The Children of Isador

by Sam J. Charlton

The older wizard was slipping away from her. She stared down at his terrified face. Arridel scrambled for her feet and almost managed to catch hold. Adelyis felt his hand brush her slippered toes but the Warlock’s spell caught him and he was ripped from her.

  “Arridel!” Dust peppered Adelyis’s skin and stung her eyes as she called out to him.

  She stared down at Arridel Thorne’s ashen face. His eyes were wide, his hands still grasping desperately towards her—and then he was gone. Adelyis had one last shocking image of the wizard and warlock grappling together in a parody of a lover’s embrace before the void took them both.

  Then it was all over.

  The whirlpool above the Lord’s Tower disappeared as quickly as it had been conjured. All that remained were sallow clouds swirling in the aftermath.

  Adelyis lay on the rubble-strewn floor, her body so weakened by shock that she could not find the strength to move. She turned her head and was relieved to see Lassendil and Will lying nearby. Her brother stared back at her; his blue eyes enormous on his dirty face. Will lay, still unconscious, beside Lassendil. Adelyis pulled herself along the ground on her elbows. She reached Jennadil, who lay worryingly motionless. She reached up and touched the wizard’s dust covered face, and was relieved to discover that he was still breathing. He groaned at her touch, his eyes flickering open.

  “I’m not dead?” he rasped.

  “Evictar has gone,” Adelyis replied, “but he took Arridel with him.”

  “Arridel’s gone?” Gywna crawled out from behind the door, white-faced and shaking.

  Adelyis nodded. Her delicately featured face was gaunt and strained.

  Jennadil closed his eyes, his face twisting in remorse. Like Adelyis, Jennadil knew that they would never have succeeded without Arridel. The wizard had forced them to face Evictar when they had cowered. Jennadil’s stomach heaved and he vomited onto the stone floor.

  Taz was the first of the company to pull himself together. He helped Adelyis to her feet, letting her rest against him when her legs threatened to give way under her. Lassendil had sat up and was attending to Will Stellan. Adelyis and Taz stood over them watching anxiously.

  “Is he dying?” Adelyis asked finally. Her brother heard the emotion in her voice and looked up at his sister’s face. Then, he looked back at the wounded Orinian Captain and frowned.

  “He’s lost a lot of blood,” Lassendil said finally, “and he’s severely chilled. His wounds need tending to.”

  Lassendil glanced behind Adelyis at the sound of retching. Jennadil had finished being sick and had pulled himself gingerly up into a sitting position. His face was chalk-white. He appeared disorientated, and was clearly concussed. The wizard looked worried at the sight of his friend’s unmoving body.

  “Is he going to be alright?” Jennadil croaked.

  Will Stellan stirred as Jennadil finished speaking. He slowly opened his eyes and saw faces peering down at him.

  “Get these chains off me,” he said weakly, before registering that something had happened while he had been unconscious. “Evictar?”

  “Dealt with.” Lassendil replied. The Ennadil leant forward and worked to remove the shackles binding Will’s ankles and wrists. “Sucked into the Void.”

  Will’s bloodshot eyes widened.

  Lassendil opened his mouth to explain further, but never got the chance. At that moment there came a terrible uproar from down below. A collective howl of all the Morg within the Keep splintered the air.

  The company atop the ruined Lord’s Tower exchanged fearful glances before realization dawned on them. Morgarth Evictar’s death had freed the Morg from two millennia of slavery. They had just awoken to find themselves on another continent, fighting a war they cared nothing for while the colder temperatures and the onset of winter ravaged their bodies.

  The Morg’s rage and betrayal shook the great fortress to its very foundations.

  From below came the first heavy thuds on the oak door leading up to the tower.

 

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  THE STORM

  The survivors stood alone atop the ruins of the Lord’s Tower, listening as the armored door at the base of the tower buckled and creaked under brute force. It would not be able to withstand much more battering. That door was all that stood between the Morg and their prey.

  The Morg were ripping Serranguard to pieces.

  The fortress shook with the force of their collective rage. Howls rent the air and the Morg’s anger crackled like lightening around Serranguard.

