Riothamus heard the doubt in the older man’s voice, but he did not mind. Circan only knew him as a barbarian wizard. He did not know about the Guardian’s office, about the power and the accumulated knowledge bestowed by the Guardian’s staff.
And he would not know the burdens that came with the power.
“Circan!” said Gerald. “Now!”
Circan pointed the copper tube and began chanting a spell. Riothamus felt the power stirring, and his Sight flared to life. With the Guardian’s staff came the power of the Sight, the ability to see magical forces, to capture glimpses of the past, present, and the future. He saw the power Circan gathered, saw the necromantic power bound into the advancing runedead.
He lifted the Guardian’s staff, and the sigils cut into the wood flared with golden light. The magic of the Guardian rushed into him, power as furious as a storm and as unyielding as a mountain. Circan’s spell reached its completion, and Riothamus loosed his own power, using his magic to augment Circan’s power.
With explosive results.
A screaming bolt of fire of erupted from the tube. The blast howled over the field, turning the grass to ash in its passage, and slammed into the advancing runedead. The spell exploded in a raging inferno, turning scores of runedead to smoking ash, the flames spreading to the others.
Circan blinked, his expression startled.
“That,” he said at last, “was effective.”
The runedead broke ranks and charged, avoiding the burning corpses.
“Guardian!” said Gerald. “The blue fire!”
Riothamus and Circan stepped back behind the shield wall, relying on the knights and armsmen to shield them. Riothamus began another spell at once, his staff flickering with golden light. Power thrummed through him, and he looked to the south, to where Mazael’s horsemen waited.
To where Lion burned in Mazael’s fist.
The High Elderborn had wrought that sword long ago to fight against the Demonsouled, and they had also created the Guardian’s staff, the last of their wizards imbuing their magic into the staff to stand forever vigilant against the forces of darkness.
The sword and the staff were kin, and the sword’s power came at the staff’s call.
There was a thunderclap, and Riothamus’s staff blazed with blue flame. The fire leapt from his staff to sheath the swords and spears and maces of Gerald’s men, and Riothamus saw the fire spread among the weapons of Mazael’s horsemen to the south and Earnachar’s horsemen to the north.
“Stand fast!” yelled Gerald, raising his blazing sword, and the charging runedead crashed into the shield wall.
###
Molly watched the battle raging before her, her Demonsouled rage howling through her, her weapons ablaze with blue flame.
Gerald’s men were veterans, and held their own against the runedead. Yet the sheer number of undead crashed against the shield wall like waves hammering against the shore. Sooner or later the undead would wear down the living men. Worse, there were so many runedead that they began to circle to the sides, flanking the shield wall. If they got behind the men it would be a slaughter.
It was up to Molly and Riothamus to prevent that.
She took a deep breath and drew on the dark fire in within her blood. A stride forward carried her into the darkness, and shadows rose to envelop her. A heartbeat later the darkness vanished, and in that time she had traveled twenty yards to the south.
Putting her directly behind the attacking runedead.
Molly stepped into the battle, her Demonsouled blood lending her strength and power. Her sword plunged into a runedead’s neck and ripped up, severing its head. The sigil of crimson flame winked out, the corpse collapsing motionless to the ground. Her dragon’s tooth dagger, sharper and harder than steel, split the skull of another undead, blue fire drowning the red. The runedead turned to face her, and Molly jumped back into the shadows.
She reappeared before the shield wall, where a knot of runedead struggled against the knights. The knights and armsmen held the full attention of the runedead, and the creatures did not notice Molly until she stepped behind them and plunged her sword and dagger into an undead back. The runedead fell as she ripped her blades free, and Molly spun and took the head from another. The runedead turned to attack the new threat, which gave the knights and armsmen the opportunity to strike. A heartbeat later the runedead fell beneath their blades, and for a moment the battlefield was clear around Molly.
She turned in search of new foes, and a flare of yellow-orange light caught her eye.
