After that, the ordeals were only meant to ensure that she was capable enough to make it all the way to Lanioc’s sarcophagus. And why? What was there that she had to be prepared for? The sword, or something else?
She opened the door, hoping it would be the last, and sucked in a breath as she glimpsed what lay beyond. The next chamber was like the last in size and shape, but in the center, lit by two golden candelabras glowing with magical fire, was a sarcophagus of white, polished marble. The walls of this chamber were not stone blocks but sheets of brilliant marble that matched the sarcophagus. Every inch of the marble was carved, and a quick glance told her that it was a pictorial history of the world, much like the carvings covering the walls and pillars in the great hall back at Anneli’s palace.
She put away her sword and dispelled the magic maintaining her light orb. She slowly walked toward the sarcophagus, for some reason not wanting to make any sound. She reached it and placed her palms against its lid. It would be too heavy to lift; she’d have to use magic to do it.
But as she had this thought, the lid lifted up a fraction of an inch. She raised her hands, and the marble lid moved with them, as though bound to her palms. She stepped to the side, effortlessly taking the lid with her, and gently placed it at an angle across the lower half of the sarcophagus.
Looking inside, she saw a scarlet sheet draping the form of a man. She could see the shape of his head, face and shoulders. Where it lay over his chest, it outlined two hands and the hilt of a sword.
Penny swallowed the lump in her throat, reached down and pulled the sheet back from Lanioc’s face. Just as in story of King Uriac, the ancient ruler was untouched by the passage of time. He was a fairly handsome man, but not unusually so, and there was nothing in his features that would have marked him for greatness. A thin moustache curled around his mouth and joined a trimmed, pointed beard, but his face was otherwise smooth. The horns at his temples were carved, like Anneli’s, and Penny recognized the design in the polished ivory; it was the same florid, vine-like pattern that was repeated throughout the architecture of Lanion.
She spent a moment memorizing his features as best she could then took another breath and pulled the cloth back farther, unveiling the hands crossed over the sword. This was the most powerful magical object in the world, and she was going to attempt to wield it. She let a wave of magic fill her, stabilizing her, then carefully slid the sword out from underneath Lanioc’s hands. She stood holding it, looking at the ornately carved scabbard that resembled the design on his horns and the now-revealed breastplate of the armor that had been empty when placed in the sarcophagus. There was no surge or energy from the weapon. It felt like any other sword in her hands. If she hadn’t been capable of wielding it, though, she felt certain that even the slightest touch would have overwhelmed her.
She leaned the sword against the side of the sarcophagus then gently replaced the sheet, once again hiding Lanioc’s face. How many hundreds of years would it be before another looked upon those features? She placed her palms on the lid, and again it smoothly gilded along with her hands until it was once more lined up with the rest of the sarcophagus. She lifted her hands, and the lid dropped with a thud that echoed across the marble chamber.
Penny picked up the sword, recast her light orb spell and took one last look around before stepping back out into the dark corridor and closing the door behind her. All told, she had been in the Lion’s Crypt for perhaps half an hour, but it felt like much longer. She quickly walked back the way she had come, anxious to return to her friends.
Chapter Nineteen
The Sword Awakened
Penny pulled on the silver door, and the sound of battle immediately assaulted her ears. In five seconds, she took in the scene: Anneli, William, Sir Stephen and Owen had their backs to the door. Beyond them, attempting to keep the Dourosh at bay, were four of Anneli’s guards. Penny couldn’t see any others.
She stepped through and closed the door behind her before drawing the Lion’s Sword and dropping the scabbard onto the ground. She hadn’t taken the blade out before, but now that she had, she was almost entranced by how it reflected the gray winter sky. Once it was drawn, it also felt lighter, perhaps a third of what its weight should have been.
She waved it a few times experimentally, and the light reflecting from the blade brightened and turned a bluish hue. Anneli and the others noticed her, and their mouths fell open as one as they saw her.
