The Wizard and the Warlord (The Wardstone Trilogy Book Three)

by M. R. Mathias

  After consoling Mikahl, she gathered her wizards and commanders and explained that the heroes of the previous years couldn’t be found. Sir Hyden Hawk Skyler was unaccounted for, his powerful warning sent from somewhere deep in the Giant Mountains. King Jarrek, the old Red Wolf warrior, was being held prisoner by his own men in a mine shaft in the Wilder Mountains. They were holding him to keep him from raging into the Dark Lord’s host with no army behind him.

  Queen Willa smiled internaly at the thought of him. She loved King Jarrek. They’d grown closer over the last few visits. She was pleased that his men had the sense to keep his temper and his fierce pride from getting him killed. His bravery had always outweighed his good sense.

  She went on to explain that Phen was off with Hyden Hawk. She called him Marble Boy instead of using his name, because no one knew who Phen was, but everyone from Portsmouth to Jenkanta knew who Marble Boy was.

  General Spyra was now Lord Spyra, and too far away to be of any assistance. The dwarven general who had so cleverly orchestrated the sinking of Seareach to save Castlemont from King Ra’Gren’s assault was in the Wilder Mountains with King Jarrek.

  “The High King stands with us,” she told them. “But he has lost his wife and unborn heir to this evil foe. He is distraught and may prove unpredictable. He will be prone to vengeance.” She paused and took a deep breath. “It will be no easy task, but he and Ironspike must be protected at all times.”

  “This is the time for new heroes,” she said. “We must not falter against the darkness, for if we do, we may never see the light again. Rally your men. The creatures they will face are terrifying to look upon. They are unnatural things that should never have found the light of day. If nothing else, you must give your men encouragement and hope. Master Wizard Feist says that the Warlord leading this host is most formidable, but without him the creatures that make up this horde will lose the power of purpose. This thing that commands the others must be our main target. Outside of defending the city and protecting the High King, killing the Dark Lord is what must be done.” She raised her hands and smiled as if she knew they could win. “I say rally your men. Prepare them well, for the dark host will be upon us this night.”

  As the commanders and wizards left her to carry out her orders, the alarm bells sounded. The harrumph of dwarven battle horns filled the air, as did the ringing of bells in the towers. The city was so crowded with panicked people and herd animals that most of the commanders couldn’t get back to their troops in time to command them. The more powerful of the wizards teleported to the wall top and began spreading the word, but already the battle had begun in earnest.

  Queen Willa returned to her private chamber hoping to have a word with Mikahl before the battle began, but he was already gone. In his place was Master Wizard Sholt, all the way from Westland, and lying on the divan was Queen Rosa. The rise and fall of her chest was obvious and the soft snore that accompanied the movement left no room to doubt that she was alive and whole.

  “She’s alive,” Queen Willa gushed, feeling a tidal wave of relief wash over her. She turned to Sholt, “But how?”

  Master Wizard Sholt shook his head in confusion. “What do you mean? Was her safety ever in doubt?”

  Queen Willa gasped, covering her open mouth with her hand. “Mik thinks the Warlord killed her when he came out of the Nethers.”

  Sholt was silent for a few long moments. From outside, the distinct clanging of bells and the tiny shouts of men came to the room. As soon as Mikahl had given him the order to sound the alarm, Sholt had teleported to the garden yard to try to save young Suza from the same fate De’Rain met. The sounding of alarms was a simple kinetic spell. He didn’t tell a man to ring the bells. He rang them magically and went directly to his students. He found Queen Rosa frozen in shock. She had blood spattered across her chest and was so close to the hellborn beast that was crawling out of the gateway that Sholt had no other choice but to protect the queen. He grabbed her and teleported them from the garden yard to an empty, snow-covered field just south of Lord Able’s abandoned stronghold. The casting had cost him most of his strength. Spell weary and somewhat in shock himself, he checked and found that the queen wasn’t wounded and led them through the snow to the crumbled tower. A few rooms were still intact, and with the rest of his strength he set a magical fire to blaze and slipped into a deep slumber.

