Ryin Ayend streaked overhead, launching fire spells to left and right, devastating balls of flame directed at the Raiders still trapped on this side of the moat. His face was twisted with fury, and Cyrus suspected that the long-held anger that the druid had been feeling toward him was being excised from his soul like venom drawn from a wound.
The sound of wolves in the distance gave way to the sound of wolves nearby, and Menlos Irontooth released his dogs of war. They leapt into action, dragging strong warriors down as the Northman plunged his blade into the fighters of Amarath’s Raiders. “Invade my country, will you?” he called, dealing death to one of them. “We’ll see how you like it when my steel invades your chests!”
“I don’t think they’ll much care for it,” Vara muttered as she edged close to Cyrus, letting loose with another force blast that sent another thirty or so Raiders, including spellcasters hiding behind their armored compatriots, into the moat. She quickly followed with an ice spell of her own, trapping more of them under than Cyrus had.
“You too, Vara?” Erith asked, closer to the front rank than Cyrus had ever seen her. The dark elven healer clutched her short sword awkwardly as she stared at the moat.
“I know some of these loathsome curs,” Vara said, not taking her eyes off the battle as she laid into a trio of rangers that was trying desperately to escape her. “They were the ones who laughed and jested as I lay bleeding my life’s blood out upon the soil of the Trials of Purgatory.” Her eyes were dark and furious, and she swept them left and right, clearly searching for someone in particular. “It would appear that this is a day of settling scores.” She turned to Cyrus. “Shall we ascend to the walls of the keep?”
“I think so, yes,” Cyrus said with a nod. “Calene, Longwell, Erith, Ryin—” He caught movement out of the corner of his eye as Zarnn and the trolls thundered onto the scene. “Zarnn, too—you’re with us.” He threw out a hand and cast Falcon’s Essence upon them, and their boots rose from the ground.
“Amarath’s Raiders has trolls, too,” Vara said, nodding. “They’re likely at the vanguard upon the parapets.”
“Then let’s meet them force for force,” Cyrus said, lunging into the air, leaving the ground behind him. He smiled as he ran across the empty sky, the arrows raining down only moments earlier at an end. “And let’s hope your old flame is up there with them.”
“Yes, let’s,” Vara said, icy determination fueling her, a cold smile frozen to her face. “And when we find him, I suppose I’ll finally have to show him what a very big mistake he made on the day when he betrayed me.”
62.
Cyrus surged through the teeth of the crenellations atop Isselhelm Keep’s wall like he was jumping through a window. There were two warriors waiting on either side, their attention focused entirely on the bailey beneath, and so Cyrus stabbed through them both without much thought, ripping them both in half at the waist. There was a small army gathered around the tower, some hundred or more he estimated, and so he concentrated and lobbed a fire spell right into their midst. It hit at the middle of the ground and burst like a sheep’s bladder filled with too much water, swallowing up countless men and women in armor and robes beneath its furious ire.
Cyrus ran along the parapets, ripping through the next ranger he encountered, slashing the man’s arm off through his chainmail, the man staring at his bloody, squirting stump as Cyrus removed his head swiftly. Even if they’ve got healers, I’m not going to give them a chance to resurrect in my wake. Let them try to bring back the dead only to lose them screaming to death once more. I hope they do. I hope they waste their magic on this, over and over. He cut through another ranger, this one turning his back to flee, Cyrus’s blade slicing through his green cloak and upward, splitting his head as the strike rose, adding a jerk at the end to remove at least a quarter of the skull with a flick of his wrist.
Cyrus swept his gaze back over the bailey courtyard and the chaos he had unleashed below. Ryin was now pumping fire spells down upon them as well, dropping in a rain that reminded Cyrus of the olden days when the Sanctuary army could bombard its foes from a distance. Ryin’s spells were landing with furious effect, the druid standing at the edge of the parapet—
And suddenly Ryin was no longer standing at the edge of the parapet; he was tumbling, tossed through the air, flying over the carnage. He slammed into the tower in the middle of the keep and then dropped like an egg turned loose. He crashed to the ground, blood seeping out of his head and face and his eyes staring toward the heavens.