“What’s wrong?” Penny asked, lowering the sword. As she looked down at the blade, she gasped. The blue light was not only on the sword, it ran across her exposed skin as well.
In front of them, the melee came to a halt. She looked up to see many of the Dourosh slowly backing away, their faces twisted in terror.
“Advance!” William yelled. “Drive them back while they’re stunned!”
Penny obeyed his command and rushed forward, holding the Lion’s Sword high above her head. The others fell in beside her, and they reached the line of guards and joined them in repelling the handful of Dourosh who had not disengaged.
The sword almost seemed to move of its own accord in her hand, and Penny found herself felling half a dozen Dourosh before she even knew she had made the conscious decision to do so. Everything seemed to move a few heartbeats behind her, and the glow coming off the sword and her skin felt as though it was some kind of shield; it had the same energy as the protective spell she’d cast inside the crypt.
She spent several minutes in an almost dreamlike state, perceiving the battle impressionistically. The simplified action made it easier to focus, to clearly see where each new attack was coming from. She realized at some point that she was far down the street, away from her friends, and she forced herself to halt her charge and take stock. She looked behind her at a trail of dead enemies. Her friends were a hundred paces away, still fighting off a handful of Dourosh but no longer overwhelmed.
She turned back the way she’d been moving. She saw more Dourosh fleeing down the ruined street and disappearing behind the rubble that had once been the buildings of Eranion. The sword pulsed in her hand, and it seemed to almost pull her forward. She staggered for a moment but regained her footing and resisted the urge to run off in pursuit of the retreating enemy.
She sensed someone come up behind her and whirled around, her blade poised. She lowered it as she saw William. In his free hand he grasped her discarded scabbard, and he held it out to her reverentially. “Put it away now, my love. The battle is won.”
She took the scabbard and regarded it for a moment. The magic of the Lion’s Sword was still jumping and humming, but it calmed as she summoned up some unknown reserve of willpower and sheathed it. The blue glow on her skin faded away, and she stood shaking, looking up into William’s eyes.
“What happened?” she asked.
“I was about to ask you the same question.”
“The sword took control,” Anneli said, coming up behind William, along with the others. “That is always the risk with powerful magic.”
Penny wanted to drop the sword, but she dared not do so. The sword had seemed to have a mind of its own. She didn’t know if such an object could be “offended.” She thought about the story of how Lanioc had been overwhelmed by magic, how he had lost control of it. Had this sword played a part in that?
“You have the internal spark that allows you to wield this weapon,” Anneli continued, “but it will be many long months before you are able to fully control it. I must insist you do not take it out of its scabbard again, not until we have had a chance to study its magic.”
“But if the Dourosh come back—”
“They will not. Without a commander driving them forward, they dare not face such power. Even now I can feel it emanating from you. They will certainly sense your approach and continue to flee.”
Penny looked back at the palace guards that had accompanied them. There were only three now. So many had sacrificed themselves so that she could recover this weapon. She had
to respect Anneli’s wishes, even though the opposing desires to drop the sword and draw it again were struggling within her.
She held it out toward Anneli, but the queen stepped back. “I cannot. You must be the only one who carries it—the only one who even dares touch it. Keep it close, but remain guarded. Resist the urge to wield it until we can learn more.”
Penny nodded. She leaned the Lion’s Sword against her leg as she unbuckled her sword belt. She slid her old sword off and replaced it with the new one. On her hip, it weighed about the same as her other one; it was only when she was holding it by the hilt, with the blade bared, that it seemed to lighten. She gripped the scabbard of her old sword in her left hand; if the Dourosh did attack again, she would use it to defend herself.
William put his hand over hers. Penny took it but made sure William walked on the opposite side from the sword. The scabbard seemed safe—William had carried it to her—but she didn’t want even the hilt of the sword to accidentally brush against him.
Anneli stepped in front of her and looked down the street, toward the gatehouse through which they’d entered. “Let us hope the guard we left behind with the horses is safe. It will be a long walk back if our mounts were stolen or driven away by the Dourosh.”
