There, Master. Hear that and tell me that I’m not a wizard.
Yes, she was proud, even a bit arrogant like Chantmer. And why shouldn’t she be? She was ready. And what was the alternative to pride? Uncertainty, like Markal, or distraction, like Narud?
Nathaliey strode toward the north gate, confident in her abilities, ready to add her power to repel the enemy, to destroy him. What incantations could she recollect? She passed through an ivy-covered archway and into a small walled garden, so lost in her thoughts that she didn’t see the figure standing in the middle of the courtyard until she was nearly on him.
A man bent over a well, hauling something up with ropes from the depths. She could tell just by his posture that he wasn’t a resident of the gardens, a member of the order, and he wasn’t one of the palace guards, but someone else. He reached out his hand and brought up something that glinted red in the moonlight as water dripped off it.
It was Bronwyn’s sword.
#
The marauder was nearly to the top of the wall, grinning at Markal, and wights scrambled up behind him. Other wights kept clawing at the brick, as if to open other avenues of attack.
Markal pulled back his sleeves and stared with a look of concentration.
“Let’s see it,” the man said. He was only a few feet below now. “Your feeble magic, what is it?”
Words came to Markal’s lips, a spell that would hurl the man off, but it would be costly, and there was something about this man, some magic hanging about him that seemed ready to repel attack. He remembered how the other marauder had resisted his sleep spell.
So he didn’t cast it. Instead, he formed a look of intense concentration and mumbled some nonsense under his breath. The enemy flattened himself against the wall, fingers digging into the cracks. His cloak wrapped tighter about him, as if drawn in by a man sheltering himself against an icy wind.
As the man tucked his face against the brick, Markal scrambled from the platform onto the wall itself. He swung one leg over the edge, struck the enemy’s head with his foot, and shoved. The man let out a startled grunt as he lost his grip. He fell backward, clawing at the air and passing through the wights as if they had no more substance than clouds. It wasn’t a huge drop, but a dozen feet was enough to break bones. Markal’s hopes were dashed when the cloak spread out, wing-like, and broke his fall.
There it was. The magic was in the cloak. Someone, probably the sorcerer himself, had imbued it with protective powers. But could Markal attack the cloak itself?
The wights fell out of the man’s way as he sprang to his feet with a snarl. He grabbed for the brick again, and began clawing his way back up, cursing and threatening. This time when Markal gathered his magic, it was a real incantation that came to his lips.
Green globules of fire bubbled from his hands and fell toward the man. The cloak drew tight again. But Markal wasn’t aiming it at the marauder, but rather at the man’s garments. The fire hit the material and caught hold. Soon, its owner was engulfed in flames.
The marauder stripped off the cloak and threw himself to the ground. When he got up, his hair was smoking, and he retreated into the darkness, howling with rage, his burning cloak abandoned. The instant he was gone, the wights turned aimless. They fell back from the wall, milling about in confusion, and finally disappeared into the night.
Markal stared, breathing heavily. His shoulders slumped in exhaustion, and his hands trembled when he wiped the blood from them. The spell had been costly, its cost all the greater knowing that if he’d been able to deliver its full effect, he’d have destroyed the marauder, as well. But never mind, he’d won. The enemy had fled.
He was still turning over what he’d learned about the attack as he came around the platform on the inside of the wall. He traversed the gap and found his way to the ladder propped next to the gate. There were two acolytes up top when he arrived, and they greeted him with relief.
A slower developing, but more concerted attack had fallen on the gate. Wights pressed against the door and clawed at the wood until it groaned on its hinges from the weight of them. There were probably thirty or forty in all, bunched up and heaving. Markal searched the darkness for their masters, but didn’t see anything. He felt them though, shadowed in malignant magic roughly a quarter mile up the road from the gardens.
The Syrmarrian palace guard gathered behind the door. While they didn’t appear as organized as the Veyrian troops Markal had spotted along the Tothian Way, neither were they armed rabble, civilians with spears and swords thrust into their hands. These were professional guards, and though they flinched every time the door rocked inward, every man held his position.
“The Harvester take me, we’re going to die,” one of the acolytes said.
“We’re not going to die if we stay calm,” Markal told the young woman. “We only need to hold them back until the others arrive. The master will come, too.”
“But how? The palace guard can’t fight the undead. None of us can.”
The young woman was named Alyssa, and her eyes were bugging until it looked like they’d pop right out of her pale face. The other acolyte was her brother Drevor, taken from his family at the same time Alyssa joined the order. Drevor was older, but looked equally frightened. His hands trembled where they gripped the stone wall, and he crouched on the platform, barely peering over. The two had grown up in the palace like Nathaliey, but had none of the confidence and mastery of magic she did.
“Listen to me,” Markal told them. “It can be done. I scattered some wights only a few minutes ago. They can’t be killed—they are already dead—but they can be driven off, even temporarily broken apart.”
“You fought them?” Drevor asked. His eyes fell to the bloody cloth at Markal’s waist. “You spent your magic already, didn’t you? So what do we do? We’re only acolytes, we can’t manage such a thing.”
