Sovereign of the Seven Isles 7: Reishi Adept

by David A. Wells

  He’d set a battle in motion—Erik and Duane were coming.

  “I will stay with them, My Love,” Chloe said, spinning into existence nearby.

  “Thank you.”

  “Just don’t be too long.”

  He nodded, checking on his friends one last time before taking up Luminessence and drawing the Thinblade. He stepped up to the door and opened it, quickly sending forth his sight to get his bearings. He stepped through and closed the door, then turned toward the enemy camp and started running.

  It wasn’t long before the silvery streamers of ghosts came up alongside him. Some seemed like they were playing; others transformed into monsters and rushed at him, only to flee, wailing hysterically as they neared Luminessence. Alexander kept running.

  The creature in the dark howled as if it had just gotten his scent again. It was on the move, its feet thumping in rhythmic harmony, felt more through the ground than heard through the fog. Alexander ran faster.

  He wanted to give in to the fear, the wild panic gnawing at his will. Everything around him felt wrong … a creature of darkness hunting him and ghosts trying to haunt him.

  He was afraid, alone in the dark. The enemy line was his only refuge.

  He had to keep his wits. He was about to do battle, not with ghosts and demons, but with men. After all of the noise the cursed and haunted denizens of Old Ruatha had produced, his plan to enter Rake’s encampment by surprise was no longer viable. He was certain that the men standing guard on the city’s edge were now acutely alert, actively searching the fog for hints of movement.

  The creature was close now, snarling and snapping, unseen in the fog. Alexander could hear it gaining on him with each stride. He gauged the distance to the ruined wall marking the edge of the city—it looked to be just fifty feet away.

  The creature was getting closer with each step.

  Light would save him, Alexander was certain of it. Light would also alert the perimeter sentries of his location. He turned to face the approaching threat with the Thinblade up and at the ready. The fog swirled. Darkness without form or distinction rushed out of the murky air, charging him with terrible speed. Even with his magical sight, he dodged a moment late and was hit, but he managed to deliver a solid strike against the darkness in the bargain.

  Alexander was tossed like a doll through the air, landing in a jumble. The darkness retreated, mewling as it fled. Alexander took a moment to collect himself, regaining his feet and checking both Luminessence and the Thinblade. He hadn’t taken two steps when something big roared … and it was close.

  He ran again, sprinting for the wall with all his strength, pouring everything he had into speed. The creature was right behind him. He could hear it snorting and wheezing with each galloping stride. Fear added a step. The fog thinned, revealing torches in the distance. He raced on but couldn’t help looking back. What he saw made his eyes hurt. A beast with six legs, three to a side, and two heads, one larger than the other, both with the oversized mouth of a dog, lined with razor-sharp teeth. It was black and leathery, devoid of life or color, except for its dead yellow eyes.

  Alexander stumbled to a stop, turning to face the thing. It was too close to outrun to the wall … if that would even stop it. As much as he wanted to avoid drawing undue attention to himself, light was necessary. He raised Luminessence and released a pulse of brilliance. It entered the world from the realm of light like a detonation, washing the demon from existence and penetrating the stone itself, expelling the taint in a rapidly expanding wave.

  He couldn’t help but watch the colors of the curse fade into the distance, even as soldiers shouted from behind him.

  Then the city roared—the battle cry of ten legions shouting defiance and rage into the sky, the haunted death knell of those who’d long ago fallen into ash.

  Alexander turned and ran again, stumbling and just catching himself before falling headlong into the dirt. Regaining his balance, he ran with speed born of fear. Ten feet from the wall, he felt something lift him into the air, tossing him over the wall and into the midst of a four-man sentry post. Alexander watched an unformed shadow fall against the plane of the wall as if it were smoke blown against a pane of glass.

  Alexander landed hard, feeling a bit stunned—struggling to regain his senses.

  “Surrender! You’re surrounded!”

