Sworn To Conflict: Courtlight #3

by Edun, Terah

  Ciardis turned impatiently toward Vana, but she couldn’t read her expression. She didn’t know if this interference was a part of Vana’s plan or her mother’s plan. She turned away again.

  Ciardis put a trembling hand on the fur cloak of Prince Sebastian’s shoulder. She had to convince him to back down in front of hundreds of his men. Her golden eyes met his green ones as she pleaded. But even she couldn’t get him to turn aside. He couldn’t afford to look like a coward. Not here. Not now.

  Inga stepped forward until she stood close by Ciardis. “Let him go. This needs to be done.”

  Ciardis stepped back, cold. She felt like they stood on the precipice of evil and were leaping forward.

  He called out to the four archers that stood on frozen tundra, “Archers ready!”

  As one they strung their bows and readied themselves to loose the arrows. Each one targeted their steel-tipped arrows at a single Daemoni.

  “Now,” said Sebastian in the cold morning air. The morning rang with the twang of loosed bows and arrows streaking toward their targets. Each one hit a kneeling Daemoni dead center in the heart.

  As the arrows pierced each condemned Daemoni’s chest, they died with a smile on their faces and a satanic light in their eyes as their bodies tumbled forward into the packed snow. Bright red blood seeped from their wounds, darkening the surrounding snow to a pool of crimson.

  Ciardis stared at the dead Daemoni in horror as a dark mist erupted from their death wounds. Like a cloud of smoke the mists arose in a thick swirl that converged into one in midair. The mist began to swirl with increasing rapidity, like a whirlpool in the center of the sky. Out of the black mist flowed horror.

  Harpies came forth. But these weren’t the harpies of olden times. Their bodies were decomposing, their skin sloughing off, their eyes were black voids in their faces, and four wings rose from their backs, stinking of pestilence. As one, the dozens of harpies screeched and dived down. Straight for the soldiers.

  For the second time in two weeks, the Algardis Army was under attack, and the call went up, “To arms!”

  Strong voices countered the shrieks of the dead harpies as the men swept forward to engage in battle. It was a long, hard, and nasty fight. The harpies didn’t die easily, and the men kept surging forward to meet them and die under their claws. Ciardis grabbed a sword that had been anchored in the ground, awaiting its former owner’s return. With a prayer she swung the sword as hard she could at an oncoming adversary. The female harpy cackled in glee, dodging Ciardis’s clumsy thrust and swiping out with her claws, which glinted with a black poison.

  Ciardis ducked and gratefully watched as a solder took her place to slay the harpy. He carved a diagonal slash from the tip of her breast to her groin. He held his sword in a tight grip, triumphant, as he knew she was about to fall. But the harpy slowly looked up from the diagonal wound that crossed her stomach and a sickening grin blossomed on her face.

  Ciardis watched as the harpy didn’t fall. Instead she leapt forward, face set in a gruesome mask, and aimed her poisonous dagger-like fingers directly at the soldier’s face. Stumbling back, the soldier dodged her again and again until he finally fell, the harpy on top of him. He screamed as she tore his face off, finally cutting a major artery and ending his life.

  The harpy stood up with the spray of his blood on her chest, looked around for her next victim, shrieked, and leapt into battle once more.

  Suddenly Barnaren was by her side. Ciardis didn’t know where Sebastian was, and Kane had become lost in the crowd.

  “Men,” Barnaren’s mighty voice boomed, “hack them to death, burn them, or they will rise again!”

  He called in a raging rope of fire and aimed it like a lash, catching three harpies in his grasp as the fiery rope descended. They burned to ash before Barnaren and Ciardis’s very eyes. With renewed vigor, the soldiers attacked the remaining six harpies, and hacked them to pieces.

  When all the harpies were dead, the surviving men lifted their swords and shields in triumph, but their victorious shouts were short-lived, because a second trial came out of the mist to test them. One man noticed the commotion first. He pointed and shouted at the ground in the clearing, where a black mist bubbled up from the ground surrounding the bodies of the fallen Daemoni.

