The Door Within tdw-1

by Wayne Thomas Batson

  Gwenne disappeared from sight just as scores of Paragor Knights charged up the avenue between Gwenne’s cottage and Aidan’s stable. The knights trampled the dead as they came and looked hungry to add to the destruction. Aidan crouched down but watched to see what the knights would do.

  A mighty shout came from the castle, and at least fifty Mithegard archers appeared from behind the battlements high atop the stronghold. They drew back their long bows and loosed their arrows into the heart of the Paragor offensive. There were shrieks and short-lived curses, as the first two rows of knights toppled over in heaps upon the road. From what Aidan could tell, every arrow had found its mark.

  But for every Paragor Knight who went down, there were five to replace him. They fired back at the Mithegard archers. Some fell several hundred feet from the battlements and disappeared beneath the dark water in the moat below. There was a frantic exchange of fire, and Aidan watched in sick fascination as warriors from both sides dropped and moved no more. Aidan stayed low for fear that he might be seen. But the warriors of both sides were far too intent on the battle to notice Aidan in the stable.

  So Aidan looked on. The forces of Mithegard in their mighty castle held their own against the siege. The foundation of the stronghold was solid. The walls were high, with dozens of lancet windows and parapets from which archers could send volleys of arrows and then quickly disappear to avoid being hit by return fire. The Knights of Paragor, on the other hand, had only their shields and horses to hide behind. And they fell a dozen at a time, many adding to the heaps of carnage on the road, and some sliding slowly into the moat. Then, as if raked in by a giant invisible arm, the Paragor forces pulled back.

  Where are they going? Aidan wondered. Are they giving up?

  But the archers from the castle kept firing. In fact, they seemed frantic, firing shaft after shaft recklessly, without aim or pause. Cautiously, Aidan stepped out of the stable and craned his neck around a post to see where the army of Paragory had gone.

  Aidan’s heart lodged in his throat.

  They were not fleeing.

  Spanning the road and drawn by huge, armor-clad steers, heavy catapults rolled slowly forward. Behind each was a massive tarped wagon and scores of soldiers. The convoy halted. The Knights of Paragory, seemingly unconcerned by the hail of arrows from the castle, went to work, winching down the throwing arms of the catapults and removing the tarps from the wagons. They took great black barrels from the wagons and loaded one upon each catapult. In unison, the fuses of every barrel were lit. A horn blared and all at once, the catapults fired. Aidan dove back into his hiding spot, but still watched.

  The first volley soared high over the battlements and disappeared. For several ominous moments there was silence.

  Then, as if a bolt of lightning had struck, detonating its earsplitting thunder, explosions rocked the castle and shook the ground. Aidan collapsed and covered his head. Great plumes of black smoke rose from behind the parapets and issued forth from the lancets. The castle of Mithegard was burning!

  No one moved atop the walls.

  Abruptly, another volley from the catapults careened toward the castle. This wave hit the walls directly and exploded on impact. Volley after volley of Paragory’s powerful black projectiles were hurled at the walls of Mithegard’s stronghold.

  Dust fell and the stable groaned as if it might collapse. Tears blurred his vision. Still, he managed to look out from the stable into the swirling mass of smoke.

  Flames crawled up the stone on creeping vines, but the castle walls were not breached.

  Then, as Aidan watched helplessly, the Paragor Knights approached the moat and stood there as if willing the iron portcullises to be raised and the drawbridge to be lowered. From the midst of them strode forth a tall warrior. He wore a scowling black helmet and armor so jagged and fierce that it seemed he could kill without a weapon. But this foe had a sword in each hand.

  It is him! It is the twin-bladed warrior who stood with Paragor in the dream. Aidan clutched his chest. Is this where it happened? Will I be captured, brought before the Prince, and executed in cold blood?

  Aidan felt a powerful urge to run out into the field of battle to surrender, to explain that this was all some sort of mistake, and to beg for mercy. And perhaps the old Aidan might have done just that. But this Aidan had made a promise. Even were the hordes of darkness to assail you in hopeless demand of your life-even then do you swear devotion forever to the King?

  “Aye!” Aidan had answered.

