by Jack Conner
The head of the army stood and cleared his throat. Back straight and chin high, he spoke in a loud, booming voice. “Glorifel is as secure as it can be under the circumstances, my lord. We’ve food enough to last half a year, and though Borchstogs continually poison the rivers Archmage Belefard and his sorcerers continually purify them. The walls are well manned and we’re working to assure the city’s defense. The breached section of the wall has been repaired, and we work night and day to bolster the rest.” He nodded to Logran. “Master Logran has been instrumental in establishing wards to keep out unwanted guests from the air.
“It’s the outlying areas we must worry about. While we sit safe behind our walls, Ungier sends out forces to burn nearby villages to the ground. Already villagers are leaving their homes and seeking refuge in the other cities, and these are strained to find food and shelter for them all. Meanwhile the villages stagnate and the coffers run low, making it harder to keep soldiers fed and supplied and paid. In short, though the cities are defended, and, with the help of our sorcerers, their coordination is high, time is our enemy. The longer this siege continues, the scarcer your military’s resources become.
“My advice,” he added, “is for the other cities, Aglindor and Havershad mainly, to mass an army and march it south to break this siege. That would leave those cities defenseless, but it is a necessary risk. Ungier’s army must be broken.”
“Very well, General,” the king said. “We will have them gather an army to lend us aid at once.”
“We too need military assistance,” declared Brenglor Ironarm, one of the Dwarvish ambassadors. “War will break in Hrekenshorm next. We’re on the edge of the Crescent, smaller and more vulnerable, and we have sent our surplus troops to Larenthi.”
“But you are deep in the earth and hard to get at,” pointed out General Kavradnum.
“We’ve already been attacked by spies,” the Dwarf said indignantly. “By werewolves posing as friends. They’d been taken by Gilgaroth years ago and been made slaves. They escaped three years ago—or so we thought. Just six weeks ago they revealed themselves. After hearing the rumors of war, my people dispatched me here and retreated deep into our safest caverns. But wolves were amongst them, and they struck.” He looked sad as he added, “I have received their report. To put it simply, many died.”
“Nevertheless, neither Man nor Dwarves have need to fear that they will be attacked next,” spoke the representative of Esril, the Elvish nation that bordered Havensrike to the east. Baleron thought her name was Neila. She was tall and blond and shimmering, her beauty breathtaking. “It is the Elves Gilgaroth hates most. That is why he attacked Larenthi first and that is why he will strike Esril next.”
“He will not strike Esril next,” declared a new voice, deep and booming. All looked to see Asmin, ambassador of Crysmid, the land of Giants, rise from the great table built especially for him and his assistant. They were the only two Giants present. Thirty feet tall and robust, with a well-groomed golden beard thrusting proudly from a noble face framed by yellow locks, he seemed almost god-like, perhaps an image of Brunril himself. Rolenya would have been pleased, Baleron thought.
Just the same, there was a queer light in Asmin’s green eyes, and Baleron felt a vague foreboding.
“Where then will he strike?” asked King Grothgar, leaning forward.
Asmin smiled. “Here,” he said.
He reached around and grabbed his massive oak chair by its backing and brought it around so that it smashed into the face of his assistant. The chair was so large and heavy, and wielded with such force, that it slew the other Giant instantly, then exploded into fragments.
All stared, stunned.
Asmin scooped up the nearest Councilor, crushing him into pulp, and the Giant’s great foot crashed down, scattering others.
Even as the Councilors screamed, Asmin’s face changed, became wolf-like, his eyes black holes and his teeth long and sharp. His meaty fist snared a writhing elf, mashed it between his jaws. Then, his snout dripping blood, he threw back his head and howled, and shadows swelled around him.
At the cue, a dozen or more others rose and, changing forms, leapt on those nearest them.
“Werewolves,” Baleron muttered, and swore. It was happening again.
Chapter 12
The day outside had been surprisingly bright—for once Logran and his sorcerers had managed to chase off Gilgaroth’s storm clouds—but now they returned. A sudden dark mass obscured the sun and the sky grew black. The Council Hall darkened. The tall stained-glass windows, that had before glowed with sunlight, became black squares.
