Wit'ch War (v5)

by James Clemens

  “We must get free of this open space!” Flint yelled, striking out with a sword. With the sun yet out, the beasts were vulnerable to common weapons. But the monsters’ strength, speed, and poisoned claws were still a serious threat.

  Mama Freda also danced in the og’re’s shadow. Under the power of her herb, she was no longer a frail woman, but a whirlwind of death. Using darts dipped in venom and the keen eyesight of her pet tamrink, she showered the enemy with a rain of burning poison.

  As they all fought the beasts in the plaza, Meric stood on the far side of Elena, matching her gale of energies with one of his own. His winds kept the skal’tum from attacking from overhead. Blasts of air caught wings and sent beasts tumbling into tower walls or crashing to the stone road.

  While the others fought, Elena studied her quarry from her web of magick. Her team’s initial furious attack had caught the skal’tum by surprise. Even though Elena was sure the creatures had been warned by the darkmages to be wary of them, the beasts had never faced any serious challenge in the past. They had counted on sheer numbers to intimidate any group.

  This day the beasts learned a deadly lesson.

  When Elena had first struck out with her magick, the huge leader of this group had fled, clearly panicked. Without guidance, the others had fought feebly and without coordination. So far, Elena’s group had kept them at bay. But Elena watched as the massive skal’tum, their chief, hissed orders and began to marshal its forces. The beast’s initial shock had worn off.

  Now came the serious threat. Elena surveyed the remaining flock. While she and the others left a path of destruction, the plaza was still crowded with beasts. From windows and ledges above, more skal’tum threatened. The leader moved toward her tiny group, rallying the others to its side.

  Unless something happened, her group was about to be swamped.

  Another of their party must have realized the hopelessness of their situation. “El,” Joach hissed at her. “Release the spirit spell. Disappear and run.”

  Elena knew that if she did that, the beasts would ravage the others. “Not yet,” she answered her brother. She raised her right hand, the one whose Rose had been gifted by spirit light. Though she refused to use its glow to fade away from sight, Elena had another power still held in reserve: ghostfire. She had yet to call forth the spirit magick pent up within the Rose of her right hand. She had been hesitant on how to put it to best use.

  Lifting her gaze, she found her eyes meeting the leering leader of this flock. It seemed to sense her attention, and its sick grin grew. A slithering red tongue slipped from between its fangs to curl like a hungry serpent.

  Suddenly, far above the plaza, a spear of darkness sprouted from the citadel atop the hill. The sudden blaze of magicks was felt by all—beast and men alike. It was as if a bolt of lightning had struck nearby, a prickling of power that rose the tiny hairs on the back of her arms.

  Everyone’s eyes turned to stare at the cascade of black energies, even the monstrous chief skal’tum. When it turned to face them again, the amused glint had returned to its eyes. It stalked forward, claws gouging the ancient stone road.

  Elena knew this was her only chance. Raising her left hand, she stanched her flow of coldfire and stepped free of her cocoon of blue flame. The beast slowed its approach, suspicious of Elena’s strange new tack.

  Elena took a step nearer the towering leader. The flock at its side shifted nervously. She raised her right hand. As she concentrated, silver flames blew forth from her sliced palm to dance along each finger.

  The leader seemed little impressed. “All the magick in the world can’t ssstop us all, little child. You will die, and I personally will eat your heart.”

  “Wrong, demon. I will eat yours,” she said coldly. Thrusting out her arm, fire shot from her fingers, forming a claw of silver fire. It dashed into the chest of the skal’tum.

  The leader wore a shocked expression, then glanced down to stare at the limb of fire thrust into its chest. Its skin did not burn. Raising its head, the huge beast cackled. “It ssseeems your pretty magick is no danger to me.”

  “Wrong again,” Elena said calmly and clenched her outstretched hand into a hard fist.

  The skal’tum suddenly spasmed.

  Elena yanked her arm back and tugged the beast’s spirit from its body. The creature’s carcass collapsed to the stone pavement in a clatter of bone and wing. Left standing was a phantom etched by ghostfire in the shape of the beast. The trapped spirit struggled in the silver grip of Elena’s flaming magicks.

