King Jarrek had no sooner gotten himself to safety, and had his wind back, when he heard the shouts that the secondary wall had been breached to the north. He was getting too old for this sort of thing. His bones ached, and his muscles sang. He decided to go find Queen Willa, and see if he might help her find a way to survive the coming madness. These men were brave and true, and fighting with all they had in them, but Jarrek didn’t even dare hope that any of them would survive.
Pael, and his Choska demon, and now several slick, black, acid-mouthed wyverns, seemed to be everywhere. He wasn’t sure he could even survive the trip back to the castle. At least the dragon had fled. He was curious to know what happened at the top of the Royal Tower. They had all thought that Queen Willa had been lost, until she stood atop a crenel, and gave the official signal to close, and lock the secondary gates.
As King Jarrek approached the inner gate, the gate to the castle grounds, half a hundred bowmen leaned down and took aim at him. The Gate Captain had a panicky look about him.
“Remove the helm!” he ordered.
King Jarrek did so, and recognized the fear in the captain’s eyes when he scowled up into them.
“Gates…Open the gates!” the captain screamed. “Go Tuck! Go Walden! Find the red-armored impostor! He might be after the Queen! Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!”
Jarrek gave the Gate Captain a puzzled look, then squeezed through the slight crack of the still opening portal, and wasn’t surprised when it started closing just as soon as he was clear. Save for the large formations of soldiers waiting to fortify the wall, the fountain pond area, and the forested park around it, seemed as peaceful as could be.
Looking back up at the scared captain, Jarrek called out. “What is it, man? What’s got your gunkin?”
“He was clad in red armor as you are,” the stricken captain replied. “I only now noticed the wolf skull on your helmet. Nobody questioned his cause, because we thought he was you. I should’ve known he wasn’t right. He had the smell of death upon him something awful. I thought it might just be from the battle, but now he’s gone to the castle. He might try for the Queen.”
Both of Jarrek’s Redwolf guardsmen had been on the wall with the archers when the battle had begun, and neither of them had been wearing their heavy plate armor. Jarrek had seen that whole section of wall blasted away. It was impossible for either of them to have come through here wearing their Redwolf armor. An excited tingle of hope started to creep into his heart, but then, just as quickly, the feeling turned to concern. “The smell of death upon him,” the captain had said.
At once, King Jarrek bolted after Tuck and Walden. He ran as fast as he could, in his loud, awkward fitting shell. He didn’t relish the idea of facing Brady Culvert in battle, even if the young man was already dead, but he would. He’d be damned if he’d let one of his men, one of his best friend’s sons, leave a taint upon the honor of his elite guard. It saddened him to think that the lad had been turned into one of Pael’s undead things, and he found he had to swallow back a lump, and blink away the moisture from his eyes, as he ran.
He caught up with them on an otherwise empty stretch of tree-lined cobble path, and was only surprised by the smell of the youngest, and most fearsome of his Redwolf guards.
The young man looked half dead, but he wasn’t. He held his helmet in his hands, and was only staring blankly at the two guardsmen, who had drawn their swords, and cornered him against the trees. His armor was filthy with gore and caked blood, and there was no sword in his scabbard. He looked haggard, and pale under all the grime. His bloodshot eyes were rimmed crimson, and sunken deep into their sockets. He made no move to attack, nor did he defend himself. When King Jarrek stepped up to him, Brady began to cry, and crumbled to his knees, sobbing. The young man only smelled of rotten flesh. Jarrek had no doubt that Brady was still alive. What he had come through to get there, or how he had gotten through the ranks of undead, and ended up at the castle’s inner gates, Jarrek couldn’t begin to guess, so he didn’t try. He helped the boy to his feet, and commanded the two gatesmen to bear the stench, take a place on each side of Brady, and escort him into the castle, to be cleaned up and cared for.
“It’s all right now, Brady,” Jarrek said the fatherly lie, to comfort his longtime friend’s obviously distraught son. “It’s going to be all right now.”