Logran began mumbling a counter-spell while the other sorcerers turned to combat their attackers more directly. Baleron drew Rondthril, which rang with a steely cry, eager for blood.
A demon leapt towards an elder prince, bearing him to the ground and savaging him. A younger prince jumped to save his brother and stabbed into the wolf’s back. The king wetted his own blade in the werewolf’s flesh. The creature did not relent, and the elder prince’s blood flew across the marble floor.
Arriving, Baleron sank the Fanged Blade into the werewolf’s side, drawing its attention from its royal victim, then, with one swift stroke, decapitated it, hacking through bone and flesh with a mighty blow. In death the body transformed into the corpse of a man he recognized, an aid to one of the advisors.
His elder brother lay bloodied and unmoving on the marble, his face and chest a red ruin with broken ribs jutting up from shredded flesh and punctured organs.
Seeing his brother slain, Baleron roared, a raw and savage sound that welled up from his days of slavery and the hate that had grown in his heart during those long and bitter years. Rondthril glittered in the dim room, lit now only by a few decorative torches and braziers so that the chamber was plunged into a desperate darkness. The smell of musk and blood rose in the air. Baleron felt a primal rhythm thunder through his veins as he leapt down from the dais into the thick of battle.
A huge wolf, drooling and coated in blood, flew from the shadows at him, wet fangs snapping towards his throat. Rondthril screamed and clove through the monster’s skull, splitting it with a meaty crunch. Dead, the creature fell with to the marble floor, where it changed forms, becoming, to Baleron’s shock, the body of Captain Rafael Quinton. Quinton’s blood dripped off Baleron’s blade.
Traitor! But no, it wasn’t really Quinton, Baleron knew—it couldn’t be; the Captain’s spirit was long gone. But how had a demon possessed him? And when?
A cry for help stirred him, and he leapt to the aid of Niela, the elvish ambassador. A werewolf stood over her, and Brenglor the dwarf was trying to pull it away from her with his bare hands, as none save the Royal Guard and the Royal Family were permitted to bear arms.
Baleron brought Rondthril down with deadly precision. The Fanged Blade parted flesh and bone, and before the werewolf had time to react the prince had separated its head from its body. Niela scrambled out of the way of its jetting blood, and Brenglor helped her up.
Baleron placed his boot on the werewolf’s head, and, just to be sure, drove Rondthril into the beast’s brain.
He didn’t wait to see whom it changed into. He didn’t want to know.
Out of the darkness came a great form, looming over all. Darkness draped it like a cloak, and blood dripped from its massive wolvish snout.
“Asmin!” Baleron said, and fear shook him.
He leapt back, staring up in horror. Where before Asmin had appeared as a very image of Brunril, now he took on Gilgaroth’s aspect, a great black wolf, eyes glimmering from the light of a nearby brazier.
The huge hulking monstrosity stalked toward the throne. Shaking, Baleron placed himself squarely in its path. Though he must have been a pitiful figure to the behemoth, the beast noticed him, and a deep, growling voice issued from its bloody lips: “Roschk ul Ravast!”
Baleron hurled Rondthril up at the monstrosity, and the sword clove the air like a javelin. It would have struck r
ight between Asmin’s glittering eyes into its brain, but instead the sword seemed to hit an invisible wall—that same wall that bound it to the dark powers, the wall that had prevented Baleron from throwing himself on it. Now it safeguarded Asmin, as well, and as Rondthril clattered to the floor, the behemoth surged forward, knocking Baleron away with a great swipe of its head and hurtling him against a pillar.
Pain, then blackness seized Baleron. When it retreated, he found himself crumpled at the base of the pillar. Blood leaked from his mouth.
Asmin had passed by and was bounding toward the throne, a great hurtling shadow. The king stood as one paralyzed, staring up at his doom. He had his sword out and was crouching, his aged body coiled for battle. His other sons and half a dozen guards stood between him and the charging giant, but they would be useless against it. They paled as it thundered toward them.
