Tamlin listened with half an ear. The mention of his father put him into a dark mood. Tamlin had not seen Justin Cyros since that awful day when the King of Cytheria had burned the Monastery of St. James and killed Tamlin’s mother Cathala by turning her to stone. Did Justin remember that? He had killed so many people since then. Did Justin even remember handing Tamlin and Tysia and all the others to the dvargir slavers? Did he even know how much torment Tamlin had endured in Urd Maelwyn?
Likely not. And even if Justin had known, he would not have cared.
The King of Cytheria’s chief characteristic was his overriding ruthlessness. Even the pagan warlords of the orcish city-states abided by rules and conventions of warfare. Justin Cyros discarded them all in pursuit of his goals. No king of Owyllain had ever permitted the use of dark magic, but Justin had allowed his Dark Arcanii to wield malevolent forces and had allied himself with the warlocks of Vhalorast.
No, Tamlin had no yearning for the father he had never known. If he had the chance, he would kill Justin Cyros, both for the death of his mother and for all the harm that Justin had wreaked since.
“Someone is coming,” said Kyralion, interrupting both Tamlin’s dark musings and Aegeus’s latest joke.
Tamlin looked up, rebuking himself for letting his attention wander. Justin Cyros’s army was still likely north of the hills, but given the number of Vhalorasti warbands they had seen this far south, letting his mind wander was idiocy. To the northwest, he spotted two figures hurrying down the slope of a hill, one wearing dark armor and the second blue armor and a gray cloak…
“It is the Shield Knight,” said Kyralion, “and Lady Third.”
“They’re not being chased by anything, are they?” said Aegeus, reaching for his dwarven axe. “The last time we saw Lady Third, Calem showed up right after her to kill us all.”
“They do not seem to be fleeing anyone,” said Kyralion, “and I see no one else nearby.”
A short time later Ridmark and Third drew near. Tamlin had to admit that he found Third unsettling. It was the eyes, he thought. She looked like an attractive woman, if taller and stronger than average, even with her pointed elven ears. But there was something disturbing about her flat black eyes. She claimed to have been an urdhracos for nearly a thousand years, and looking at those eyes, Tamlin believed it.
He was glad that she was on their side. Or, at least, on Ridmark’s side.
“Lord Ridmark,” said Tamlin. “Are there foes?”
“Possibly,” said Ridmark. “What are you doing this far north of the army?”
“King Hektor sent us,” said Tamlin. “He wanted us to greet Decurion Rallios and let him know that the army was on the way. Kyralion offered to accompany us and watch for foes.”
“We have seen none,” said Kyralion.
“Truth be told,” said Aegeus, “this is quieter than the last time we traveled north along this road.”
“The quiet isn’t going to last,” said Ridmark. “There are undead east of Castra Chaeldon. We could see them from that hilltop. It looks like they are either besieging the castra or watching it in preparation for the arrival of a larger force.”
“Then we had better investigate and report back,” said Tamlin.
“Possibly,” said Third. “Or we could destroy them and whoever commands the undead.”
Tamlin opened his mouth to say that was a terrible idea…and then he reconsidered. Between the Shield Knight, Aegeus’s magic, Third’s abilities, Kyralion’s skill and magical weapons, and Tamlin’s own power, the five of them had a good chance against whoever or whatever commanded the undead. They would have a better chance than nearly anyone else, save perhaps for Calliande.
“Perhaps,” said Ridmark. “We’ll take a look and see what we can find. Kyralion, Third, keep your eyes open. You have sharper senses than the rest of us. If there are undead or enemy soldiers coming for us, I want to know at once.”
They followed the road as it climbed higher. Tamlin flexed his fingers as he walked, his combat reflexes coming to the forefront of his mind. He could have his sword of dark elven steel in his hand in an instant, or call magic to strike down his enemies with a blast of elemental lightning.
Two miles later Tamlin glimpsed the towers of Castra Chaeldon rising from behind the hills.
“I shall go ahead and see what I can find,” said Third.
“Be careful,” said Ridmark.
“Always,” said Third, and she vanished in a pulse of blue fire.
“Can I make an observation, Lord Ridmark?” said Aegeus.
Ridmark snorted. “If I said no, would it stop you?”
