Midrealm

  “I wanted to see how well they’re training you in there,” she said simply. “And the answer is pretty well, considering how little time they’ve had. Either that, or you’re a quick study.”

  I snickered. “You should tell that to my chemistry professor,” I said. “He’d laugh you out of the room.”

  I unleashed both hands at once and quickly slipped away. I put up a wall between us and dashed for Tess. The woman leapt through the flames, her cloak fluttering behind her like the wings of a bird. She came down between me and Tess, her sword tip once again in my face and pulling me up short.

  “Tricky,” she said, her face still hidden.

  I looked at the wall of fire, then at her feet. It was a jump of at least twenty feet. “Who the heck are you?”

  “Not a friend,” she said.

  I heard sound of crashing, burning and screaming behind her. It was getting closer and closer. Terrence was coming, mowing his way through a whole camp of followers in a psychotic rage.

  “You know it’s not healthy to be around a guy like that for long.”

  “It doesn’t seem healthy to fight him, either,” she retorted. Slowly her feet slid to the side, circling me.

  I eyed Tess.

  “No, I’m afraid not,” she said. “Try again, and I’ll cut off the hand that reaches for her.”

  “Then why don’t you just do it?” I snarled furiously. “Quit messing around and kill us if you’re going to.”

  “Oh, don’t you understand? My Lord would be most upset with me if I robbed him of the chance to kill two Realm Keepers.”

  The sound of Terrence’s fury was getting closer. We were dead, I realized. Maybe I could have gotten away. Maybe I could have run. I’ll bet I could have held off the woman long enough to escape, or killed her if I had to. But I wasn’t going to leave without Tess, and it sure didn’t look like I was going to leave with her, either.

  I steeled myself and brought fire back into my palms, ready to go down fighting.

  Sorry, Greystone, I thought. You were right.

  A blast of lightning erupted from the sky above me, slamming into the woman and throwing her back. She flew into a tent, which collapsed around her and lay still.

  TSEEER!

  The cry was familiar and achingly welcome.

  I heard two massive wings flapping, like the sound of a jet plane passing, and then massive claws snatched my torso, wrapping around me and holding on to me like steel cables. I felt my stomach lurch as we went airborne, the ground screaming away below me.

  I looked over to see Tess clutched in the clawed foot beside me. Then I looked down again to see a giant, shirtless figure standing where we had just been.

  Terrence. His eyes watched us fly away, filled with hate.

  I looked up to see Raven glaring down at me in disapproval.

  “I can’t begin to describe how much trouble you’re going to be in,” she said.

  RAVEN

  “WHAT IN CHAOS ABOVE, WHAT in all the Free Kingdoms, what in the twin worlds…what were you thinking?” Greystone yelled.

  I fingered my whip as I looked pointedly at Barius. He was standing beside Samuel, who was staring at Blade enraged. Nora, too, was with them, but she simply looked sad.

  Blade shrugged nonchalantly. “I was thinking I could end this war right now, but whatever. Clearly I’m the only one who wants that. Everyone else must just looove waking up to Shadows over the wall every morning and the same, boring old bread and water every day.” He looked at Calvin, brow furrowed. “It’s not just me, right? The bread is terrible.”

  “You risked your own life and the life of another Realm Keeper!” Greystone roared. “Are you mad, or is that fact simply beyond your limited comprehension?”

  Blade shrugged again. “We made it back okay. What I really want to know about is the source point.”

  “Don’t dodge the question, Blade,” Sarah said angrily. She was sitting in her chair in the great hall, same as the rest of us, her arms folded tight across her chest. She was upset, to say the least. “You could have gotten Tess killed. And then, probably, all of us would have gotten killed.”

  “He could have gotten himself killed, too,” Calvin pointed out helpfully.

  “Right now, I’m wishing he had,” Sarah grated.

  But Greystone had stopped short. The spark in his eye had diminished, though it did nothing to lessen his glower at Blade. “What did you say?”

  “About what? The source point?” Blade said. “Terrence was talking about it. He’s trying hard to find it. I tried to get Tess to read his mind to find out what it was, but that’s when she collapsed.”