  Lassendil, Adelyis, Gywna and Taz clustered together in a semi-circle. Will Stellan lay at their feet, barely clinging to consciousness, and a few feet away Jennadil still sat propped against the wall. The wizard’s face was bloodless, and a large purple swelling had come up on his forehead from where he had hit the wall.

  Precious moments were being wasted while the survivors stood immobile, stricken by panic. They had come so far and sent Morgarth Evictar into the void—an infinite vacuum where the Warlock would be a prisoner for eternity.

  None of them had foreseen the Morg’s reaction to being set free from their master. They had focused on destroying the Warlock, not stopping his minions.

  “There is no way out of here,” Gywna told the others. Her Wraith Sword hung limply from her hand. Her face was young, vulnerable and frightened. Adelyis looked across at the younger woman. Her already plummeting hopes dropped to her feet. She had hoped there was another, secret, way out of the Lord’s Tower that only the City-Lord and his kin knew of.

  “Listen to me,” Will Stellan’s voice was weak and strained with the effort he was making to stay conscious. They could barely hear his voice above the din below. “At this very moment, Falcon’s Mount is under siege.”

  The others stared down at him, their faces registering varying degrees of shock. With difficulty Will continued. “The Tarzark are in league with Morgarth Evictar but unlike the Morg they are not held in his sway. Unless something is done, once the Tarzark take Falcon’s Mount, the rest of Isador will be open to them. Evictar had been in contact with the Tarzark sorcerers for days. He was planning on doing away with the Morg once Falcon’s Mount had been taken. He’s had the means to change Isador’s climate to suit the Morg, he just hid it from them. He removed the books containing the weather spell from Serranguard’s libraries and put them in that cupboard.” Will pointed to the small wooden cabinet that was one of the few pieces of furniture that had not been blown away by Evictar’s rage.

  Upon hearing these words, something inside Jennadil shifted. The weakness and nausea subsided and resolve galvanized him. Jennadil struggled to his feet, clutching the wall for support. Then, he staggered across the room towards the padlocked cupboard. A bolus of green fire exploded from his fingertips with such a force, his companions all started. The lock shattered.

  Not bothering for the smoke to clear, Jennadil reached forward and ripped the doors open. A small pile of leather-bound volumes lay on a shelf inside.

  Jennadil grabbed the spell books and dumped them on the nearby desk. Adelyis materialized at his side. She knew, without communicating with the wizard, what she must do. Wordlessly, they rifled through the books in search of the weather spell.

  An almighty crash shook the tower. The door at the base of the Lord’s Tower had been breached and a host of Morg now thundered up the circular stairwell.

  Jennadil looked up from searching and Adelyis was taken aback at what she saw. His hazel-green eyes were hard, any trace of the diffident, disinterested man he had once been had vanished. Returning to his task, Jennadil flicked over pages hurriedly, hunting for the weather spell.

  “Hold them off!” he shouted to the others, “give us time!”

  Lassendil, Taz and Gywna were already picking up their weapons and moving to the doorway as he finished speaking.

  The first Morg reached the top of the stairwell.

  The noise was terrible. The shouts,
grunts and screeching, the clash of metal and the wet sound of death rent the air. It took all of the witch’s and wizard’s self-control not to glance towards the door to see if one of their companions had fallen, or if a weapon was hurtling their way.

  “I’ve found it!” Jennadil looked across at Adelyis, his face set, eyes gleaming. “The weather spell will need the two of us to cast it.”

  Adelyis rushed around to his side of the desk, catching a glimpse as she did so, of her brother slashing at an enraged Morg. The ravaged creature’s black robes flapped like wings as it fought, making it resemble a frenzied bat. Even Gywna, who had once again fused with her Wraith Sword, was struggling under sheer number of Morg who were forcing their way into the tower. They would not be able to hold them back much longer.

  Jennadil took hold of Adelyis’s hand, noting as he did so, the smoothness and chill of her skin. It was like grasping the hand of a corpse—the only outward sign of the terror that pulsed through her. With his left hand grasping her right hand, Jennadil and Adelyis pressed the palms of their free hands together. Jennadil stifled a gasp as their magic merged.