“Not outside the walls, you can’t. But once the wights gain the gardens, anything you do will be strengthened. This is our home and sanctuary—you are strong here, and they are weak.”
“How do we defeat them?” Drevor asked.
“Don’t attack them directly. Enchant the weapons of the Syrmarrians.”
“That’s active magic,” Alyssa protested. “We’re only acolytes, we can’t hold the powerful incantations. They slip away.”
“I know that,” Markal said calmly. “But I can hold the words, and if you listen carefully, I will feed them to you when the time comes.”
The groaning, aching gate drew his attention. He peered into the darkened plain beyond, searching, hunting. Marauders were out there, dominating these wights and forcing them to attack. There was one, he thought, straight up the road toward the bridge. He sensed the man’s presence like a blight on the landscape. But where were the others? And what about the one Markal had driven off earlier? Was he removed from the battle completely now that his cloak had burned, or would he return?
A shriek of metal marked the giving way of one of the hinges. The door leaned in precariously, and the wights behind screamed in mindless anger.
“Master?” Alyssa asked, voice tense. “Now?”
Markal looked at her, wondering. Master? And then he remembered. By the Brothers, he was a wizard now.
“Wait,” he told her. “It’s too soon, yet. Let them come in.”
“All right, if you’re sure.” There was doubt in her voice and on both of the acolytes’ faces.
Markal suffered his own doubts. He wanted to order the door strengthened. The acolytes could manage that much, and there were others on the wall platform opposite who could lend additional magic. Buy a few minutes while Nathaliey and the rest joined the fight. But the gate was destined to give way regardless of what they did. He’d only waste magic shoring it up.
The door bent inward at the missing hinge. The remaining supports holding it to the wall groaned and popped loose, and the door crashed to the ground, the Syrmarrian men-at-arms springing back to avoid getting flattened. A mo
b of wights massed in the gap in the wall, a tangle of limbs and bodies and haunted, mindless faces. Something pressed at their back like a foul wind, urging them forward, but they hesitated. The guards braced themselves.
“Now?” Drevor asked.
“Let them enter,” Markal said.
Slowly, driven forward, the wights pressed against the opening. The garden was still resisting, and for a long moment it seemed as though it would throw the wights back a final time. But then one wight fell through, followed by a second, and then the whole mass came streaming in.
The enemy had entered the gardens.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The man turned from the well with the dripping sword clenched in his hands, and Nathaliey got a fresh shock. She’d doubted from his posture that he was one of the Syrmarrian guards, known at once that he wasn’t a wizard, apprentice, acolyte, or keeper, and so had assumed he was an intruder. One of the gray marauders infiltrating the gardens to steal the red sword.
But it was her father.
His mouth hung open, his face was slack. His eyes had the milky-white glaze of the dead, although he was still breathing. Some sort of enchantment was upon him.
Nathaliey’s first thought was that he’d deceived her. His arrival with the defecting palace guards had been a feint, and his goal all along had been to find and steal the paladin’s magic sword. But she dismissed this thought as soon as it entered her mind.
For one, the captain of the guard had seemed entirely too sincere. He’d divided his forces to fortify opposite ends of the gardens and had spent time drilling with them and consulting with the vizier. As for her father, Kandibar had shared what he knew about the high king’s armies. He’d produced a map and showed where Toth had placed several thousand men along the highway and how they might come to attack the gardens.
King Toth’s pashas were readying for war, both to subdue the restless Western Khalifates and to mount a campaign through the mountains and into Eriscoba on the other side. Finally, Toth meant to connect his highway with the Spice Road to cross the desert and bring the sultanates under his sway. The high king had declared his intention to unite the entire world. Kandibar thought this would end in disaster, but not before it brought about Aristonia’s destruction. Win or lose, the small country stood to be crushed by invading armies.
And there had been no sorcery hanging about him then. Of that Nathaliey was sure. Memnet had been there too, and surely he would have detected it even if nobody else had. But something had changed; some dark magic had possessed her father and led him here. He stank of it.
The vizier didn’t look up as his daughter approached, but busied himself with the sword. They’d left it wrapped in linens tied off with cord, but these had swelled in the water at the bottom of the well, and his fingers struggled to get it untied.
“Father!”
Nathaliey grabbed his shoulder, but he threw her off with a snarl. “Don’t touch me!”
She came at him with more determination. He fought back as she tried to knock the sword from his hand. He was taller, but approaching the age of sixty, and not the strong, middle-aged man of her youth. Nathaliey was strengthened by the gardens that surrounded her, giving her the advantage.
She fought off his attempts to drive her back and got her hands on the hilt. Her father had the blade, and tore off some of the linens as she pulled. The blade dragged across his palms. He cried out in pain, but didn’t release the linens, coming up with a long strip in his bloody hand. The other end of the strip was still attached to the sword, and the two engaged in a tussle until she finally tore the weapon loose. Her hand touched the bare hilt.
Worship us, girl. Take the sword and you shall be the mightiest warrior in the realm.