  “I don’t know why he would think such a thing,” Sholt finally said to Queen Willa. “There was a small girl there in the yard, and Rosa’s handmaiden was down. Maybe he…”

  “She was wearing my green dress,” Rosa whispered. Neither the wizard nor Queen Willa had noticed that her snoring had stopped. “That thing crushed her and nearly twisted her in two. I was wearing that dress when Mikahl saw me that morning.” Rosa got to her feet and ran the few steps from the divan into Queen Willa’s arms. “She was just trying it on so we could get the hem the right length,” she cried. “He must be horribly sad. He was so pleased about the baby, and now he thinks…”

  “He’s more than sad, dear,” Queen Willa said. She was relieved. Mikahl wouldn’t rage off into an unsurvivable situation if he knew that his wife and child were still alive.

  “Master Wizard Sholt.” Even though Queen Willa was no longer his liege, she commanded him with total authority. “As soon as you have told the High King that his wife and child are here safe, that he must fight with some restraint, then you should rest.” She gave her old castle wizard a look that was insistent. “Those magi serving on the wall will want and need your guidance now, but your strength will be more valuable when they have grown weary and you have recouped. King Mikahl, though, must be told this news immediately.”

  Queen Rosa lifted her head from Willa’s shoulder and sobbed. Sholt had teleported the two of them more than a dozen times. He had only enough constitution to move them so far at a time, and each effort was all the more taxing. He had seen what the demon horde left behind in Locar and Dreen. His assessment of the enemy left him anything but optimistic, and he wanted to converse with the High King anyway, before this battle became all-consuming.

  King Mikahl had sworn him to the duty of protecting Pavreal’s bloodline, no matter the cost. If things grew dire, he wouldn’t hesitate to take Ironspike and Rosa and sail to Harthgar, or seek protection in Afdeon. He felt the High King should be aware of these things. Even though it would take all the strength left in him to find his king, he nodded his understanding to Queen Willa and then disappeared from the room with a crackling pop.

  ***

  Outside Xwarda’s western-facing gate, the setting sun’s rays painted the horizon beautiful shades of pastel blue and peach. The wingless faction of the demon horde engaged the ranks of defenders in a violent clash. It was a disheartening sight for the High King to look upon. The relatively white field of trampled snow turned quickly into a steaming mush of gore. Mikahl decided that defeating this army with swords, axes, and bows might prove impossible. Already, streaking bolts of lightning and scarlet blasts of hellborn magic were scattering body parts. Mikahl held his position and continued his search for the vaguely human form baring those familiar Skyler eyes. It was all he could do to keep from drawing Ironspike and raging mindlessly into the fray. He might clear a path through the enemy’s ranks, or kill a handful of the monstrous creatures, but that would serve no real purpose.

  To the south he could see the flying beasts going high over the wall, out of the archers’ range. They were coming down in the crowded streets now. A Choska demon was flapping wildly like a kite in a gale. Its vain attempt to get away from the barbed tether one of the breed giants had stuck into it was futile. It would die as soon as they could reel the line in, but it was only one of a thousand foes swarming the sky.

  “Mikahl! High King Mikahl,” Sholt’s voice called weakly from the roof below and behind the High King’s position. Mikahl barely heard him over the shouts of the archers and the roar of the beasts. He turned and nodded to the wizard, but quickly put hi
s attention back on the enemy. “You made it,” he said simply.

  “We must speak,” said Sholt, but he was so exhausted that the words barely made a sound as they came out of his mouth. Sholt closed his eyes and summoned what was left inside him. “My lord,” he said a little more loudly. Seeing that Mikahl had heard him, the wizard continued. “The bloodline must be protected.”

  Mikahl assumed that Sholt meant that he shouldn’t enter the battle and risk dying. As far as he knew, he was the last of Pavreal’s kin. “I’ll only fight the Hell Master himself, wizard,” he snapped his response. “Now leave me,” he commanded as he saw a gout of flame shooting skyward, reflected in the wizard’s eyes. He turned to find the source of it, hoping it was the beast Hyden’s brother had become. “Do not return until you have rested.”

