With that, Scurifael turned and growled commands to his soldiers. The muridachs stripped their dead and departed the hall through another corridor, and silence fell over the ruins of Cathair Valwyn once more.
“They didn’t even take their tents,” said Aegeus, looking at the shelters of ragged leather.
“Probably for greater haste,” said Ridmark. “That Maledictus put the fear into them.”
“Could it be Khurazalin?” said Tamlin.
“Maybe,” said Ridmark. His voice hardened. “He got away from us at Castra Chaeldon. If it is Khurazalin, let us ensure he doesn’t escape a second time.”
He started towards the corridor that Scurifael had indicated, and Tamlin and the others followed him.
***
Chapter 12: Maledictus
The corridor became another flight of broad, shallow stairs, and at the end of those stairs, Ridmark saw a vast, shadowy space.
“It’s close,” said Calliande in a quiet voice. “Whatever dark magic is down here, it’s in the chamber beyond the end of these stairs.”
They stopped at the base of the steps and looked around the yawning room.
“Well,” said Aegeus, “when the ratman called it a pillared hall, he wasn’t wrong.”
The chamber at the end of the stairs was huge, larger than the Agora of Connmar in the city above. A forest of white pillars supported the vaulted ceiling. Once a glowing crystal had shone at the crown of every pillar, but now only about one in five of the crystals still gave off light. Shadows cloaked the ceiling, and tangled shadows lay across the floor.
“Kyralion,” said Calliande. “Do you know the purpose of this chamber?”
“I do not, Keeper,” said Kyralion. He seemed awed by the sight of the great chamber. “I have never seen such a place in the ruins of my kindred.”
“I’ve seen a few places like this,” said Ridmark. “In the ruins of the dwarves or the dark elves.” He never understood why the dwarven and dark elven kindreds had built such extensive complexes underground. Surely it would have been easier to build above the ground? Perhaps such places appealed to them.
He took a few steps forward into the pillared hall. The round pillars were each eighteen feet around and at least a hundred feet tall. Broad white flagstones covered the floor, and he saw no sign of the mechanical traps common in dwarven and dark elven ruins. He turned his head, looking down the aisles of pillars, and Oathshield started to burn hotter in his hand.
“Ridmark!” Calliande’s voice cracked out, and she started casting a spell. “They’re coming.”
Ridmark turned just as a wild shriek rang through the hall, and dark shapes began racing down the central aisle. The dark shapes resolved into a score of abscondamni, their arms outstretched as they charged, translucent slime dripping from their skinless flesh. In the dim light, the creatures looked all the more gruesome.
Oathshield shivered in his hand, the soulblade’s fury rising as the creatures approached.
Ridmark took a step forward, and the others struck.
Calliande cast first, a lance of white fire ripping from her hand and scything through four of the abscondamni, throwing them to the ground. Tamlin hurled one of his lightning bolts, the blast of elemental magic stunning two of the Accursed. Aegeus cast his own spell, and a spike of ice stabbed through the chest of an abscondamnius and hurled the creature backward.
Ridmark charged as Kyralion loosed two arrows. His shafts punched into the abscondamni, and both creatures burst into flame as the power of the lesser soulstone in his bow flared to life. If the gray elves had been able to make magical weapons of that power during the height of their civilization, no wonder if had taken the Sovereign millennia to subdue them.
Then Ridmark reached the remaining abscondamni, and there was no more time for thought.
One of the creatures reached for him, and Ridmark took off its head with a two-handed blow of Oathshield. The stump of the abscondamnius’s neck smoked and charred as Oathshield’s magic burned away the dark magic, and the creature’s headless corpse collapsed. A second abscondamnius lunged, and Ridmark chopped off its right hand with Oathshield. The creature staggered, and Ridmark finished it off with a thrust through the heart.
By then Tamlin and Aegeus had reached him. Tamlin had his blue sword in his right hand, sparks and lightning snarling around his left hand. He gestured with his left hand, the arcs of lightning curling around one of the abscondamni. The creature shuddered, and before it recovered, Tamlin landed a killing blow with his sword. Aegeus lacked Tamlin’s masterful skill with a blade but made up for it with ferocity and brute force. He smashed his shield of ice across the face of the nearest abscondamnius. The ice shield shattered into steaming shards, but the abscondamnius fell to one knee, and Aegeus split its skull in twain with a stroke of his sword.