  Neighboring skal’tum scattered away. Squeaks of fear and scrabbling claws sounded from all around. Overhead, startled skal’tum took flight from their perches.

  In a few short moments, the spirit’s writhing slowed and stopped. Her magick had succeeded in branding the ghost to Elena’s will. “Sssspread my touch,” Elena hissed, mimicking the skal’tum leader. She opened her hand.

  Wings of ghostfire spread behind the phantom beast. It twisted and leaped at its nearest neighbor, diving within and ripping its brother’s spirit loose. Now two spirits, burning with her will, stood upon the stone road. They leaped at others.

  Before such bewildering magick, the other skal’tum panicked, leaderless and frightened. Some attempted to attack, but were quickly dealt with by Elena’s companions. Most of the others simply fled. Those that failed became fodder to the spread of her ghostfire. As with the ravers before, her magick swept through these beasts like fire through dry grass.

  Soon the plaza and surrounding streets were littered with the discarded corpses of the skal’tum. Flashes of ghostfire sparked from farther down the avenues as her spirit dogs gave chase to the living.

  Satisfied, Elena withdrew her magick from the hunters before they drained too much of her power. The handful of silver ghosts still visible vanished like the flames of spent candles. With the skal’tum weakened and scattered, her ghostfire army was no longer needed. With future battles ahead, preserving the last of her magick was more important.

  Flint crossed to her side. “Good work. I had thought us lost for sure.”

  Elena ignored the compliment. “How did the skal’tum know we would portal to this specific location? I thought it was a random jump here.”

  Flint frowned and answered, seeming not to hear the suspicion in Elena’s voice. “With Er’ril captured, the Dark Lord must have learned of his ward and set up a magickal net to snare our portal and bring us specifically to this nest of monsters.”

  Elena frowned and glanced to the sky. She hated to think that Er’ril could have betrayed them in even this manner. In her heart, she would rather believe Flint had led them into a trap, that he was the traitor.

  As she pondered Flint’s words, a shaft of darkness began to eat the sunlight. A sick twilight settled over the city. “What of this?” she asked.

  Flint scratched his head. “Perhaps some means to help protect the rest of the skal’tum. To keep the sunlight from weakening their dark protections.”

  As if to prove his words, legions of skal’tum took flight from roosts all across the city. They rose in massive numbers.

  Joach moved beside them. “We should get off the streets. I don’t care to repeat this last battle.”

  The others mumbled their agreement.

  Flint responded. “The hidden entrance to the catacombs is still much farther. We must reach the top city level, just below the Edifice itself. I’d guess almost a full league of travel still awaits us, so we should hurry.”

  Flint then led them at a hard pace, up stairs and along narrow alleys. They passed sights both wondrous and sad. Statues as tall as towers stood everywhere. Some seemed to have weathered the centuries without blemish. Others lay toppled and broken. In one square, they had to cross under the stone fingers of a massive hand that rested from where it had broken off a statue high atop a tower.

  They also passed areas where the seas seemed to bubble up from below, swamping entire sections of the city. As they skirted t
he edge of one such briny pond, something large and armored humped through the algae-slick waters. It reminded Elena of the kroc’an from the swamps. They gave the waters a wide berth.

  Mostly as they fled, though, the city was just homes and buildings, long gone dark and empty. Winds whistled through the hollow husks of towers like the moaning cries of ancient ghosts. Elena found it hard to imagine that such a place was ever populated. But the city must have once housed hundreds of thousands of inhabitants. Tears suddenly rose in Elena’s eyes. It hurt to see how much her people had lost.

  Finally, Flint spoke, breaking the spell of timelessness. “It . . . it should just be up ahead,” he gasped, winded from the long race across the city. “Just around the next bend—”

  As the grizzled Brother led them around the corner of a tulip-shaped building, he tripped to a stop. The rest of the team were too close on his heels to halt so fast. The group stumbled together in shock.

