“How many of the runedead do we have?” said Caldarus. “I thought you said we had one hundred and fifty thousand of the creatures.”
“I miscounted,” said Lucan. “The sum is closer to one hundred and eighty thousand. Perhaps even one hundred and ninety.”
The number stunned Malden. The most living men he had ever been able to call to his banners totaled around twenty-five thousand, and the Justiciars had never been able to field more than twenty thousand mounted knights and foot. And the runedead required neither sleep nor rest, food nor drink. They could march all day and all night, and fight without ceasing. And they were immune to weapons of normal steel, vulnerable only to magic and flame.
“With such a host,” said Malden, “I could force every lord in the realm to submit. I could conquer the Old Kingdoms and the Elderborn, and the heathen lands to the south. I could even cross the mountains, conquer the middle lands, and exterminate the Malrags, raise an empire unlike any seen in the history of man.”
“And the Justiciar Order,” said Caldarus, “will safeguard and shepherd this new empire.”
“Truly,” said Lucan without a trace of emotion. “It is well you decided to serve the cause of justice, my lord Malden, Grand Master. The runedead rose to serve you, even if Caraster usurped them. And with them, perhaps there will be a king sitting in Knightcastle again.”
Malden smiled. For all his life, he had guarded the power of his lands and house. Now he had the chance to raise Knightcastle to undreamed heights of glory.
Lucan’s voice cut into his thoughts. “But only if you stop Mazael Cravenlock before he destroys you.”
“With such a host of runedead,” said Caldarus, “we can smash him utterly.”
“But only if you march at once,” said Lucan. “Because he will be coming for you, my lords. The traitors among your vassals and your officers will have reached him by now. He will march for you, and his sword will grant his armies the power to harm your runedead. And he is Demonsouled, and the dark power of his blood means his followers will obey him without question. Do not underestimate him, I urge you. For if you do, he will crush you…and a son of the Old Demon will hold sway over the world.”
“What do you suggest, then?” said Malden.
“Gather your hosts and march for the Grim Marches and Castle Cravenlock,” said Lucan. “You, my lord Malden, can still call fifteen thousand loyal men, and you, Grand Master, can summon at least ten thousand. Combined with the runedead you shall have an irresistible force. If you reach the Grim Marches before Mazael gathers his vassals and his barbarian allies, you can lay waste to his lands and trap him in Castle Cravenlock. Then you need only use the runedead to wear away his defenses until he lies dead at your feet.”
Caldarus frowned. “That would be our entire force. We would leave ourselves vulnerable to uprisings in Mastaria, or any petty prince among the Old Kingdoms with more ambition than sense. And the Justiciars’ enemies among the nobles might try to seize our lands…”
Lucan shrugged. “You have many enemies, my lords, but none as strong as Mazael Cravenlock. Your other foes are rats nipping at your heels. Mazael is a wolf who will rip out your throat. If you destroy Mazael, you can deal with any other foes at your leisure. But if you turn your attention to these minor foes, Mazael will march on Knightcastle and destroy you.”
“I believe Lucan speaks wisdom, Grand Master,” said Malden.
Caldarus gave a sharp nod. “Very well. I give my consent to this plan, and will summon the Order to battle.” He touched the hilt of the black dagger at his belt. “Though as we march east, we shall have to cleanse the lands of the wicked. And the Grim Marches are a nest of serpent-worship and the debased Tervingi barbarians. We shall have to exterminate them utterly.”
Malden smiled and touched his own dagger. “Caldarus, I could not agree more.”
Lucan said nothing.
###
That night Lucan walked alone in the darkness beneath Knightcastle.
The lack of light did not hinder his eyes, and he strode through the gloomy maze of the Trysting Ways without hesitation. He noted the cold, clammy air against his face, but he did not feel it, not really. He did not feel anything, not the air against his skin, not his heart beating within his chest, not the draw of his breath, mostly because his heart did not beat and he had no need to breathe. He felt nothing at all, neither pain nor pleasure.
