. Join with me, and serve the king. He will find a place for you among our order and reward you with powers undreamed of and wealth to beggar nations. I will vouch for you, and you will be as a sister to us.”
Ferla tilted her head, as if in thought. “You still have not guessed,” she said.
“Guessed what?”
“I am the seventh knight,” Ferla replied. “It is my fate, and I am the enemy of you and your brother knights. I would never join you, but I will overthrow you.”