“Probably not,” said Aegeus. “But Lady Third tried to kill you when you first met, yes?”
Ridmark nodded.
“Calem tried to kill you twice,” said Aegeus.
“You were there,” said Ridmark. “I hope you wouldn’t have forgotten.”
“Do you make all your friends that way?” said Aegeus.
Ridmark frowned. “It has happened more often than I would have expected. Given the pattern, I suppose I should be grateful that you didn’t try to take a swing at me when we met.”
“Ha!” said Aegeus. “That would be churlish. You and Lady Calliande had just rescued us from the Confessor’s orcs.” He paused. “Lady Calliande didn’t try to kill you when you first met, did she?”
Ridmark actually laughed at that. Tamlin could count on one hand the number of times he had seen the grim Swordbearer laugh. “No. Truth be told, we were running for our lives from a group of pagan orcs that wanted us dead, along with a dwarven friar and a baptized orcish warrior of Vhaluusk.”
“A dwarven friar, an orcish warrior, and the Keeper of Andomhaim,” mused Kyralion. “Sir Aegeus, that sounds like the beginning of one of your jokes.”
They all looked at him in surprise.
“Kyralion,” said Aegeus. “Did you just make a joke?”
“I do not think so,” said Kyralion. “Merely an observation.”
Aegeus started to respond, then blue fire swirled before them, and Third stepped out of nothingness. Blue fire glimmered in her veins and in her black eyes, but it faded a heartbeat later. Tamlin thought it would have taken him half an hour to run to Castra Chaeldon and return from here, but she had managed it in about a minute.
Little wonder she had managed to follow Ridmark from Andomhaim.
“Fifty undead watch the castra,” said Third without preamble. “They appear to have two leaders. One is a human knight in bronze armor with a green cloak, armed with a bronze war hammer.”
“A hammer?” said Tamlin.
“You know him?” said Ridmark.
“No,” said Tamlin with a scowl, “but I know what he is. He’s one of the Ironcoats, Justin Cyros’s Swordborn sons.”
The Ironcoats were another example of King Justin’s ruthlessness. If a bearer of one of the Seven Swords fathered a child, the resultant offspring was immune to the power of the Swords, but also had a measure of their power. Kalussa was Swordborn, and so was Tamlin. Once Justin Cyros had realized the nature of the Swordborn, he had systematically set about fathering as many children on as many women as his stamina would allow. The children were then raised to become brutal warriors, undergoing relentless training in both weapons and magic.
The Ironcoats were the result.
Tamlin realized he might be about to face one of his half-siblings in battle.
“What about the second leader?” said Ridmark.
“An orcish warlock of some kind,” said Third. “He was wearing a robe of black leather, and I could not see his face, but there was blood-colored fire around his fingers. He was holding a spell of dark magic ready, and I believe he was commanding the undead.”
“What were they doing?” said Ridmark. “Just standing there?”
“They were shouting at someone on the battlements,” said Third. “Decurion Rallios, I assume. They were inviting him to come out and parley.”
“Ral
lios is smart enough not to listen,” said Tamlin. “The Ironcoats consider all oaths and all promises to be meaningless, save for their loyalty to King Justin. And the warlocks of Vhalorast are just as ruthless. A Vhalorasti warlock wouldn’t hesitate to murder an enemy during a parley.”
“Mhalek was much the same,” said Ridmark, his eyes distant with an old memory. He shook it off. “Then our course is clear. We’ll deal with this Ironcoat and warlock now, and we’ll have two fewer enemies to fight when we meet King Justin’s army.”
“Agreed,” said Tamlin.
He started to suggest a plan, then both Third and Kyralion looked to the north at the same time. Ridmark frowned, looked down, and drew Oathshield a foot from its scabbard. Pale white flames danced around the sword’s blue blade.
Ridmark cursed and yanked the sword the rest of the way from the scabbard, turning north to face the road.
“Creatures of dark magic,” he said, looking back and forth. “Prepare yourselves!”
“Where?” said Tamlin, drawing his own sword. Aegeus raised his axe, and Kyralion set an arrow to his bow, the red crystal set in its center flickering with sullen light. Third drew both of her dark elven short swords with smooth grace, the blades rasping against the scabbards.
“Coming down the road,” said Third.
“They are urvaalgs,” said Kyralion, his voice hardening.