He felt only rage.
He remembered Tymaen’s death, the blood soaking the front of her gown. He would avenge her death.
He would finish his work and rid the world of the Demonsouled forever.
In Tymaen’s name, he would create a new and better world.
The Trysting Ways spread before him, an endless stone maze threading its way into the darkness beneath Knightcastle. Generations of Roland kings and lords had built and rebuilt and expanded Knightcastle, slowly raising the great stone edifice. And every lord had added secret passages, creating the great stone maze of the Trysting Ways.
Lucan stopped before an unmarked wall of white stone.
But Knightcastle was older than the Rolands remembered, save in their myths and tales. A stronghold of the High Elderborn had once stood here, until the wars of the first Demonsouled and the Dark Elderborn had destroyed their realm. The High Elderborn citadel that had once stood here had been destroyed, Knightcastle rising over its ruins…but the ancient tunnels remained.
And a thing of power, forgotten here for millennia.
Lucan worked a spell and the wall disappeared.
He stepped into a vast hall of gleaming white stone with a vaulted ceiling. In the precise center of the hall stood a delicate pointed arch of white stone, ten feet wide and thirty tall. Symbols and sigils had been carved into the arch, and already they glowed with a pale silver light.
The Door of Souls. The High Elderborn had created this artifact, this thing of tremendous magical might. When open, it allowed a man to leave the mortal world and physically enter the spirit realm, and stay there so long as the Door remained open. With the Door, Lucan could enter the spirit realm and reach Cythraul Urdvul. He could find the gathered power of the Demonsouled he had slain with the Great Rising.
And he could destroy the power, and the Demonsouled, forever.
But only if he managed to get the Door open.
It would take a tremendous amount of power to open the Door, and Lucan had devised the means of obtain that power. The black daggers he had given Malden and the Justiciars drained life and transferred it to their wielders. Part of the power remained in the wielder, true, but the daggers were linked to the Glamdaigyr, and most of the power flowed through the Glamdaigyr and into the Door of Souls. Malden and the Justiciars had gathered considerable power.
They had killed a lot of people.
But it still wasn’t enough.
Lucan walked in a circle around the Door’s arch, examining the silver sigils. The power funneled through the black daggers, while considerable, was not yet enough to activate the Door. Worse, some of the power had begun to dissipate, like water evaporating off a reservoir. Lucan needed to pull a great deal of power into the Door in a short amount of time.
His right hand closed into a fist, the leather of his glove creaking.
Mazael Cravenlock and the armies of the Grim Marches would provide the power he needed.
It was a risk, though one necessitated by Lucan’s own mistake. He should have put Sir Gerald and Sir Tobias and Lady Rhea to death at once. Instead Gerald Roland had escaped with his wife, sons, and most loyal supporters, and they would flee right to Mazael. Lucan had dispatched a band of runedead to hunt them down, but almost certainly Sir Gerald would reach Mazael.
And then Mazael would come for Lucan.
But Mazael’s armies could provide the raw life force Lucan needed. If enough of Mazael’s men fell beneath the black daggers in a short enough time, the power would drain into the Door of Souls and open it.
Unless Mazael first des
troyed the runedead host.
Caldarus and Malden could gloat over their invincible army all they liked, but Lucan knew better. Mazael carried an ancient sword forged by the High Elderborn, and Lion’s fire could destroy runedead with ease. Even worse, a Tervingi wizard of terrible power called the Guardian served Mazael, and the Guardian had the power to spread Lion’s fire to every sword in Mazael’s army.
The combination could be fatal to Lucan’s plans. The runedead army might well destroy the Grim Marches…but if Mazael kept his wits about him, he could turn the tables.
Lucan had seen him do it before.
But the outcome of the battle between Mazael and Malden was of no importance at all. What mattered was if the battle generated enough stolen life energy through the black daggers to empower the Door of Souls.
And if Mazael and the Guardian mowed down the runedead, Lucan doubted he could gather enough power.