  Crowding the next avenue, a squad of twenty squat creatures armored from head to toe stood guard. Though they stood smaller than Joach, each creature massed as much as Tol’chuk, all muscle and bone under the armor.

  Elena named the squat soldiers’ heritage. “D’warves.”

  The soldiers had clearly been awaiting them, axes raised, faceplates lowered. None moved, letting the enemy draw nearer. Not a single one shifted even a finger, as if they were a score of brass-and-steel sculptures. Elena sensed that these guards would not spook like their winged allies. From the cold stares and steady gazes, Elena knew the company would fight to the dying breath of the last d’warf. And with two hearts, each d’warf would be difficult to kill.

  Pushing the others aside, Elena stepped forward, meaning to call forth her magick. Flint pulled her back. “No, they wear spellcast armor. See how it glows?”

  Elena stared closer and saw how an oily sheen roiled slowly across the breastplates and greaves of their armor in hues of a rainbow. Now that it had been brought to her attention, she could almost smell the magick here. “What does it do?”

  “I’ve read old tales of dealing with d’warf ax guards. Their armor is forged with elemental warding charms. Be cautious what you cast at them, Elena. It can dispel magick or reflect it back at its wielder. Beware using spells around such armor.”

  Elena stepped forward, frowning, unsure what to do. “Where is the entrance to the catacombs?” she asked Flint.

  “At the end of this street.”

  Elena’s eyes narrowed. Again she wondered how the darkmages seemed to know their every move. Perhaps Greshym remembered more of the Hi’fai secrets than anyone supposed, and like Flint, he knew of this secret entrance and had set these guards. Still, Elena scowled at the forces here and at the suspicions that arose in her mind.

  Without turning, Elena knew the team awaited her next move. Her group numbered too few to survive a battle of steel and muscle with this force. She pondered her choices.

  As she studied her opponents, she recalled an old lesson, something she had once overheard her father tell Joach: Sometimes a fight was best won with wits rather than either sword or fist. With the odds against them here, Elena knew that just such a time had arisen.

  They had only one small hope here. If she could weaken the black resolve of these guards, perhaps her group might survive this slaughter. From meeting Cassa Dar, Elena knew the d’warves had once been a noble people. It had only been the corrupting touch of the Dark Lord that had poisoned their hearts and bent them to his foul bidding. While her ghostfire might be unable to free their tainted spirits as it had the skal’tum, something else might hold such power, something that in a way was its own magick: memory.

  Without turning, Elena called back to her group. “Tol’chuk, Meric, come join me.”

  The og’re pushed forward with the elv’in at his side. Elena touched Tol’chuk’s shoulder. “Raise the hammer overhead for all to see.”

  He did so.

  Next, Elena glanced to Meric. “On my signal, can you call forth a bolt of lightning to strike the hammer?”

  “Yes, but without a natural storm brewing, I’ll need a few moments.”

  “Then prepare.” Elena stepped nearer the gathered ax guards and raised her voice so it rang down the avenue. “I command you to set aside your weapons. Do you stand in the way of your own salvation?”

  As expected, there was no response. Elena waved Tol’chuk forward. “Do you recognize this relic? Have you forgotten your own heritage?” Elena raised her left arm and illuminated the rune-carved hammer with spurts of coldfire flame. The weapon now seemed to glow with its own inner radiance.

  A few of the d’warves in front shifted, and one even lowered his ax. Elena knew they would not fail to recognize the Try’sil, the Thunder Hammer of the d’warves, a cherished symbol of their people’s past. But would the mere sight of it be enough to weaken the hold of the Dark Lord? Elena recalled how the memory of Linora had awoken Rockingham, breaking his black shackles. Could the same happen here? Was the Try’sil a powerful enough symbol? And if not, could Elena make it so?

  One of the ax guards stepped forward from the rest. “You seek to fool us with magicks of illusion,” he declared, his voice harsh. “The Try’sil was lost ages ago.”

  “No! On this night, the past lives again!” Elena signaled Meric forward with a sharp wave of her other hand. The elv’in seemed to sense his role here. He stepped from around the back of Tol’chuk, his magicks billowing his shirt and loose breeches. “Forged by the elv’in, the Try’sil was a gift to your people.”

