Satisfied with the workmanship of the magic circle, she lifted a foot well above the lines of chalk and stepped to the center of the design. Scythe contemplated taking the tome for this spell with her so that she could use it to return to Blackdrake once her task was done, but the sound of another distant scream affirmed her determination to return with Moyan’s army. The vocal portion of the casting was a few simple syllables of sound to harness the power for the spell, while the complex diagram focused that power to the purpose of the distant journey.
The magic did not flow. It did not rise to illuminate the circle of chalk in violet brightness. The magic was not there when she reached for it. Something blocked it from coming to her call. Her fear rose to a panic in an instant. In a mental frenzy, she went over every word, every painstakingly drawn line on the black stone floor.
It required an entire candle-mark to assure herself that no mistake had been made, the diagram was exact and her pronunciations of the spell’s words had been precise. Steeling herself against her rising panic, Scythe spoke the words once more, this time concentrating on the feel of the power, reaching out with her finely tuned senses until she found a slim trace. The barest thread of a sensation, like a tickle of light behind a closed eye, and it was flowing away, retreating from the stinging pain of the Devourer’s growing aura.
She reached out desperately to grasp a trailing wisp of fleeing magic, drawing it back to her, urging it toward the diagram at her feet. Her chest heaved with the effort, leaving her sweating in the chill air of the chamber. With a final mental yank that left her mind reeling, a violet light brightened the circle as the magic flowed to the task of the spell.
Then she was elsewhere, outside of the world, outside of normal existence, suspended in a violet tinged sky and surrounded by a countless number of straight silver lines. The lines were threads of infinite length, and no two ran parallel. All appeared as the original creator of the spell described, as she remembered it.
The spell was not complete, not yet. The trial of gathering the power gave way to the focus of advancing through the next step of the spell. She must guide her ethereal being through to its destination before losing herself forever within this place outside of time and the world. One silver line out-shined the others, it drew her attention as the casting intended it should. She willed herself toward it until it was intersecting her being. Without sensation of movement, all the other lines began whipping past as she ascended along her chosen thread.
-In Erenar
Lorace and Moyan, with the Black Hands spreading out in a defensive arc, approached the main encampment. The soldiers of Zuxra remained concentrated in large knots around the individual cook fires, eating, talking calmly, or just standing quiet.
Moyan held up a hand to halt his men and whispered, “She is here somewhere.”
Lorace pulled his chain free. The dancing firelight and silhouetted figures confused and broke up the outlines of the camp, but his sight cut through all the shadows and light. His awareness flew above the camp until the small robed figure appeared. She lurked behind a solid wall of Zuxrans that were moving slowly forward as a cohesive unit.
Arcs of light began flickering across the chain and Lorace felt countless pinpricks of sensations making the hairs of the back of his neck stand up.
“She is trying to coerce me, but the chain is consuming her efforts,” Lorace murmured. “She will try to strike me through you and your men.”
As if in answer, Moyan’s Black Hands spun about and drew their swords. He restrained them all with more bindings of air while passing one end of his sparking chain into Moyan’s grasp. Linked together, warded by the chain, they slid toward the coming sorceress.
In perfect unison, the entire Zuxran host turned to him and picked up or drew their various weapons. The wall of shielding soldiers parted to reveal the small figure of Scythe, hidden in filthy gray robes. Her lips moved within the deep shadow of her hood while her hands and fingers stretch toward him. A nimbus of blue light coalesced before her.
Scythe shook her head at the failure of her gift. Like Andrigar and the Devourer, the Stranger thwarted her coercion, but her gift was only the first item in her arsenal. She had many spells to choose from, spells made to kill. They did not require her library of tomes and scrolls, only a finely tuned memory. The spell of lighting she cast now would incinerate this Stranger, and most likely General Moyan, whose tall dark form was unmistakable beside him. She was glad to feel the power come to her as it normally should, it was not withdrawing from this area, if anything, it was attracted here, stronger than ever. Beyond the concentration of the spell, a part of her was already congratulating herself, imagining the satisfaction and gratification to be showered on her by her Master.