  Aidan looked down at the Son of Fury. The sword burned in his hand. If it came to it, Aidan would die, but it would not be a coward’s death. Aidan went back to see what the dark knight would do.

  Trumpets rang out. When the echoes faded, the Glimpse raised both swords and declared aloud, “By order of the Prince, Lord of Paragory and Master of all Glimpse-kind, you are commanded to open the castle of Mithegard and surrender!” It was the voice of Lord Rucifel. Aidan was stunned.

  Another voice answered, coming from high in the middle tower of Mithegard Castle. And a lone figure appeared atop the walls and fearlessly stood upon the battlement. It was King Ravelle. “Rucifel, at last I see you as you truly are,” the King of Mithegard thundered. “Liar! Murderer of the innocent! We will not surrender to the likes of you or the mongrel you serve!”

  Lord Rucifel placed his helmet on the ground and sneered up at the King. “Powerless fool!” he exclaimed, slashing the air with both blades. “The mercy of Paragory should not be so rudely cast aside. If you had but accepted the Prince’s offer of friendship, you would not be reduced to this-”

  “Friendship!” barked the King. “You stretch out one hand in friendship while in the other you hold a dagger! Nay, there is no friendship or love in slavery! I know now where Mithegard’s true friends dwell. In the east by the Seven Glorious Fountains!”

  Aidan’s heart leaped when he heard this. Was the King allying himself with Alleble? Did that mean his own father would come to be “Seven!” Rucifel laughed cruelly. “Did you say ‘seven’ fountains? Know you not that only six of those fountains still flow? The other is cold and barren. It stands as a monument of what follows when my Prince is defied! Your last chance, King Ravelle. Yield to me! Surrender-if not for your own sake, at least consider the lives of your loyal subjects… what few remain.”

  Like the crack of a whip, King Ravelle flung something dark straight at Rucifel. It turned end over end. Rucifel tripped over his helmet as he dove out of the way. His scowling helmet rolled over the edge and plopped into the moat.

  Embedded deep in the ground was the black sword Rucifel had delivered to King Ravelle as a token of Paragory’s goodwill.

  “There’s your filthy sword back!” The King’s voice exploded. “Mithegard will not surrender! We would rather die first!”

  “And die you shall,” replied Lord Rucifel, standing awkwardly and nodding to a group of extremely tall, muscular warriors who had come to the front of the massive army.

  The brawny Glimpses turned and walked back into the crowd of knights. Moments later the ranks parted and the warriors returned, leading several of those great horned beasts with their wagons and their deadly payload. Six wagons, each still tarped and very full. They led the steers to within several feet of the moat and turned them so that the back of the wagons reached just over the edge.

  The musclebound warriors of Paragory opened the backs of the wagons. Barrel after black barrel tumbled out and fell into the moat. How many are there in each wagon? Aidan wondered. But he could not tell, although he suspected more than a dozen.

  Finally, when all of the wagons were empty, Rucifel himself came forward carrying a single barrel on his shoulder. With some effort, he removed the peg from the barrel and repulsive brownish fluid began to gush out into the moat. He traversed the edge until the liquid was spent. Then, he ordered his knights to withdraw. The entire army of Paragory marched back a hundred yards from the castle.

  Aidan watched in fearful
suspense, wondering if Gwenne was still safe, wishing she were with him. Surely she would know what to do! But there was nothing that either of them could do.

  A single Paragor archer stepped forward from the crowd. He raised his bow, and Aidan saw that he had a flaming arrow fitted to its string. Aidan wasn’t sure what happened next. He saw a vision of the fountain in Alleble, and in it, waist-deep in oil, were the Elder Guards, their wives, and their children. And standing high above on a balcony was Paragor with a torch. With a chilling laugh, Paragor cast the torch high in the air. The moment the torch hit the fountain, the vision was gone, and the archer let fly his flaming arrow.

  Aidan stared in horror, for if the archer’s aim was true, Aidan knew that the arrow would sail down into the moat. And he knew that when those dozens and dozens of black barrels exploded, it would level the castle and obliterate everything near it-including the stables. Aidan threw himself to the ground.

  25

  THE BATTLE BEFORE THE SEVEN TOWERS

  A idan waited for the roaring fiery explosion, for the searing wave of heat that would follow and the burning debris that would fall. But there was no explosion, and Aidan thought for a moment that the archer had missed.