  The d’warf leader stepped back, his eyes wide inside his helm at the sight of Meric. “A Stormrider!”

  “Yes! So it was before; so it is now! Remember who you once were! The hammer has the power to break ebon’stone, to break the spell of the Black Heart! Let it free you of his chains now! Let us pass and open your hearts to the possibility of your homelands again ringing with the strike of your hammers and the roar of your forges. Remember your past!”

  Elena nodded to Meric, and a bolt of lightning cracked down from the twilight skies to strike the raised iron head of the hammer. Thunder crackled along the street. Elena blinked away the blinding flash as the thunder echoed and died. “Do you still doubt the power of your ancestors’ relic?”

  Several of the d’warves had fallen to their knees, but others still remained standing, including their leader. “How did you . . . ? How did you come by the Try’sil? It was lost ages ago.”

  Elena sensed that if she could sway this one d’warf, the others would follow suit. She lowered her voice, striving to pry trust from a hard heart. “It was not lost, only forgotten. One of your people stood guard over it for centuries, waiting for someone to carry it back home. I was chosen! I swore a blood oath to return the hammer to your homelands. And so I will!”

  “The pr—prophecy,” the leader mumbled. His ax slipped lower.

  “Remember your past,” she whispered now. “Remember who you once were.” She waved to Tol’chuk, who passed the hammer to her. With the rune-carved haft held in both her open palms, Elena stepped before the d’warf leader. She lifted it before him. “Though your hearts were blackened by the Gul’gothal lord and your hands stained with the blood of the innocent, the Try’sil has the power to cleanse you.”

  The d’warf warrior raised a mailed hand toward the weapon; his fingers trembled, and for a moment, he could not touch it. Then, he shook off his chain mail glove and, ever so gently, reached a single finger to the hammer’s iron. Even this small connection to his people’s past unmanned him. He fell to his knees with a crash of steel on stone. He tore off his helm and raised his wrinkled face to the skies. A cry of pain and sorrow flowed from his lips, as if he were casting out his own heart.

  Elena stepped back, allowing the d’warf to face the pain of his lost past. She knew that no further words or demonstrations were needed. Still, she raised the hammer over her own head. “There is salvation,” she whispered to the others.

  Behind t
heir kneeling leader, the others all fell to join him.

  Lowering the Try’sil, Elena again met the eyes of the guards’ chief. The well of pain behind his gaze was too deep even to fathom. His voice was strained to a small plea. “Go,” he said. “Free our people.”

  Elena nodded. “It will be done.” She led the others forward, still carrying the ax in both her palms. As she slowly passed among the kneeling d’warves, axes clattered to the cobbled pavement. Hands reached to touch the last symbol of hope for their people. She allowed each of the guards to connect with their ancient past, to remember for this brief moment their forgotten homes far across the cold seas.

  Then she was past them all, and only an open street lay before her. Flint pushed beside her, his eyes full of wonder as he glanced back at the d’warves. “You’ve walked us through fire,” he said, “with only the strength of your word.”

  Elena turned away. “It was not my word. It was their own past.”

  Tol’chuk accepted the hammer back as the others joined Elena and Flint. “Where now?” Meric whispered.

  Flint pointed forward. “This way. It’s just ahead.” The old Brother led them down the avenue to a side alley.

  As Joach entered the narrow street, he glanced skyward and almost tripped. Elena followed his gaze to see what had startled him.

  Flanking the alley were two structures. On the right was a tower of reddish orange bricks the color of sunset. It rose to a small parapet high above. To the left was one of the massive statues that dotted the city. This one was of a gowned woman bearing a flowering sprig aloft in one hand. Joach’s eyes met hers.

  “The Spire of the Departed,” Joach said with a nod toward the tower, “and the statue of Lady Sylla.”

  Elena shrugged, not understanding the significance.

  “This is where my dream took place, atop the Spire of the Departed.” He shifted his staff in his gloved hands. Without the touch of his skin, the wood had returned to its dark shade, a tool of black magick.