Tamlin looked up the road, and a flicker of fear went through him. It was a hot day, and in the distance, the stones of the hills rippled with absorbed heat, but the road ahead of them was rippling more than it should have. The urvaalgs that he and Ridmark and the others had fought in the ruins beneath Aenesium had used their stealth ability to move unseen, and that stealth ability had produced the same telltale rippling effect. It was hard to spot unless you were looking for it, but Tamlin saw it now, and it was coming right for them.
Ridmark sprinted forward, Oathshield a blur of white fire in his hands, moving faster than he should have been able to move. The soulblade tore through one of the blurs, and Tamlin heard the sound of a sword ripping through flesh, followed by the snarl of an enraged beast. One of the blurs hardened into the hideous, misshapen form of an urvaalg. Like the creatures that Tamlin and the others had fought below Aenesium, the urvaalg looked like a grotesque hybrid of wolf and ape. Its rangy limbs were corded with muscle, and greasy black fur hung off its hunched body. Its eyes burned like coals, and its head was thrown back in agony since Oathshield was buried halfway into its chest.
There was a bronze collar around the creature’s thick neck.
A collar? Tamlin had never seen an urvaalg with a collar before.
Then the rest of the blurs solidified into urvaalgs, and Tamlin had no time for anything but survival.
He thrust out his left hand and cast a spell. A bolt of forked lightning leaped from his palm, splitting to strike two urvaalgs at once. Calliande could hit an urvaalg with enough force to kill it with a single spell, but Tamlin couldn’t summon anything like that level of magical power. But his spell was more than enough to stun the urvaalgs, and he leaped to the attack, both hands closing around the hilt of his dark elven sword. Tamlin slashed the blade across the throat of the first stunned urvaalg, and the creature fell to the road, black slime spurting from its wound. The second urvaalg he had stunned whirled to face him with a growl, but Kyralion put a burning arrow into its eye. The urvaalg reared back with a metallic howl of fury, and Tamlin stabbed it through the heart. He wrenched his sword free, and the urvaalg fell.
Another creature bounded towards him, jaws snapping. Tamlin dodged back and hit the urvaalg with an arc of lightning. It wasn’t as powerful as the bolt he had just hurled, but it did stun the urvaalg, knocking it back. He started to raise his sword to attack, but it proved unnecessary. Blue fire swirled behind the urvaalg, and Third appeared out of nothingness. Her blue swords flickered, and she hamstrung the urvaalg’s rear legs. The creature fell upon its belly with a snarl, and Tamlin killed it with a quick thrust to the neck.
He ripped his sword free and ran to aid Aegeus, who was battling another urvaalg. Kyralion distracted the urvaalg by putting arrows into its side, and Aegeus landed heavy blows with his dwarven axe, the bronze-colored blade darkened with the black slime of urvaalg blood. Tamlin rushed towards Aegeus, and plunged his sword between the ribs of an urvaalg. The creature shrieked a furious howl, and Aegeus finished it off with an axe blow to the head.
Tamlin pulled his sword free, seeking for another foe, and saw that Ridmark and Third had dealt with most of them. The Shield Knight and the dark elven hybrid fought in harmony, a harmony that proved viciously effective against the urvaalgs. Third transported herself behind the creatures, stabbing with her swords. Sometimes she hamstrung the urvaalgs, and sometimes she did not. It hardly mattered, because either way she distracted the creatures, and that was all the opening that Ridmark needed.
It was clear that Ridmark and Third had done this many, many times before.
Then another urvaalg bounded at Aegeus, and Tamlin turned back to the fight. The Shield Knight and Third did not need his help, but Aegeus did. Kyralion’s arrow stabbed into the urvaalg’s neck, and Tamlin slashed his sword across its ribs. Aegeus split its skull with a blow from his axe, and the urvaalg’s carcass fell limp to the dusty road.
Tamlin turned, sword ready in his right hand, lightning snarling around his fingers, but there were no surviving urvaalgs.
Ridmark stepped back, Oathshield’s fire dimming. “Anyone wounded?”
No one had been. Tamlin marveled at that. Urvaalgs were dangerous foes.
“The fire on your sword hasn’t gone out,” said Aegeus.