As they began walking, a few flakes of snow fell from the dark sky, and Penny shivered. She decided against using magic to warm herself; she didn’t want to use any magic until they understood how the sword might react to it. She had her cloak, and it would have to do for now.
William felt her shivering, and he put his arm around her shoulders. By the time they reached the edge of the city, the snow was falling in heavy flurries, and Anneli halted them in the shelter of the gatehouse.
“No fresh tracks in the snow,” she said. “I do not believe the Dourosh are waiting to ambush us once we emerge.”
“Then let’s get to the horses and ride to a place where we can shelter for the night,” William said. “This snowfall looks as though it will get worse before it gets better.”
Anneli sighed but nodded. “I fear you are right, Sir William. Winter has come in full force to the Great Forest. We should make it back to Lanion before the valley is snowed in, but only just. Move quickly. There is no time to waste.”
Chapter Twenty
Faric’s Discovery
Faric looked skyward. For some reason, the snowfall in the North Wood had waned after the initial series of storms. He didn’t like it because it meant there might be some powerful magic at play, but it had allowed him and his scouts to continue their reconnaissance. They’d been given an extra week, but whatever force was keeping the snow at bay, it seemed to be weakening now.
The strange phenomenon made him suspicious. If someone was keeping back the snow, for what purpose? The most obvious answer was to facilitate travel. He knew from his communications with Anneli that the soldiers who’d gone west had been recalled back to Lanion. Had the Dourosh forces they’d been following also been recalled? There had been no large battles in the west, but there had been Dourosh activity. Were the soldiers who’d been scattered after the battle at Lanion now being called home by their lord?
Home should have been in the west, in the dark city called Dournion, but after what he’d seen the past few weeks, he was now certain that Dourok had sent many of his people here, to the North Wood. Dourok himself might even be nearby. If that was true, Faric had wanted to find out why, and he had used the break in the snowfall to that end. He’d traveled farther west and north than he’d originally planned, past Lake Dranith, and now he finally had his answer.
Arric looked past Faric and through the thick trees. “Do I see clearly? It’s not some trick of magic?”
Faric tightened his grip on his bow. “No, Cousin. No trick.” With his other hand, he gestured at the expanse of wooden structures rising up in the vast clearing that had been made by the felling of trees. “We knew the Dourosh were doing something grand here. Now we know what that is.”
“But why? If this is to be a new fortress, they’re only slightly closer to Lanion, and the terrain south of here is rougher. They’d have much harder going sending an army from here.”
“I agree. However, if that is what Dourok intended, such an attack would have certainly taken us by surprise. In the spring, our scouts and armies would have been sent west once more, to patrol the road running along the south edge of Lake Eranith. We might not see an army coming down this way until it was too late to position our forces to meet them. But there’s another possibility. We’re near the boundary of the Great Forest. Not one mile beyond those buildings is where the black trees begin.”
“You can’t think….”
Faric grunted. “I put nothing beyond Dourok. He once broke the ward protecting Eranion. He may have finally regained the power he spent in doing that and decided to try the ward keeping the Dourosh inside the forest.” He turned to look at the rest of his scouts. “We must leave this area and quickly. We cannot be compromised before I have a chance to relay this information to the queen.”
Morrick, the scout standing on Faric’s other side, grabbed his arm. “It may be too late, Captain.” He pointed behind them, where the forest had been thinned. Some of the largest oaks in that direction had been cut down to make the new city, but the woods had not been completely cleared. Through the sparse brush, Faric saw what Morrick had seen: a band of Dourosh, twenty or more, moving swiftly in their direction. His brow knotted as he wondered how they’d gotten behind them. If there were regular patrols sent out from the city, he’d have seen their tracks in the woods around the clearing. There had been none, though, making the discovery of the city a genuine surprise. Whoever these Dourosh were, they had come from deeper in the forest. Had they been tracking Faric and his scouts?