  Before Sholt could respond Mikahl leapt to the next merlon, then the next.

  Sholt found that he was so tired he could barely move, yet he screamed out, “My Lord, listen to me! Queen Rosa is…”

  “Dead!” Mikahl finished for him as Ironspike came out of its scabbard with a rasping metallic ring. The normally passive blue radiance the sword emitted was white hot with Mikahl’s rage and was nearly as bright as the sun. Sholt was temporarily blinded by it, and by the time he could see again, King Mikahl was gone.

  The over-fatigued wizard could barely make out the bright horse as it went streaking madly toward a distant eruption of flame. Ironspike lit the carnage immediately below the High King as if it were midday.

  Sholt managed to get to his feet, and the amount of bloody death he could see in the field was sickening. He started to cast one last spell before consciousness left him, but he was yanked off the wall by the claws of a swooping hellcat. He didn’t have the strength to fight back, and the creature wasn’t strong enough to carry him far. Both of them went sinking toward the battle below, until the hellcat dropped him right into a knot of swarming demon kin and banked away.

  Chapter 56

  At the west gate, the wingless horde outnumbered the soldiers so greatly that some of the Dark Lord’s force broke away from the battle and circled the wall toward the city’s little-used northern gate. It was called the forest gate because it opened onto the southern edge of the Evermore Forest. It was guarded, but not nearly as much as the other gates. Queen Willa’s rangers used the horse door and the barracks there. With their constant presence it had never needed guarding before.

  The demon spawn were surprised when, about two-thirds of the way around, an entanglement of thorny growth sprouted around them. It engulfing most of the front of their charge. They were even more surprised when scores of elven archers began loosing arrows at them from afar. The entangled demons were easy targets as they struggled to tear themselves free.

  Phen was leading Telgra and the elven group toward a hidden tunnel entrance he knew of. It was still a good way east. The elves had waited until after sunset. They and the great wolves could see well enough in the dark to follow Phen’s direction. Yet, oddly, it was Phen’s human senses that picked up the demons first. He felt more than saw or heard them. His thorny growth spell was cast in the best place it could have been. Most of the dark things leading the pack were caught up. Those following didn’t have a chance to slow as they ran into the stuff. The elves engaged them freely.

  Under Phen, Arf growled and shivered, waiting desperately to have a go at the evil creatures that were offending his senses. Phen wouldn’t allow it. He spoke soothingly to the great wolf, though, trying to calm him. “You’ll get your chance, pup, I promise.”

  Torches flared on the walls above them, followed by the shouts of the forest gate guards. Dostin let Yip charge into the fray and used his staff in the torchlight with deft ferocity. He had an intense look, narrow-browed and scowling, with his tongue sticking out of the side of his mouth. The heavyset monk whacked and jabbed everything around him. Crack! Crack! A heartbeat of pause. Crack! again. Then a flurry of chak-chak-chaks as he spun the heavy wooden pole. Yip snarled and growled, then bit into a hell boar’s flank. A piece of the beast tore free and Dostin clobbered it as it turned to attack.

  “Leave them!” Queen Mother Telgra yelled to her fighters.

  Phen cast an orb light into being and sent it to hover over the dark host. Already some of the Xwardian rangers were gathering archers on the wall and loosing into the group. It was all the elves could do to break free before a kettle of boiling oil was poured over the wall. A moment later, a flaming arrow streaked down and the whoomping sound of the oil igniting thundered through the night. With only a handful of hellspawn on their heels, the elves followed Phen and his great wolf mount away from the blaze and back into the darkness.

  ***

  Inside the wall, almost a dozen hellcats had landed and taken to the streets. Innocent folk, farmers, seamstresses, and leathermen were thrashed by tooth and claw. Women and children were torn to shreds, and refugees trampled by their own townsfolk trying to get away.

  But there was no place to go.

  A series of streaking blasts sent a wagon full of chicken cages spinning over into a small, roped-in herd of sheep. The herd broke loose. A piece of the blazing wagon set a young girl’s hair on fire. She flailed and screamed in terror and pain. Her mother ran to help but both were mangled to bloody chunks by the more powerful kinetic blast of a Choska demon that was perched atop a chapel nearby.