“Son of a—” Cyrus had seen what had happened; it was the troll with the beard, the one that had watched Cyrus since he’d arrived, his black facial hair reminding Cyrus of a ship’s captain he’d once seen in the port at Reikonos. “You!” he called as Vara tore herself from slaying a hapless warrior. She was only twenty steps from the troll, who was backed by at least six of his fellows, all hulking and standing on the parapets, staring across at Cyrus, Vara, Calene, Longwell and Erith.
“Oggran?” Zarnn called, the remaining trolls with him, trying to squeeze through the crenellations. Zarnn was the only one who had made it.
“That’s not my name,” the troll who had flung Ryin to his death said, slow smile splitting his lips. He waved a hand toward the edge of the parapet where the other trolls were still squeezing in behind Zarnn, and immediately they dropped, their Falcon’s Essence stripped. One managed to rip down a crenellation with him, but he fell, leaving Zarnn the only troll among them, his face twisting as he looked upon the traitor and his fellows.
“You,” Vara said from atop the parapet as Cyrus ran up to join them, knotting the remaining Sanctuary survivors together. “You were an officer of Endeavor …” Cyrus tried to cast a healing spell under his breath, just to see if he was right; no light appeared. Yeah, he’s casting cessation. Damn.
“He’s not with Endeavor anymore,” came a voice from down in the bailey. Black smoke rose where the spells Cyrus and the others had cast had done their work. Cyrus could see some ten or so survivors below, and at their center … was Archenous Derregnault.
“My name is Grunt,” the troll said with a toothy grin, and Cyrus remembered at last why this troll looked so familiar; he had met him once, outside the Endeavor guildhall, staring him down hard after their first trip through the Trials of Purgatory. “And I am an officer of Amarath’s Raiders,” the troll finished, as the six more at his back raised their weapons, ready to charge down Cyrus and the last few members of Sanctuary in the keep.
63.
Zarnn split the air with a bellow of deepest, heart-churning rage and charged at the trolls gathered behind Grunt. Grunt stepped aside, amusement lighting his bearded face as Zarnn slammed into the nearest two trolls, knocking one over and hammering at the second.
“Get them!” Cyrus shouted and charged with the rest. Erith drifted back, fear plain in her eyes. Cyrus found her conduct entirely sensible; the unfamiliar sword in her hand still shook as she gaped at what lay before them. Calene faded back as well, drawing her bow and loosing an arrow; it thudded into the back of one of the trolls now grappling with Zarnn, drawing a grunt of pain that was barely audible over the sound of Zarnn’s outraged shouts and the blows he landed on the troll.
Longwell met one with his lance, extending his weapon. It was batted aside by one of the trolls surging ahead, charging at them along the narrow parapet. Vara ducked past, elbowing the troll as she went by, knocking him off balance before he could exploit and follow up his attack on Longwell. She struck out at one of the trolls and another came at her from the side. She parried deftly but was immediately in danger of being overwhelmed as a third closed in on her.
Cyrus shot ahead, lunging past her to plunge Rodanthar into the troll’s hand as he swept out with an ugly mace that was made of wood with spikes driven through it. Grunt lurked just behind this one, watching Cyrus through furious eyes, backing up to the clear ground beyond the worst of the fighting. His eyes were locked on Cyrus’s, beckoning him
forward.
Cyrus took the invitation, removing the hand of the troll who had rushed to meet him with the mace. He shouldered his quarry hard, sending him plummeting over the edge of the parapet. He heard the troll hit the ground in the bailey below, hard, skull cracking against some unyielding surface.
“The fiercest warrior in the land comes for me,” Grunt said, drawing a jagged blade from beneath his tunic. It was no makeshift weapon; this was a mystical blade, at least. “But you’re not just a warrior anymore, are you? You’ve become more.” He flexed his free hand, fingers glowing again as he recast the cessation spell. “I’ve become more, too, thanks to you heretics.” He grinned, his lower canines jutting out of his lip like crags from a canyon. “I used to be just a dark knight, did you know that?”