  “Please do your best not to remind me of the reasons for my rage right now,” Greystone growled. “He spoke of the source point? You are certain of this?”

  “Certain as anything. You heard it too, right Tess?”

  Tess looked wan and pale in her chair. But she nodded timidly.

  Greystone looked into his lap, his thumbs fiddling. Absentmindedly, he pulled his pipe from a pocket and lit it with a snap.

  “You’ve been smoking that thing a lot, gramps,” Blade pointed out with mock concern. “Careful you don’t get lung cancer.”

  Greystone shot Blade a furious glance before turning his attention back to his lap.

  “What is it, Greystone?” asked Sarah. “What’s this source point?”

  “It is the portal between our worlds, if you believe the stories,” Greystone said with a shrug. “Many believe that it is a myth. A legend. But others say that it very much exists. The tales tell us that the source point connects Midrealm and Earth. It is the source of the Realm Keepers’ magic and the spell that summons you from your world. It lies upon the sacred ground where Malus and the other mages stood when they created Midrealm. Or at least, that is what the legends tell us. No one knows where it is, if it exists at all.”

  “Terrence sure seems to believe it exists,” said Blade. He picked at his teeth with a fingernail. “And it has something to do with the artifacts.”

  Greystone bowed his head in thought once more.

  In the momentary silence, Sarah leaned over to me. “How did it go?” she whispered. “Did you encounter any trouble?”

  “No, it went well,” I said. “They’ll be ready soon. It shouldn’t take them more than a few hours at most.”

  “Excellent,” she said with a sigh of relief. “Thank you for doing that. It could mean the end of all this.”

  I saw Miles looking over at us curiously, but if he heard what we said, he didn’t say anything.

  “The woman said something else, too,” Blade piped up. “Something about Terrence getting a new ally every time he found another one of the artifacts.”

  “What kind of ally?” asked Calvin.

  “She didn’t say,” said Blade with a shrug. “But she said it was someone who was there. I didn’t see anyone but her, Podric and some guy in silver armor, though.”

  That caught my attention. “Silver armor?”

  “Wait,” said Greystone, snapping out of his thoughts. “What woman?”

  Bwooooo

  The sound of one of the Runegard’s battle horns echoed in the great hall.

  We burst onto the outer wall of the Runehold, Greystone and the Runegard in the lead.

  “What is it?” Cara snapped.

  “The enemy approaches the gate,” called a Runegard soldier. She had an arrow nocked to her bowstring, ready to draw.

  “The enemy’s always at the gates,” I heard Miles grumble. “That’s, like, their thing.”

  Shadows were marching down the street toward us. They were formed in tightly-packed ranks with spears and shields, and many of them carried long ladders above their heads. Long enough to reach the walls of the Runehold.

  But it was the figure at their head that caught my attention. The figure was slender and tall, clad in silver armor with a black cloak over its shoulders. Its helmet was pure silver, and beneath it were dead eyes that l
ooked up at us at the wall and yet were sightless. The sword at its hip was black, but I knew that underneath the scabbard the edges were silver.

  “Greystone,” I gasped, grabbing the wizard’s sleeve. “Look!”

  Greystone peered at the figure. “What is it, my Lady?”

  “That’s him,” I said. “That’s the rider who was terrorizing Elladorn.”

  Greystone’s face grew grim. “I thought you destroyed him.”

  “I thought I did, too,” I said, panicked.

  “A lich,” he said, spitting in disgust. “Captain Gaskill! Concentrate fire on the leader!”

  Cara nodded and turned to her men, bellowing the command. At her word, dozens of arrows flew through the air to land among the front ranks of the Shadows. As the arrows sank into their shifting flesh, the Shadows faded from existence, their armor kicked to the side by their marching comrade.

  Four pierced the body of the lich, two in the legs, one in the neck and one in its eye slit. Without pausing or even bothering to draw its sword, it tore the arrows from its body and cast them aside.

  Its jaw distended in a cry as it thrust a hand forward, and the Shadows charged.

