Swordmage

by Richard Baker

  The halfling looked up at Geran and said, “I have some doubts about this plan.”

  “Best not to dwell on it, then.” Geran looked over at Sarth.

  The tiefling raised his clawed hands and softly chanted the words of his spell. Billows of blue mist began to rise from the ground, rapidly filling the doorway and spilling into the night outside. The swordmage waited a moment for the fog to thicken more and steeled his nerve. Then he stepped into the fog and felt his way out the postern gate. The gate opened onto a small landing near the foot of Griffonwatch’s hill, about halfway around the castle from the main gate. Worn stone steps covered by a low wall descended twenty feet to an old wrought-iron fence. Beyond that stood a tangle of alders, blueleafs, and blackberry thickets, a small woodland that ringed the eastern side of the castle’s hill. Geran could barely see the steps under his feet, and he kept one hand on the wall to navigate through the mist. It was cold, and the steps were slick with frost. Then, abruptly, he descended out of the tattered blue mist and caught sight of the armsmen standing nearby in Veruna’s green and white.

  “There!” one of the mercenaries shouted. “Shoot him down!”

  Several men raised crossbows at Geran, but the swordmage quickly ducked under the wall. Bolts snapped and hissed through the air, clattering against the rocky foot of the castle or striking the stone steps. He risked a quick peek over the wall to get a better look. The Veruna men were arranged in a loose half-ring under the eaves of the dark grove beyond the fence. Thrusting his fear and anger aside, the swordmage fixed in his mind the arcane symbols of the spell he needed and spoke its single word: “Seiroch!”

  The strange, cold lurch of teleportation jarred him, and he felt as if he were falling—but then he stood in the middle of the Veruna armsmen, who were busily drawing back their crossbows and making ready another shot. Geran snarled and stabbed the nearest man through the throat and then bounded past the crumpling mercenary to slash off the arm of the next one in the line. A crossbowman behind him fired at his back, but the amethyst scales of his protection spell deflected the quarrel away from him. He ignored the attack and kept going. The third man he reached had the time to drop his crossbow and draw a sword. Geran launched a furious attack, raining slashes left and right against the Veruna armsman. The mercenary parried the first few and attempted a counterattack, but Geran threw up a lightning-quick block of his own and spun inside the man’s guard to slash his belly badly. The Veruna man shrieked and reeled away.

  “Watch it, Geran!” Hamil paused by the iron fence, took aim, and hurled a dagger at an armsman hurrying up behind Geran. The blade took the man just under his hauberk, biting deeply above the knee. The charging soldier stumbled and rolled in the underbrush with a savage oath. Hamil scrambled over the fence, only to be knocked spinning to the ground by a crossbow bolt that caught him just before he was going to drop down on the forest side.

  “Hamil!” Geran cried. He took a step toward the place where his friend had fallen, but Hamil’s silent voice stopped him.

  I’m not badly hurt. Keep at them, Geran!

  Geran turned back to the Veruna armsmen around him. He counted at least a dozen more men facing him. Swords in hand, they circled closer, ready for him now. Behind the Mulmasterite mercenaries stood a hooded man in elegant black finery. Sergen Hulmaster stepped out of the shadows, his dark eyes glittering. He carried a crossbow in one hand and a long, slender rapier in the other. “I didn’t like that arrogant little popinjay very much,” he remarked. “I intended for you to die in your cell, Geran. I must tell you that I’m a little disappointed that you’ll meet your end with steel in your hand. On the other hand—” Sergen paused to toss away his empty crossbow and drew a poniard with his left hand—“I’m more than a little tired of hearing tales about your heroics. Tonight I’ll repay many old slights and insults. I’ve always known that you’re not the paragon of virtue and skill everyone seems to think you are.”

  Geran smiled coldly. “You’ll meet me blade to blade, Sergen? Your mercenaries will stand aside?”

  The black-garbed lord laughed. “My sense of fair play is not so well developed as that, Geran. They’ll stand aside only as long as I’m winning.” He looked at the Veruna mercenaries standing nearby and said, “If he wounds me, cut him down.” Then he came to meet Geran with his rapier in hand.