She moved her fingers in the final gesture that would guide the bolt home to its target, just as the Stranger’s features were fully lit in the firelight, and all of her concentration shattered.
“Master! No!” she screamed as the bolt of lightning exploded from her fingers at the man bearing the face of the Devourer. Her concentration over the spell broke, and a tongue of uncontrolled lightning reversed, kicking into her chest like a mule to fling her backward in agony. In horror and pain, she saw the rest of the lighting continue toward its intended target, but a dull silvery length of chain streaking at her hurtling form drew the released energy into it. Then the chain lightly, gently, curled around her, catching her in mid-air as consciousness fled.
Lorace settled Scythe’s spasming figure onto the ground as Sakke Vrang absorbed the last of the eruption of her black flames. He sorrowed at the images of stark fear that had smothered this small woman’s young life within an obsessive grip, fears that had manipulated her as surely as her gift controlled so many others. A wisp of smoke rose from the burnt hole in the robes covering her chest.
He freed the chain and touched it to the Black Hands once more before he began laying it over the Zuxrans facing him, starting with those closest to the now motionless woman.
The chain snaked across man after screaming man, the air filled with cries of pain that heralded the cleansing of corruption. The instant of punishment could only be blamed on the darkness within these scrambling men. Even those not yet touched by Sakke Vrang began to panic at the shifting eruptions of black flame as they fanned out in a large surrounding arc.
A crossbow bolt, fired from a flanking Zuxran, struck Lorace in the left shoulder, twisting him to the side with its tremendous impact. The pain of shattered bone was like a burning knife cutting down his paralyzed arm. He called up a large wall of howling fast wind to prevent any more deadly missiles from striking. Moyan jumped forward to support him as he staggered, and commanded his men to circle and shield their stricken lord.
Lorace dipped the writhing chain below the shielding vortex and continued to flick and swing it among the encircling men entirely with the aid of the surrounding air. The strength and vitality flowed into him at an enormous rate as it absorbed and purified the corruption within each man it touched. Without that power, and the vitality it fed him, he knew the pain of the bolt in his shoulder would have felled him.
“Can you remove the bolt, Moyan?” Lorace asked through gritted teeth. “I think the vitality I am getting from the chain will heal the wound.”
“Yes, the barb has gone through,” Moyan said, then called two of his soldiers in to help brace Lorace. Taking hold of the feathered shaft protruding from Lorace’s chest, he snapped it off with a quick twist. Then he took hold of the barbed head emerging from Lorace’s back and pulled the remains of the shaft out through the wound in one smooth motion. If Lorace cried out, it was lost to the howl of whirling wind.
The wound in his shoulder bled freely, staining a swath of darkness down his white robes. To heal the shattered bone, he had to pray to Aran, and he must do it before the surging vitality forced the bone to mend lame.
Many of the cleansed Zuxrans were beginning to recover from the shock of the blessing. Turning, they
held back the ravening mob of their former comrades.
Lorace withdrew his chain, laying it in a circle just inside the barrier of wind.
“Be ready,” he told Moyan and his soldiers as he sat down upon the battlefield. “I must release the wind to mend the bone in my shoulder or my arm will be useless.
Jorune. Lorace called to his brother, his link to the mysterious Lord Aran. He was distantly aware as Moyan stepped forward to rally the cleansed soldiers into a defensive line. Several of them lifted up the fragile form of the sorceress to lay beside him.
His call was answered by another memory of Jorune. It was a time soon after Bartalus’ twelfth birthday, his older brother calming the distraught child Lorace. He remembered running through the house and hall that day, seeking any sign of Bartalus. He kept the promise he had made to his eldest brother not to seek him out with his sight, but tears were in his eyes as his search revealed to him that his brother was completely gone. Jorune held Lorace tight and calmed him with words of destiny and duty, words which made no sense to the six year old boy.
“I too will have to answer the call of my destiny on my own twelfth birthday,” Jorune murmured. “So shall you when your twelfth birthday comes, it is our duty to the Lady and to Vorallon.”