Ridmark tore into the abscondamni, the younger men on either side of him, while Kyralion shot arrows and Calliande cast spells. She sent another shaft of white fire ripping through the creatures, and then followed Kyralion’s tactics and switched to the magic of elemental flame. Like Kalussa, she hurled bolts of magical flame. Unlike Kalussa, her bolts of fire were far hotter and brighter, and she cast them with greater speed. Her blasts of magical flame carved smoking craters into the chests of the abscondamni, throwing them motionless to the floor.
Oathshield blazed with white fire as Ridmark cut down another abscondamnius, and he whirled as he sought another foe, his soulblade coming up in guard.
But there were no abscondamni left. The twisted creatures lay sprawled across the tiles of white stone, faint wisps of smoke rising from the acidic slime dripping from their limbs.
The abscondamni were dead, but Oathshield burned hotter.
“Calliande?” said Ridmark.
“I don’t think there are any abscondamni left,” said Calliande. Her voice was sharp with alarm. “But there is still a great deal of dark magic here. And it’s approaching…” Her head snapped around, and she looked down the central aisle. “There.”
Ridmark stepped forward, Oathshield ready in his hands.
The air twenty yards away rippled and distorted, and then a figure in a black robe appeared from nothingness.
###
Calliande looked at the black-robed figure, her skin crawling with revulsion.
It was a Maledictus, she was certain of it. Like Khurazalin, the figure was nearly seven feet tall and wore an ornate robe of elaborate design, a sash knotted around his waist and across his chest. And like Khurazalin, the Maledictus was undead and glided a few inches above the ground instead of walking.
The similarities ended there.
This Maledictus’s robe was black instead of blood red. Khurazalin had been undead as well, and his appearance had been withered and emaciated, like a mummified corpse left under a desert sun. This creature looked different. It had been in orcish man in life, like Khurazalin, but its undead form was rotted, corrupted, even diseased. The green-skinned flesh was threaded with black veins, and huge pustules covered the face and the hands. Even as Calliande watched, one of the pustules burst, leaking black slime across his fingers.
She couldn’t smell the creature in the black robe, and she was grateful for that.
Blue fire burned in his empty eye sockets, matching the aura of dark magical power that radiated against her Sight. Some of the power came from an amulet of dark metal hanging against his chest. It matched the color of his black robe so Calliande could not get a good look at the amulet, but it radiated dark magical energy. Khurazalin had been a powerful wizard, and she feared that this black-robed Maledictus was just as powerful, perhaps even stronger.
But Khurazalin had been surrounded by powerful allies, and this creature was alone.
“No,” said Kyralion. His voice was tight with shock. “No, it cannot be.”
Calliande looked at the gray elf. “Kyralion?”
“It is him,” said Kyralion. “It cannot be. What is he doing here?”
&n
bsp; “I see,” said the robed Maledictus, “that the gray elf knows who I am.” Like Khurazalin, his rotting lips did not move behind his tusks as he spoke, but Calliande heard the voice nonetheless. Khurazalin’s voice had been calm and controlled and scholarly. This voice matched the rotting face beneath the black cowl. It was deep and wet and gurgling. Calliande thought that if disease and illness had a voice, it would sound like that.
“Then who are you, sir?” said Ridmark. “I’m afraid you are not known to me.”
“But you are known to me, Ridmark Arban the Shield Knight,” said the Maledictus. “Khurazalin spoke of your interference at Castra Chaeldon.”
“Then you have the advantage,” said Ridmark. “Who are you?”
“I am Qazaldhar,” said the black-robed form, spreading his arms, “and I am the Maledictus of Death.”
“The Maledictus of Death?” said Ridmark. “Is that a formal title, or a nickname you’ve given yourself?”
“Neither, Shield Knight,” said Qazaldhar. “It is my nature.”
“Kyralion,” said Calliande. “How do you know him?” The gray elf’s usually unreadable expression radiated fear and rage.
