Later. They could worry about it later, if they got out of the Torn Hills alive.
“Gray Knight,” said Mara, her voice soft. “Look at that.”
Something dark stood at an angle in the nearby ravine. Ridmark started to reach for his axe, fearing it was an enemy, but then saw that it was a menhir. After a moment of confusion Ridmark realized that it was one of the standing stones from the grand circle. The explosion had thrown it there.
He stepped into the ravine, looked for the hill with the grand circle, and failed to find it.
Instead a crater yawned between the hills, its sides glowing molten hot. Boulders and broken menhirs had been scattered across the surrounding hills, and many of the twisted pine trees had caught fire. Ridmark stared at the devastation, stunned. He had seen potent destruction unleashed by magic, but never anything like this.
“I am amazed that we lived through that,” said Mara.
“Yes,” said Ridmark. He took a deep breath. “We had better move. Quickly.”
“Why?” said Mara, and then she looked at the white gleam of Urd Morlemoch’s ruins. “Oh.”
“What happened?” said Calliande, white light dancing around her fingers as she healed Caius.
“That rough soulstone,” said Ridmark. “We took one from the menhirs. It was still linked to the wards around Urd Morlemoch. When I touched you with it, it pulled out the Warden’s spirit and sent it back to his first body.”
Calliande touched her belt pouch. She had taken the rough soulstone from the hill as they fled. “I wondered where this stone came from.”
“Splendid,” said Jager. “Now we have two of the damned things. Perhaps we’ll have twice as many mad sorcerers after us.”
“Probably,” said Ridmark, “but only if we live long enough to get away. The Warden spent the last nine years plotting to use me to escape, to bring Calliande here so he could take her body for his own. So when he wakes up in his old body, he’s going…”
The scream cut off his words. It was a cry of frustrated rage and fury, so loud that the ground trembled with it. The flames rising from Urd Morlemoch’s central tower grew more violent, lashing at the black sky like whips.
“He’s going,” said Jager, “to be a little upset.”
“Your grasp of the obvious,” said Morigna, “never fails to astound me.”
The Warden’s voice thundered from the sky.
“Kill them all! Kill them all! Find Ridmark Arban and his companions, find them and kill them! Kill them all!”
An answering roar rose from the stone circles in the hills. Dark shapes poured from the gates of Urd Morlemoch, and Ridmark realized that the ruins had not been empty after all. The creatures had merely been waiting for their master’s call. More shadows rose from the central tower of Urd Morlemoch, their wings spreading against the sky. Urdhracosi, most likely, along with other things. On the other hills the warriors and wizards of the Devout came to heed their master’s command and slay his enemies.
“We have to run, now,” said Ridmark. “Make for the east.”
The others nodded and gathered up their weapons. Calliande had healed their wounds, but they were exhausted from the ordeal. They would not make it far before the Warden’s creatures caught them. Alone, Ridmark might have had a chance. But he would be damned before he would abandon his friends and his lover, his allies who had stood with him through so many mortal perils.
The best he could hope for was to raise a ring of corpses around them before he finally fell.
“We will not be able to outrun them,” said Jager, “and I doubt we can hide.”
“Perhaps not,” said Ridmark. “But we are two Swordbearers, the Keeper of Avalon, the Master Thief of Cintarra, the first dark elven half-breed to command her own will, the first dwarf to join the church, the sorceress who defied the last of the Eternalists, and a warrior of Vhaluusk. By God, if we die here, we shall make an ending worthy of song.”
“Well, I had hoped to die in bed at the age of a hundred and forty,” said Jager, “but I suppose this will have to do.”
“Run,” said Ridmark, and they headed to the east as darkness boiled from Urd Morlemoch.
###
Morigna ran a few paces behind Ridmark, her breath rasping in her throat, every step dragging at her legs. She wanted to stop for a few moments and catch her breath. But if she did that, she was dead. Better to keep moving.
A dark part of her mind pointed out that she was likely to die anyway.
She grimaced and kept running. She was not going to give up, not after everything they had endured. Not without a fight, at any rate.
“Where are we going?” she said, between rasping breaths.
“East,” said Ridmark. “If we can get far enough east, we’ll be out of the Warden’s reach. Ardrhythain might be waiting for us.”
