The Dark Warden (Book 6)

by Jonathan Moeller

  “He was wearing plate and chain and had on a surcoat, though I couldn’t see the sigil,” said Mara. “The urhaalgars were after him. I went to take a look closer, and one of the creatures pursued me.” She looked at the carcass. “I don’t think he realized that I had friends.”

  What would a knight of Andomhaim be doing in the Torn Hills? If the man lived, Ridmark could question him at length.

  If the knight died, likely the urhaalgars would come for them next.

  “Gather your weapons,” said Ridmark. “I will not leave anyone to fall to the creatures of the dark elves. Mara, lead the way.”

  She nodded and headed for the arch, and the others followed suit.

  Ridmark’s headache worsened as he headed down the slope of the hill.

  Chapter 5 - The Swordbearer

  Morigna put away her bow and lifted her staff.

  Arrows were useless against the creatures of the dark elves, and her staff could not harm them either. Yet the spells bound into the staff gave her the ability to command wood, and even the twisted trees of the Torn Hills were still made of wood. She could force the roots to erupt from the ground and entangle their foes, slowing them long enough for Ridmark and the others to land killing blows. Morigna looked at Calliande, the Magistria’s green cloak swaying from her shoulders.

  What had she been discussing with Ridmark?

  She pushed away the thought. She was not some child. Calliande had had her chance, and she had let it pass her by.

  Given the power of the foes they faced, she could not afford the distraction.

  A flapping sound came from overhead, and Morigna looked up, fearing that they were about to see an urdhracos. But a group of the misshapen ravens flew overhead, winging to the north.

  “Can you bind any of them?” said Ridmark. She cast a spell and reached out with her thoughts, probing for the ravens’ minds.

  “No,” she said, scowling. “Their thoughts are too twisted by the corruption of the Torn Hills. They are not natural animals, and I cannot command them.”

  “Could not Lady Mara travel ahead and scout the foe?” said Gavin. He had changed a great deal from the hotheaded boy Morigna had met outside Moraime. The fighting had hardened him, made him quieter and steadier. It was growing harder to think of him as a boy.

  Mara laughed. “I fear I am not a noblewoman, Gavin.”

  “You’re the daughter of a dark elven prince,” said Jager. “Technically you are a princess.”

  “Bastard daughter,” said Mara.

  “Still counts.”

  “In answer to your question,” said Mara before Jager could continue, “my travelling generates too much light. The urhaalgars would see us, and I expect the Gray Knight means to take the foe by surprise.”

  “Correct,” said Ridmark. “Which is why we are going to stop talking now.”

  Jager rolled his eyes but fell silent, which was a relief, and they made their way through the dark hills.

  ###

  Ridmark’s headache sharpened, the pain throbbing through his temples with every beat of his heart, but something else occupied his attention.

  There was something odd about the fighting.

  Ridmark heard the sound of battle from the ravine ahead, the harsh roars of the enraged urhaalgars, an inhuman shout raised in command, and the hoarse voice of a man bellowing challenges. They had passed a dozen dead urhaalgars, and all of them had been slain by sword wounds.

  There was only one weapon that could inflict such wounds upon a creature of dark magic.

  Was the knight Mara had seen a Swordbearer?

  A Swordbearer might be a powerful ally. Or the Swordbearer might attack Ridmark on sight. Most of the Knights of the Order of the Soulblade knew him as the man who had been stripped of his soulblade and expelled from the Order, and he was traveling with a wild sorceress, a dark elven half-breed, and a master thief. For that matter, the Enlightened of Incariel had infiltrated the Magistri, and they might have made their way into the Order of the Soulblade as well.

  But Ridmark would not leave any man to die beneath the talons of the urhaalgars.

  He crept over the slope of the next hill, the others waiting behind him, and looked at the fighting in the ravine below.

  Close to thirty urhaalgars filled the ravine, standing in a half-circle around the base of a hill. Trapped against the base of the hill stood a knight in chain mail and half-plate beneath a blue surcoat. In his left hand he carried a blue-painted shield adorned with the red dragon sigil of the Pendragons, its surface scarred from the slashes of claws. A full helm concealed his face, marred with bright streaks where the urhaalgars’ claws had struck home.