A burning corpse strode across the field towards her.
For a moment sheer surprise froze Molly’s muscles. She had dealt with undead before, with Corvad’s pet zuvembies and Lucan’s runedead and others, but she had never seen a burning undead before. The creature was little more than a blackened skeleton wreathed in snarling flame, yet it moved with the same speed and strength as the runedead.
Through the halo of flames, she glimpsed the faint glow of a crimson sigil upon the charred skull’s forehead.
The creature’s gaze fixed on her, and it lifted a hand. The flames around the skeletal fingers brightened, and Molly realized the burning runedead was casting a spell.
At her.
A fireball erupted from the creature’s hand, and Molly threw herself into the shadows. She reappeared a dozen yards away as the blast struck the ground and tore a smoking crater in the earth. The shock wave of superheated air rocked Molly, her eyes watering, and knocked a dozen armsmen to the ground.
The runedead raced for them, and Molly strode into the shadows to intercept the attack.
###
Riothamus felt the surge of arcane power.
He saw the burning corpse striding among the runedead and felt the magical power snarling through the undead thing. Runedead wizards rarely had the skill to match Riothamus, but they could draw much more magical power than any living wizard.
And raw power was sometimes enough to batter down skill.
A fireball arced towards Molly, and Riothamus felt a stab of fear. But Molly disappeared in a swirl of darkness and the flames slammed into the ground. The shock wave knocked armsmen and knights to the ground, and even from a distance Riothamus felt the heat from the spell.
The runedead raced towards the gap in the shield wall. Molly flickered through the darkness and appeared in the gap, her blades a blur of azure flame. But even she could not hold off the runedead forever.
“Circan!” shouted Gerald from his place in the shield wall, his sword crunching through a runedead skull. “Hold the line! Guardian! The wizard!”
Riothamus hurried forward, the staff blazing with golden flames in his hand. Circan ran to the line and began hurling invisible blasts of psychokinetic force, knocking the runedead to the ground. Molly danced through them, cutting down the runedead as Circan stunned them.
The runedead wizard focused on her, the flames around its blackened fingers brightening.
Riothamus leveled his staff and unleashed a burst of golden fire. It struck the burning runedead, but the creature raised its hands. A shield of snarling fire appeared around it, crude but powerful, and deflected Riothamus’s spell.
The stunned knights and armsmen scrambled to their feet, reforming the shield wall. The burning runedead turned to face Riothamus, and he felt the malevolence of the creature’s attention.
It began casting a spell, as did Riothamus.
###
Romaria stared at the melee, fascinated.
Not by the violence. She had left Deepforest Keep at the age of eighteen, and in the eighteen years since she had traveled from one end of the world to another, from the Old Kingdoms south of Knightcastle to the barbarian lands, and she had seen her share of fighting.
But she had never seen the currents of magic before.
She saw the dark masses of corrupt power pulsing in the runedead, saw the flare of clear fire in Lion’s blade and the swords of the gathered knights and armsmen. She sa
w the radiance of the Guardian’s power shining in Riothamus’s staff.
And she saw the raw power gathered around the burning runedead.
What was happening to her? Ever since she had awakened, ever since Riothamus had cured her of Skalatan’s poison, she had been seeing more and more strange things.
The burning runedead’s power brightened, and Romaria pushed aside her doubt. She could worry about it later. She had seen more than her share of fighting…and she knew that distractions in a battle were lethal.
“My lord,” said Sir Hagen Bridgesbane, scowling behind his black beard, “we must charge at once.”
Mazael did not answer, his gray eyes fixed on the fighting. He wore the expression he used when commanding men in battle, calm, remote, resolute. But she knew the Demonsouled fury burned just beneath the surface.
“Soon,” said Mazael. “Wait until the runedead are engaged.”
Another flare of orange light rang out, followed by a blast of golden flame.
“The runedead wizard might kill all of Lord Gerald’s men,” said Hagen.