He smoothed down a fly-away strand of Lorace’s brown hair. “Remember our promise to Bartalus, we must be strong for mother, she needs us now. And we must not seek him with our sight, he has gone where we cannot yet follow.”
The memory changed as Lorace asserted himself desperately.
“Mother is dead! Father is dead!” the child Lorace wailed. “They are all dead.”
“I know, Lorace,” Jorune acknowledged, his eyes welling with tears. “But your destiny was not changed by the actions of Tezzirax, it has merely been delayed and made more challenging. Because of that delay, and what that foul spirit has become, the balance has slipped too far toward corruption. The Old Gods are now too weak to do what needs to be done in time. Their task falls now to you, Lorace. As the final warden of Vorallon, you must make up the power they lack by your twenty-fourth birthday. That will be the only opportunity to fulfill your destiny.”
“Sakke Vrang is providing me that power, I can feel it,” Lorace said. “But why? What is it for?”
“That which you have gained is a miniscule fraction of what will be required of you,” Jorune asserted as his form changed from child to grown man. “Your destiny will unfold to you as it must.”
Jorune clasped his injured shoulder with a hand bathed in golden light and Lorace felt a dull, painless jolt as the shards of bone snapped back into place, whole and healed.
Jorune brushed the silver lock of hair from his forehead and turned to depart.
“Thank you, my Lord Aran,” Lorace said with a bow while golden light continued to flow through him.
Jorune looked back toward Lorace with a smile. “Just call me brother, please.”
Lorace’s eyes snapped open, Lord Aran’s healing glow still surrounding him—his brother—Lord Aran.
“Are you healed? Is something wrong?” Moyan asked over him.
“Yes, no,” Lorace answered in half shock. “I am healed, and terribly surprised.”
Lorace turned to the still form of Scythe lying unconscious at his feet. Reaching down, he placed his still glowing palm over the singed hole in her stained robes, feeling warm softness underneath. He smiled as the healing glow passed down into her form, suffusing her for a moment before dissipating completely.
With his awareness once more above the battlefield, Lorace stood and marched forward, lifting up the length of Sakke Vrang with the air. Each smooth stroke laid its length across dozens of fighting men at a time. They cried out and staggered back or fell to the ground as black flames erupted from their chests. Lorace quickened his pace, Moyan and his elite Black Hands admirably kept up in a defensive knot. Everywhere he strode, the chain led the way, coruscating continuously with its bright golden sparks, consuming waves of black corruption.
When his awareness spotted another crossbow raised against him and his protectors, he crushed the air down upon the weapon, as the Ritual of Binding had done to the demon of fire. The soldier yanked his hands back from the exploding splinters of his crossbow before Sakke Vrang dropped down over his shoulders.
More and more cleansed soldiers rose up to help their new comrades push back those Zuxrans who retained the will to fight. Many had laid down their arms already, and awaited the touch of the arcing chain in surrender.
Eventually the fighting ended as the last men were cleansed, the echoes of their screams fading into the night. Lorace stood tirelessly while Moyan and the soldiers staggered from their efforts at maintaining his pace. He was thankful to see very few dead and a small number of seriously wounded. The un-cleansed Zuxrans had been hesitant to fight too brutally against their fellow soldiers despite their anger and battle fervor.
Lorace lifted his voice on the obedient wind to be heard across the battlefield. “Come, everyone! Carry the wounded and the fallen, we must get into Halversome. The real battle has yet to begin.”
The cleansed Zuxrans turned to one another in uncertainty, some throwing down their swords. They refused to take the fight to the innocents of the city they had besieged for days.
Moyan laughed. Lorace raised his hands in mock surrender and smiled.
“No,” he called out. “Pick up your swords, we go to Halversome’s defense.”
He pointed to the trampled ground at their feet. “At dawn of this coming day, a demon army will stand on this battlefield. You must all be within the great fortress before then, rested and ready to defend her walls beside her own guardsmen.”