Suddenly light shrank the darkness. A white beam blazed from the end of Logran’s staff and bore into the monster’s skull. Asmin groaned in agony, and smoke rose up from the wound. He charged on for a moment, but the beam of light was too strong, and at last he crumpled to the floor, his skull a scorched ruin, blood pooling around him.
The light flickered out. Exhausted, Logran sagged back and took a deep breath. Blood flowed down one of his arms.
“Thank you,” said the king.
But, as they all stared at the great corpse of the werewolf as it once more became the body of Asmin, one of the Royal Guards plunged his sword into a confederate’s back and his dagger into the throat of another.
Pain lanced Baleron’s back, but he hobbled over to where his sword lay and made his way toward the throne, Rondthril in hand.
The other Royal Guardsmen wheeled on the traitor, who dropped to all fours and became a huge black wolf. Growling, it leapt on them, slaying one and then another, then charged the king. Prince Rilurn, the eldest living prince, the Heir to the Throne of Havensrike, threw himself in front of his father.
It all seemed to happen very slowly, and every detail etched itself painfully in Baleron’s memory, from the agonized expression on the king’s face to the hungry glint in the wolf’s dark eyes. Before anyone could stop it, the wolf had torn open Rilurn’s ribcage and hurled him away like refuse. Without heed of the young man’s sacrifice, the beast plowed ahead, and he would have killed the King right then, but Baleron, overcoming his shock, tackled his father and knocked him to the floor just as the wolf bounded past.
His two upright brothers, Larik and Kenbrig, hacked at it as it wheeled about, and arrows whistled in from out of the dark, riddling the wolf. Baleron was glad to see the Royal Guard as a group was not obliterated completely, but the arrows did not stop the terrible thing. Logran stood nearby, pointing his staff at the wolf as if to lance it, but no light poured out; he was drained.
The wolf leapt at the king.
Not trusting Rondthril, Baleron snatched a sword from the ground—Rilurn’s—and skewered the wolf through the side. He brought his blade down again, and the thing’s head rolled free.
Baleron knelt next to Rilurn, feeling for a pulse, but even as he did he saw the ruin was too great. With trembling fingers, he closed his brother’s eyes and looked up to his father, Larik and Kenbrig. King Grothgar stared down on his two dead sons sadly, and turned a strange glance on Baleron.
“Your sword ... We all watched as you threw it ...”
Baleron hung his head. In a small voice, he said, “It wants you dead.”
Albrech blinked.
“It’s chaos,” Logran said, approaching. He swept an arm toward the greater room, where a terrible brawl still took place. Werewolves and demons leapt on the many delegates, and bodies littered the floor, or what Baleron could see of it. Most of the room was still cloaked in shadow.
“How is this possible?” demanded the king. “Your spells ... what Elethris taught you ... ?”
“I don’t know, Sire,” Logran said, “but let’s get you to safety. We can’t risk you and the princes all getting slain.”
“Stay here and bring order to this bedlam. My sons will keep me safe.” Albrech shot a malicious glance at Baleron. “Hopefully.”
The king moved towards the rear corner of the chamber and entered a private archway that would lead to the royal wing, and his sons, including Baleron, followed him.
As he went, Baleron patted Rondthril’s pommel. “Cursed thing, you’d better obey me next time, or I’ll melt you down myself.”
Baleron followed his father and brothers down the labyrinthine set of corridors, designed precisely for this reason; only a limited number of people knew the route. Baleron hoped that none of those people had been ... changed.
At last they reached the royal wing and made for the king’s bedchambers, where there was a heavy guard at all times. The soldiers there were shocked at the king’s disheveled state, and they listened grimly as he explained the situation.
“We just have to wait it out,” he finished. He clearly didn’t like hiding during a battle, but he couldn’t risk Havensrike losing its leaders, either.
Albrech swept past the guards and entered his elaborate suite, and his sons followed. Baleron felt relieved the moment he stepped foot inside, but the feeling vanished as soon as he saw what waited within. For, reclining in a high-backed chair, her face to the raging fireplace, was Rolenya.
She looked up anxiously as they entered.
“Are you all right?” she asked, rising, her blue eyes darting from the king to Baleron to her two other former brothers.
