“Spread out!” said Nicion, calling power for a spell. Khurazalin reappeared in the corner of the great hall, and Nicion hurled a blast of lightning at him. Khurazalin vanished again before the attack could reach him. “Spread out! If we stay bunched together, we’re finished!”
The knights and jotunmiri and Arcanii hastened to obey, and Calliande drew power for another spell. She knew Khurazalin’s strategy, had fought against wizards who had employed it before. Both Tymandain Shadowbearer and Imaria Shadowbearer had almost killed her with it. They had used their magic to flit back and forth across the battlefield, hurling attacks and then vanishing again before Calliande could respond. Khurazalin used the same tactic just as effectively.
Worse, he was undead, which meant he had no stamina to drain. Likely Calliande’s strength would fail long before Khurazalin’s power wavered, or Ridmark would stumble, and the Maledictus would kill him.
She held her power ready, looking to strike. If she could just use the Sight to find Khurazalin’s destination before he fully appeared…
There!
Darkness swirled to her left, and Khurazalin appeared beneath one of the balconies, already raising the Staff of Blades to attack. Calliande struck at once, throwing all her power into a single spell, fusing together the magic of the Well and the mantle of the Keeper. There wasn’t enough time to focus properly, and a cone of white fire swept from her hand and slammed into Khurazalin. The Maledictus flinched, grabbing onto the Staff with both hands for balance, and the others attacked. Tamlin and Aegeus hurled elemental attacks, Kyralion shot an arrow at the Maledictus, and Kalussa cast a bolt of fire.
The amulet on Khurazalin’s chest, the Sign of the New God, pulsed with shadow. A corona of blue fire appeared around him, absorbing the magical attacks and splintering Kyralion’s arrow. Calliande began another spell, but Khurazalin vanished again before she could finish.
She wanted to scream in frustration.
The Maledictus hurled another volley of crystalline disks from the dais, and Calliande threw her magical strength into another protective spell.
###
Ridmark slashed another of the disks from the air and sprinted towards Khurazalin, knowing that it was futile.
Oathshield made him faster than his muscles would allow, but Khurazalin seemed able to wield his magic with the speed of thought. No matter where the Maledictus appeared, he always disappeared before Ridmark could close with him. One or two hits from his soulblade, he knew, and Oathshield would hammer through the undead warlock’s warding spells and destroy him. But Khurazalin knew that as well, and the Maledictus was too crafty to ever stay in one place for long, unleashing his storm of disks and traveling away at once.
Worse, there seemed to be no limit to the Staff’s power. The storm of blades had taken its toll on the men. How had been slain? A dozen? A score? More, most likely. Wounded men lay on the ground, in too much pain to move, and sometimes the careening disks crashed into them.
At least that was a quicker death than one from the acidic touch of the Accursed.
Ridmark wanted to draw on Oathshield’s power, use it to call forth the Shield Knight and armor himself in its magic. Unfortunately, it seemed that Khurazalin had realized that danger. Ridmark needed at least a few moments to concentrate and call on the power of the Shield Knight, but Khurazalin refused to give him that moment. The Maledictus was too fast, and his crystalline disks were always aimed in Ridmark’s direction. If Ridmark paused long enough to concentrate, the disks would cut him in half. If he tried to pause long enough to coordinate with Calliande, the disks would likely kill them both.
But there might be another way. Ridmark had fought another wizard who used the same tactics long ago, and he had beaten Tymandain Shadowbearer in the end.
“Kyralion!” said Ridmark, knocking another disk from the air.
“Lord Ridmark?” said the gray elf, rising to one knee.
“One of us has to hit Khurazalin,” said Ridmark. “I’ve seen that kind of traveling spell before.” Khurazalin reappeared atop the high table, and again Ridmark knocked two disks from the air before the Maledictus traveled away. “A soulstone. If he’s holding a soulstone, he won’t be able to use magic to travel.”
“Or if a blade containing a soulstone has pierced his flesh,” said Kyralion.