“He is the one who has cursed the Liberated,” said Kyralion. “He is the one who has brought the plague to the Unity.”
Qazaldhar laughed, the sound wet and horrible. “Yes. It is amusing, is it not? For millennia, your people struggled against the Sovereign, and you were driven back step by step and mile by mile until your single ragged remnant huddled within the Illicaeryn Jungle. Yet you outlasted the Sovereign only to fall to the wrath of the New God.” A gloating note entered the terrible voice. “You were so proud. A pity you were too young to see your civilization at its height. Then you could appreciate all the more the dregs to which you have fallen. And you are a freak, yes? Outside of the Unity? Then you shall have the honor of becoming the last living gray elf, the final witness watching your kindred perish in the dust.”
Kyralion said nothing, but Calliande saw the fury on his stance, saw the knuckles tighten against his bow.
“Then you are a servant of the New God?” said Ridmark.
“All shall serve the New God, Shield Knight of Andomhaim,” said Qazaldhar. “You shall serve him as well. On the day of his rising, the New God shall reign supreme over this world. All shall be his slaves. The gray elves shall collapse in terror before the Kratomachar. All shall bend the knee before him, either joyfully or with dread.”
“Your blasphemous boasting aside,” said Ridmark, “I assume you were the one who sent the abscondamni after King Hektor?”
“That is correct,” said the Maledictus. “I brought the Accursed of the Sovereign here, though the Sovereign is no more. I shattered the wards upon the Low Gate and sent the Accursed into the city. But you are wrong about one thing, Shield Knight.”
“Oh?” said Ridmark. He smiled, but Calliande saw the tension in his stance. He was getting ready to attack. If he could reach the Maledictus fast enough, he could cut down Qazaldhar before the undead orc could bring his magic to bear. “I suspect you are about to enlighten me.”
“I did not come to Cathair Valwyn and Aenesium to kill King Hektor,” said Qazaldhar. “The fool works to the glory of the New God, even if he knows it not…”
“Liar!” said Tamlin. “King Hektor will never submit to your false New God.”
Qazaldhar loosed his wet, bubbling laugh once more. “It matters not. The rise of the New God is inevitable, mortal fools. It cannot be stopped. Every step your King Hektor takes, every enemy he defeats, every battle he wins in the memory of his poor imprisoned brother and his poor dead wife, all of it carries him closer to his destiny. The New God shall rise, and mankind shall be its slaves.”
“But what was I wrong about, Qazaldhar?” said Ridmark.
A flicker of dark magic went before Calliande’s Sight, drawing her attention. She kept her physical eyes on Ridmark and the Maledictus but sent her Sight whirling through the pillared hall. Did Qazaldhar have more Maledicti coming to his aid? Or were more abscondamni coming?
“I did not come here to kill King Hektor, for he is an instrument of the New God,” said Qazaldhar. “I came here to kill you and the Keeper of Andomhaim.”
“Did you, now,” said Ridmark.
“The Guardian Rhodruthain was a fool to bring you here,” said Qazaldhar. “You will not stop the rise of the New God. You shall not accomplish his hopes. Cathair Valwyn will be your tomb, and…”
Calliande recognized the flicker of dark magic. It was a spell of masking and concealment, designed to render something unseen from mortal eyes. But it could not hide from the Sight. That was why Qazaldhar was bothering to talk rather than simply unleashing his magical fury. He was trying to delay while his minions moved into position to attack, and Calliande suspected these minions would be stronger than the abscondamni.
She drew on all the power of the Well and the Keeper’s mantle, and she gestured with her free hand. A ring of white fire exploded from her staff and rolled out across the floor. Unlike the ring of fire she had used to overawe the muridachs, this spell had far more magical force behind it. It surged past Qazaldhar, and the Maledictus hissed in fury, his warding spells sparking with black fire around him. The white flame spread into the spaces between the columns, and as it did, the air rippled and flickered.
Monsters appeared out of nothingness.
They looked like the twisted, mutated hybrids of wolves and apes, their lean bodies corded with muscle, lank, greasy black fur hanging from their misshapen forms. Their eyes burned like coals in their deformed heads, fangs jutted from their long jaws, and claws like daggers rose from their paws.