  As the black mist crept forward over the bodies, a shiver of dread overcame Ciardis. At first she thought her eyes were playing tricks on her, but then she saw the sharp movement of a hand flopping in the clearing. And then a chest began to move. The body sat up. It was a person, a soldier that was still alive.

  She surged forward. “That man—he needs help! He’s alive!”

  She expected soldiers and healers to come with her. What she didn’t expect was for Barnaren to grab her so quickly and harshly as she passed him that she was jerked off her feet and roughly against him.

  “What are you doing?” she cried.

  “Wait, Ciardis,” said Barnaren as she stared up at him. He looked conflicted. He recognized his fallen man.

  “Something’s not right,” he whispered.

  And then the man stood up fully, with jerky movements.

  Ciardis paled. The man had a hole in his chest cavity right where his heart should have been. Should have been, because the hole opened in the front of chest and she could see the open sky behind him through it. She jerked away from Barnaren’s grip and stumbled back. The man should be dead, by all rights.

  “Men,” rumbled Barnaren, “beware. Death walks!”

  They all watched as more and more dead men and harpies rose from the ground where the black mist spread until it had all dissipated. No one said anything. The dead men and harpies didn’t breathe, didn’t speak. As if on invisible cue, they rushed forward in a shambling walk that grew faster and faster the more they experienced movement.

  “Gods help us,” muttered the major from Barnaren’s other side. She looked up at him, taking in the wounds that liberally laced his side and face, and then she met his eyes. On this subject they were in accordance: This day was about to get a lot bloodier.

  This battle wasn’t as clean as the first. For one, the soldiers were fighting their comrades—the men they had just fought alongside, and, in some cases, their friends. They weren’t hesitant, but their hearts weren’t in their task, either. When a dead man made it past the first cordon and behind Kane to Ciardis, she didn’t flinch or shy away, but raised her sword in a swinging arc and cut off its arm.

  Irritated, she raised the sword again. She had been going for his head. But her aim wasn’t perfect. Not yet, anyway.

  Either way she would get the job done. So as the armless dead man came forward, she sliced through a leg that had already been half-hacked off. The sword ran clean through and the dead man tilted comically to the side. Its one arm waving in the air frantically to regain balance. She raised her sword again and she hacked down. She continued to hack down at it as its blood, body fluids, and organ matter flew out of the decomposing body to land all over her face, her hand, her arms and her chest. She didn’t stop hacking until the dead man had stopped moving. By that time it looked like a rudely chopped lump of flesh and leather, and she was breathing hard by its side while leaning on her sword.

  The battle in the distance registered in her ears as she rose from the dark trance she’d been in. When she looked up she noticed a group of soldiers standing around solemnly. They were all looking at her and the dead corpse. She didn’t like it.

  “Well?” she snapped to wake them from their trance.

  She heard more than one man say, “Can’t let the lass outdo us, can we?”

  They fought on with renewed vigor. An hour passed, more fighting continued until finally all of the living dead were truly dead. No dead arms or legs moved. No more shivering groans from mouths unable to speak. Peace reigned over the battlefield.

  Ciardis slumped to the ground. Relieved. But she spent very little time feeling relieved. She looked up and cursed. And then she cursed again; the damn mis
t was reappearing.

  “How many trials are we going to go through?” she snapped.

  “Three,” said Vana, who stood by her side.

  “Always three,” agreed Inga from her far left.

  Out of the mist emerged a voice, a voice as old as the Earth itself, that brought to mind evil incarnate. “Death was only the first.” Apprehension slivered down Ciardis’s spine. She turned to the general. “What did that mean?”

  As she finished that sentence, the sky erupted once more. This time true poison flowed from inside the dark mist. A dark cloud came forth and the mist disappeared. Ciardis watched uneasily, as did all the soldiers. The mist was forming into a shape with claws and a sinuous body. She waited with all the soldiers as they watched it solidify. Hoping against hope that it wasn’t more of the undead or a hail of spidersilk.

  One soldier realized what was happening before everyone else, and he screamed, “Ware! A wyvern ware!”

  Ciardis turned to him, shocked. “It looks nothing like a wyvern.”

