She would not succumb. She would fight as long as she had the strength. She would not yield!
They fought through the chamber, one moment teetering near the edge of the chasm, the next against the hard rock walls. The wolf's jaws snapped like a steel trap, its claws slashing like swords. Yet Romaria wielded her bastard sword with skill and power, and blocked or dodged every one of the wolf's attacks, giving her opportunity to launch attacks of her own.
Yet, somehow, no matter what she did, the wolf always anticipated it. No matter what combination of moves she tried, no matter how well she feinted, the wolf always knew what she planned. And the strange understanding went both ways. She knew that the wolf would bite at her a few heartbeats before it happened, and she knew moments before the tried to rake her with its claws.
They whirled through the chamber in their mad dance, neither Romaria nor the wolf able to land a blow upon the other. This battle would go on forever, she realized, with neither of them able to win, two halves struggling against each other for eternity.
Two halves...
She realized the truth then, the truth she had fought against her entire life, a truth she had resisted ever since Ardanna had spat it at her in tones of the deepest contempt.
She stopped, lowering her sword, and the wolf came to a halt.
"I am you," said Romaria.
The Elderborn half of her soul would always be a part of her, no matter how hard she struggled against it.
"And I am you," growled the wolf. "I have always been you."
Romaria closed her eyes, dropped her sword. The clangs echoed off the stone walls.
"Let's get it over with," she whispered.
The wolf tensed, and then sprang upon her.
But it did not knock her over. The wolf flew into her, somehow, sinking into the flesh of her chest. Pain erupted through Romaria, pain beyond anything she had known, and she screamed, falling to her knees.
Blackness fell over her, and the world vanished.
###
After some time, Romaria awoke.
She lay on her side, her flanks heaving, her muzzle resting upon her paws. She blinked, and scrambled to her feet, all four of them. Even as dim as the cavern was, she saw everything clearly, and a amazing symphony of smells filled her wet nose. She felt her fangs resting in her mouth, her claws scrabbling against the cold stone floor, her fur bristling as her panic and fear rose.
She had become the wolf once more. The earth magic in the Elderborn half of her soul had overwhelmed her at last. She had become the beast, and...
Romaria blinked, tongue lolling over her teeth.
She had become the beast...yet she still had control of her own will. She could still think. Before, when the human half of her soul had been trapped inside Mazael, the beast had overwhelmed her entirely, her reason lost to its animal urges.
But not this time. Romaria's mind and will were still her own, even in the flesh of the great black wolf. She felt the instincts of the beast within her, its lust for meat and its fierce eagerness for the hunt. Yet she was still in control.
The beast was part of her...yet it did not dominate her.
Her ears pricked up as she heard the hard tap of wood against stone.
She waited, and the Seer hobbled into the chamber. Her eyes saw the power of the earth magic filling him, as strong and deep as the roots of the mountain. Her ears heard the slow, steady beast of his heart, the rush of the blood in his veins. And her nose smelled the power surrounding him, crackling like the charged air of a thunderstorm.
The Seer looked at her, and smiled.
"So you have faced yourself, and mastered yourself," he said. "Your soul is your own now, and even your flesh will obey you."
Romaria understood, and concentrated. Her flesh flowed and rippled, her muscles reshaping themselves, her bones shifting and moving. In a moment, the transformation was complete, and she stood in her own form, her own body, before the Seer.
Even her clothes and weapons were still with her, no doubt a function of the earth magic in her soul.
A wild urge seized her, and she reached for the power. Again her body changed, and she became the great wolf once more, and still her reason remained with her. She concentrated again, and took her own shape once more.
There were tears in her eyes. For so long, she had feared the day when her Elderborn soul would overwhelm her flesh, transforming her forever into a ravening beast. And now, to have control over the transformation, to move between the different forms at will...
"How?" she said at last.
"You have faced yourself," said the Seer. "Many half-bloods do not. They refuse to acknowledge the truth, or try to fight themselves until it is too late. You did not. You now know the truth. You are both human and Elderborn, and the power of both heritages is yours to command. Now, come. War rages against the walls of Deepforest Keep, and we are needed."
Romaria's elation vanished as she remembered the grim battle outside the city.
She nodded, picked up her sword, and followed the Seer from the caverns.
Chapter 26 - The Rally
Black-armored shapes raced across the courtyard below the Champion's Tower, killing and slaying as screams rose from the houses of Deepforest Keep. Another green lightning bolt ripped down from the sky and exploded somewhere over the city, the thunder rumbling against the walls.
Mazael stared at the chaos, his mind racing. How the devil had the Malrags gotten into the city? Some trick of Malavost's magic? Or had they scaled the walls, unnoticed by the defenders? Or had they come through some hidden tunnel, some secret entrance long-forgotten by both the Elderborn and the men of Deepforest Keep alike?