Lorace turned to where Scythe yet lay, silent and still. He bent down and lifted her limp form in his arms. She weighed next to nothing. The intriguing softness where his arms cradled her body brought a flush to his cheeks. With the army of black armored Zuxrans at his back, he carried her to the closed and barred Pilgrim’s Gate.
Uncertain priests and wary bowmen looked down from the battlements, confused by what they had just seen. With his sight, he scanned beyond the wall to see the street lined with guardsmen and citizens, before them stood Tornin and Captain Falraan. Tornin was imploring her to open the gates, but she hesitated while a whole enemy army lurked just outside.
Lorace lifted the smooth-planed timber that barred the gate and slid it out of the way with a firm push of air, then with the same air, he opened the narrow gate.
Moyan exclaimed at the sight. “He spoke true, every word. Hethal foresaw this.”
“He sees our victory over what comes as well, and our potential failure,” Lorace said. “And something more which Lord Aran shared with me when he healed my shoulder.”
Chapter 8
SPIRITS LINKED
Twenty-Seventh day of the Moon of the Thief
-in Halversome
As Lorace stepped through the gateway into Halversome, there was a light caress on his cheek. Scythe had revived to peer up at him in wonder. She touched his face again as he smiled at her.
“How do you feel?” he asked as he continued to carry her toward Tornin and the waiting townsfolk.
“I think I can stand now, my Lord,” she whispered. Their gaze held for a moment longer before she blushed and turned her sparkling emerald eyes away.
“Please, just call me Lorace,” he said with a gentle chuckle. Jorune’s parting words echoed in his mind.
He lowered her dirty, grass stained feet to the warm paving of the street, keeping hold of her narrow waist until he was sure of her steadiness.
Lorace looked past Scythe at the crowd of guardsmen and citizens warily watching as the Zuxrans began filing through the gate.
Tornin stepped forward and drew his sword to salute Lorace, calling on its brilliance to illuminate the street. Scythe tensed in his arms at the sight.
“Be at ease,” Lorace said to her and to the gathered crowd, addressing them all with a voice ca
rried by the wind. “They are all pilgrims who need the succor of these walls from the true enemy which comes.”
Tornin and Captain Falraan came forward as the crowd parted for the Zuxrans.
“Who is this?” Tornin asked, greeting the small, cloaked woman beside him with a smile that brought a sudden frown to Falraan’s lips.
“This is the Lady Scy-” Lorace began, but the cloaked sorceress put a finger to his lips.
“My name is Iris,” she introduced herself to Lorace, casting back the gray hood that hid her fine features and wealth of ash-blonde hair. “There is no need for my former name any more, Iris is the name I was born with.”
The surrounding silence grew thick as everyone looked upon the two of them.
Tornin leaned in to whisper, “They do not understand what happened out there this night. I have tried to explain Sakke Vrang to them, but I have not the words to express what it does.”
“I will show them,” Lorace said, once more drawing out the coils of his chain and holding it up above his head.
“This is Sakke Vrang,” he began. “It is godstone, shaped and awakened by the Ritual of the Forge within the hold of Vlaske K’Brak. It has cleansed these men of their fear and hatred, removing the corruptions earned during their lifetimes in the service of Queen Ivrane and her sorceress. They stand before you now, made pure, as the word of Guardian Oen can assure you. They now beg your forgiveness for the depredations of their former selves.”
Iris fell to her knees before the Zuxrans. “As I beg their forgiveness for that which is unforgivable. I am so very sorry. My gift is a curse that I shall never use again. I sold my spirit to corruption a thousand times over for each life I destroyed so that I could live.”
General Moyan strode forward and lifted Iris back to her feet. “None of us were worthy of life as we formerly lived,” he said to the people of Halversome. “This man, Lorace, has given us something we did not know existed. Indeed, we are all made new. We have been purified in our hearts, minds, and flesh. There is an army of demons coming to this city, and we stand with you, without fear, to defend our new lives and the lives of our new friends.”
Gifts of Vorallon: 02 - City of Thunder Page 8