  He got to his hands and knees. Four men did indeed surround him, weapons drawn. He took a moment to assess the situation while pretending to struggle at getting up, an easy sell considering how he felt.

  He lurched to his feet, slicing through the two men to his right and slipping between them, turning to face the remaining two men. Both lunged at once. Alexander stepped easily to the outside of the first, cutting him in half as he stepped behind him and snapped the tip of the Thinblade into the skull of the last sentry.

  He set out at a light run toward Rake’s command post. The first pair of soldiers to interfere fell to the Thinblade so quickly that others nearby backed away. Alexander scanned the enemy and saw fear. He slowed to a brisk walk. Someone fired a crossbow bolt. Alexander stopped momentarily to let it pass by him.

  Three men rushed him. He cut them down with little effort. Five more came. He cut them down, too. A platoon attacked in organized fashion: shield wall, pikes, and swordsmen. Alexander met the attack with violence. More men arrived. Each threat was seen before the enemy even committed to the attack. Alexander was never where they wanted him to be, never where they expected him to be. Instead, he moved toward his target with each step, taking every opportunity to lash out with the Thinblade, cutting men down as they made themselves available.

  Until they didn’t.

  He swept through a man, scanning for his next enemy but finding only a field of carnage, a hundred soldiers dead all around him, more watching from a distance but making no move to confront him. Killing had become too easy. So many had fallen to his blade so quickly and none had laid a stroke on him. Alexander reminded himself that these soldiers didn’t matter as he began stalking toward Rake. No one confronted him again until he reached Rake’s personal guard. They were waiting for him.

  Dozens of crossbow bolts arced gracefully toward him from Rake’s outer cordon. He opened his Wizard’s Den at a right angle to the attack and stepped inside. A glance told him that his friends’ condition hadn’t changed.

  He stepped back out and closed the door a moment after the bolts had fallen harmlessly to the ground.

  Forty men were formed up and advancing. Behind them, an equal number were reloading their crossbows. Rake and his wizards were just behind the crossbow ranks.

  Alexander momentarily raised his light, bright enough to mimic the noonday sun, as he swept into the enemy line, slashing and wheeling, cutting and killing. Men fell screaming and bleeding, parts of them cleaved away. Alexander pressed forward with single-minded intent. Rake.

  Enemy soldiers attacked, but Alexander saw the moments to come, dodging and moving to avoid danger and then finding just the right moment to strike with deadly effect. He cut through the soldiers as if they were powerless against him.

  When three wraithkin appeared around him, he pushed his light brighter still, pulsing with a kind of brilliance that the netherworld simply could not withstand. The Wraith Queen’s darkness fled. A look of panic and shock filled the three men, as multiple injuries began appearing, opening and spilling forth their life’s blood. All three slumped to their knees, then toppled to the ground in growing pools of red.

  Rake launched a force-shard at Alexander. He stepped just a few inches out of the way, letting it pass him by as he killed another soldier attacking from his flank. Both wizards tried to cast spells, but he raised his light, blinding them, forcing them to cover their eyes, disrupting their concentration and their spells with it.

  Two more men, well-armed and armored, confident in battle, faced Alexander, shields raised. They attacked, thrusting in unison. Alexander stepped to the side, sweeping up through their spears
and taking both soldiers’ hands at the wrist. He lunged into the first, bringing the Thinblade back across his body and cleaving him in half, then swept it back, decapitating the second man.

  He was inside Rake’s inner cordon.

  Rake faced him, his colors swirling with surprise, then morphing through guile and into calculation. He was flanked by wizards and surrounded by six of his inner circle. His guards were only beginning to register that Alexander had penetrated their defenses.

  “Let’s talk about this,” Rake said, with a big crooked smile, all the while tipping the point of the war staff at Alexander.

  Alexander ignored him, slipping to the side just as a jet of fire shot forth, passing close enough to singe hair but not near enough to do harm. One of Rake’s guards screamed as he went up in flames.

  Alexander raced closer, snapping the Thinblade out in a whipping motion and catching the nearest wizard with the last three inches of the blade right across the eyes and well into the brain.