“It might,” said Mazael, “but I think Riothamus can distract it until we arrive.”
He was right. Romaria saw that the runedead wizard could summon tremendous power, more power than Riothamus could call with the Guardian’s staff, but Riothamus had the greater skill.
“Now,” said Mazael, lifting Lion. “Sir Aulus!”
Romaria got a tighter grip on her bastard sword, blue fire flickering around the blade.
Sir Aulus lifted his horn and blew a long blast. The knights and armsmen raised their lances with a shout, and the horsemen surged forward. Romaria rode in their midst, the Cravenlock banner flapping from Aulus’s lance, her bastard sword ready.
Perhaps she could see the aura of magic around the runedead…but that would only make it harder to miss them.
###
The runedead wizard unleashed a fireball, a blast hot enough and powerful enough to burn the flesh from every man in Gerald’s shield wall.
Riothamus swept his staff before him. A column of white mist rose up and hardened into a pillar of glittering ice an instant before the fireball slammed into it. Both the fireball and the ice vanished in a burst of hissing steam, their magic negating each other.
The runedead wizard began another. The sound of war horns rang over the plain, and Riothamus saw both Mazael’s and Earnachar’s horsemen surge into motion. The shield wall need only hold a little while longer, and then the horsemen would smash the runedead to pieces.
Unless the wizard first killed them all.
Riothamus flung another burst of golden flame, but again the undead wizard conjured a shield of fire, deflecting the spell. The creature was simply too powerful. Riothamus could not hit it hard enough to destroy it, not without distracting it first.
Could he have Circan work an illusion spell? No, an illusion would not work on an undead creature. The runedead was awakened, had some semblance of the mind it had possessed in life, but awakened runedead were rarely sane. The creature would attack whatever it perceived as the greatest threat.
Which meant Riothamus needed to find a greater threat.
He worked another spell, golden fire striving against the runedead’s snarling halo of flames. As he did, he saw Molly dancing through the charging runedead, flickering in and out the shadows.
He caught her eye, and she paused.
He looked at the burning runedead, and Molly nodded and disappeared into the darkness.
###
Gauntlet surged forward, steel-shod hooves tearing at the ground, and Mazael braced himself.
An instant later his horsemen crashed into the lines of the runedead. Lion thrummed in Mazael’s fist as he swung. The blade sheared through the neck of the nearest runedead, and the creature crumpled to the ground, the sigil upon its forehead winking out. All around him the knights and armsmen drove into the runedead with practiced efficiency. They had faced the runedead many times before, and knew how to fight them.
From the north he saw Earnachar’s horsethains smash into the runedead, heard the headman’s hoarse shouts. The knights, armsmen, and horsethains hammered into the runedead, mowing them down like wheat. The Demonsouled rage thundered through Mazael, and he gave himself to it, cutting down the undead right and left.
Then a flare of fiery light rose from the heart of the runedead.
###
Molly stepped out of the shadows.
The runedead wizard stood before her, its attention focused on Riothamus. The heat radiating from the undead creature made her eyes water, her face sting, and she feared that the intensity of its fire would melt her sword.
So she slashed through its back with her dragon’s tooth dagger.
The runedead wizard staggered forward with a hiss of rage and spun to face her, hands hooked into claws. Its tongue and lips had burned away, but nevertheless a voice came from the grinning skull.
“Perish!” hissed the wizard. “When Caraster raises the new order, you all will perish! The old world will drown in blood, and…”
Gerald had mentioned a renegade Demonsouled named Caraster. He and all his disciples had been powerful wizards, but Lucan had killed them all.
Apparently Lucan had created some new runedead.
“The new order will rise,” shrieked the runedead, “and…”
“Oh, shut up,” said Molly, swinging her dagger at the sigil on its head. The runedead jumped back, the fires around its blackened bones brightening.
It pointed at her, a fireball blazing to life around its hand.