  Then, Aidan heard something that made his heart soar: “Hold, thou weedy, weather-bitten canker-blossoms!! Mithegard Castle shall not fall if I can help it!”

  Aidan looked up, and beyond all hope it was true! There in the sky, the morning sun shining gold upon his armor, was Captain Valithor!

  “Now, Swiftwing!” he cried out to his dragon steed, and the agile creature craned its neck down, opened its jaws, and snatched the flaming arrow out of the air moments before it would have hit the fuel in the moat!

  The Paragor Knights had been watching all this, but before they could light and fire another flaming arrow, the other eight Knights of Alleble soared down from the sky and drove their dragons into the front lines of the enemy. Soldiers were thrown cartwheeling into the air. Others fell like dominoes.

  Then, Kaliam, Matthias, Tal, Eleazar, Farix, Nock, Bolt, Mallik, and, of course, Captain Valithor leaped off their dragons, readied their weapons, and surged into the enemy’s foundering ranks.

  So terrified at the onslaught of the unexpected assault, the companies of Paragory fled. In fact, the small force from Alleble clove a path right through the enemy. But Rucifel blew his war horn, and it seemed the Knights of Paragor quickly remembered their numbers were a hundred times those of their attackers.

  Those fleeing turned, raising sword, axe, and bow. And the path that had been cut through the middle of the enemy army began to close like jaws of a steel trap. Aidan feared for his friends, ferocious in battle as they were, for they were about to be sealed off by their enemy like a small island at high tide.

  Then, the drawbridge of Mithegard opened.

  The army of Mithegard flew out, more than a hundred knights on horseback disgorged as if shot from a cannon. They were led by none other than the King of Mithegard himself!

  “Go, Dad!” Aidan yelled.

  “Now, Rucifel, the tables are turned!” roared the King, the lust of battle thick in his voice. “Let’s see now if you can wield a sword!”

  King Ravelle spurred his horse toward Rucifel. The Paragor Commander stood defiantly near a catapult and let his gray cape fall to the ground. He drew not one but two long swords, and it seemed to Aidan that he laughed as the King approached.

  The King rode at Rucifel until the last moment, and then he dove from his saddle and crashed, sword and shield, into the twin blades of his foe. But Aidan did not see what followed between King Ravelle and Rucifel, for Mithegard’s mounted soldiers clashed in that moment with the enemy legion, cutting off Aidan’s view.

  “Alleb Knights, keep moving!” roared Captain Valithor, and Aidan turned and saw the great Captain of Alleble. He was surrounded by Paragor Knights, but Fury cut through his foes like a scythe through summer wheat. Free for a moment, he motioned to Nock and Bolt.

  As if bounced from a trampoline, the twin archers sprang up out of the mass of fighting Glimpses.

  Aidan watched in disbelief as Nock and Bolt ran across the heads and shoulders of the enemy knights as if hopping stone to stone in a shallow riverbed. Nock landed on the roof of a cottage, Bolt upon the highest beam of a catapult. There they opened fire.

  With incredible speed, their pale hands snatched dark shafts from their quivers, set them to the strings, pulled, and fired. Their Blackwood Arrows flew razor-straight at the speed of thought.

  So fast was their flight, so powerful the force behind them, the shafts went right through the bodies of two Paragor warriors and stuck in the chests of two more behind them. Four enemies fell in wide-eyed silence.

  Then, there was an explosion. Or at least Aidan thought it was an explosion. In the midst of a sea of combatants, five Paragor soldiers were hurled into the air. But there was no smoke, fire, or thunderous boom.

  Again Paragor Knights were catapulted. And again it happened. They were launched in bunches as if an invisible giant were brushing them aside. Then, Aidan saw the cause of these strange sights, and he grinned. It was Mallik and his great hammer!

  With powerful two-fisted strokes, Mallik swept the hammer into his foes. That fearsome weapon was immensely heavy, but Mallik wielded it as though it were a staff of balsa wood. Swords splintered into shards and shields crumpled when the hammer crashed into them. None withstood Mallik’s heavy strokes.