But Lucan thought he had a way to negate both Mazael’s and the Guardian’s advantages.
He left the vault containing the Door, reactivating the ward behind him. A short walk took him through the Trysting Ways and to one of the secret exists from the castle. Night lay over the castle, though the crimson glow from tens of thousands of runedead filled the Riversteel’s valley with a hellish radiance.
And the glow from the burning men.
Close to fifty runedead stood in a group away from the others, their bodies wreathed in crackling orange-yellow flames, their limbs and torsos reduced to little more than charred husks. The sigil of the runedead shone upon their foreheads, barely visible through the flames. Once they had been Caraster’s disciples, following their master as he launched his plan to overthrow the world.
Then they had made the mistake of crossing Lucan, and had perished in the inferno of their own magic.
Their souls had fled their bodies, drawn to whatever punishment awaited them, but Lucan had raised their charred corpses as runedead. They retained their magical abilities, and some of their memories and skills. One of them would be no match for the Guardian.
But even the Guardian might find it challenging to deal with fifty at once.
“Caraster,” said Lucan.
One of the runedead stepped forward. Unlike the others, he was not wreathed in flame, and wore a heavy black robe. A tangled mass of gray hair and beard encircled his head, almost obscuring the sigil of crimson flame upon his pallid forehead.
“I will set the world to burn,” hissed the runedead that had once been Caraster. “I will throw down the lords and the priests and the merchants! Then no one will go hungry, and I will make this world into a paradise!”
“No,” said Lucan, “you won’t.”
“You slew me!” shrieked Caraster. “You slew me!”
“At last you speak sense,” said Lucan. “Now, stop talking and take your disciples into the Trysting Ways. Remain there until I call for you.”
“Master,” snarled the thing that had once been Caraster. The creature had at least some of Caraster’s memories, and therefore hated him. But thanks to Lucan’s magic, and the power of the Banurdem and the Glamdaigyr, the runedead could not disobey him.
Caraster led his burning runedead towards the Trysting Ways.
Lucan watched them go.
He had killed every last one of those men. He had burned Caraster’s disciples alive in their own magic, and had driven the Glamdaigyr through Caraster’s chest. Granted, those men deserved death. They had carved a trail of butchery and horror through Mastaria and Knightcastle, and Lucan had only given them their just fates.
He looked at them and felt no remorse.
He felt nothing at all.
And for some reason that made him uneasy.
Lucan had done terrible things since awakening from his stupor in Arylkrad, and his actions had caused the deaths of countless innocents. If he was successful, if he destroyed the power of the Demonsouled and freed the world of their curse, then their lives would have been well spent. He was doing what was necessary to make a better world.
Yet he had killed so many innocent people. He should have felt guilt over it. Or, at least, regret over the necessity.
But he felt nothing. Nothing but rage over Tymaen’s death, nothing but the raw certainty that his mission was vital for the good of the world. Was it a side effect of becoming a revenant?
No. He had felt this utter certainty even before his death.
Lucan scowled and shook his head. He could not turn back now. He had gone too far, and there was too much blood on his hands. Necessary blood, to be sure, but innocent blood nonetheless. If he stopped now, it would have been shed in vain.
Tymaen would have died in vain.
But if he succeeded, if he destroyed the Demonsouled, those men and women would have died to create a new and better world. And Lucan could not fail them now.
He strode towards Knightcastle, filled with his purpose.
###
The ancient creature stood unseen in the darkness and watched Lucan Mandragon walk to Knightcastle.
“Always so close, Lucan,” said the creature, “so very close. But never quite there. Alas.”
He walked through the shadows and reappeared next to Lucan. Lucan did not notice him. Lucan would never notice him.
Until it was too late, anyway.
The creature felt himself smile, smile has he had not smiled since he watched the cities of the High Elderborn burn so long ago.
He was old, so old, and he had so many names.