  TWENTY-SIX

  11 Tarsakh, the Year of the Ageless One

  Geran did not remember Sergen as a swordsman of much skill, but he hadn’t seen him with a blade since Sergen was fifteen or sixteen. Still, the fact that Sergen offered to meet him suggested that the traitor had at least some reason to feel confident, and so Geran resolved to be cautious. Should I try for a swift victory, even though the armsmen might overwhelm me? he thought. Or do I play for time and try to draw things out—knowing that every moment I’m delayed, the wraiths may find the others?

  Sergen seemed to read his uncertainty and grinned at Geran’s indecision. “You must be wondering just how skillfully you should fight,” he said. “A difficult puzzle, I suspect. I am curious to see how you’ll resolve it.”

  “Difficult?” Geran stalked closer, watching Sergen’s eyes. If it were only his own life at stake, that would be one thing. But Sergen was responsible for authoring a massacre, and should he fall, Sergen or his men would see to it that none of the Hulmasters survived the night. “No, not especially. Whatever else happens tonight, you’ll regret crossing blades with me. If it costs me my life to send you from this world, then you’ll have little opportunity to profit from your treachery.”

  He smiled coldly at Sergen and attacked, a simple thrust at the belt buckle. Sergen parried and riposted sharply; Geran parried in turn and gave a half-step before replying with a quick slash at Sergen’s face, which the council lord likewise parried. They traded thrusts and cuts furiously for several moments before the momentum of their strikes carried them past each other, and they exchanged places.

  He’s quick, Geran realized. Sergen was a good swordsman, though not as experienced as he was. However, his cousin was exceptionally fast—quicker than Geran, at least. Of all the natural gifts a swordsman desired, raw speed was certainly the most vital. Given equal skill, a fast man could beat a strong man if weight of armor was not a consideration.

  “You’re more of a swordsman than I remember,” Geran admitted.

  “You’re not the swordsman I feared,” Sergen replied.

  He began the next exchange, lunging in to thrust with his rapier. Geran deflected the point with a sharp ring of steel; Sergen recovered and attacked again, and Geran parried that one as well; and then rather than recover Sergen suddenly leaped in close and stabbed with his poniard. Geran knocked the dagger’s point away with his forearm and received a shallow, bloody cut from its razor-sharp blade despite the spells protecting him. He put his shoulder down and shoved Sergen back out of range. The blades flew swiftly in the moonlight, ringing shrilly. Geran tested his cousin’s defenses low, then high as they circled through the brush. As best he could, he kept an eye on the Veruna soldiers who ringed them.

  He managed to turn Sergen around again, so that he could see the castle’s postern gate over Sergen’s shoulder. It was difficult to tell with the tatters of mist still clinging to the doorway, but he thought he saw a furtive motion there—shadowy figures slipping down the steps. Geran redoubled the pace of his attacks, keeping Sergen and the Veruna armsmen focused on him. He knew a sword spell or two he could have used, but if he worked a spell, the Verunas around him might react. Grimacing in frustration, he fell back on his own skill.

  “I think you’re holding back,” Sergen said between blows. “Perhaps you’re not as fearless as you believe you are, dear cousin.”

  “You forget where I studied,” Geran retorted. “I spent years in Myth Drannor, tutored by elf blademasters. You think you’re quick? I learned to fight against elves who’d make you look like a staggering drunk!” He parried several more blows and essayed a riposte of his o
wn that Sergen caught on his poniard. “Speed’s a fleeting advantage, Sergen. When a man tires, he slows down. If you were going to defeat me with your quickness, you would’ve done it already. Now it’s my fight.”

  “Your confidence is misplaced,” Sergen snarled. He launched a lightning thrust at Geran’s heart, which Geran parried awkwardly. Instantly Sergen recovered, circled his point under Geran’s blade, and thrust again—falling into Geran’s trap. The swordmage’s awkward parry instantly became a short, brutal chop at Sergen’s sword arm as Geran twisted away from the thrust. His blade bit into Sergen’s arm just below the elbow and cracked bone. Sergen cried out and dropped his rapier, and then Geran nearly took his head off with the backhand stroke that followed. Sergen managed to duck under the blow, but not without suffering a great gash of his scalp and a jarring blow to the skull that sent him reeling to the ground.

  Geran leaped past his stepcousin and immediately engaged the first of the Veruna armsmen he could reach. “Hamil!” he shouted. “Help if you can!”