He could figure it out later. Right now there were bigger problems. Ultorin himself advanced up the road below the western wall, accompanied by a hundred Ogrags, while the Malrags had just launched another attack at the southern wall with their ladders.
Combined with the sudden chaos inside the walls, the city might very well fall.
Unless Mazael took immediate action.
"What do we do?" murmured Athaelin, his voice low so the spearmen would not hear him.
Mazael made up his mind.
"We attack," said Mazael. "Leave half the men here under some captain you trust. We'll take the other half and join with Gerald's reserve." Odds were that Gerald, seeing the danger, had already attacked the Malrags inside the city. "Then we'll find out how the Malrags got into the city and seal off that entrance, wherever it is."
"And then we can take the fight to Ultorin at the gates," said Athaelin.
"Aye," said Mazael. But it would be a very close thing. It would not take the Ogrags long to smash through the gates. If they did not sweep the Malrags from the streets in time, if Ultorin broke through the gates before they could reach him...
Either way, Mazael realized, the battle for the city would be decided in the next hour.
"Athaelin," said Mazael. "Send a runner to Rhodemar. Tell him to shift some of the Elderborn to the northern wall, to slow down the Ogrags until we get there. Lucan!"
Lucan approached, fiery light flickering in the carved sigils of his staff.
"Stay here," said Mazael, "and help the spearmen to throw down the ladders. If the Malrags gain a foothold on the wall we're..."
Lucan stepped forward and thrust out his hand. For a moment Mazael thought Lucan was going to attack him. But then another blast of green lightning tore out of the sky, thundering towards the battlements. Lucan made a twisting motion with his hand, the staff burning ever brighter, and the lightning bolt twisted aside to rip a crater in the street below the wall.
"Good timing," said Mazael.
Lucan nodded, face twitching in something between a grimace and a grin. "I will aid the spearmen on the battlements. No Malrags will gain the walls. You should hasten, my lord."
"Let's go," said Mazael, and he raced down the stairs, Athaelin at his side, the men following.
###
R
achel ran as fast as she could, panting. Three Malrags chased her, howling their terrible war cries, black axes in their hands. She was fit enough, for a noblewoman, but her legs burned and her chest heaved with her frantic breaths.
She had to get away. If the Malrags killed her, if they slew her, she would never see Aldane again...
A narrow alley between two houses of gray stone appeared on her left, and Rachel dodged into it. The alley led to the Garden of the Temple, if she remembered correctly. Gerald and the reserve would be there, and he could keep her safe.
The Malrags followed her into the alley, still howling.
An instant later a bolt of emerald lightning smashed into the roof of the house on her right. The thunder shook the ground, and the shock knocked Rachel onto her hands and knees. Cracks spread through the wall, and Rachel realized that it would collapse.
Onto her.
She threw herself forward, praying that she would see her son again.
The wall fell behind her, its thunder louder than the lightning bolt. Dust billowed through the alley, and Rachel scrambled forward on her hands and knees, coughing. Any moment she expected to feel the massive stones fall upon her, crushing her to pulp.
But the sounds of falling stone faded, and soon she heard nothing but the distant sounds of fighting men and roaring Malrags.
At last she rose to her feet and turned around. Rubble choked the alley, and she saw no sign of the Malrags. No doubt they had been buried in the collapse of the wall. Rachel turned to go, and heard snarls and roars and the tramp of steel-shod boots coming from the other end of the alley.
More Malrags.
She was trapped.
Frantic, Rachel looked at the damaged wall. The rubble formed a ramp to the upper floors of the house, to a place where she could hide. She scrambled up the rubble and ducked into the house's upper floor. Once the room had been a bedchamber, the walls hung with woven tapestries, the table adorned with wooden Elderborn statues. Now the tapestries burned, and heaps of broken stone lay upon the floor. Rachel hurried from the bedchamber, down a narrow hallway, and into another room. She ducked behind the bed, trying to keep quiet.
Noise streamed through the window, and she realized that she had a view of the Garden of the Temple and the stone well at the city's heart. Gerald and the reserve spearmen waited there, and she saw them moving to meet the Malrags.
Rachel swallowed, her heart hammering.
She and Gerald might get to see each other die after all.
###
"For Deepforest Keep!" bellowed Athaelin, racing to meet the Malrag charge.
Lion blazed in Mazael's fist, and he attacked the Malrags besides Athaelin. He dodged, caught a spear thrust on his shield, and twisted to the side, Lion blurring in a sideways slash. A Malrag fell dead, and then another, as Mazael cut his way through them.