  “And what does a wyvern look like?” said Sebastian, materializing by her side.

  She had no answer. “A legless dragon with a voice like poison upon a dark cloud,” he said flatly, listing off the description as if were a lesson from a nursery rhyme. It probably was.

  “What’s it waiting for?” said the general with growl.

  Apparently the general.

  The sinuous wyvern emerged from the cloud with an almighty shriek. It was a dark purple color with coal-red eyes, and it was heading straight for them. Sebastian grabbed Ciardis abruptly and threw her to the side, following close behind. But the wyvern wasn’t after them. It darted with unwavering certainty for one man. General Barnaren, Commander of the Imperial Army. The general didn’t flinch; he raised a fiery sword that grew to five times his height and yelled out his challenge.

  The wyvern came down and the general swung his sword with the grace and strength of a born warrior. It hit the underbelly of the wyvern in an arc of power, splitting it clean open. Ciardis almost cheered. But the head of the wyvern snapped back from where it had arced behind the general and bit clean through the armor underneath his arm.

  The general shouted in pain and brought the fiery sword down, severing the head from body in a clean sweep. The wyvern fell to the ground in two pieces, and the general stumbled away and eventually fell, as well. His men were silent for a moment and then began shouting for healers. As Maris came running and the Prince Heir took command, ordering a perimeter to be set, the wounded to be taken away, and the area swept for any enemies still living, Ciardis knelt with shaky legs by the general’s face.

  She flashed back to their Blood Hunt as she licked dry lips.

  Reading her eyes, the general said, “Brings back fond memories, doesn’t it?”

  She let loose a shaky laugh as tears graced her eyes. “Yes, but just like then you’ll be fine.”

  He laughed. “You don’t know the legends, do you?”

  Ciardis shook her head. “With the bite of a wyvern comes death,” he recited softly.

  “Enough,” said Maris. “You’re not dying.”

  Neither Ciardis nor Barnaren believed her.

  When Maris opened up his armor to see the wound in his side, they all blanched at the black sores and pus that met their gazes. It had only been minutes, and his right side had already putrefied.

  Maris sucked in a harsh breath. She turned to her assistant. “Get three head healers here now.” She roared the last word and turned back to her patient.

  “Maris,” Barnaren said with a smile, “you’ve served me well.”

  He turned to his second-in-command. “You know what must be done, Batheas.”

  The major nodded and walked off.

  “Ciardis,” said the general.

  “It’s fine, you’ll be all right! Don’t waste your breath,” she quickly interjected, rambling.

  “Let me say what needs to be said,” he commanded firmly. “You need to know this.”

  “Let me get Sebastian,” she said, looking around.

  “No! I said you.” His voice was firm, his eyes sure.

  Ciardis looked into his eyes and knew what he had to say would be vital. She focused all of her will and attention on the dying general.

  “Do you know why I was so caustic to you when you confronted me about the Sarvinians and the Daemoni?” he said, wheezing for a breath.

  She shook her head, silent.

  “Because I wanted you to be angry with me. Because even if you distrusted me, you would do right by the people around you,” he said. “I know you, Weathervane. You do what is good, what is right, even when you hate a person. I trusted that you would fulfill your duty here no matter the cost. No matter what.”

  “And now that we have defeated the three tests, we have time,” he said.

  She sucked in a sharp breath. “You knew. You knew what would come from the Daemoni deaths.”

  “I knew,” he admitted. “The knowledge has been passed down in my family. The old gods believe in ritual. Follow their rituals and beat them at their own game. The three deaths and the defeat of the three wards of the bluttgott ensure that we will have time before he comes forth. At least half a year’s cycle.”

  “Time for what?” she asked.

  “Time for you to prepare the empire. We don’t have the object. You don’t need it. Not to imprison him once more. You need the dragons. Get them on your side. Fight the war with them, and you will win.”

  He jerked up in a spasm, and then lay back with his eyes closed.

  The man who had served his empire the only way he knew how died before her eyes.