  He rushed past the man and found a brief clear space to speak another spell. “Ilyeith sannoghan!” he cried, and his blade suddenly crackled with brilliant yellow sparks. Then several Veruna men beset him at the same time. Geran leaped and parried, thrust and slashed, and for ten heartbeats he was lost in the thick of a fight as dire as any he’d ever been caught in. A thrust at his heart was weakened just enough by his fading dragon scales to keep the point in the muscle of his chest, and then a hamstringing slash at the back of his knee buckled his leg but did not quite bring him down. He struck one man in a steel breastplate with his enchanted blade, and a sharp flash of lightning seared the darkness; when Geran blinked his eyes clear, the man was lying on the ground with smoke curling from his ears. But more mercenaries pressed in around him.

  Suddenly the forest rocked with powerful words of magic. “Satharni khi!” roared Sarth. The tiefling appeared by the postern gate, amid the dissipating remains of his simple fog spell. From his hands streaked out a great glowing blast of purple fire that burst beneath the trees. Sorcerous fire seared an awful swath through the mercenaries near Geran. Several men screamed terribly as their surcoats caught fire, and they staggered blindly through the night like living torches. Others fell and burned where they stood. The tiefling leaped into the air and soared over the fight, smiting more mercenaries with blasts of his fire or crackling bolts of lightning.

  A crossbow snapped in the darkness, and another Veruna blade attacking Geran threw his hands up in the air and collapsed with a quarrel in his back. My arm’s broken, Geran, Hamil said. I can’t work the cranequin for another shot.

  “Improvise!” Geran called back to him. He dispatched one of the men still pressing him, with a deep cut to the great artery in the thigh; the man hopped back a half-step and toppled, trying vainly to clamp his hand over the terrible wound. Then Geran felt a roar of fire at his back and turned to find one of the mercenaries staggering at him, raising his sword to strike. The swordmage parried the clumsy blow, cut the legs out from under his foe then buried his point in the man’s heart as a stroke of mercy. He reeled from the awful smoke and stink of the burning corpse and saw one of the other soldiers ten yards away taking aim at Sarth with a crossbow. Without a moment’s thought Geran summoned another spell as he threw his backsword. The blade flew straight and true, whirling through the firelight and shadows, and buried its point in the crossbowman. The mercenary crumpled and folded. Geran held out his hand and finished the spell by stretching out his hand and snarling, “Cuilledyrr!” The sword wrenched itself free and flashed back to him hilt first; he caught it and wheeled around in search of another foe.

  To his surprise, he saw that the remaining Veruna men were retreating, fleeing through the thickets and shadows. He swayed where he stood, suddenly aware of the cuts and bruises he’d fought through, and slowly limped back toward the postern steps. Tymora smiled on me tonight, he thought wearily. “Hamil?” he called. “Uncle Grigor?”

  “Here,” his uncle replied. He slowly straightened up from the wall by the steps, standing in front of Erna, Natali, and Kirr. “We’re unhurt.”

  “Thank the gods. Hamil? Where are you?”

  “I’m by the fence, Geran,” Hamil called. Geran made his way over and found Mirya tending to the halfling already. A bloody quarrel lay on the ground next to Hamil, and she held a folded-up cloak against a dark stain high on his right leg. Hamil’s left arm hung limp at his side; his face was pale, but he found a small smile for Geran anyway. “Can you believe it? The quarrel in my leg’s bad enough, but I fell from the top of the fence and broke my arm. Fortunately Mirya’s gentle touch shall soon restore me to health.”

  “In a month, perhaps,” Mirya said with a frown. “There’s to be no more fighting for you tonight, Master Hamil.”

  Geran knelt and rested a hand on his friend’s good shoulder. “You should’ve used the gate,” he told him. Then he climbed back to his feet and returned to where Sergen had fallen.

  Sergen was gone. Geran swore and thrashed around in the bracken and briars, searching for some sign of his traitorous cousin. He found the place where Sergen had fallen and set his hand on the ground where his cousin had been lying, only to find splashes of blood and a pair of small, empty vials.

  “Potions,” he muttered. Healing? Invisibility? Whatever they were, Sergen had made his escape. He could very well return with more mercenaries to finish things. In fact, he had to, since he was done in Hulburg as long as the Hulmasters remained alive. I’m an idiot, Geran told himself. I should’ve made sure of him. Then again, there were a dozen enemies nearby waiting to strike the instant he defeated his cousin, and he couldn’t very well have paused to search Sergen at the moment he fell. “But I could have spared him a swordpoint in the eye,” he muttered darkly.