“He went to fight Shadowbearer,” said Morigna. “He might not have returned. Or Shadowbearer might be waiting for us.”
“I know,” said Ridmark.
She, too, could think of nothing better.
The only sounds were the whisper of corrupted grass around them, the crunch of gravel beneath boots, the rasp of heavy breathing. The soulblades glowed in the hands of Gavin and Arandar. Morigna wished they could hide that damned light, lest unfriendly eyes find them. It hardly mattered, though. The Warden knew where they were, and Urd Morlemoch had been emptied. Sooner or later something would find them, and they would have to fight.
A dark shadow flitted overhead. Morigna turned her head. Perhaps her tired eyes had imagined it…
“Urdhracos!” shouted Mara.
The dark shadow plummeted towards them, great wings stretched wide behind it. Morigna glimpsed a slim, dark-armored form, a pale face of unearthly beauty with a shock of black hair. The urdhracos opened her mouth, and a cone of flame swept forth to engulf them. Calliande started to cast a spell, but stumbled with a gasp, and Kharlacht caught her before she fell.
Morigna raised her staff and drew on the earth magic. A gust of wind howled over them, driving the flames to either side. The urdhracos circled overhead, coming around for another pass, but by then Calliande had recovered. White fire slashed from her hand and caught the urdhracos’s left wing, tearing it to shreds. The creature screamed and struck the ground, and before she could recover, Gavin and Arandar attacked, driving their soulblades home. White fire flashed through the urdhracos as she screamed, and then she twitched and went limp.
“We need to move,” said Ridmark. “Keep…”
Furious voices rang out, and Morigna glimpsed specks of blue light upon a nearby hillside. The specks resolved into a band of Devout orcs, their veins and eyes shining with the light of dark magic. The leader shouted a command, and they surged down the hill.
“We’ve been found,” said Jager.
“Fight our way past them,” said Ridmark. “Go!”
###
Ridmark raised his staff and charged, rushing at the Devout orcs. They had to win this fight quickly. The sound of fighting would draw the other orcs and the creatures, and Ridmark and the others would be surrounded. Their only chance was to break free and continue running.
But Ridmark was not sure they could defeat these orcs.
Every bone in his body ached and throbbed. Calliande had healed the damage the Warden’s spell had inflicted, but he was still exhausted. Well, what he had told Jager was still true. They would either break free, or have an ending worthy of song. Even if no one would remember their end.
The first orc charged at him, and Ridmark dodged, whipping his staff through a swing. The length of the heavy weapon caught the orc across the knees, and the warrior fell. Ridmark drove the end of his staff into the orc’s temple with skull-cracking force, and then charged into the remainder of the orcs. They swarmed around him, the long swings of his staff keeping them at bay, and then his friends charged into the melee.
The Swordbearers crashed into the warriors first, Heartwarden and Truthseeker rising a
nd falling. The soulblades gave Gavin and Arandar more than human stamina, but even their strength had limits. Arandar and Gavin kept striking, cutting down Devout warriors with every step. Blue fire flickered, and Mara appeared behind one of the warriors, giving him a sharp shove. The Devout orc fell with an angry grunt, followed by a crunch as Caius’s warhammer impacted with his head. Kharlacht waded into the fight, clearing the Devout from his path with wide sweeps of his greatsword, glowing blood flying from his strokes.
Ridmark kept attacking, and the Devout wavered and then fell back, fleeing up the slopes of the hill.
“No!” shouted Ridmark as Gavin and Arandar started after them. “No, don’t pursue them! Keep going to the east! We…”
“Ridmark!” Calliande’s voice rang out, and he turned to see more points of blue light coming from behind them.
Undead, dozens of them, moved forward at a steady pace, some carrying ancient weapons. Ridmark looked back and forth, his mind racing. If they broke and ran for the east at once, perhaps they could outpace the undead. But the Devout orcs were rallying, readying themselves for another charge. If they attacked at the same time as the undead…
“Gavin, Arandar,” said Ridmark. “Your soulblades can harm the undead. Go aid Calliande. Kharlacht, Caius, Mara, Jager. Stay with me and hold off the Devout.”