“And now you’re a traitor,” Cyrus said, sweeping forward with cold precision, heading straight for Grunt, “and soon you’ll be a corpse. It’s a steady progression, and a very natural one springing from your terrible, terrible choice of enemies.”
Grunt raised his sword as Cyrus came in at him. “I think I’ve picked my enemies wisely; whole nations oppose you, Davidon.”
“Whole nations have fallen before me,” Cyrus said, sweeping in. Grunt met his attack with his own sword, blunting the force of the blow sideways.
“Your ego is out of control,” Grunt said with a laugh, kicking out and landing his foot squarely in the middle of Cyrus’s chest. Pain shot through Cyrus’s breastbone as he was thrown back five feet, and he realized that the troll’s weapon was not merely mystical in origin.
Grunt laughed and brandished his sword. “It’s no godly weapon, this, but I did pick it up in one of the upper realms. As good as you can get without it being forged by one of the deities.” He grinned wider. “And it certainly makes me a match for you—it and my troll strength, anyway.”
The troll pressed his attack against Cyrus, coming at him in a sweeping, butchering swing that would have parted Cyrus’s head from his shoulders had he not ducked just in time. As Cyrus spun away, he saw the fight unfolding behind him in a flash; Longwell had fallen back, standing between Erith and Calene, driven toward them by the relentless troll attacking him. Zarnn had his back against the crenellations, both his quarries hammering at him, his arms up in front of him, bleeding from wrists to elbows under their combined assaults. And Vara …
Vara was sandwiched between two trolls with blades, both coming at her at once. She whirled between them, sweat rolling down her face, unable to get a clear advantage over either, her every motion growing increasingly desperate.
“You have no hope,” Grunt said, coming at Cyrus again, swift and hard with an overhand strike. Cyrus blocked it against Rodanthar and Grunt kicked out again, this time striking him as he tried to sidestep, hitting him in squarely in the knee. Cyrus grunted in agony. “All Arkaria’s against you.” Grunt drove forward again and Cyrus was slower to move this time, his knee aching as he tried to put weight on it. “We will press down on you—” Grunt slammed his blade against Rodanthar and Cyrus’s strength nearly failed as the pain lanced through him. “And we will continue, with numbers greater than you can muster, with strength more than you can count on, until you have nothing left to give—” He slammed his blade down again, grinning, backing Cyrus to the edge of the parapet and drawing back for a final strike. “We will win, in the end, because you will have nothing left—and nowhere to run.”
With that, Grunt drove his sword forward, low, hard and unavoidable, the blade rushing to sink right into Cyrus’s unguarded face—
64.
The troll’s attack was fast and merciless, a blow aimed to sever Cyrus’s head clean from his body. It was centered perfectly, and coming in swift with the speed endowed by the troll’s sword. Cyrus saw it coming, but there was no way to duck, no direction to flee. He could only take the hit—
But he could take it where he wanted it to go.
Cyrus leapt up on the balls of his toes, a jump of six inches, and the point of the sword hit him in the center of the chest. Grunt’s eyes flashed, from cold satisfaction in victory to hot rage in seeing his sure win dissipate in the space of a second.
The blow hurt; there was no denying that. Although Cyrus’s armor withstood the point, it pushed the metal breastplate, padding and all, into his breastbone. It was no gentle tap, either; if it had hit him full in the face, Cyrus knew his nose, mouth and eyes would have been bisected neatly down the middle, with the point of the sword coming to rest at least a foot behind his head.
Instead, all that force ran through him, pushing him back as though he’d leapt in front of a battering ram manned by rock giants. He floundered, whipping Rodanthar around in an afterblow as if in a slow, dismal dream. It came around in his hand as he began to take flight away from Grunt, the tip of the sword catching the troll in the neck and ripping across—
The spray of green blood obscured the look on Grunt’s face, which started with horror and surprise at the eyes and spread down to the mouth, his jaw dropping, though that was obscured behind the blood as it geysered into the air between them.
Cyrus felt a smile of his own spread across his face as the sword completed its cut and he watched the blade nick the other vein in the troll’s throat, Grunt’s eyes disappearing behind the spray of swampy green, near-black blood.