  “Geran, the castle’s foot is no safe place to linger,” Mirya called softly. “I hear the ghosts calling one to the other, and I think they’re coming near the postern.”

  “You’re right, Mirya,” Geran answered. “Sergen’s gone. He may return with more mercenaries. We need to get the harmach and the young ones to a place of safety.”

  “Where?” Harmach Grigor asked. He nodded up at the castle battlements far overhead. Geran could hear the distant wails and cries of the wraiths that swarmed through its passageways and chambers. “Griffonwatch is a morgue. Most of my Shieldsworn are away fighting the Bloody Skulls, and I suspect that all who remained to guard the castle are dead now. I have few soldiers remaining in Hulburg, Geran.”

  Geran thought for a moment. They could simply search for a place to hide and wait for morning, but Sergen’s allies might already be moving to seize control of the town. They needed soldiers, a body of armed men to protect the harmach, but Kara and the Shieldsworn were defending the borders against the Bloody Skulls. “That’s not quite true, Uncle Grigor,” he said slowly. “We’ll find at least some of the Spearmeet captains at the Troll and Tankard. We can have a couple of hundred loyal Hulburgans around you in an hour. I have to believe that might stop the Verunas from trying to kill you.”

  The harmach sighed, nodded, and said, “You’re right, Geran. I can’t see that Sergen and his allies have any other choice but to try to finish this.”

  Mirya helped Hamil to his feet, and Sarth and Geran shouldered the Shieldsworn guard who’d fallen in the chapel. By the dim moonlight Geran saw that it was the young guard Orndal, the one he’d met with Kolton when he first returned to Griffonwatch. The soldier’s skin was pale and frigidly cold, but his eyelids flickered when they hoisted him upright and put their shoulders under his arms. Geran nodded toward his right, and the small party set out along the footpath that circled the southern face of Griffonwatch’s rocky prominence.

  In a hundred yards they broke out of the wooded area and emerged in the city streets. Geran detoured a block or two to give the square by the Harmach’s Foot a wide berth, since he could see soldiers in green and white gathered in a large company b
y the causeway that climbed to the main gate. Just as well we didn’t try to leave by that door, he decided. Even from a distance of several blocks, he could make out the cold and distant cries of the wraiths in the castle and glimpse ghostly figures swarming over the battlements. The few passersby they encountered stood in the street and stared up at Griffonwatch, horrified.

  Once they were safely around the company of Veruna mercenaries watching the main gate, they returned to the Vale Road. Geran’s wounds ached fiercely, but he set the pain aside as best he could and limped on his way. The harmach hobbled along on his walking stick, while Mirya finally had to pause and gather up Hamil in her arms like a child.

  “I protest!” the halfling said. “No woman as fair and delicate as you should be expected to carry a wounded hero from the field of battle.”

  Mirya snorted. “Delicate or not, I’d guess that I’m twice your weight, Hamil. It’s easier to just carry you.”

  Geran looked over his shoulder constantly for some sign of pursuit, fearing that Sergen’s Council Watch or their Veruna allies would overtake them in the street at any moment. But no more enemies appeared, and the Troll and Tankard came into view. A large crowd of people stood outside its doors, pointing at the battlements of the castle—from here, they seemed to glow with an eldritch green light—and speaking together in low voices.

  “Make way!” Geran called. “We’ve got wounded with us. Make way!”

  “Here, let us lend a hand,” one fellow said. In a moment several Hulburgans took the young guard Orndal from Geran and Sarth. Two more helped Mirya with Hamil, and the crowd folded in around them and followed them inside the tavern.

  In the warm yellow lanternlight inside, Geran saw that several dozen militiamen were gathered, helms and spears close to hand. They looked up in surprise as he and his party of survivors entered the brewer’s taproom. “Why, ’tis Geran Hulmaster!” said one man. “And the harmach!” The men and women who had gathered in the tavern quickly climbed to their feet and touched their hands to their brows, bowing to Harmach Grigor, and then the room erupted in a chaotic babble of excited questions. A table was cleared for Orndal, and the young Shieldsworn guard was stretched out on it; Hamil was shown to a bench by the wall.