  Rake yelped in alarm, bringing up the war staff, a suit of magical force armor appearing around him.

  Alexander caught his balance, turning to face Rake from an angle that placed the second wizard behind his patron. Alexander met Rake’s eyes.

  “This isn’t supposed to happen,” Rake said, bringing the war staff to bear on Alexander. The wizard behind Rake began casting a spell.

  Alexander darted to one side, cleaving the war staff in half and taking Rake’s hands in a single stroke.

  He screamed, full throated, head tipped back, rage and pain filling the air.

  “This isn’t supposed to happen,” he whimpered a moment after his wail had run its course.

  Alexander slipped past him, his focus on the wizard. The man’s hands came up, his colors beginning to swell … until Alexander took his arms off at the elbows with a flick of his blade. The wizard’s shriek of pain was cut short when Alexander brought the Thinblade back up through his torso.

  The second wizard died in pieces.

  “Stop!” Rake said, on his knees, holding up his bloody stumps. “This isn’t—”

  Alexander cut off his head, kicking it into his Wizard’s Den and tossing the fragments of the war staff in behind it before closing the door.

  “Rake is down!” a man yelled.

  The royal guard saw Alexander as if anew, dozens of men turning toward him and attacking from all sides. He ran straight at the collapsing line, cutting into the men in his way with almost reckless abandon. The dance consumed him, the present moment merging with moments to come, outcomes seen before they happened, enemy soldiers falling as predictably as the snow. He slipped this way, snapping his blade through those in his path, danced that way, cutting down thugs within reach—every movement certain, every strike deadly. Very quickly, he was back inside the main body of Rake’s legion, a massive throng of unruly miscreants and cutthroats.

  A glance back revealed a small party of royal guard taking orders from two of Rake’s lieutenants. They were organizing to both maintain a chain of command and to give chase. Conflicting purposes caused confusion and paralysis among the inner circle for the first few critical moments.

  Alexander tried to blend in. Not ten steps later, a soldier moved to challenge him. Alexander cut him in half in passing, drawing attention from others nearby. He kept walking.

  A few men began pursuing him.

  The royal guard caught up and pointed him out, commanding everyone within earshot to attack. Not good odds, Alexander thought. He started running again, striking only at those who got in the way. Within the first dozen seconds, he’d killed as many men. They came at him with less enthusiasm after that, most seeing that the royal guard was closing the distance and apparently deciding to leave it to them.

  A dozen men on horse charged from behind. What remained of Rake’s guard had come to exact revenge. Alexander turned to face them, raising his light brightly enough to spook the horses and blind the men, while at the same time opening his Wizard’s Den and stepping inside, dousing his light completely and closing the door.

  He leaned the staff against the doorframe and carefully cleaned off the Thinblade before sheathing it.

  “They sort of appear to be sleeping,” Chloe said.

  “Are their eyes still open?”

  “Yes,” she said, somewhat downcast.

  Alexander sat next to Anja, looking at her with all of his sight.

  “There’s darkness at work,” he said after nearly a minute. “It’s very faint, but it’s there.”

  “What do we do?” Chloe said.

  “I’m not sure. Maybe Lita will know,” Alexander said.

  “Your light should have banished the darkness.”

  “It banished the ghosts … maybe they left something behind.”

  “I don’t see anything, and I’m more familiar than most with the aether,” Chloe said, buzzing up close to Anja’s face. “Maybe you’d better do it again though, just to be safe.”

  Alexander shrugged. All it would cost him was effort. A small price to pay for helping his friends. He lifted his staff in both hands and raised the light, filling his Wizard’s Den with brilliance for just a few moments, holding it for as long as he could, bathing his friends in that purging and healing energy from the realm of light, until his strength failed and he slumped into a bed.

  He rested for nearly an hour, letting his mind clear and his body recuperate from the battle and from the strain of wielding Luminessence. Outside, dawn was coming, and a new battle with it.