“Aye,” said Ridmark, sweat dripping down his face as he watched for Khurazalin’s appearance. “My sword and yours are the only ones with soulstones. We…”
Another volley of disks shot across the hall, and Ridmark ducked under one and slashed another out of the air.
“We have to pin him in place,” said Ridmark. “Otherwise he’ll wear us down through sheer attrition.”
Kyralion rolled to his feet and sent a burning arrow hissing towards Khurazalin. The Maledictus vanished in a snarl of shadow before the arrow could connect.
“Then one of us must strike him,” said Kyralion.
“Yes,” said Ridmark, scanning the hall. “Where…”
Khurazalin reappeared atop the balcony on the right-hand side of the hall, and again Ridmark had to deflect the volley of disks.
Kyralion got to his feet and took a deep breath, his sword ready in his hands.
###
Calliande gritted her teeth, holding both the Sight and her magical power.
An idea came to her, a desperate gamble, but she feared it was their only chance. She had heard Ridmark and Kyralion and realized that they were right. The only way they could stop Khurazalin was to pin him in place. His magic made him too fast. If Oathshield or Kyralion’s sword pierced his flesh, Khurazalin would be bound in place, unable to transport himself with magic, and then Calliande could hit him with her full magical strength.
So she held her spell ready.
Khurazalin reappeared between her and Ridmark, and Calliande cast her spell.
It was the same ward she had used to blunt the disks, but instead of shielding the others, she focused on Ridmark and Kyralion. Shells of soft white light appeared around them. With all Calliande’s power focused on them, they ought to be able to withstand a hit from the disks.
“Go!” shouted Calliande.
Khurazalin slammed the end of the Staff against the ground, splinters exploding off the crystal and swelling into lethal disks. With all her power reinforcing the wards around Ridmark and Kyralion, she had no magic left for anything else.
So Calliande threw herself to the ground.
It barely saved her life. One disk blurred over her head, missing her by an inch. Another bounced off the floor a foot away, digging a groove into the stone, and slammed into the nearest pillar. If the battle went on too much longer, Calliande feared that the disks would cut into too many of the pillars and the entire great hall would collapse upon them.
She rolled to one knee and saw Ridmark and Kyralion sprinting towards Khurazalin. Ridmark moved in a blur, Oathshield’s power going to enhance his speed. One of the disks hit him right in the chest but shattered against Calliande’s ward.
But it was still not fast enough. Shadows swirled around Khurazalin, and he started to disappear.
Kyralion threw his sword at the Maledictus.
The lighting-wreathed blade flipped end over end and slammed into Khurazalin, sinking into his right leg. The Maledictus jerked back, crimson robe rippling around him. But he did not disappear.
The soulstone-empowered sword jutting from his leg anchored him in place.
“Now!” shouted Calliande, casting a spell. “Take him! It’s our only chance. Take him!”
###
Ridmark surged forward, Oathshield drawn back to strike, the soulblade’s power driving him with terrific speed.
But even with Kyralion’s sword in his leg, Khurazalin was still deadly quick.
The Maledictus pointed his free hand at Ridmark, and another lance of shadow and blue fire ripped from the bony fingers. The spell hurtled towards Ridmark, and he raised Oathshield in guard, catching the attack upon hi
s soulblade.
It slowed him long enough for Khurazalin to strike the end of the Staff against the floor once more.
Dozens of tiny splinters broke off the crystal, and they whirled around him in a ring about twelve yards across. The crystals expanded, becoming jagged shards, and soon Khurazalin stood in the center of a spinning barrier of razor-edged crystals. That did not seem to take the entirety of the Staff’s power, and he turned and flung another volley of disks towards Ridmark.
He snapped up Oathshield to deflect a disk that would otherwise have sliced him in half. Three knights tried to charge Khurazalin, only to be ripped apart by the whirling ring of shards. Fire and lightning and white flame snapped and snarled as Calliande and the Arcanii brought their power to bear against the Maledictus, and Khurazalin answered them with shadow and dark magic.
###
Kalussa lifted her head.