Calliande had fought creatures like this many, many times before. She had even met the mad dark elven lord who had first created the monsters in the deeps of time, and the Sculptor had boasted (at interminable length) about the resiliency and deadliness of his creations. His boasts had not been wrong. The urvaalgs were the favored war beasts of the dark elves, and they had terrorized the men of Andomhaim ever since Malahan Pendragon had founded Tarlion a thousand years ago.
And now a dozen of the creatures surrounded them.
“Now!” roared Ridmark, and he surged forward, Oathshield drawn back to strike.
Qazaldhar shouted a command, and the urvaalgs loosed their horrible metallic battle cries and bounded over the white floor with inhuman speed. Ridmark broke off his charge and turned to defend himself from the urvaalgs. He was equal to the task. Oathshield granted him speed and strength, and there was no better weapon for fighting an urvaalg than the soulblade of a Swordbearer. Ridmark twisted, slashing down with his sword, and his soulblade sheared off the head of an urvaalg. The misshapen head bounced away, and the urvaalg’s carcass hit the floor, twitching. Three more urvaalgs closed around Ridmark, but he stayed ahead of their blows.
The remaining urvaalgs converged on Calliande.
“Tamlin, Aegeus, Kyralion!” roared Ridmark, dodging the snap of an urvaalg’s jaws and killing another. “Defend Calliande! I’ll deal with Qazaldhar!”
The Maledictus’s bubbling laughter echoed off the pillars. “Will you, Shield Knight?”
The urvaalgs rushed at her, and Calliande started casting spells. She summoned magic and shaped it into quick blasts of white fire, destroying three urvaalgs in rapid succession, the magic of the Well chewing through their corrupted flesh. Tamlin and Aegeus fell back as she did, Kyralion drawing his sword instead of his bow. Tamlin and Kyralion had weapons that could harm creatures of dark magic, so Aegeus covered them, calling forth a massive shield of ice and guarding them as they attacked.
For the moment, they were holding, and Ridmark was carving his way through the urvaalgs, so Calliande turned her attention towards Qazaldhar. If she could strike him down, or if she could clear a path for Ridmark to reach him, they would win the fight. And if Qazaldhar had indeed cursed the gray elves with the plague that Kyralion had mentioned, they could keep him from working a
similar curse on the men of Owyllain.
But Qazaldhar was casting a spell, dark magic swirling around him.
A lot of dark magic. He was casting a spell strong enough to sweep through the central aisle and kill everyone battling within it. Calliande began summoning power for a ward, preparing to block whatever the Maledictus flung at them.
Qazaldhar gestured, and green mist exploded from his hands, rushing forward in a billowing, glowing wall. With the Sight, Calliande saw the necromantic sorcery that charged the mist, impregnating it with blighting power.
Plague. That was what Kyralion had said that Qazaldhar had done to his people. The Maledictus had just cast a mighty spell of plague. If it touched living flesh, it would induce a plague so deadly and virulent that the victim would fall dead within moments, and those few moments would be filled with agony.
Rage boiled through Calliande. She had been trained as a Magistria before she had become the Keeper of Andomhaim, and she had used her magic to heal for years. The thought that someone would deliberately induce a disease infuriated her.
That was good. She could use that fury.
Calliande cast a warding spell, driving that fury and the magic of the Well and the power of the Keeper’s mantle together.
She thrust her staff, and a dome of white light exploded from its end, hurtling through the battle. The urvaalgs flinched and snarled as the ward passed through them, though it did little harm. The dome slammed into the advancing cloud of glowing green gas, and for a moment the dark magic and the magic of the Well strained against each other. Calliande gritted her teeth, driving her will against that of Qazaldhar. She felt his power struggling against hers, and she realized that the Maledictus was ancient and mighty.
But Calliande was the Keeper, and she could draw upon her mantle of power against which no magic of this world could stand.
Her ward shattered, but it also destroyed the cloud of venomous fumes. Qazaldhar rocked back, shadows and greenish fire dancing around his dripping fingers, and she felt the ancient creature’s full will turn upon her.
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