by Jack Conner
At last, Albrech sighed. “Fine,” he said quietly to the General. “See to it.”
“You cannot mean it!” said Baleron. “Don’t let Ungier trick you. He feeds on pain more than he feeds on blood. This is just his way to cause it.”
“Where are my options? At least this will save their souls, if nothing else.”
The Archmage Logran spoke up. Running a hand through his steel-gray beard, he said, “I could shoot him.”
“Who? Ungier?”
Logran nodded. “And I could make it hurt. It won’t kill him, but it will teach him not to play these little games. Teach him not to use our men as sport.”
“But what of their souls?”
“Decide, king!” came the roar of the impatient vampire.
“I need a moment to confer!” Albrech responded. “This is no light matter.”
At this, Ungier looked pleased. “No,” he said, “it is not. Not to you. Go. Have your moment. But make it short.”
Albrech returned his attention to Logran, who said, “I will shoot Ungier, while at the same moment General Kavradnum has the prisoners shot—”
“No,” said Baleron, quietly. They looked at him. “I will rescue them. Give me two hundred riders. I’ll lead a sortie and bring them back.”
“Lose two hundred to gain one hundred?” Albrech said. “You’re better at numbers than that, surely. And likely we’d lose all three.”
Baleron’s voice was firm. “I will bring them in, Father. I promise you.”
Albrech glared at him, then, apparently seeing his resolve, studied him in more detail. Slowly, he nodded. “Very well, son. I did say I would give you a command. Make the most of it.” He added, “Just come back alive.”
The general issued some whispered orders to his lieutenants, and while they arranged things, Albrech said to Logran, “Do it.”
The corners of Logran’s mouth twitched. “My pleasure.”
He carried a white longbow and a quiver of arrows across his back; the arrows glowed with a white light, and Baleron wondered if the sorcerer had gotten them from the Elves during his stay in Celievsti. Setting down his staff, the Archmage picked up his bow from where it leaned against the parapet, but not before applying some strange, shiny ointment to the tip of an arrow—liquid Light, Baleron thought, awed.
The sorcerer notched the shaft, aimed, and fired. The arrow flew out toward Ungier, who saw it coming and waved a clawed hand, confident in his powers to knock it aside, but the arrow stayed true, and the white-feathered shaft sank into Ungier’s gray chest, right into his shriveled black heart, if he had one.
He stumbled and fell back. Smoke rose from the wound. Gray flesh burned. Writhing, screaming, black blood spurting, Ungier tried to pull the arrow free but it was caught firmly in his ribs.
Baleron couldn’t resist a smile. During his three years of slavery in Gulrothrog, he’d longed to hear just such a sound from Ungier’s throat.
The Borchstogs behind Ungier fell silent. Several rushed to Ungier and helped him up. One tried to remove the arrow, but its efforts must have pained the vampire, as Ungier tore out its throat with his teeth and shoved the still-twitching body away.
Albrech chuckled.
All along the Wall, men cheered and banged pieces of armor together. Some of the hundred prisoners down below smiled or laughed, but others shifted nervously, afraid of repercussions.
“Well done,” Albrech told Logran, and merely nodded, a small smile on his aged face.
Ungier, livid, with one hand still clutched about the white shaft, lifted his other and pointed a trembling finger at the wall of Glorifel. “Attack!” he roared, hoarsely. “Attack!”
By this time the two hundred cavalry had been gathered and Baleron went to them. With rising excitement, he donned his helmet, mounted his horse and turned to address his new men as they were settling themselves on their steeds before the South Gates. This was his one chance. He must make it a good one.
The Gates were thrown open and Baleron led his two hundred beyond the walls, a hail of arrows covering their advance. Baleron’s stallion plowed a Borchstog under, and his sword flashed, stealing another’s head. His men charged behind him.
He led them toward the hundred prisoners, cutting a bloody swath through Ungier’s ranks.
A Troll hurled a spear at him, but he ducked and the spear flew overhead. It struck one of his men instead, passed through that one and skewered a second.