She had thrown herself to the ground to avoid the latest volley of crystalline disks, and now Khurazalin’s spinning wall of razor-edged shards whirled and snarled less than a foot away…
Wait.
She was inside the ring of shards.
Khurazalin stood twenty paces away, magical energy snarling around him as he worked spell after spell. The Maledictus was fighting the Arcanii and the Keeper at the same time, while his ring of shards and crystalline disks kept Ridmark and the fighters from closing. Kyralion’s sword still jutted from his Khurazalin’s leg. Had the Maledictus ripped the sword from his leg, he could have transported himself away, but Calliande and the Arcanii were pressing him hard enough that he could not take even a moment to do that.
Khurazalin was vulnerable, but Kalussa could not think of how to exploit that vulnerability. A spell? He was a mighty wizard, and he would shrug off her bolts of fire as if they were pinpricks.
But even his mighty magic had not let him defeat the Shield Knight and the Keeper at Castra Chaeldon. Why was he standing and fighting now?
The Staff of Blades. That was what had changed. The Staff had once been carried by the Sovereign himself, and it was the Staff’s power that let Khurazalin fight Ridmark and Calliande and the Arcanii all at once. Without the Staff, they could defeat him.
And Kalussa knew what she needed to do.
She heaved off the ground and sprinted towards Khurazalin.
At first, the Maledictus did not notice her, his attention on the powerful foes around him. Then the red cowl turned, the empty eye sockets with their blue fires regarding her. Khurazalin’s hand came up, and he started to cast a warding spell.
But Kalussa did not intend to attack him with magic.
She slammed into the Maledictus, seized the Staff of Blades from his skeletal hand, and wrenched the weapon away. It was far lighter than she would have thought, the dark metal icy cold beneath her touch. Kalussa overbalanced and fell upon her back, the Staff clutched against her.
The ring of spinning crystalline shards vanished.
And then agony exploded through Kalussa.
She screamed as the Staff’s magic howled into her mind, invisible talons stabbing into her thoughts. The crystal at the end of the Staff shivered, and hundreds of crystalline threads burst from its surface, stabbing into her chest and arms and face. It felt as if she had been pierced by hundreds of burning needles.
Kalussa thought the pain from Rypheus’s dark magic had been the worst she had ever experienced.
She had been wrong, and she screamed as agony drowned the world.
###
Kalussa fell, the Staff clutched in her hands, and the barrier of shards around Khurazalin vanished.
Tamlin knew this was his last chance.
He shouted and charged at the Maledictus who had murdered his wife, and every surviving warrior and Arcanius in the hall did the same. Lightning and fire and ice and white flame slashed at Khurazalin, while the swordsmen and jotunmiri charged at him in a rush.
The Maledictus was equal to the threat, blue fire and shadow flashing around him as he cast spell after spell. A lance of shadow and blue flame killed two knights. A burst of invisible force sent a pair of Arcanii tumbling through the air like toys.
A shaft of Calliande’s fire hit him, and Khurazalin stumbled, his defenses disrupted.
And at that moment, Tamlin struck.
He lunged, all his hate and rage behind his arm, and his sword of dark elven steel punched into Khurazalin’s chest. Khurazalin stumbled again, raking his free hand before him, and blue fire leaped from his fingers. Tamlin dodged, yanking his sword free in the process, but the edge of the spell clipped him and sent him to the floor, pain shooting through his body.
Khurazalin started another spell, and white fire exploded before Tamlin’s eyes.
The Maledictus let out a choked scream, and when the glare cleared, Tamlin saw Ridmark standing before Khurazalin, Oathshield driven into the undead warlock’s chest. The soulblade had split the black medallion adorned with the New God’s symbol in half, and its black fire had gone out. Whatever spell that allowed Khurazalin to float a few inches above the ground came to an end, and the Maledictus fell to his knees, looking up at Ridmark.
“The New God will come,” said Khurazalin, his voice a rasp, “and your victory shall be in vain…”
“Perhaps,” said Ridmark, “but you shall not see it.”