Cyrus tried to regain his footing as he flew. His toe skidded against stone for a second and then lost its grasp. He was tilting now, spinning away from the spectacle of Grunt dropping his sword to grope for his slit throat with both hands, the fear obvious in his eyes.
As Cyrus tilted away from the force of the troll’s blow, he realized at last why he had not been able to touch back down upon the stone parapet.
He was no longer upon the parapet; he was now flying over the bailey, dropping precipitously, some thirty feet toward the ground below—
His whispered attempt at Falcon’s Essence, muttered in haste and fear, found no purchase, and there was no soft stop to his fall this time. Cyrus landed hard, on his right leg, and the bone broke cleanly, screaming agony running all up the side and middle like someone had stabbed him properly in the thigh and knee. He felt hard points all pressed through the muscle and bone, as though they were being twisted, as though fire were being applied to every surface within and without, and it was all he could do to hold in the scream.
He had the presence of mind after a few seconds to try a healing spell, but when that failed he lost his head once more, clenching his eyes shut and crying aloud in his own head. He did manage to keep his mouth shut, but only just. The smell of mud and manure was thick in the air around him, and the ground was sticky and soft. He had landed in the wet dirt, and it was all around him; he could practically taste it.
When he opened his eyes once more, it was barely, and through tears, biting his lip to keep from letting a single noise out. The ground shook as something landed next to him, missing him by a bare foot, and he realized it was Grunt, landing face first, his body breaking his neck as he impacted the ground, up against the stone wall leading up to the parapets, his legs dangling above him, supported by the wall. It was as though he’d attempted to stand on his head but failed miserably, and now his neck was at a sickening angle, blood still spurting out at regular but slowing intervals.
Cyrus felt Rodanthar in his hand and raised the sword, slamming it into the troll’s neck hard enough to sever the damned thing, the blade clanging against the stone on the other side. Grunt’s body fell like a tree whose trunk had just been chopped, his immense torso and dangling legs thumping down and burying the head beneath it.
“Looks like you didn’t win in the end, you treacherous shit,” Cyrus muttered, pained, his leg still begging to be healed. He spat blood at the troll’s carcass and then rolled to his back, scooting against the wall, wondering if any of the Amarath’s Raiders survivors down here had seen his fall.
Cyrus could hear cautious movement ahead; there were at least a few of the Raiders about. His
greaves were resisting his attempts to drag himself against the wall, warring against the mud that was pulling against them. Finally he won, the mud making a slurping sound as he freed himself enough to get to the wall.
He tried to cast another healing spell the moment he was against the wall, but it failed. Grunt’s cessation spell should have ended the moment he died … which means someone else is casting it now, possibly more than one someone. I can’t imagine Amarath’s Raiders would like to see us return to bombarding them from on high with fire …
The sound of swordplay going on above him was like a focusing point for Cyrus, drawing him out of the pain of his broken leg. He blinked his eyes several times, though it did nothing for the pain, in an attempt to wake himself out of the agony-induced stupor he was feeling. He looked to his right and saw a rack emptied of swords, but it still held a few bows and quivers filled with arrows—arms for the defense of the keep in case of invaders.
Cyrus swept his gaze around the bailey; there was motion ahead. He was hidden from view behind a wagon, but there was definitely movement going on beyond. He could see one of the staircases on the far wall opposite him, carving its way up in the stone. Three armored figures ran up it quickly, clearly on their way to reinforce their troll allies above him.
Shit, Cyrus thought. No magic means we’re at a disadvantage. It means they can’t heal, but … Amarath’s Raiders has to be at least our equal in fighting, and they’ve certainly got plenty of mystical equipment, and they’ve got the numbers …
A troll body flew over him, landing atop the wagon in front of Cyrus, at least six points of dark green blood spreading in a slow ooze through his dark leather armor. The troll wheezed, but did not try to get up, and over the next ten seconds his breathing faltered and then stopped entirely.
Heretic (The Sanctuary Series Book 7) Page 37