A tide of Borchstogs closed in, choking off Baleron’s path. He saw that a gaurock large enough to bear fifty Borchstogs was slithering towards his group from the rear. He needed to be gone before it arrived.
“I’m ul Ravast!” he shouted to the Borchstogs. “Let me pass!”
He tore off his helmet and flung it aside, letting them see his face. They gasped and fell back.
“Roschk ul Ravast!” they chanted, bowing.
Howling, he led his charge onward, slaughtering all who stood against him. The great serpent continued to approach, but it was some distance off as yet. At last he reached the cowering prisoners and slew their guards. To the prisoners he shouted, “Come! Quickly! To the Gates!”
Their frantic faces lit with hope, and, with their hands still bound behind them, they ran toward the South Gates as Baleron’s men surrounded them and beat back the horde of demons that closed in.
A glarumril swept low and the Great Crow’s talons scooped up one of the knights and carried him high into the air, then dropped him screaming to the ground. Another knight was plucked from his saddle, and the glarum began eating him as it flew.
As they neared the walls, Havensrike archers drove the glarumri off, and at last they passed through the gates. Men cheered. Nurses and priestess tended to the freed prisoners as Baleron ascended the wall and aided the soldiers in repelling the Borchstogs in Ungier’s latest assault. The battle lasted for hours until the rithlag finally blew his blackened horn, calling the retreat.
Watching them go, Baleron wiped sweat from his brow with a shaking, blood-soaked hand. Breathing heavily, exhausted, he leaned against the crenellated wall and removed his helm, letting the wind cool him. Blood and sweat, still tacky, dried on his face. All about him, he smelled death and smoke, but he’d grown all too used to that by now.
His father approached, lighting a pipe, Prince Rilurn at his right hand. Both were covered in blood, some of it their own. Albrech looked Baleron up and down, appraising.
Baleron held his breath.
Finally, the king said, “I checked. Out of your two hundred, you lost seventeen. Yet you rescued ninety-one. Your numbers were well tabulated, after all.”
That was it. And yet, it meant so much to Baleron. It meant even more when Albrech, almost casually, but with an underlying gravity, passed him the pipe.
Baleron put it to his lips and drew the smoke into his mouth. He swirled it about gently, finding it spicy but smooth, then exhaled. He passed the pipe to Rilurn, who eyed him skeptically.
Together, the three smoked as they stared out over the battlefield. Baleron tried to count the number of dead, but it was like counting the stars.
“We’ll beat them yet, Father,” Rilurn said.
The king did not look so certain.
While they smoked, Baleron drew his sword and rubbed it down with a piece of oil-stained cloth, frowning.
“What bothers you?” asked the king.
“This sword—it’s not Rondthril’s equal by a long shot.”
“Rondthril—the weapon you got from Ungier’s firstborn? I thought that it was cursed.”
“So am I. I suppose I feel an affinity for it. And it is ... well, powerful. When I fought with it in hand, it aided me, I can’t explain how. It’s like it guided me. And it could cut through armor, through solid metal. Logran has it now. He’s been trying to rid it of the evil that holds it in Gilgaroth’s thrall.”
“You should just have it melted down,” Rilurn advised. “It’s a weapon of the Shadow. It will never be any
use to us.”
“I think I’ll go see if Logran’s finished with it,” Baleron said. “He’s had enough time.”
“I saw him retire to his Tower,” Albrech said helpfully.
Baleron quit the wall and made his way through the ranks of soldiers below. He saw dirty beards, soot-streaked faces and hopeless eyes. They gave him a wide berth, and some shot him strange, even fearful glances.
“The Ender,” he heard one mutter.
“Is that him?” asked another.
“The Savior of the Dark.”
“The Prince of Doom.”
Baleron didn’t know how news of his curse had leaked out exactly, but it had. Perhaps Gilgaroth’s words with him a week ago had been overheard and repeated, or one of his brothers had said something to a mistress and word had spread. It didn’t matter. He’d been away from home so long that he’d become used to being alone. He needed no company save Amrelain’s. Even this life was more than he’d expected, really; he should have died three years ago with all of his men during the attack in the Aragst. Every day after that had been a day stolen from the jaws of fate.