Jarrek just wished he could find away to believe the words himself.
When Mikahl suddenly turned, and pointed his sword at Pael, and let loose a pulsing magical blast, it took the demon-wizard by surprise. The energy hit Pael full in the face, sending him spinning head over boot heels backwards, off the Choska. The winged demon was forced to dive quickly to avoid a collision with Ironspike, or Mikahl’s Bright Horse. Pael righted his tumble and came to a hover in midair. His hands churned with blinding speed the makings of another spell. Mikahl listened to the symphony of the sword, and made ready. It pleased him, and gave him hope, to see blood dripping from the wizard’s nose and mouth.
The streak of white energy that shot from Pael’s hands struck the magical shield before Mikahl, with violent force. Though it brought him or his flaming steed no direct harm, it drove them backwards through the air with tremendous power. When the spell subsided, Mikahl returned the attack, and once again, Pael was caught in a moment of shock.
The demon-wizard couldn’t believe that Mikahl had survived the amount of raw energy he had just released at him. Pael’s own magical shield came up a heartbeat too late, and he found himself being yanked toward the ground, as if by a spring-loaded cable.
The Choska swept by Mikahl so close, that he felt its claws graze across his skin. He twisted, and stabbed at the beast with Ironspike’s white-hot blade, but only found thin air.
Pael somehow undid what the sword had done to him, just before he slammed into the earth. He hesitated there, just above a litter of charred, mangled bodies, trying to gather his composure. The Choska quickly flew around, and under him. Once he was back on it, and situated in a riding position, he twisted, turned, and scanned the skies. To his maddening surprise, the Squire, and the flaming Pegasus were nowhere to be seen.
For the first time, since he had absorbed Shokin’s Power into himself, Pael found that he was concerned, if not a little afraid. He directed the Choska back towards the city, cautiously searching the sky as he went. He spat thick, dark blood from his mouth with disgust, as his eyes darted frantically to and fro. Over there, then below him, he craned his neck, and twisted to see if he was being pursued now. He didn’t like this anymore. He should disappear too, he told himself. He could do that quite effectively, but not just yet. He wanted to make a lasting impression on the battlefield, so that his presence would remain fresh in the mind of the Witch Queen, and every single one of her Blacksword soldiers.
The Choska circled high, and then came down, streaking across the front of the castle. As he passed them, Pael blasted away the huge stained glass depictions that had shown over Xwarda for centuries. Like an explosion of jewels, millions of glittering, but deadly fragments, exploded out across the forest park, into and over Whitten Loch, and out into the inner city, where battle upon battle still raged wildly. Then Pael came around again. The Choska was flying at neck breaking speed. From its back, Pael sent a wicked jet of wizard’s fire out into the park. A huge swathe of trees, turned from green to brown, then to black, before erupting into bluish-green flames. Smoke began to fill the air, and nearly a quarter of the park was ablaze in demon’s fire.
Pael laughed maniacally at the potency of his display, and reveled in the rush of all his demonic power. Already, he had all but forgotten Mikahl and the Bright Horse. It was a costly mistake.
From out of nowhere, Mikahl shot across the Choska’s path. Pael ducked, and let his magical shields protect him. After they passed, it took the wizard a few, long moments to realize that most of the Choska demon’s head was no longer attached to its body. Ironspike had not only decapitated the creature, it had taken its soul.
Queen Willa stood speechless, looking down from her tower top, as a cheer rang through her troops, and the dark blood of the winged demon-beast, slowly turned the clear pristine water of Whitten Loch a deep, inky black.
When she looked out at the many battles being fought across the inner city, she saw the afternoon sun play upon the millions of tiny colored fragments of stained glass. Such beauty amid such horror, she thought. The dead, the dying, and the ones, who refused to fall, attackers and defenders alike, hacking, stabbing, and killing each other, in the middle of a field, full of sparkling jewels.
As if in agreement with the sick irony of the scene before them, Talon cooed from her shoulder, and bobbed his feathered head.