  In his right hand he carried a soulblade.

  A blaze of white fire crackled around the weapon, and the soulstone embedded in the base of the blade shone like a star. One of the urhaalgars lunged with a hiss, and the knight wheeled, catching the creature’s claws on his battered shield and striking with the soulblade. The glowing sword parted the urhaalgar’s right arm from its shoulder with the barest hesitation. The creature stumbled with a scream, and the Swordbearer took off its head with a single powerful chop.

  The other creatures edged back.

  The mass of urhaalgars had trapped the Swordbearer in the ravine, but they were too frightened of his soulblade to attack in a single overwhelming rush. No doubt each of the creatures was hoping one of the others would die first. Ridmark was surprised that the urhaalgars had not fled in search of more vulnerable prey.

  The reason became clear when he spotted the dark shape lurking behind the urhaalgars. It looked like a mixture of a human and a serpent, her sleek body covered in gleaming black scales. Hooked claws tipped her fingers and toes, and a segmented, scorpion-like tail rose over her shoulder, tipped with a barbed stinger. Her face was almost feline, the yellow eyes split with a vertical black pupil.

  It was an urshane, one of the more powerful creatures of the dark elves. Unlike the urvaalgs and the ursaars, they could command lesser creatures like the urhaalgars. Yet evidently the urshane’s control was not strong enough to force the urhaalgars to attack. Had a dark elven wizard like the Warden or the Artificer been here, the urhaalgars would have rushed enthusiastically to their deaths, their heads filled with the strange song that Mara had described.

  A second urshane appeared, shrieking commands in a hideous, grating voice. Two urhaalgars flung themselves at the Swordbearer. The knight blocked the first attack on his heavy shield and killed the urhaalgar with a quick slash of his soulblade. The second slammed into him, its claws raking at his cuirass. Yet his armor held, and the Swordbearer split the urhaalgar’s skull with a single blow of his sword.

  “Come on, then!” roared the knight in Latin. “Come, then! Which of you devils is next? Who wishes to join his fellows in hell? Come! I have plenty for all!”

  His voice was familiar. Ridmark was sure he had met the knight before, though he could not recall where. Yet if he did not hasten, the urhaalgars and the urshanes were going to kill him.

  Ridmark went to join the others.

  ###

  Calliande watched as Ridmark returned, his dwarven axe in hand.

  “We need to hasten,” he said. “Mara, that knight you saw is a Swordbearer. He’s holding off a group of about thirty urhaalgars and two urshanes.”

  “Alone?” said Caius. “The man must be a puissant warrior.”

  “The urhaalgars are afraid of his soulblade,” said Ridmark, “but they won’t be for much longer. Sooner or later they’ll overwhelm him. Two urshanes are controlling the urhaalgars. I suspect if we kill them, the remainder of the urhaalgars will lose their nerve and flee.”

  “You are right,” said Mara. “Urhaalgars are not like urvaalgs or ursaars. Certainly they have the same level of bloodlust, but they also have a healthy regard for their own skins. If we strike with overwhelming force, they will likely panic and run.”

  “Calliande,” said Ridmark. “Can you enchant our weapon
s?”

  “Of course,” said Calliande. “I think…I think I am now strong enough to do that and strike at the urshanes at the same time.”

  Morigna frowned. “You never used to possess that kind of strength.”

  Calliande shrugged. “The fighting at the Iron Tower was an ordeal. I came out of it stronger, just as a man who carries a heavy bundle every day for weeks will grow stronger.”

  “Let us put that newfound strength to work,” said Ridmark. “Gavin, Caius, shield Calliande. If the urshanes figure out that she is a Magistria, they will try to kill her. Kharlacht, follow me and we’ll strike for the urshanes.” The big orc nodded, his face impassive, though his black eyes started to glimmer with the red rage of orcish battle fury. “Jager and Mara, keep the urhaalgars off-balance. Mind their stingers.”

  Jager sighed. “We are going into battle as husband and wife. Perhaps some enterprising bard shall make a poem of it.”

  “I would not wish to hear it,” said Morigna.

  “Well,” said Jager with a smile, “the Witch of the Hills would be the villain of the…”

  “Morigna,” said Ridmark. “Make trouble wherever you can.”