  “Fire at will!” roared Cara. Arrows lanced into the crowd again and again. I lost sight of the lich.

  “Greystone, we have to kill it!” I shouted.

  “Find it!” he cried. The six of us leaned over and searched through the crowd.

  “There!” shouted Calvin.

  The lich was shoving its way through the Shadows around it, heading straight for the wall as though it didn’t have a care in the world.

  “Get it!” I screamed. I fired a bolt of lightning, but it simply reverberated around the lich’s body, not even slowing it.

  “What’s wrong?” said Sarah.

  “I don’t know,” I said, my voice quaking. “It worked last time.”

  Blade cut loose with a fireball while Sarah ripped a chunk of the earth out of the street and flung it at the creature. The fireball engulfed the lich, but when it faded away again, the lich was unharmed. The mass of stone Sarah flung simply shattered into dust around the creature’s body like it had been a dirt clod.

  It reached the wall and drew its sword. It swung the sword in a mighty arc at the stone wall beneath us. There was a great clang, and I watched in horror as a large chunk fell out of the wall.

  Then the lich gestured, and from its hand poured a gout of pure water. The water sank into the gash in the wall, pouring into every nook and cranny.

  “What the — ” I shouted.

  Crack!

  The lich froze the ice all at once. The water, turning to ice, expanded, and I felt a great shuddering in the wall below us.

  “Away!” cried Greystone in sudden fear. He darted off the wall, running down it toward the narrow stone walkway that led to the inner wall. Shocked beyond thought, we followed him.

  The wall rumbled, and then I saw a huge hole explode outward from it on the ground. Massive stone blocks flew everywhere. I saw them crush Runegard who didn’t even have time to shout in surprise. I gulped as I suddenly felt the urge to vomit.

  “Raven, you didn’t say he could cast magic!” said Calvin.

  “He didn’t!” I snapped back. “At least he didn’t before!”

  “Well, he’s doing it now,” said Miles grimly. “And he’s using Water.”

  “Does that mean you can stop him?” I asked.

  “Maybe,” Miles shrugged, uncertainly.

  Greystone hustled us down the walkway to the thick iron door that led into the passages of the inner wall. We hung a sharp left to run up to the top of the wall, coming out again behind the battlements.

  Shadows were gushing into the bailey like a flood, overrunning the Runegard who hadn’t managed to make it back within the inner wall. They howled and shook their spears. But the ones who gained the outer wall found no safety. There were no walls on the backs of the towers, and the walkway atop the wall was completely exposed to arrow fire.

  The Runegard had retreated to reform on the inner wall. Now they were even more tightly packed, and their arrows even more deadly. Shadows screeched as they fell, their empty suits of armor crashing down from the inner wall to land on their comrades. The inner gate was even thicker than the outer one had been, and the Runegard dropped stones and fired flaming arrows into the mass of Shadows who clustered around it with their battering rams. The taller ladders that the Shadows had brought could no longer reach the lip of our walls.

  But no matter how many arrows pierced the lich, it shrugged them off like bee stings. It was marching resolutely forward toward the inner wall. It was just a matter of time before it struck again.

  “Greystone, we’ve got to kill it!” I said desperately.

  “I am trying,” he said. “But it will take me time. The six of you must distract it. Now!”

  I gave a frustrated cry and unleashed lightning. Blade let loose with fire. They didn’t faze the thing. Sarah created a wall of stone around it. That made the lich pause, but only for a moment. It swung its black sword, and the stone came crashing down. Calvin put a plate of air in front of it, but after three quick strokes the plate shattered.

  “How are we supposed to stop this thing?” I screamed, turning on Greystone. But he was staring intently at the lich, muttering under his breath. I leaned in close, but I couldn’t understand the words.

  “It’s Wyrdspeech,” Calvin said in sudden realization.

  “What?” I snapped.

  “The kind of magic that Terrence used,” Calvin explained. “He’s using it on the lich. Come on. We’ve got to do whatever we can.”