Arandar and Gavin ran to Morigna and Calliande, and Ridmark turned to face the Devout as the orcish warriors rallied themselves for another attack.
###
Calliande forced herself to summon more magical power, the white fire blazing around her hands. A spasm of exhaustion went through her arms, and for a moment her vision darkened. She was not sure what the Warden had done to her, but it had left her drained. She ought to feel exultant. Her identity had been revealed to her, and she knew where she had to go. Her staff and her memory waited in the depths of Khald Azalar. At long last, she knew what she had to do.
Right now she wanted to crawl under a blanket and sleep for a week.
But if she stopped fighting she would die, and she had not come all this way to die here.
So Calliande forced herself to summon power, and unleashed her strength upon the advancing wall of undead. Bursts of white fire ripped from her fingers, tearing apart the dark magic on the ancient corpses and sending them to the ground in smoking heaps. Arandar and Gavin surged forward, striking with swords wreathed in white flame.
Morigna cast a spell as well, sweeping her staff before her. Masses of thick, knotted roots rose from the ground and coiled around the undead, ripping them apart like straws crushed in a fist. Morigna had never been able to cast spells so strongly before, and Calliande sensed the taint of dark magic within the other woman’s power.
What had happened to her in Urd Morlemoch?
It was something else Calliande could worry about if they lived through this.
Like the fact that she was the Keeper of Avalon, that she had led the first war to defeat the Frostborn. That she had been so devoted to their defeat that she had buried herself alive below the Tower of Vigilance, stripping away her memory and her power and her very identity.
All to stop the Frostborn.
She had to escape this place. She had to! Otherwise it would have all been for nothing, and the Frostborn would return to destroy the world.
Her magic turned more undead to ash, but endless waves of the creatures continued to charge at them.
###
Ridmark swept another warrior from his feet, following with a killing blow. The orc’s head bounced off the ground. Another warrior stabbed at him, and Ridmark jerked back, but too slow. The blade struck the plates of his dark elven armor with terrific force, and pain flooded through his chest. His answering blow caught the orc in the forehead, and the Devout warrior stumbled with a grunt of pain. Blue light glimmered, and Mara appeared behind the warrior, opened his throat, and then disappeared again.
Ridmark turned, staff gripped in his aching hands, and sought a new foe.
But for the moment, there were none left. Devout orcs lay scattered across the ground, and the few survivors fled back towards Urd Morlemoch, likely to get reinforcements. Ridmark turned again and found Kharlacht and Caius and Jager and Mara. Kharlacht looked untouched, his armor and sword spattered with blood, while Caius was breathing hard and leaning upon his hammer like a cane while Mara daubed blood from a cut over Jager’s eye.
“Ready for another round?” said Ridmark, hurrying towards the undead attacking Calliande and Morigna and the Swordbearers.
“Oh, I wish you were talking about a game of dice,” said Jager, lifting his weapons. He glanced at Caius. “What? Are you not going to tell me that gambling is a sin?”
“It is, it is,” said Caius, coughing as he lifted his hammer. Ridmark wondered where he had been wounded. “But since we have been recklessly gambling with our lives for days, it seems foolish to strain at gnats when were are attempting to swallow a camel.”
“I’ve always wondered,” said Mara, “what is a camel?”
“Animal of Old Earth,” said Ridmark. “They don’t live here, apparently.” He gestured. “Come on. If we break through the undead, we can make our way to the east, and…”
A snarl filled his ears, and Ridmark spun just in time to see the first urvaalg bound down the hill, its dagger-like talons tearing at the grass. He cast aside his staff and seized the axe from his belt, taking the haft in both hands, and swung. The blade sank into the urvaalg’s chest, shattering bone and tearing its heart to pulp. The beast let out a dying scream and tumbled down the hill, and Ridmark used the momentum to tear the blade from his chest.
More urvaalgs bounded down the hill, nearly a dozen of them.
“Back to back!” roared Kharlacht, and Caius hurried to join him.
Ridmark risked a glance back at the waves of undead still pressing towards Calliande and Morigna. No help would come from that direction, but with the urvaalgs pinning him down, neither could he aid them.