  Rake’s men would be hit from the air and from the west at sunrise. An hour or two later, five thousand Rangers would arrive from the south. Alexander had already taken the beast’s head, now it was just a matter of killing the horde with minimal casualties to his people. He could help with that.

  After checking his friends and finding them sleeping with their eyes closed, he tightened his boots, drew his sword and took up Luminessence. The door opened to a camp in chaos. Horns blew in the distance, men were shouting. Dawn was breaking and everyone was moving to meet the attack. Alexander stepped forth unnoticed, the door closing behind him.

  A unit of mixed cavalry, armed with a wide variety of weapons and armor, rode by heading toward the sounds of fighting to the west. They were enlisting everyone in their path.

  Alexander sheathed the Thinblade and fell in behind them, staying a good distance away, trusting that his blood-encrusted clothes would help him blend in. It worked for a while … until he got closer to the fighting and came across one of Rake’s few remaining lieutenants. The man became apoplectic when he saw Alexander, pointing at him with a wordless mix of surprise and fury.

  The alarm went up. Alexander responded with a brilliant flash of light, stepping into the moment of blindness that followed, killing the five nearest men and then slipping deeper into the chaos of the defensive line holding back the Rangers’ initial attack.

  A team of four wyverns roared overhead, drawing shouts of warning from the ground. The Sky Knights dove in unison, casting firepots into the throng, pulling up to wheel around for another pass. Orange light flared in the distance, vanishing into the sunrise, followed by screams.

  Alexander stopped, reaching out with his sight and finding the place in the line where the thugs were weakest. He turned toward that point and started cutting his way there. As before, it didn’t take long before men began to shy away from a fight with him. He walked past those who stood down without even acknowledging their existence. Those that did attack met a counterattack that was faster, sharper and better placed than they could match.

  He reached the back of the thugs’ line at its weakest point and hurled himself into the soldiers holding that spot, slashing this way and that, cutting men down in swaths, blood soaking into the dirt. After a few seconds of frenetic slaughter, when he stood in a field of carnage, he stopped and raised his light, blinding his enemies and clearing the vision of his friends, showing them where to attack.

  Erik was rea
dy. He was holding a column of cavalry in reserve. Five hundred men with shields and spears roared into the thugs’ encampment through the gap that Alexander had provided.

  While everyone else was reacting to the cavalry charge, Alexander slipped out of enemy territory.

  Erik led his men into the camp, cutting, trampling and spearing their way through the softer ranks before wheeling in an arc back toward the enemy line a hundred yards from where they’d entered. At the apex of his arc, he shouted the order and his men began hurling firepots into the tents and wagons within the interior of the camp. With flame away, Erik’s Rangers turned back toward the line, charging through chaos, cutting down or trampling anyone in their way.

  Nearing the line, Erik blew a horn, never letting up on his charge. The Rangers hollowed out a channel through their ranks, leaving only a small number in the front where Erik would arrive. Moments before his lead horses crashed into the thugs manning the enemy line, Rangers began peeling away, leaving a corridor open for Erik and his column to race through, then closing up behind him and pressing into the weak spot he left in the enemy’s line.

  Inside the Rangers’ line, Alexander fell back to the inner ranks and made his way to Erik, drawing his attention with light. Erik arrived with the reins of a horse in hand, holding the steed steady so Alexander could mount up.

  “Order a retreat,” Alexander said.

  “We’ve done significant damage,” Erik said.

  “I know. I want them to chase you. I want them spread out east to west when your brother arrives from the south.”

  Erik nodded as if to himself, then turned and gave the order. It took a few moments for it to filter out to the men, more time still for them to reverse their momentum. Giving ground required a different strategy than driving a wedge into an enemy’s flank.

  Arrows rained down just beyond the line, deterring pursuit. Rangers held formation, defending with large round shields and spears on the retreating line, a second row of men with shields and spears behind them, a row of bowmen right behind them, picking targets and taking shots.