  “You do have a gift for it,” said Jager.

  “Jager,” said Mara with a sigh.

  “The mockery of my inferiors aside,” said Morigna, “it shall be done.”

  Ridmark nodded, and the others raised weapons or prepared spells. Again Calliande was amazed by how easily they obeyed him. He guided them to a purposeful whole, a whole that managed to face great odds and prevail. Calliande could indeed see why Morigna had fallen for him.

  Why Calliande herself had fallen for him, if she was honest with herself.

  She turned her mind to the business at hand. Perhaps Jager and Mara going into battle together would make for a bad poem, but it would be an even worse one if the urhaalgars killed them all. Calliande summoned power, the magic of the Well flooding through her, and directed it into a spell. White light burst from her fingers and jumped to the weapons of the others, sheathing them in an aura allowed the blades to wound creatures of dark magic. Holding the spell in place was a wearisome effort. Calliande could do it, but the longer she held the spell the greater the effort become.

  Yet it was not as hard as it had been two months past. The magical battles she had fought had made her magic stronger, just as regular sword practice strengthened a knight’s muscles. She would have enough power left to strike directly at the creatures of dark magic.

  “This way,” said Ridmark.

  ###

  Ridmark walked around the curve of the hill, the battle coming into sight. The Swordbearer had killed a few more urhaalgars, yet Ridmark saw the weariness in the man’s every motion. A soulblade augmented its bearer’s strength and speed to superhuman levels, but no man’s stamina lasted forever.

  When it failed, the Swordbearer would die.

  Ridmark’s headache intensified, increasing whenever he looked at the Swordbearer. Another mystery to worry about later.

  The urhaalgars were focused upon the knight, the urshanes shrieking commands, so the creatures were completely unprepared for the attack to fall upon them. Ridmark split the skull of one urhaalgar and hewed the legs from another. Kharlacht struck with mighty blows of his two-handed sword. The ground folded in the grip of Morigna’s spell, and a dozen urhaalgars collapsed, and Jager and Mara darted into the chaos, striking with short swords and daggers.

  A ripple of shock went through the urhaalgars, the creatures spinning to face the new threat.

  And as they did, Ridmark saw that they faced three urshanes, not two.

  The urshanes shrieked, and the urhaalgars charged to attack, snarling and howling.

  Ridmark spun his axe and ran to meet them.

  ###

  Calliande concentrated on holding the spell over the weapons in place, while Morigna’s magic threw the urhaalgars into chaos.

  The sorceress stood next to Calliande, staff gripped in her right hand, purple fire snarling around her left. She gestured with her staff, and twisted roots erupted from the earth, wrapping around the urhaalgars to hold them in place. The roots did not hold the urhaalgars for long, but that was more than enough time for Mara to appear behind them and open their throats.

  “For God and St. Michael!” roared the armored Swordbearer. His soulblade spun, cutting down one of the urhaalgars, and he charged into the fray. It seemed he was not the sort of man to sit idly by while others came to his aid. Calliande wondered if the Swordbearer knew Ridmark. Perhaps the knight was one of his friends, like Sir Joram Agramore or Sir Constantine Licinius.

  Or perhaps the man would was like Sir Paul Tallmane or Dux Tarrabus Carhaine.

  “Gavin!” said Caius.

  One of the urshanes broke from the press and raced towards Calliande on all fours, the poisoned stinger rising high. Calliande gestured, and a burst of white fire shot from her hand to strike the urshane. The spell flipped the creature over, smoke rising from its charred scales, but did the urshane no real harm. While she maintained the spell over the weapons, she could not spare the strength to destroy the creature.

  She prepared to strike again, but the urshane sprang to the side.

  Then the urshane’s form blurred and changed.

  One moment it was a scaled horror of grace and power. The next it was a naked young woman about Gavin’s age, her eyes wide and fearful, her arms wrapped tight about herself for warmth or modesty or both. Calliande had seen her before, months ago, in Gavin’s home village of Aranaeus.

  “Rosanna?” said Gavin, stunned.