  Aidan saw no sign of the other knights from Alleble. He hoped they were all still alive, but even with King Ravelle’s knights, the forces of Paragory outnumbered them greatly.

  Gwenne! Aidan remembered. In the hypnotizing spectacle of the battle, he had forgotten that Gwenne was hiding in the cottage across the road. Aidan knew she could take care of herself, but he could not let her face the enemy alone.

  Aidan slashed the air with the Son of Fury. It felt light in his hand. He paused a moment, took a deep breath, and left the safety of his hiding place.

  Hoping to make his way to the cottage on the other side of the road, Aidan stumbled through the battle. All the knights seemed too busy fighting one another to notice Aidan.

  Then, Aidan heard a great ringing clash to his left. There was a guttural, desperate scream, a nauseating crunch, and a strange sucking kind of gasp. And something wet sprayed across Aidan’s face.

  Aidan stumbled to one knee, stood slowly, and wiped at the red spray. He looked down at the chain mail of his gauntlet and saw angry smears of deep red. He turned his head as if in a trance and saw a fallen Mithegard soldier. The Glimpse lay on his back. His ivory skin was filthy with grime and painted with his own fresh blood. Transfixed on the motionless stare of the dead Glimpse’s eyes, Aidan did not notice the Paragor Knight standing there with a bloody war axe.

  Eyes gleamed red from the sockets in his skull-like helmet. His huge body heaved, and with both hands he raised the heavy axe. He took one step over the fallen Glimpse. One step toward Aidan. And he brought the axe crashing down.

  The next thing Aidan knew, he was shoved forcefully to the ground. He found himself looking up at Farix, who had caught the falling axe blade in his bare hands. In a flash of motion, Farix twisted the axe and flipped the enemy onto his back. He brought his elbow down hard upon the Paragor Knight, and the knight lay still.

  Breaking the axe over his knee, Farix yelled, “Keep your wits about you, Sir Aidan. As our Captain says, ‘Stay in motion, if you want to stay alive.’” And with that, he raced away into the storm of steel and flesh.

  Aidan blinked. Gwenne was right… Farix is a weapon.

  He shook his head and stood. He had been spared from death for the moment, and he did not intend to be caught unaware again. Ducking blows and sidestepping struggles that suddenly blocked his path, Aidan finally made it to the stone cottage where he had last seen Gwenne.

  The heavy wooden door to the building had been torn from its hinges. Aidan raced inside, looking for the trapdoor. Th
ere was nothing but a fireplace and an overturned table and chairs in the first room he checked. Then, in the center of the floor of the next room, he found it. But the trapdoor was wide open, hacked off its hinge and thrown aside. Aidan looked down into the basement room. The stairs down were spattered with fresh blood.

  “Gwenne!” he screamed, knowing with heart-crushing certainty that his friend would not answer.

  26

  KNIGHTFALL

  A idan ran frantically down the stairs beneath the trapdoor, but the cellar was empty. There were, however, signs of a great struggle. An overturned table, broken glass, and a toppled bookcase-but what riveted Aidan was an awful spray of blood on the wall.

  Aidan flew back up the stairs. He searched and re-searched every room in the house. They were all empty.

  The cold, still eyes of the dead Glimpse in the road invaded Aidan’s mind.

  “No!” he roared, swinging the Son of Fury recklessly at a vertical wooden beam. The beam split and the top portion fell. Dust rained down on Aidan, and the roof protested loudly. “No, you can’t be dead, Gwenne! You can’t be.”

  Aidan trembled in the cottage doorway, and all the doubts and fears rushed in and began to make themselves at home. And for a moment, it was as if they had never left. Aidan heard voices in his head.

  His father’s: “Believing in something doesn’t make it real!”

  Grampin’s: “If what you believe in turns out to be a lie, then you could end up humiliated… or worse.”

  Valithor’s: “Try to understand, Aidan. What Paragal intended for evil has become the foundation for much that is good.”

  Nothing, Aidan thought. There was no result, no future that could justify Gwenne’s death. How could King Eliam allow Gwenne’s family to be murdered by Paragor’s armies? How could he let her survive as an orphan and give her hope, only to let her be killed anyway-It wasn’t just unfair-it was… evil!