He found Lunir, who was squawking and snapping at nearby soldiers from within its hastily-built pen along the wall. When Lunir saw him, the huge bird let out a caw of recognition. Baleron patted his black head, noting the smattering of gray, and fed Lunir some foul-smelling meat, then saddled him and slipped astride.
“Away, boy,” he said. “To Logran’s Tower.” It had become Baleron custom to arrive at the wall and depart from it on the back of the glarum, and soldiers had grown used to the sight of it.
The glarum cawed and with an arthritic flap of its wings was off.
That night after draining several prisoners, Ungier ventured underground to his Father’s temple. Mounted heads lined either side of the depression leading down into the cavern, each head abuzz with flies. Bones were set into walls of the tunnel in fantastic, nightmarish shapes, and black candles blazed in the darkness.
Ungier picked his way down the tunnel herding his sacrifice, the tallest and strongest of the Havensrike prisoners, until they reached the large chamber of the temple proper. Here the Vampire King had fashioned a rough holy place for his Sire, and the darkspawn came here to worship and sacrifice to the Great One daily, despite Ungier’s misgivings. Back at Gulrothrog, his subjects had worshipped him. Yet this was part of his penance, he knew, and he must do it if he wanted his Sire’s forgiveness.
Ungier bade the human to lie on the altar, and, in thrall to the vampire, the man did so. He did not protest as Ungier removed the sacrificial knife and slit his throat.
Ungier waited for his thrashing body to still and watched, fascinated, as Gilgaroth ate his soul. As soon as it passed down the Wolf’s gullet, fire and smoke issued forth. The eyes quickened and blazed.
“Ungier,” growled the Wolf.
“They made a fool of me,” said the former Lord of Gulrothrog. He lowered his gaze and knelt before the Wolf, his head bowed. He dared not look up.
“I know,” said the voice. Gilgaroth was a large dark shadow on the other side of the altar with two blazing red eyes.
“I don’t like this plan,” Ungier said. “I don’t like being made sport of before my troops.”
“They are Mine,” growled the Wolf.
Ungier swallowed. “As you say, my Lord.” He hesitated. “Are you sure You would not like to take command of the army?”
“I have come for sport, nothing else. Also, I shall be leaving soon.”
Ungier tried to hide his relief. The question had needed to be asked, but he had dreaded its answer. Hastily he added, “The hundred men were taken in past the walls—by Baleron—just as You said.”
“All is proceeding along the Spider’s web.” Suddenly the terrible eyes blazed hungrily.
Ungier’s mind spun furiously, trying to puzzle out Gilgaroth’s design.
“Is there nothing else?” Gilgaroth said.
There was something else, but Ungier feared to ask it. He wanted a boon of his father, but he did not think now was the time.
“No,” he said.
“Then be gone.”
Ungier gnashed his teeth, rose and left. For a long time, he just stood there at the tunnel mouth, staring at the Borchstogs who flooded in after him, eager to seek audience with the Master. Many brought sacrifices. Some intended to sacrifice themselves.
“Fear not for me, Father,” he whispered. “I will make my way to Krogbur soon, and I will arrive there in glory.”
He did not like having ul Kunraggog here, no matter His great power. Ungier feared his troops would look to Gilgaroth for leadership, not him, and he could little tolerate that. Yet it was the Glorifelans who’d earned his ire today. They had shamed him before his army, and his Sire. It was not long before a method of vengeance occurred to him, and at last he smiled.
Baleron looked up from his position on one of Logran’s couches as the wielder of Light emerged from a back room bearing the sword draped in a blue cloth. The Archmage laid the weapon down on the coffee table and delicately removed the cloth, exposing the naked blade.
“Rondthril,” he said. “I now return you to your master.”
Baleron sucked in a breath. “You said you needed time to see if the darkness could be removed from it, and so I’ve waited. But I can wait no more. It’s a powerful sword and I would wield it, especially now, but I can’t if it shrinks from slaying those possessed by evil.”
“It slew Borchstogs and Grudremorqen handily enough at Gulrothrog. And a few vampires, too, if I’ve heard the stories correctly. Yet even without the sword you have become quite formidable, I must say.”