  Their powers had joined once before, when they had conjured The Power of Three, but this was the first time their hands had actually touched. The power surge rippled through Jennadil’s body and, his gaze meeting Adelyis’s, Jennadil saw her eyes dilate. A wonderful sensation prickled over his skin before heat filled his veins. Jennadil had heard of ‘enhancement’ as it was known. The merging did not occur frequently but when it did, it increased the skill and power of both wizards—an effect that remained even after physical contact was broken.

  “Time, air, wind and sun, move the seasons, come undone!”

  Their voices rose over the mêlée and were whipped away by a sudden whirlwind that curled around the tower top. Heat radiated out from the center of Jennadil’s palm and an energy aura; green and blue—the merging of their power—swelled from their joined hands. Adelyis and Jennadil doggedly continued, their eyes fixed upon the open spell book on the desk before them.

  “Bring forth winter, sap warmth from land and sky, make all that is green wither and die!”

  The wind hit the tower, like an invisible battering ram, with a sudden bone-numbing chill.

  “Carpet the land in ice and snow, bring forth the chill of winter, howl and blow!”

  A lance of turquoise fire shot up from the witch and wizard’s joined hands and exploded in the murky clouds high above them in a dazzling firework display.

  Suddenly the wind that swirled around them was thick with snow and ice.

  Hail pelted the top of the tower and the force of it drove deep inside the castle. The wind howled like a wild beast in its intensity. The spell books flew off the table and disappeared into the storm. Adelyis and Jennadil clung together and squeezed their eyes shut against the stinging needles of ice.

  The effect on the Morg was horrific.

  They broke off their attack and fell to the ground, clawing their ravaged skin. The screams and wailing were unbearable. Even Taz, who until then had shown no fear, reeled. The Gremul staggered backwards and grabbed Gywna. The girl was terrified. Her Wraith Sword had slipped from numb fingers and she was shaking so badly she could hardly stand. Lassendil grabbed hold of Taz and Gywna, and the small group cringed together while a great storm, more violent than any of them had ever experienced, battered Serranguard.

  Adelyis and Jennadil were not sure how long they clung together, their palms still joined, before the snow storm spent itself. The Morg’s death screams ceased and a silent, terrible calm settled over Serranguard.

  Jennadil opened his eyes and winced at the raw cold that had frozen his face. Adelyis’s dark hair was frosted in white and they stood ankle deep in thick, crisp white snow. He let go of Adelyis and crunched over to his companions. Will Stellan’s prostrate form was nearly covered with snow, as were the dead bodies of the Morg, not far from him. Jennadil hunkered down next to Will and, with numb, shaking hands, brushed the snow off his face. His friend was unconscious. Jennadil felt for his pulse and let out a relieved breath when he found it. With Taz and Lassendil’s help, Jennadil got Will to his feet. He hung, still unconscious, between them.

  “We have to get him out of here,” Jennadil spoke through chattering teeth. “He won’t last long in this chill.”

  “Neither will we!” Taz reminded him. Despite the thick pelt covering his squat body, the Gremul was shaking violently.

  Nearby, Adelyis pulled up the hood of her cape and walked over to the edge of the tower. The wall had been almost completely blasted away in this spot, giving her an unobstructed view across the surrounding landscape. The storm had washed away the heavy, sulfuric clouds. The sky above was now completely clear.

  It shocked Adelyis to see just how powerful the weather spell had been. The ‘enhancement’ that had sparked between her and Jennadil still crackled all over her body.

  A winter landscape covered the land around Serranguard for as far as the eye could see. A thick white crust covered the Morg’s devastation and there was not a breath of warmth in the world. Adelyis was stunned by the power she and Jennadil had managed to unleash. Among the Ennadil, ‘enhancement’ was as feared as it was revered—for in the wrong hands it could wreak havoc. Remembering the sensation, Adelyis felt slightly sick.

  “Adelyis!” Lassendil stepped up beside his sister and placed a cautious hand on her arm, bringing her out of her reverie. “Are you unwell?”

  She shook her head, as much to clear it as to negate his question. “I am fine.” She managed a weak smile. “Just in shock.”