  So we did. Miles pooled water around the lich’s feet. I blasted it with lightning, and the electricity coursing through the water made it shudder and fall to a knee for a moment. But it rose up again. It was less than twenty steps away from the wall.

  “Walls!” Sarah shouted, sweat pouring from her brow. “Whatever you can!”

  Following her own advice, she threw up another barrier of stone, then another. Tess gestured — I couldn’t see any effect, but suddenly the lich stopped moving. It stumbled back, looking confused. Miles made a barrier of ice, and Calvin threw up air.

  The lich looked forward, considering. Then it raised a contemptuous hand in a flourish. A massive blade of water sprung into life in the air before it, then hardened into ice. The wraith sent the ice flying forward with a crash. It sliced straight through every wall in the way, and I heard Calvin and Tess cry out in pain at the same time.

  Blade roared in anger and brought up a mound of fire to engulf the lich, bathing the creature and the ground all around it. He turned up the heat, higher and higher until I could feel it from where I stood. I remembered the slave’s smithy in Faya, where he’d melted straight through the rock under the furnace.

  Blade’s arms fell away, and he sagged on the wall.

  The lich stood there, unharmed, its feet buried in molten rock that was quickly turning hard. Without hesitation, it yanked one foot out of the ground, then the other, and then carried on.

  “Oh, come on!” Blade shouted.

  “Greystone — ” I began, turning to the old man.

  “ — tenus crematha.” He said, and closed his eyes.

  The lich lurched on its feet. Then it stumbled, falling to a knee. A hissing, boiling sound issued from beneath its helmet. A white steam began to issue from beneath it.

  The litch staggered upward, turning and stumbling back toward the outer wall. A hissing, screeching cry emanated from its throat. It reached up and dragged its helmet off, casting it aside as it fled from the bailey. Its dead, bald, rotting flesh was smoking as it disappeared from view.

  “Oh, thank God,” Blade breathed, sinking his head into his arms where they rested on the wall.

  “Did you kill it?” I asked Greystone nervously.

  “No,” he said tiredly. “I only drained some of its essence, beginning to dissolve some of its corporeal form. But Terrence c
an counteract it. And besides, such a simple enchantment would not kill the thing anyway. That is beyond my power.”

  “Simple?” I said, an eyebrow flying skyward. “It took you, like, ten minutes.”

  Greystone glared at me. “When you are an expert in Wyrdspeech, you may coach me in its use. Until then…”

  “What is it, though?” I asked. “What is a lich?”

  “Someone brought back to life by dark magic. By Wyrdspeech, in fact,” Greystone said.

  I shuddered. “Who was he?”

  Greystone gave an uneasy look at the gap through which the lich had disappeared. “I am uncertain.”

  From the tone of his voice, I figured that he had an idea that he didn’t want to say.

  Greystone turned to look past me at Sarah. “Lady Sarah, it is time.”

  “Time for what?” asked Calvin.

  “Are you sure?” Sarah asked.

  “It will be now, or it will never happen,” Greystone said. “The sun sets. We will not last another night.”

  Sarah looked at me, concerned. “Are they ready?”

  I shrugged. “I thought they’d have more time, but maybe. I guess we’ll see.”

  Greystone led us down into the inner courtyard of the Runehold. Sarah looked up at the walls around us. The Runegard there were continuing their fighting against the Shadows, the never-ending stream of their arrows a constant background noise. Two boys from the stables brought out twelve horses, six for us and six for our Runegard.

  “Horses?” Calvin asked, his eyes bright. “What is this? Some kind of suicide charge out the gate?”

  Blade looked at him, thoroughly disturbed. “Why do you sound so excited when you say that?”

  Sarah gave another glance at the soldiers fighting on the walls. “Will they be all right until we get back?” Sarah asked.

  “We’ll be right back,” I said. “It won’t take that long.”

  Sarah looked at me sadly.

  “They will be fine,” Greystone said, putting a comforting hand on her shoulder. “I will make sure of it.”

  “Anyone want to tell the rest of us what’s going on?” Miles asked, giving me an annoyed look. I shrugged and tossed my head at Greystone.