He moved in a blur, Oathshield a sheet of white fire in his hands. Khurazalin’s head rolled away across the floor. No blood came from the stump of his neck, only dust. The headless corpse fell to the ground and remained motionless, and the body within the crimson robe began crumbling into dust.
Kyralion’s sword fell loose with a clang.
A silence fell over the hall, broken only by the screams and groans of the wounded.
The battle was over.
###
Calliande hurried forward, her Sight focused on Khurazalin and the fading aura of power around the defeated Maledictus. She thought that Khurazalin had been destroyed, that Oathshield had shattered his dark magic, but she wanted to make sure.
“Lady Calliande,” croaked a voice.
Calliande stopped and looked down.
In the chaos, she had forgotten about Kalussa.
The younger woman lay sprawled on her back, the Staff of Blades clutched in her hands. Calliande wondered why she was holding onto it, and then realized that Kalussa couldn’t let go. Hundreds of crystalline threads had erupted from the misshapen crystal at the end of the staff, and those threads had stabbed into Kalussa’s face and arms and torso, holding her locked in place. Calliande’s Sight saw the power in those threads, saw that they were working their way ever closer to Kalussa’s heart.
When they reached Kalussa’s heart, she would die.
“Help me,” croaked Kalussa. “Please, help…”
An unexpected burst of rage exploded through Calliande.
Kalussa had tried to steal her husband. Ridmark was Calliande’s heart, the father of her children, the man she loved more than anyone else in the world, and Kalussa had tried to seduce him away. Let Kalussa die! It was no more than she deserved. Calliande wasn’t obliged to save her. Let her suffer and weep and die while Calliande turned her healing spells towards those more deserving…
Calliande shivered, horrified and repulsed by the vicious strength of the emotion, shocked by the darkness that had come boiling out of her heart like corrupted blood from a poisoned wound. Both she and Ridmark had been tempted Kalussa, hadn’t they? Ridmark by her youth and beauty, and Calliande by the anger and hatred.
Ridmark had resisted. Calliande could do no less.
“Here,” said Calliande, dropping to one knee next to Kalussa. “Don’t move. If you do, those threads will snap off and probably kill you.”
“I…I can’t move,” said Kalussa. “Hurts. Too much.”
“You saved us all, you know,” said Calliande, examining the Staff with her Sight. God, but it was powerful. Worse, it seemed that its magic had fused to Kalussa somehow. “If you hadn’t
gotten the Staff away from Khurazalin, he would have killed us all.”
“That sounds,” said Kalussa, “like I’m about to die.”
“You might,” said Calliande, voice grim, “but I will see if I can prevent that.”
She flexed her fingers, calling magic.
The spell would have to come in two parts.
Calliande focused her will and worked the spell.
A burst of white fire leaped from her fingers and touched the Staff. It was too powerful for her to destroy, but she drove back the elemental power. Kalussa screamed again as the crystalline threads retracted from her flesh, blood welling from hundreds of tiny wounds. Calliande cast the healing spell, taking the pain of the wounds into herself. The pain flooded through her and then vanished as Kalussa’s wounds faded away.
Calliande let out a long breath.
“Thank you,” said Kalussa in a small voice.
Calliande nodded, her Sight focused on the Staff.
Kalussa started to sit up.
“Wait,” said Calliande.
Kalussa froze.
“I think you had better take the Staff with you,” said Calliande.
Fresh fear went over Kalussa’s face. “Why?”
“I’m not sure,” said Calliande, “but I think it’s bonded to you, and if you go too far from it, the bond will kill you.”
Kalussa hesitated, and then picked up the Staff.
“What…what should I do?” said Kalussa.
“Stay close to me in case the Staff does something we don’t expect,” said Calliande. She took a deep breath, pushing aside her exhaustion, and looked around the great hall. “And I have to heal as many of the wounded as I can.”
Because she knew this was just the beginning.
Justin Cyros was coming, and even if he was defeated, the Necromancer of Trojas and the Confessor and the Masked One and Rhodruthain were still out there.
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