  Like a child, she let her brother guide her away from the tower’s edge. They followed the others down the stairwell, over the frozen corpses of the Morg and into Serranguard’s keep.

  ***

  It seemed fitting that as the sun set on the first eve of battle the sky was stained crimson. It was as if the blood from the dead had washed from the earth into the heavens. The evening was still and airless. Men had not fared well against the relentless Tarzark assault.

  A breathless quiet had descended over the city, for the Tarzark had halted their attack and made camp for the night. They now occupied the entire first level of Falcon’s Mount, while the city’s citizens had barricaded themselves inside the top levels.

  In the gathering dusk, the Tarzark bedded down for the night. The Orinians would have but a short reprieve before Grull launched another assault at first light. The Tarzark King had not halted the attack out of any sense of fair play. His troops had fought hard all day and there was no urgency in the attack. Furthermore, Grull wished to savor his victory in daylight as he cut down Falcon’s Mount’s City-Lord and watched him grovel and beg for death at his feet.

  The moon had yet to rise when King Grull climbed atop the wall and looked up at the shadow of the great city rising above him. The buildings wrapped across the conical hill, curling up to where the City-Lord’s palace perched at its pinnacle.

  Grull stood on the edge of the wall and breathed in the sharp, cool air. He was risking death standing there. An Orinian sniper could have picked him off, especially once the moon rose, but Grull enjoyed toying with death. He had spent the last ten years preparing for this moment.

  When he had come to power, the Tarzark Kingdom had been severely weakened after centuries of civil war. His kingdom, although vast, had a harsh climate. It was a desolate area of Isador, and if it had not been for the underground springs that bubbled up through the bedrock in various spots, life would have ceased to exist there hundreds of years ago. The Tarzark cities were vast, jagged, obsidian fortresses. Many had the same profile as the great mountain range that cut them off from the rest of Isador. They were all built on springs and were surrounded by small satellite villages that grew crops and raised animals to feed their host. Under Grull’s rule, the Tarzark Kingdom had risen once more to its former strength. Hull Mutt clutched heavenward like a massive black gloved ha
nd, as if it were trying to encompass all of Isador within its grasp. It was Grull’s desire that it would one day.

  Grull stood there awhile, anticipating the victory that he stood on the brink of. He imagined the Tarzark Kingdom spreading out; encompassing Orin, Mirren and Serranguard. Then, in time, when the Tarzark had gained a foothold there—the Ennadil Territory would be conquered. Morgarth Evictar was the only obstacle that tempered Grull’s ambitions. Unlike the Tarzark Sorcerers who revered the Warlock, Grull was suspicious and resentful of Morgarth Evictar. He knew the Warlock was far more powerful than himself. Evictar would expect him to behave like his toady—and just the thought made Grull grind his teeth with rage.

  Grull bent the knee to no one.

  Yes, Morgarth Evictar was a hindrance that would have to be removed if Grull wished to see his ambitions realized. The Tarzark King possessed a cruel and intelligent cunning and he was certain he would find a way to dispose of the Warlock. He would just have to wait.

  At length, a silver crescent moon rose into the sky and bathed the city in cold, hoary light. Grull reluctantly left the wall and descended down narrow stairs to where his troops were cooking meat on spits—man-flesh was a particular delicacy for the Tarzark and after the hundreds of Orinians they had slain today there was plenty of fresh meat to go around. The smell of roasting flesh made Grull’s nostrils twitch; reminding him he had not eaten since day break. He was on his way over to the fire where his two Captains, Argoth and Grimmak, were preparing his meal, when the High Sorcerer, Yaduk, intercepted him.

  “My Lord,” the sorcerer bowed hurriedly, “there is a serious matter I must discuss with you.”

  Grull did not bother to hide his irritation. “What is it Yaduk,” he snapped.

  The High Sorcerer did not look well. He was pallid under his scaly flesh and his great frame was trembling slightly. “May I speak to you in private my Lord?”

  Grull was unmoved. “Speak where we can all hear you. I’m hungry. Say your piece while I feast.”

  Grull had not been pleased with Yaduk of late. In his opinion the High Sorcerer’s allegiance had shifted from him to Evictar and worse still, he had influenced many of the other sorcerers.