  “Help me,” said Rosanna, her voice quaking. Gavin had been in love with her, but Rosanna had been betrothed to the apprentice of the village’s blacksmith. Likely Rosanna and Philip had been wed by now. “They kidnapped me and brought me here, they did things to me, terrible things, help me, help me…”

  Gavin ran towards her, lowering his sword.

  “Idiot!” raged Morigna. “Stop, you fool! It is only a trick!”

  She raised a hand to cast a spell.

  “Wait,” said Calliande.

  Rosanna reached for Gavin, her face full of pleading hope.

  That hope turned to snarling fury when Gavin drove his glowing orcish sword between her ribs. Rosanna shuddered and melted back into the form of the urshane, alien eyes filled with rage, and Gavin ripped his sword loose and stabbed again.

  The urshane crumpled to the ground, its tail twitching once or twice.

  “I’m sorry,” said Gavin, “but I’ve seen this trick before” He walked back, nodded to Calliande, and raised his shield and sword.

  “Who was she?” said Morigna.

  “I don’t think you would understand,” said Gavin. A trio of urhaalgars charged them, and there was no more time for talk.

  ###

  Ridmark and Kharlacht dueled the remaining two urshanes.

  The damned things were deadly quick, and moved with the fluid grace of striking serpents. The urshane facing Kharlacht blurred and shifted, and took the form of an orcish woman, tall and strong. The illusion enraged Kharlacht further. He rarely spoke of his past, but from time to time mentioned a woman that he had lost.

  Perhaps that was her.

  The urshane facing Ridmark kept changing form.

  One moment she was Aelia Licinius Arban, her voice and face full of loathing as she excoriated him for his failures. The next she was Morigna, her expression filled with pain as she begged him to save her. The instant after that the urshane became Calliande as Ridmark had seen her on the day of the great omen, naked and helpless.

  It was a ghastly spectacle. Men had gone mad fighting urshanes, their throats ripped out as they refused to lift their blades against a creature wearing the guise of their loved ones. Or they had killed a creature disguised as a wife or daughter or son, and broken down sobbing at the death. Ridmark had already seen Aelia die because of his folly.

  Killing a facsimile held no power over him,
and he would not fail Morigna the way he had failed Aelia.

  He drove at the urshane, wielding his axe with both hands. Around him the urhaalgars tried to charge, only to fall prey to Morigna’s earth magic. Mara and Jager killed stunned urhaalgar after stunned urhaalgar, leaving carcasses in their wake. The Swordbearer mowed his way through them, his armor dented and scratched, his soulblade rising and falling with the regular rhythm of a blacksmith working steel.

  Ridmark’s headache grew worse as the Swordbearer came closer.

  He ignored the pain and dodged the urshane’s stinger as it shot over Aelia’s shoulder. The urshane blurred into Morigna’s form and came after him, claws sprouting from the ends of her fingers. Ridmark swept the axe before him, and the urshane’s jerked her hands back to protect her fingers. She spun, her barbed tail lashing at him like a whip, and Ridmark jumped back. The creature pursued him, morphing into Calliande’s shape, her face alight with a malicious glee that the real Calliande had never shown. Once more the barbed tail shot for his face.

  Ridmark had anticipated the movement, and as he dodged he lifted his left hand from the haft of his axe. He seized the tail just behind the barbed stinger, the chitin cold and hard beneath his fingers, and yanked with all his strength. The urshane shrieked in surprise, struggling to keep its balance. The urshane’s torso was out of reach, but its tail was not, and Ridmark lopped it off with a single sharp blow.

  The creature’s enraged scream threatened to shatter his ears, and the urshane’s form went into a mad convulsion, shifting from Morigna to Aelia to Calliande to its own form and back again. The urshane threw itself at him, and Ridmark swung the severed tail like a whip. The barb stuck in the urshane’s cheek, and the creature stumbled to a halt, trying to pull its own tail out of its face. Most likely the urshane was immune to its own poison, but the distraction gave Ridmark all the time he needed to get both hands around the axe’s haft and launch a killing blow.

  The urshane’s head rolled away across the ground, the tail still stuck to its face, and the thin body collapsed. Ridmark turned, intending to aid Kharlacht, but he saw that the orcish warrior had already defeated his opponent. Kharlacht ripped his greatsword free with a snarl, his eyes glazed red, and turned to attack the remaining urhaalgars.