Another urvaalg bounded at him, and Ridmark dodged, swinging his axe.
###
Morigna slammed her staff against the ground, more roots rising from the earth to rip apart the undead. Her newfound strength let her destroy the undead with ease, more power flowing through her than she had ever managed before.
It was still not enough.
The undead seemed endless. If the Warden had lurked inside Urd Morlemoch for fifteen thousand years, and the Devout had buried their dead inside his walls for all those centuries, then the Warden would have limitless thousands of the undead.
It made her want to scream with frustration. No matter how much power she acquired, no matter how strong she became, it was never enough. If she had been a little stronger, if she had possessed a little more magical power, perhaps she could have blasted a path to safety through the undead. Perhaps she could have saved them all.
“Morigna!” said Calliande, her face ghostly and drawn in the blazing white light of the spells. “Ridmark. Go help them.” Her words came between the ragged rasp of her breath. “We can…we can hold off the undead. Urvaalgs.”
Morigna looked over her shoulder and saw Ridmark, Caius, Kharlacht, Mara, and Jager battling against a dozen urvaalgs. They were holding their own, but the urvaalgs had encircled them like wolves bringing prey to bay. Sooner or later one of them would fall, and the urvaalgs would swarm over them.
She flashed back to that awful day in the hills north of Moraime, the day the urvaalg had killed Nathan Vorinus. She was not going to see that again. She was not!
Morigna cast a spell, blue and purple flames twisting around her fingers. She had never been able to reach into the mind of a dark elven war beast. Their thoughts were a fortress of rage and hatred and cruelty. But now, with the new power flowing through her, perhaps she could attempt feats that had previously been denied her.
Her mind reached out, her thoughts sinking like claws into the urvaalgs’ minds. This time, the rage and fury that choked their thoughts did
not seem alien. Her mind entered three of the urvaalgs, and she commanded them to strike at their fellows. The enslaved urvaalgs screamed in fury and attacked, the ring of beasts dissolving into chaos. Ridmark and the others seized the opportunity and attacked, carving their way through the urvaalgs. Within moments all the urvaalgs had been killed or mortally wounded, and Morigna released her control over the dying urvaalgs with a vicious satisfaction. An urvaalg had taken a man she had loved, but with her new power, no urvaalg could ever hurt her again…
The ground started to shake.
Morigna wondered if the Warden had cast a spell at them, or if a wizard with the power to match Valakoth had entered the fray.
Then she saw the colossal dark shape lumbering towards them.
###
Ridmark stepped over the dying urvaalg and saw the creature come at them.
The huge beast was the size of a barn, its segmented legs pulling it forward with terrific speed. The creature looked like a mutated cross between a beetle and a giant squid, its hide gleaming with jagged, chitinous armor, tentacles as thick as oak trees lashing at the air. The great beast loosed a deafening, brassy bellow and charged, the massive tentacles blurring before it.
“What in the hell is that thing?” said Jager. For once he had nothing witty to say.
“Urvuul,” said Mara. “The dark elves used them as siege engines. Only the most powerful dark elven wizards could create one.”
“Distract it,” said Ridmark, trying to put a hope into his voice that he did not feel. “Long enough for Arandar and Gavin to bring their soulblades to bear. They have the only weapons that will hurt it. Not even Calliande’s magic will do much to slow it down.”
He raced forward, axe in both hands, the others following him. The urvuul had no visible eyes, yet it somehow sensed their approach. The great beast wheeled and sped towards them, its talon-tipped legs ripping up great chunks of turf. One of the tentacles reached for him, and Ridmark swung his axe with both hands. The blade sheared off the tentacle’s tip, but the spurting end clipped his shoulder. The impact lifted him from his feet and sent him sprawling, the breath exploding from his lungs. Ridmark rolled to the side just in time to avoid the next blow of the huge tentacle. Blue steel flashed, and Kharlacht severed six feet of the appendage with one massive blow of his greatsword. Blue fire flickered as Mara danced along with the side of the urvaalg, disappearing and reappearing as she struck with her dagger, but Ridmark doubted the urvaalg even noticed her. The lash of another tentacle sent both Kharlacht and Caius sprawling.
The Dark Warden (Book 6) Page 27