“The sword seeks death and blood,” Baleron said. “It helped me greatly, and a few Borchstogs more or less are not integral to the Shadow’s will. But the sword cannot oppose his will. I can feel it, and ...” He hesitated. How much to tell the sorcerer? He didn’t want to go into his attempt at finding death on his own terms, so he simply said, “I’ve proven it to my satisfaction.”
“So you would ... oppose the Shadow’s will? Directly?”
“If I can’t, why fight?”
Logran rubbed his bearded chin and frowned. “Ungier poured part of his essence into this sword upon its forging, and it is that which gives the sword its black heart and thirst for blood. The only way to remove the darkness from the blade is to destroy the source of the darkness.”
“Ungier.” Baleron whistled. “That’s a tall order.” Part of him thought, So that’s what Elethris was holding back. No wonder he wouldn’t tell me.
Logran smiled kindly and patted the prince’s knee. “Indeed it is, and I wouldn’t recommend the attempt, especially since Rondthril would be useless against its maker.”
“It frightened him once.”
“It will do no more than that, I assure you. He may not be confident of its fidelity, but I am. I can feel its ... evil.”
“Would Rondthril retain its power—could it still scare, maybe even kill a god—if its evil was removed?”
“Yes. It would still have its power: the sliver of Ungier’s essence only guides its will, it does not give it its strength. Ungier’s dark arts did that, but that is a matter separate from chaining an echo of his own will to the sword. That he did much later, after he’d decided to gift the weapon to his Firstborn. Remember, for a long time this was Ungier’s personal weapon. He used it during Omkarcharoth, back before the very Breaking of the World. But he loved Asguilar—”
“Love! He can’t love.” Yet Baleron remembered Ungier’s feelings toward Rolenya, and he wondered.
“Do not be so sure of that, my boy,” Logran said, as if reading his thoughts. “At any rate, he gave the thing to Asguilar, and should Ungier perish, the echo of his will that he infused Rondthril with would be exorcised. And yet ... such an assassination still remains impossible.”
“I don’t concede that. But tall order, yes, very tall.” Baleron mused darkly, then asked, “Why did he pu
t his will into it?”
“If you were Ungier and you were going to give your son a weapon powerful enough to kill you, wouldn’t you want a safeguard to prevent that from happening?”
“Could it be used against ... other, higher gods?”
Logran raised his eyebrows. “It is loyal to the dark powers.”
“But that’s surely an effect of Ungier’s will. If that was removed ... ?”
Logran frowned. “Possibly.” His eyes narrowed. “But now you’re talking about slaying Gilgaroth himself. Listen to yourself, Baleron! You sound like you’ve gone mad.”
“Perhaps I have.”
Baleron reflected upon what he must do if he wanted to keep the sword that could possibly kill a god. Yet to keep it he must find some other way to kill one!
“Very well,” he said. “Then tell me this: what can kill Ungier?”
Logran sighed. “Like many other gods upon the world, Ungier has taken a form of flesh—indeed, unlike some, he was born of flesh—and that flesh can be destroyed. Though by no mortal weapon.” His kindly face grew deadly serious. “But Baleron, again I advise you not to try. This is your rash side showing, the side your father warned you about. Heed his words, Baleron. Don’t do anything foolish.”
“What weapons could you give me if I decided otherwise?”
“Why, Baleron? Why is this so important to you? If you don’t want an evil blade, cast it out. Have it melted down. Set it aside and choose another.”
“The blade stays. But Ungier must go. So what arms can you give me?”
“This is madness!” Logran rose and began pacing in agitation, waving his arms about. “Folly! You cannot assault Ungier, not shielded by his army, not in the presence of his Father, not with the aid of anything I can give you, and I can give you quite a lot, from armor enchanted to resist dragonfire to charms to ward off a Darkworm’s mind. Magical arrows that don’t miss, armor that makes not a sound and weighs practically nothing. All this and more do I have to give, should I wish. But why should I? So you can run off into the night and get yourself killed, all for what ... a few feet of metal?”