###
Riothamus saw the darkness flicker near the runedead wizard, saw the undead creature turn to face Molly.
And its attention turned from him.
An inspiration came to him. The Guardian’s staff allowed him to conjure blasts of golden flame that could destroy undead. Yet Riothamus had wielded magic for years before he took the staff, learning from Aegidia, the previous Guardian. She had taught him to command the elements of wind and storm and rain.
Including ice.
He drew on his power, calling upon the Guardian’s staff to enhance the spell, and made a chopping gesture. A column of mist swirled over the burning runedead’s head, and hardened into a massive spike of ice. Again Riothamus made a chopping gesture, and the spike of ice fell.
It speared the burning runedead, driving it to the ground.
The runedead’s flames dissolved the spear into a column of hissing steam. When the steam disappeared, all that remained was a pile of damp, blackened bones.
Molly looked at him, winked, and vanished into the shadows, throwing herself back into the fray.
Riothamus summoned the staff’s power and drove blast after blast of golden flame into the attacking runedead.
###
The battle was over soon after that.
Mazael reined up. He saw some of his men dead upon the ground, but more runedead, far more runedead, lying strewn upon the grasses.
“It went well, my lord,” said Hagen, his face smudged with sweat and soot. “Four men dead, eight wounded, none seriously.”
“Nine of my men fell,” said Earnachar, “acquitting themselves valiantly, as did the sons of Tervingar of old.”
Mazael nodded. “Our men fought well.”
But against only a thousand runedead. Lucan Mandragon had many, many more to command…and tens of thousands of Aegonar waited in Greycoast, coming at Skalatan’s command to claim the power of the Demonsouled.
Harder fights than this were coming soon.
He turned his head and saw Romaria riding to join them. Her expression was distant, as it often had been since Riothamus had cured her. Which was not surprising. She had almost died once before at the Old Demon’s hands, and again at Malaric’s.
A twinge of guilt went through him. If not for him, she would never have been in danger. But she loved him and would not leave him, and he would do whatever he could to save her.
He had already killed Malaric, put Hugh Chalsain on the throne of Barellion, and allowed Skalatan to escape to save her.
Gerald rode to his side, shaking Mazael out of his dark thoughts.
“A solid victory,” said Gerald. “And the easiest I’ve seen for a long time. A sword like Lion and a wizard like Riothamus to spread its power are worth ten thousand mounted knights.”
“Aye,” said Mazael, looking to where Riothamus walked with Molly. “Without his aid, we would have perished. Not just today, but on many days.”
“A good choice,” said Gerald, “to wed your daughter.”
Mazael laughed. “He told you?”
“No,” said Gerald. “But Rachel told me before we left. She took one look at them and knew.”
Mazael laughed again. “She’s good at that. Though in a Tervingi wedding ceremony the husband traditionally presents the wife with trophies taken from three slain foes. I imagine Rachel would find that rather grisly.”
“Perhaps not,” said Gerald, his smile fading. “We have seen a great deal of war. First the runedead, and then Caraster…and now Lucan.”
“Aye,” said Mazael. He wanted to bring peace and prosperity to his lands, to allow his people to live and work in safety and quiet.
But with Lucan pursuing his mad plan to destroy the Demonsouled, with Skalatan preparing to seize the power of the Demonsouled for himself, and the Old Demon plotting in the shadows, Mazael knew peace would not come for a long time yet.
If it ever did.
“Come,” he said, turning his horse towards Castle Cravenlock. “We have a war to plan.”
Chapter 3 - Visions
Women stood on the walls of Castle Cravenlock, watching the returning horsemen.
Every time Gerald had ridden to battle, he had seen women waiting on the walls, watching to see if their sons and husbands and brothers would return from battle.
He glimpsed Rachel standing over the gate and felt a wave of relief. He would not leave Rachel as a widow and his sons as orphans.
Soul of Swords (Book 7) Page 3