Nathaliey tried to cast it aside, but to her horror, it was glued to her palm. She grabbed the hilt with her second hand, thinking to pry it loose, and it stuck, too. Voices clamored in her head, and the sword yanked her this way and that. One moment, it seemed determined to hack off her foot, the next to charge at her father and thrust its tip into his chest.
Kandibar cast aside the linen strip and came at her. The sword twisted to meet him. She turned her shoulder, and the sword slid harmlessly past his face. He threw his arms around her and wrestled with her for the sword.
“Stand back!” she said. “It will kill you.”
“By the Brothers, throw it down!” Whatever had possessed him was gone, and he seemed in his right mind. “Natty, listen to me!”
“I’m trying!”
Her muscles were rigid, every one straining as she fought for control of her limbs.
“Put it on the ground,” he said.
Nathaliey bent double, and the moment the blade hit the dirt, her father pinned it with one foot. She wrenched free with a cry. Her father dragged her back to the well, where the two stood panting. They stared at the thing lying flat on the ground, glinting in the moonlight.
“It looks red in this light,” her father said.
“What happened? What possessed you to do such a thing?”
He shook his head. “I-I don’t know. One moment, I was climbing into bed, exhausted and ready for sleep, and the next I was awake here, wrestling with you for the sword.” A frown crossed his face. “No, that’s not quite right. I remember some things—like a dream, you know? I was walking here, and someone was whispering in my head. Many someones.”
Nathaliey studied her father, looking for deception. She saw none. So what had done it, the sorcerer, or the sword itself? The sword, she decided. Memnet had instructed them to hide Soultrup in the well, and she saw no way that King Toth could have found it on his own. But the sword, possessed of its own intelligence and magic, had made an attempt to find its way to the hands of the king by itself.
“Natty, what is this thing? Where did it come from, and what does it want?”
“Nothing I can explain now. I’ve been called to the north gate, and I must go at once.” She unfastened her cloak. “That leaves you with the sword.” She thrust the cloak into his hands. “For picking it up.”
He eyed her doubtfully, the cloak held in front of him as if he wanted to hand it back. “Shouldn’t we just put it back at the bottom of the well and I can go with you?”
“No, it can’t be left alone, or it might take control of someone else.”
“But what if that someone is me? What if it . . . what if I . . .?”
“You’re awake now, and that will make a difference. Keep your wits about you. Don’t let it touch your skin. Can you find the Golden Pavilion in the darkness?”
“Yes, I think so. It will be easier when I get out of this courtyard.” He glanced about. “It’s too close in here, I can’t see anything. You’re sure about this?”
“I’m sure,” she lied. But what choice did she have? “Let the garden guide you. You’re a friend, and it will lead your way. So long as you don’t do something stupid like touch the sword.”
“I won’t if I can help it.”
“Good. Get up to the shrine and put it under the big prayer bell. That’s the safest, most protected part of the gardens, even better than here. It will be our last refuge if things go badly, and the hardest place for the enemies to defeat us. I’ll send keepers. You’ll be safe for now.”
For now. There was an ominous tint to those last two words.
Nathaliey helped him get the cloak wrapped around the sword, then pointed him in the right direction before she hurried on toward the north gate. She didn’t leave her father without a good deal of trepidation. He’d almost run off with the sword, and would have no doubt made his way straight for the enemy. Pasha Malik was inside the weapon now, apparently in command, and it seemed that he still served the king.
Nathaliey soon came up the gravel lane that led to the north gate. She arrived to find that the wooden door had been knocked down, and the spirits of the dead were pouring into the gardens.
#
As soon as the wights broke through the final ba
rrier, Markal turned to the two acolytes. “Now!”
“What is the spell?” Alyssa said, her voice tight. “Help us with the words.”
He’d almost forgotten that they were incapable of remembering. It was a simple incantation, and they were repeating it from his lips even as the wights fell upon the first ranks of defenders. The guards formed a bristling row of spears, but they wavered as the undead threw themselves forward in a swirling, howling mass. The first handful of wights pressed through the weapons, unharmed. Two men fell, torn apart by the spectral hands and teeth, and there was a horrifying glimpse of men’s souls being ripped from their bodies, like smoke draining off a snuffed candle. These newly created wights came screaming out through open mouths and nostrils and joined the battle on the side of the enemy.
But then the spell took hold. A breath of warm air blew out of the gardens. Spear tips shimmered with gold fire in the darkness, reflecting off the faces of men suddenly brave and confident. The defenders thrust and stabbed, and wights bled away into the air and vanished.
Markal hurried down the ladder. The guards had retreated several paces in an attempt to regroup against the suicidal ferocity of the enemy, and Markal pushed through them. Men and wights were falling all around him.
Once through, he made for the ladder on the opposite side of the gate. He had to get up to the acolytes and help them cast more incantations. The fight could go either way, but with a bit more power, their side could win in a rout. But as he grabbed for the rungs, the acolytes came hurrying down the ladder toward him, crying out for help.
A figure swung himself up over the wall and crouched on the platform abandoned by the acolytes. It was a man in a gray cloak, sword in hand. Wights flowed over the wall behind him, having successfully bypassed the bottleneck at the gate.
The Red Sword (The Red Sword Trilogy Book 1) Page 23