  Chapter 24

  As they moved back to the camp, Ciardis said to Sebastian, “We have to go back to court. We have to convince them of the danger and get everyone to fight against the blutgott when he comes.”

  “We don’t know if or when he’s coming,” countered Sebastian.

  Ciardis looked at him as if she didn’t know him. “Did you see the same battle that I just did?”

  “Yes,” Sebastian said, “but I’m not convinced we can’t contain it from here.”

  “Contain it?” Ciardis said with disbelief at the same time another voice said, “You can’t. It’s impossible.”

  Ciardis was surprised to see her often-missing Companions’ Guild sponsor standing before them. Otherwise known as her mother, Lillian Weathervane.

  “M—” She had almost slipped and called her “Mother” until she saw the sharp look on her mother’s face.

  “Lady Serena,” said Ciardis after correcting herself. “What are you doing here?”

  “My,” said Serena with a cold smile, “that’s no way to speak to your sponsor.”

  Ciardis shook her head, fumbling to act normal. “It is when good men died all around us and you hid.”

  Sebastian watched Lady Serena with a blank face. Ciardis could tell he felt the same way but was too well trained to show it.

  Serena stepped forward and hissed, “You have no idea where I have been or what I have done in the name of the empire.”

  Ciardis rolled her eyes. “Take a number. There are many good people who have died in the service of this empire.”

  “People like Caemon?” Serena said, her voice a taunt.

  Ciardis rounded on her in a fury. “How dare you talk about my brother!” Forgetting for the moment that she spoke to her mother. The woman stood in front of her looked and acted like the very vision of her despised sponsor with beautiful blue eyes and perfectly coiffed blonde hair. Not a drop of blood anywhere on her or a mark on her clothes, while Ciardis stood carrying a sword that dripped with blood, in tunic and pants covered in gore.

  “He was trying to help,” Ciardis said through gritted teeth.

  “Let that be a lesson to you, Miss Weathervane,” Serena said with sharp and cautioning eyes. “An untrained Weathervane who stumbles around poking her head into places will end up doing more harm than good.”
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  Ciardis settled back as she read Serena’s eyes. They may have been blue, but she could see compassion in them, buried deep, and knew her mother was under that illusion. And more than that, she was warning her of eminent danger.

  Ciardis nodded in understanding.

  “I’ll be more wary in the future.” It was as much of an apology as Ciardis was willing to give for her hasty actions in the sanctuary that had allowed the Daemoni to draw enough power to wreak havoc in the first place.

  General Barnaren’s second-in-command, Batheas, came forward and said, “I’ve sent orders to the men to regroup and scour the fields for any lingering effects. We’ll have the bodies gathered together for a proper burial.”

  He continued, “The Daemoni and the Harpies are in a pile, being prepared to be burned.”

  “Thank you, Major,” said Sebastian.

  The man snapped a salute and went back to ordering his subordinates around.

  When Ciardis turned back around, Lady Serena had disappeared again. She sighed in irritation and looked over to the growing pile of kith bodies. The enemies lay haphazardly on the small mound. Even from a distance, she saw a whole body lying at its base.

  She swallowed and gripped her sword tightly, walking forward. She wasn’t ready to cry out an alarm. He wasn’t moving. It was just so strange to see an intact body after the hours of hacking and slashing. As she got closer to the reclining form, she recognized him. It was Thanar. He lay untouched by blood and gore. His hair fell in wisps across his forehead and in a long braid down his side. If he hadn’t been lying back on a pile of bodies and there wasn’t a small hole in his chest where blood blossomed in a ring, she would have thought he was sleeping.

  And then she said, “What happened to the arrow that slew you?”

  It wasn’t anywhere near his reclining body. She had checked. And yet it should have been dead center in his chest.

  She stared at him and noted the uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach. She turned to run and call for a guard but before she did Thanar’s hand shot up from the ground. His dead hand. She let loose a scream, one of primal fear. But it made no sound. Her mouth opened, her vocal cords moved, but nothing emitted from her throat. She felt a curious sensation crawling up her arm, like the feel of fire. It held her in place, unable to move, and reminded her uncomfortably of the truth serum which had been used on her.