Chapter 57
Throughout the remainder of the day, Pael appeared at various places around the city. He never stayed more than a moment or two at any given place, but where there was Pael, there was destruction. Unconcerned now with preserving any part of the inner city, or its ancient structures, and seething with anger and fear, Pael began to methodically decimate Xwarda.
In the southern section of the city, a few hundred Blacksword soldiers were finally getting a large group of the undead corralled, until Pael came. Where the men were driving back the undead, buildings on each side of the street exploded. Brick, stone, splintered wood, and glass shards cut into their numbers. Pael was gone before the dust settled, leaving nothing, but a bloody, pulpy mess on the cobbles.
A fresh battalion of Highwander soldiers, who had just been sent forth from the castle to help defend the breach Pael’s earlier quake had caused, met the demon-wizard at their destination. Lightning flared from his fingertip. One, then two, then four, then eight of the Blacksword soldiers fell. Again, Pael sent forth a shocking blast, and another, until the way was filled with nothing, but smoking corpses. A moment later, Pael was somewhere else.
A brutal swathe of bright, static energy evaporated an entire block full of men and buildings. A jet of wizard fire sent a group of cavalrymen’s horses stampeding blindly through the cobbled streets with smoldering flanks and sizzling manes. Anything that got in the way was trampled, and most of the riders were thrown, and forgotten.
In the northern section of the city, a hundred or more Highwander men laid in a slumped formation, spelled asleep, in the middle of the avenue. The huge, boar-like creature Pael had summoned was having a feast on their still living flesh. The men were powerless to stop it, and when the Hell Boar’s powerful teeth dug into them, and broke the spell they were under, it was too late.
In the east, a meteor-like sphere of flaming death came crashing down into the mercantile portion of Xwarda. More than four square blocks were leveled, and almost a thousand men were crushed, pummeled, or roasted.
In his rage, the demon-wizard was seemingly unstoppable.
Mikahl, who was still flying on the back of the Bright Horse, tried as hard as he could to catch Pael in the act. He raced across the city, from disaster to disaster, but was always just a bit too late to spot the wily demon-wizard. He dispatched a wyvern, and crumbled a horde of undead soldiers to the ground with a pulsing blast from Ironspike’s blade. He headed off a flank attack of Pael’s dead men, and saved a few hundred Blacksword soldiers from being surprised. He killed an uncounted number of undead soldiers, sending their tainted souls into oblivion with a touch of his blade, but he couldn’t catch Pael.
Finally, as the sun began to set, he decided that there was only one thing left for him to do. He landed the Bright Horse in the center of the destruction Pael’s earlier quake had caused, and dismounted.
At once, the flaming Pegasus was gone. Mikahl wobbled on unsteady legs, but quickly mastered himself. He called out, taunting Pael, using every insult he could think of. He even sheathed Ironspike, so that he was momentarily unprotected by its magic. Standing there, in his gore saturated robe, he felt for the first time the intense brunt of the pain that Ironspike’s magic had been masking from him. It was excruciating. His body hurt so badly that he could barely think, but he continued to call out the demon-wizard, man to man. Unprotected, and reeling from the unhealed injuries the Choska had inflicted on him back in the forest, he waited. It was all he could think to do.
As they raced across the continent on Claret’s back, the bindings Queen Willa had placed on Shaella, began to unravel. Hyden had to physically wrap an arm around her waist, and keep his other hand over her mouth to keep her from spelling him. Sometime in the middle of the night, he had Claret land them in an aromatic pasture, full of knee-high grazing grass. The hoof-beating rumble of a retreating herd of animals faded from them, leaving only the sounds of the insects, and the dragon’s heavy, slightly winded, breathing. The half moon high overhead, tinted the swaying carpet of grass beneath them with a yellowish light.