The High Elderborn had called him the Hand of Chaos for the ruin he brought to their glittering kingdoms. The people of Northreach called him the Blightbringer, and in the kingdom of Briault (before he had arranged for its destruction) they called him the King of Ghouls. The barbarian nations of the middle lands spoke in whispers of the Urdmoloch, and some of more desperate and ruthless among them prayed to him.
But the name he preferred was the one used among the people of the Grim Marches.
The Old Demon.
For he was the firstborn and the strongest, the oldest and the greatest. His mother had been a nameless human slave, and his father an imprisoned demon god, summoned by the wizards of the Dark Elderborn in their pride and folly. The demon god had been destroyed in the attempted summoning, the Dark Elderborn scattered, and the High Elderborn destroyed.
But the Old Demon was still here.
Kingdoms rose and fell and empires collapsed into dust, but he endured. His children and grandchildren rose and carved domains of their own…only to fall when he slew them and sent their strength to Cythraul Urdvul where it had all begun.
Where it had begun…and where it would end.
“Almost there,” said the Old Demon, watching Lucan.
For millennia the Old Demon had sired children and grandchildren and then slain them, their power gathering in Cythraul Urdvul. The death of the demon god had pushed the ruined temple into the spirit world, along with the remnants of the god’s power. That power had drawn the strength of the slain Demonsouled into Cythraul Urdvul, and after centuries of work a vast reservoir of power awaited there.
Power enough to transform any who claimed it into a new god.
The Old Demon intended to claim that power.
Unless Skalatan or Mazael stopped him first.
Skalatan did not concern the Old Demon, not greatly. Skalatan was powerful and clever, but like all his kind, the San-keth preferred plotting and working through tools rather than action. The Old Demon would deal with him when necessary. And Mazael…the Old Demon had crushed rebellious children before. He could do so again.
But none of those rebellious children had ever carried a sword forged by the High Elderborn.
He felt a twinge of misgiving. The High Elderborn were dust and bones…but their weapons remained. Mazael carried Lion, and the Tervingi Guardian wielded that miserable staff. The High Elderborn had created those weapons to destroy the Old Demon, and even after three thousand years, they still posed a
threat to him.
But no matter. Lucan would open the Door of Souls, and his army of runedead would keep Mazael from reaching Knightcastle. And once the Door opened, the Old Demon would claim the power for himself.
He would become a god…and no weapon would ever have the power to threaten him again.
And the world would be his to do with as he pleased.
He strode into the shadows, leaving Lucan to do his work.
Chapter 5 - Raiders
Hugh Chalsain, the Prince of Barellion and liege lord of Greycoast, awoke to feel a rock digging into his back.
He sat up with a curse, stubble rasping beneath his palms as he rubbed his face. His sword and dagger lay next to his bedroll, close at hand in case the Aegonar decided to launch a night raid. Hugh pulled on his boots, wrapped his sword belt around his waist, and left the tent.
He stepped into the tangled woods that housed his camp. The woods offered concealment from any passing Aegonar scouts, though no comfortable places to lie down, alas. Hundreds of tents spread in every direction, and smoke rose from small cooking fires as the knights and armsmen of Hugh’s force awoke.
He wondered how many of them would still live come nightfall.
“My lord Prince?” A boy of twelve hurried over, clad in chain mail and a green surcoat adorned with the sigil of a broken spear. Unlike his father, the boy was whip-thin. “What are your commands?”
“Bring me some breakfast, Roger,” Hugh told his squire, “and find your father and Lord Karlam.” He did his best to keep the scowl off his face at the mention of Karlam Ganelon. “Bid them to attend me at once.”
Roger ran off into the camp.
Hugh still was not used to people jumping to obey his commands, even though he was the Prince of Barellion. But he had never expected to become the Prince. He was Prince Everard Chalsain’s youngest son, and Hugh had expected to ride in his father’s armies or wander across the realm in search of coin and battle.
But instead Malaric had butchered Hugh’s family…leaving Hugh as both the Prince and the last son of the House of Chalsain. He had never wanted to become Prince, and would have been content to ride from petty fight to petty fight.
Soul of Swords (Book 7) Page 6