“No,” said Ridmark. “We’re close enough to the undead that it wouldn’t. And those collars…I’ve never seen an urvaalg wearing a collar.” He tapped one of the collars with Oathshield, and the soulblade pulsed with white fire, while the collar sizzled against the urvaalg’s dead flesh. “I think there is dark magic within the bronze.”
“I will check,” said Tamlin, and he worked the spell to sense the presence of magical forces. He stepped closer to the dead urvaalg, focusing his will upon the bronze collar. He did sense dark magic within the collar, potent and sharp.
It was an uncomfortable sensation. It was almost like dipping his hand into filth. God and the saints, why did men voluntarily use dark magic? Tamlin grimaced, shook his head, and released the spell.
“A spell to control the urvaalgs, I take it,” said Ridmark.
“Aye,” said Tamlin. “There are spells of binding and control on those collars. Powerful ones. Less complex than the ones on Sir Calem, but the same principle.”
“Tamlin,” said Aegeus. “Look at this.”
He pointed with the blade of his axe at the collar. There was a sigil cut into the bronze, a jagged, alien-looking glyph.
Alarm went through Tamlin.
“What is it?” said Ridmark.
“That is the symbol of the High Warlock of Vhalorast,” said Tamlin.
“The High Warlock?” said Ridmark. “What is his name?”
“He doesn’t have one,” said Tamlin. “At least, he doesn’t remember his name. Any Vhalorasti orc with magical ability can become a warlock. They just need to attend the school at the Pyramid of Iron Skulls in Vhalorast and survive the teachings of the masters. But to become the High Warlock, a Vhalorasti warlock must enter into the Tombs of the Warlocks below the Pyramid and come out alive. I don’t know what happens inside the Tombs. No one does, save for the High Warlocks of Vhalorast…and the ones who never escaped the Tombs, I suppose. But whatever happens causes the High Warlock to forget his name, and he gains great power in dark magic.”
“You are very well informed, Sir Tamlin,” said Third.
“He grew up in a monastery library,” said Aegeus.
“Aye,” said Tamlin. The Monastery of St. James had enjoyed an extensive library, and Tamlin had read most of it before his father had murdered his mother. Some of the dark
est histories in the library had discussed the Pyramid of Iron Skulls and the High Warlocks of Vhalorast. The High Warlocks had been some of the Sovereign’s most faithful lieutenants and among the deadliest enemies the men of Owyllain had faced.
“Then the orcish warlock that Third saw,” said Ridmark. “The High Warlock of Vhalorast?”
“Quite possibly,” said Tamlin. He took a deep breath. “Lord Ridmark, if the High Warlock has come, we must act. It is possible he has a spell that will let him enter the castra and kill the soldiers within. We left some Arcanii with Rallios, but they wouldn’t be able to deal with someone like the High Warlock.”
“But a Swordbearer might,” said Ridmark.
“Yes,” said Tamlin. “I think we had better act at once. If King Justin sent the High Warlock to seize Castra Chaeldon…we might lose the fortress before King Hektor can arrive.”
“Then we had better move,” said Ridmark, lifting Oathshield. “Let’s go.”
Chapter 8: The High Warlock
Ridmark led the way up the road, Third, Tamlin, Aegeus, and Kyralion following him.
Oathshield burned in his hand, and the sword’s flame grew brighter and stronger with every step he took. The sword responded to the dark magic around the castra, and to judge from the anger he felt flowing through his bond to the sword, there was a great deal of dark magic nearby. Either the soulblade was reacting to the presence of many undead, or the High Warlock was just as powerful as Tamlin feared.
That could be a problem.
Still, of everyone in King Hektor’s army, Ridmark was the best equipped for dealing with a powerful wizard. Even Calliande, for all her magical strength and skill, was better at warding and healing and spells of protection. A soulblade could tear through any ward of dark magic and destroy creatures of dark magic with a single blow.
If the High Warlock was there, a Swordbearer of Andomhaim was the best one to deal with him.
The road climbed to the crest of the hill, and Ridmark saw the curtain wall of Castra Chaeldon rising before them. The breach that Calliande’s magic had torn in the thick wall was still visible. The castra’s hoplites had made progress with repairs, but the breach was mostly filled with rubble. Hoplite soldiers in bronze armor lined the battlements, staring at the road.
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