  A huge, smoldering hole was left in the street were the woman and girl had just been. A blackened leg, smaller than a man’s arm, with a shiny red shoe on its foot, twitched once, then again. People screamed and still tried to flee, only to find a pair of wyverns slinging acidic slobber over the crowd like rain.

  A bat-like Choska glided down over the crowd and snatched a fat, shrieking farm wife.

  A block over, an angry young plow boy swung a dirt rake into one of the wyverns. The tines caught in the beast’s black, scaly hide and the boy pulled it out of the air. A half-dozen men with hoes and shovels beat the thing to a pulp only to find their feet and lower legs sizzling and dissolving from the wyvern’s acid blood.

  While the Choska sat on its perch busying itself by tearing apart the huge meal it had caught, a young mage attacked. The boy sent a thin little crackle of lightning at the Choska from the rooftop of a nearby inn. The bolt would have been insignificant had it not finished its jagged streak directly into one of the Choska’s ember eyes. The mangled farm wife fell from its jaws and landed half in, half out of an abandoned pot maker’s cart that still had a terrified horse harnessed to it. As the demon screeched a terrible, ear-splitting cry, the horse charged through the crowd, leaping and lurching over huddled people until the wagon finally hung on something.

  From under the broken wagon an old man wailed. The horse fell as a pair of arrows pierced its vitals.

  Half a mile away, a row of shops owned by tapestry weavers and tailors was fully ablaze. Around the fire, two imps, a wyvern, and a blood-lusting thing that looked half insect, half reptile were decimating the people, causing them to stampede like cattle, trampling their neighbors and kin into the bloody snow.

  Closer to the city gate a terrible creature as big as a two-story tavern lashed and destroyed everything within reach of its many tentacles. Already a dozen people had been grabbed up and dashed against the rubble, then tossed away by the evil monster.

  While all of this was happening, fat, lazy snowflakes drifted down out of the night sky.

  Inside the city, even where hellspawn weren’t attacking, the conditions were miserable. It was freezing cold and blankets were scarce. No one dared brave a fire, not even to cook. To attract one of the dark-winged beasts was to attract death in quantity. Even atop the smaller thirty-foot high wall that surrounded the palace grounds, the soldiers and archers crowded there didn’t light the torches yet. They would have to soon enough. Already a pair of hellcats were ravaging through the reserve troops who were waiting in the forested park near Whitten Loch.

  And above them all, searching
for the place it would unleash its evil magic, was an angry, one-eyed Choska.

  Along the rooftops of the eastern portion of Xwarda, a dark creature skittered to and fro. It was seen here, then there. It was pointed at and whispered about, but it didn’t stay still long enough to be identified. Whatever it was, it was terrifyingly fast and left behind long streamers of glittery dust that glistened in the moonlight.

  ***

  King Mikahl found the Warlord. The Hell Master had cleared a large circle around himself with dragon’s fire and ordered his minions to leave the human king to him. The young Westlander had chopped off his lover’s head. Even the parts of the Dark Lord that had long forgotten Gerard knew that much. After all, it was the Dragon Queen who had tried so hard to help him break free of the Nethers before. This pesky little man and his sword were nothing but fodder to him. The Warlord wasn’t a mere demon, nor was he susceptible to being drawn into Pavreal’s blade, but it was the satisfaction of avenging her death that caused the Warlord to fight the High King alone.

  The two of them exchanged blows with both steel and claw. They blasted powerful magics at each other and circled cautiously in ever defensive patterns. Both took wounds, but both found the shielding spells that thwarted the other’s magic. Neither of them had the advantage, and neither of them was backing down.

  Mikahl was frustrated beyond rational thinking. Nothing he seemed to do more than nicked the powerful thing Hyden’s brother had become. He was dodging and defending himself fairly well, but he knew that if the Warlord let his minions into the fight, it was over. The only reason he was still alive was because this malformed monster was determined to kill him itself.