Hyden wrestled Shaella from her seat, and shoved her from the dragon’s back. She landed in an awkward heap, still clutching her staff as if it held the world in its crystal headpiece. As soon as she gained her feet, she began to cast a spell, but Claret’s big horned head, and toothy maw curled around, and loomed in the darkness beside her, reminding her of the reality of her situation. The casting of her spell stopped immediately. It was all Shaella could do to keep from retching from the sulfuric stench of the dragon’s hot breath. To her credit, she showed no fear whatsoever, only furious indignation over what she had let happen.
“I’ll ask you only once,” Hyden said down to her. “If you tell the truth, I’ll leave you to your fate. If you lie to me, then Claret here will gladly roast far more than the rest of the hair from your head. Am I being clear?”
Shaella didn’t respond. She turned, and glared at Claret’s huge, unblinking yellow eye. She knew that, through the link of the collar, the dragon could tell Hyden anything it knew. She cursed herself for carelessly sharing her feelings with the beast. Then, with a scrunched up face, she looked back up at her lover’s older brother.
Her face was tight, and dark with emotion, save for the pale scar that ran down the one cheek like a tear drop.
“Is he alive?” Hyden asked. “Did you betray him? Did he go into that dark place? Is he still alive?”
Having Hyden place the blame on her, caused her to stiffen, but his brotherly concern for Gerard softened her resolve more than just a little bit. If she truly loved Gerard, or what was once Gerard, then she couldn’t lie to his flesh and blood about what had happen to him.
“The Gerard you know is dead, but I love what he is now, no less than I loved him before.” Her answer was no lie, and through Claret, Hyden knew it.
“What has he become, then?” Hyden didn’t understand.
“Ask the dragon,” answered Shaella coldly. “Between my father’s insane magic, and the effects of the dragon’s yolk, what’s left of Gerard is barely alive, and trapped in the Nethers.”
She turned then, and strode stiffly off into the darkness, wiping the tears from her face as she went.
Hyden had to stop Claret from blasting her with dragon’s fire. He wasn’t sure if it was the tears she had shed, the look in her eyes, or the knowledge of the depth of her love for Gerard, but he felt in his heart, that she had been truthful, and he didn’t want to kill her.
She truly had, and still did, love his little brother. Part of Hyden wanted to kill her, and if Mikahl ever recovered from his injuries, he would probably never forgive him for not doing so. But what’s a Dragon Queen without a dragon? There would be time to deal with her later. He was about to be forced to seal his brother into a blackened void full of demon kind, evil spirits, and al
l other manner of dark things. If Mikahl couldn’t understand the show of compassion, then so be it. Gerard had loved Shaella. Through Claret’s memory he had seen the last moments of his brother’s life. His brother had loved her as well. How could he possibly kill her?
As Claret lifted back into flight, Hyden tried to clear the mess from his head. He knew what he had to do when they got to the Seal. If he could figure out how to dissolve the Night Shard into the carved symbols, he would have to do it. There was no sense in tormenting himself over it. With a deep sadness gnawing at his heart, he closed his eyes, and sought out Talon’s vision.
Outside of the city’s innermost wall, the wall that protected the palace itself, the city of Xwarda was a smoldering ruin. The moonlight, the wavering illumination from the scores of burning structures, and the thick smell of rotting corpses, lent the place a hellish air. The shrill, repetitive call of a wyvern, and the horrific pleas of a dying man only added to that sense. It was no place for the living, and every man who still drew breath, was doing his best to retreat to the pseudo safety of the castle grounds.
All along the top of the castle’s defensive wall, men raced to and fro. Archers held off the undead, while groups of exhausted soldiers retreated in from the city to the castle grounds. The Highwander Magi used fire, smoke, and a plethora of illusions to confuse the dark enemy, so that as many men as possible could get inside the gates.
The castle’s wall remained intact, but it didn’t give the feel of safety to those behind it anymore. Their final defensive fortification was the oldest, and least formidable of the three protective walls that ringed Whitten Loch and the palace. The other two walls had not just been breached, but had been pulverized – leveled in some places. Everyone knew that it was only a matter of time before this wall fell as well.
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