“We’ve been spotted!” Faric yelled, leaving the mystery for another time. “Move southwest, toward the shelter we scouted two days ago.”
His men followed his order wordlessly as they began walking as quickly as they could through the foot-deep snow. Faric glanced back every few seconds and saw to his dismay that the enemy was gaining ground. His scouts had been in the field too long; they were not at their peak.
As the Dourosh came within bowshot, he halted the retreat. They would have to fight eventually, and it was better to do it now, before the Dourosh entered melee range, where their superior numbers would give them the advantage.
He called out the order to shoot, and a volley of six arrows arced toward the enemy. Three Dourosh fell, and a fourth stumbled down the slope as the wounded man in front of him tripped him up. Another volley followed the first, killing and wounding more Dourosh, but not enough. They were soon upon Faric and his scouts and outnumbering them by more than two to one.
Faric tossed his bow into his left hand and drew the long knife he favored in combat. As the first onrushing enemy reached him, he blocked a powerful swing from a sword, but the Dourosh was faster than he’d expected and quickly twisted the blade around, nearly slashing Faric across his side. Five more seconds of combat revealed to him a disheartening truth: these were not common Dourosh brutes. This was an elite force, and they were as skilled as his own men.
Drawing on his magical abilities, he momentarily heightened his senses. The Dourosh facing him had magic of his own, though, and Faric just dodged a blast of energy that would have sent him onto his back. He was thrown momentarily off balance, and the Dourosh charged him. Faric was forced to block the attack with his bow, and the weapon split in half as his enemy’s sword cleaved through the wood.
As the top of the shattered bow flew to one side, its flight was stopped by the still-attached bowstring, and Faric whipped it around like a flail, cracking his opponent across the jaw. The stunned Dourosh reeled, and Faric shot his knife forward, straight into his enemy’s throat.
There was no time to celebrate his victory. Two more Dourosh were flanking him, one on each side. He turned to the man on the left. Beyond him, he saw as Morrick took a blow to hi
s skull. His scout dropped instantly to the ground, and blood stained the white snow beneath him.
Faric clenched his jaw and struck out at the foe in front of him. The Dourosh who’d killed Morrick was now advancing as well, though, and Faric still had another man behind him, trying to get close enough to stab him in the back. There was a scream somewhere behind him and to the left, and Faric looked just long enough to see Laeock fall. He didn’t know where his other scouts were, and the enemy seemed to be all around.
Faric moved left and turned, bringing all three Dourosh within sight. As he backed away, he saw a man in the distance, watching the skirmish with his arms folded. That had to be their commander. He studied the man’s face for a moment then turned fully and began to run. He spotted Arric and grabbed him by the shoulder. “We cannot win! Run!”
His cousin nodded and took up a position at his side. The Dourosh were close behind. Faric looked ahead and to both sides, searching for some advantage. Finally, he saw it.
A dead tree was leaning at an angle almost directly in front of them. It was still standing, but just barely, with half its roots exposed and sticking up through the snow. Faric sheathed his blade and held his hands out toward it. He said the words of a spell, and a blast of energy flew from his hands toward the base of the tree.
The tree shuddered and began to move. The two scouts ducked as it crashed into the snow, just making it underneath with inches to spare. The tree would not slow the Dourosh for long, but it was something.
As he looked back to gauge the progress of their pursuers, something zipped by his head. He cursed as he saw what it was: a snow sprite.
The small, feminine creature circled him and Arric several times before speeding off to their rear, toward the Dourosh. Faric’s frown turned to a smile. Almost all creatures in the Great Forest hated the Dourosh—they could feel Dourok’s dark magic emanating from them like a wave of foul air coming off a rotting corpse. They could be corrupted themselves, but if they weren’t, they either avoided the Dourosh or, if they were so inclined, taunted them. And if there was anything sprites enjoyed, it was taunting larger creatures.
The Lion's Crypt (The Emberlyn Chronicles Book 2) Page 11