Behind him the line of spearmen fought the Malrags, shields raised, spears extended. The Malrags fought viciously, without mercy, without scruple, but the men of Deepforest Keep fought to defend their homes and wives and children, and bit by bit they drove the Malrags back.
Green light snarled and snapped overhead.
###
Lucan stood upon the battlements, struggling with all his might.
The bloodstaff's power thundered through him, filling him with strength, but even it was not enough. There were at least a dozen Malrag shamans in the city, summoning their green lightning, and it took every scrap of the staff's power and Lucan's magic to block their attacks. Lucan yearned to give himself to the staff's rage, to start killing Malrags and humans alike with his wrath, but he dared not. He retained enough sanity to realize that if he stopped casting wards, the Malrag shamans would slaughter the city's defenders.
And if that happened, Lucan would die. Even with all his skill, even with the bloodstaff to augment him, he could not possibly defeat Ultorin, Malavost, the shamans, and a hundred thousand Malrags.
Another lightning bolt thundered down from the sky, and Lucan screamed in exertion as he cast the ward to deflect it.
And still the bloodstaff's power surged through him, seeming to turn his bones and blood to fire.
###
Sykhana cut down a fleeing man with a slash of her poisoned daggers, and then another.
She grimaced, fangs curling over her lips, and looked around for fresh victims. Once, she would have rejoiced in the slaughter. But now she did not care. She only wanted to be reunited with Aldane, with her son, and be his mother as he ascended to godhood. Killing these people was a chore, nothing more.
But if she had to kill everyone in Deepforest Keep with her own hands to make Aldane safe, she would do it.
A noise from a side street caught her attention, and she saw a dark shape duck into a doorway. Sykhana slid into the alley, blood and venom dripping from her daggers and she lifted them. One quick slash, one kiss from her daggers, and another life would end...
She looked into the doorway.
Or two lives.
A woman of no more than twenty huddled in the doorway, weeping, clutching a child in her arms. An infant. No more than six months old. No older than Aldane.
Again Sykhana remembered the dead woman lying in the ruined village's street, the hand of the infant reaching from beneath the corpse.
Sykhana shivered, and for a terrible instant it seemed as if Aldane lay in the terrified woman's arms. Her hands trembled, and she almost dropped the poisoned daggers.
The young woman stared at her, red-eyed, waiting for the blow.
Sykhana turned and fled.
###
Romaria marveled as she followed the Seer through the caverns.
Her senses had become so much sharper. She heard the rustle of the Seer's cloak, the faint drip of water in the caverns. She smelled the oil upon the blade of her sword, the leather of her boots, the acrid smell of the starglow moss. And her vision had changed, as well. Even in the dim glow of the moss, she saw clearly.
And she saw the magical power, as well.
She could see the concentration of magical force in the Seer, earth magic ancient and strong. She saw the spells laid over the caverns, the work of the High Elderborn. And she saw the faint whispers of magic echoing over the entire mountain, the outer edges of a great vortex of power that waited atop the mountain.
The ruined temple, and the Door of Souls that Malavost and the San-keth wanted so badly.
Romaria now shared the senses that belonged to the beast. But that did not trouble her. All of her life, she had regarded the beast as an enemy, something she to overcome and defeat. But the beast was part of her. She was the beast, and the beast was her.
And at last, she was at peace with herself.
Daylight shone ahead, and she followed the Seer up the stone stairs of the well.
And then the Seer stopped.
Romaria heard the sounds of battle, the cries of men and the howls of Malrags.
She shoved past the Seer.
The first thing she saw was the light of the traigs.
A half-dozen traigs stood around the stone well, images of ancient Elderborn warriors wrought in white stone. She saw magical power within them, far older and far stronger than even the Seer's power, akin to the spells laid over the caverns. All her life she had believed the traigs to be nothing more than statues, but somehow they were linked to the power of the caverns.
The second thing she saw was a troop of spearmen, led by Gerald Roland, charging to attack a band of Malrags.
###
Mazael struck left and right, killing more Malrags.
Dead and dying Malrags and men covered the street. Ardanna and the druids had entered the fray, unleashing their powers. Giant shards of ice appeared in the air, driven by freezing winds to pierce Malrag flesh. Great fists of stone, supple as living flesh, rose from the earth to crush Malrags, or flocks of ravens plunged from the sky, ripping and tearing. Step by bloody step, they drove the Malrags down the city's central street, towards the G
arden of the Temple.
The shout of men rose over the clamor, and Mazael saw Gerald and the reserve rushing into the fray.
Yet more Malrags poured into the streets, more and more, and green lighting still snarled and crackled overhead.
And to the north he saw the Elderborn archers upon the wall, and heard the roar as the Ogrags attacked the gate.
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