“Yes,” breathed Albrech, and went to her, embracing her tightly.
When he stepped back, her eyes shone wetly in the firelight. “Oh, I was so worried.”
Baleron frowned. “The guards posted outside didn’t know what was going on. How did you?”
She stared at him a moment, then brightened. “Elvish Grace, my love,” she supplied.
“‘My love?’” repeated Albrech, frowning.
Baleron’s gut twisted.
“I suppose we should tell them,” sighed Rolenya.
“What?” he asked, shocked. “Now?” Nervously, he added, “Tell them what?”
She smiled. “Baleron and I are in love. We’re to marry.” She clapped her hands delightedly.
Eyes flashing, King Grothgar wheeled on Baleron. “WHAT?” he roared. This was evidently too much for him to take in.
“She doesn’t know what she says,” Baleron said.
“Don’t lie!” Rolenya pleaded. “Our love demands truth.”
Baleron started to edge backwards, but Albrech was too fast. His fist sprang out and caught Baleron on the jaw. The prince stumbled backwards and collapsed to the floor.
Behind the king, Rolenya laughed, and Baleron narrowed his eyes at her. Why was she laughing? This wasn’t like her. His sense of dread built again. Something was wrong, he could feel it.
“What is this nonsense?” Albrech demanded. He towered above Baleron, shaking with rage, even though Baleron had just saved his life mere minutes ago. “Tell me it’s not true!”
“Don’t think ill of me, Father,” Baleron said. “I—”
“Tell him everything,” Rolenya begged.
“No!”
“Please. If you love me, you will.”
Baleron swallowed. “Rolenya and I ... we’ve decided ...”
The king threw back his head and roared, an animal sound of pain and betrayal. In that one instant all the new love and respect he’d developed for Baleron in the last few weeks evaporated, Baleron could feel it. The sound curdled Baleron’s blood.
Growling, Albrech savagely kicked him in the ribs, and Baleron doubled over. Albrech kicked again and again, chasing Baleron about the room as his son skittered back.
“No, Father!” shouted Baleron. “Stop!”
Albrech did not. Neither Kenbrig nor Larik offered to aid their youngest brother, and Rolenya just stood there, blue eyes sparkling, red mouth twisted in a terrible smile.
Albrech continued
kicking Baleron until finally, sweating and exhausted, he had spent his rage.
“What should we do with him, Father?” asked Kenbrig, now the eldest surviving son. He was fair-haired and brown-eyed, resembling his mother greatly. Baleron didn’t know him well, but Kenbrig had always seemed pleasant enough. Now his face was filled with loathing and confusion. “Should we have him arrested?”
“But the Five Hundred!” said Larik. “We can’t have the leader of the Fighting Five Hundred arrested! That would be a blow to the whole city.”
Albrech rubbed his furrowed brow as though his head ached. “This is too much,” he hissed. “Too much ... I can’t think.”
Rolenya laughed again, and it was not a pleasant sound. It was harsh and full of spite. Baleron’s jaw dropped open.
Albrech and his two standing sons turned to face her.
“This is not seemly,” Albrech told her. Disappointment radiated from his eyes, but also love; no matter what, she was his angel. He adored her more than life itself. The thought that Baleron had violated her clearly upset him nearly as much, or possibly even more, than the massacre in the Council Chamber.
This only made her laugh the harder. It was not the soft, melodic laugh of the Rolenya of old. It was full of darkness and hate and rancor.
“Wait,” Baleron said slowly. The pieces started to fall into place in his mind. “I ... I know that laugh. It ... it can’t be. It can’t be!”
She eyed him, speculatively, cat-like.
“Father!” he shouted suddenly. “Get away from her!”
He was too late.
Again time seemed to slow, and every detail burned itself into him. He noticed the rich colors—the golds and burgundies of the room, the shadowlight pouring in from the windows—as well as the smell of burning wood and the feel of the plush rug beneath his fingers. Rolenya, changing forms while she moved, leapt upon the king, becoming a terrible wolf-like thing with hateful eyes dancing with reflected firelight, snarling and wicked.