The Champion charged at him, and Ridmark dodged, forcing his weary legs to throw him to the side again. At once the undead creature slowed, skidding to a stop, and as it did, Ridmark whirled and swung Oathshield, driving the soulblade through the gap in the bronze plates and into the creature’s right hip.
And this time, the soulblade bit deeper than Ridmark expected.
White fire blazed from the sword, sinking into the Champion’s corrupted flesh, and the creature let out another bellow of agony. Ridmark’s blow chopped right through the weakened flesh and severed the Champion’s right leg. The leg fell like a falling tree trunk, and Ridmark cursed and jumped out of the way, the bronze-clad limb clanging a few inches from his boot.
The Champion roared again, thrashing its stone-topped arms. The motion overbalanced the creature, and it tottered forward and fell on its stomach. At once it started to rise, trying to use its arms to push itself back up.
Ridmark sprang upon its back, raised Oathshield high, and brought the sword’s tip stabbing down. He drove the soulblade into the gap in the armor between the Champion’s shoulders and its helmet. The soulblade sank deep into the corrupted flesh and then exploded with furious white flames. The Champion shuddered, and Ridmark braced himself against its back, his boots rasping against the rough bronze plates of its armor. He saw the white fire of the soulblade spreading through the corrupted flesh, saw the fire burning away the dark magic that bound the creature. The Champion thrashed and bucked so violently that Ridmark almost lost his footing, but he held on. White fire began to leak from the joints in the armor, and the Champion’s thrashing grew feebler, feebler.
Then with one final heave, the Champion went motionless and limp.
Ridmark wrenched Oathshield free and stepped off the hulking carcass, grimacing as he caught his breath. The mixed odor of corrupted flesh and burned meat flooded his nostrils. God and the saints, but it was a nasty stench.
“Ridmark!” shouted Calliande in warning.
Ridmark turned just as Archaelon’s scream of fury filled his ears.
Chapter 21: Breach
Ridmark looked up to see Archaelon glaring down at him from the battlements. The necromancer’s calm had vanished, his emotionlessness shattered. In its place, blazed raw fury and naked hatred, the wrath of a craftsman who had just seen his masterwork destroyed.
Archaelon cast a spell, blue fire and dark shadow writhing around his fingers. Oathshield shuddered with rage in Ridmark’s hand, the sword’s fire blazing bright once again in response to the dark magic gathering at Archaelon’s call.
Ridmark raised his sword in guard, and Archaelon flung out his hands. A howling lance of blue fire and twisting shadow burst from his fingers and slammed into Ridmark. Oathshield blazed brighter, the soulblade’s power protecting Ridmark from the dark magic.
Yet still Archaelon’s attack continued, his dark magic hammering at Ridmark. All of Oathshield’s power went into deflecting the attack, and Ridmark could not move.
###
“Ridmark!” said Calliande
As she had predicted, as she had feared, Archaelon had proven treacherous. No sooner had the Champion’s rotting carcass fallen to the ground, its dark magic burned away, then Archaelon attacked. He hurled a howling lance of dark magic at Ridmark, necromantic magic designed to leech away the life force of whatever it touched.
Yet Oathshield proved equal to that dark power, shielding Ridmark from its malevolence.
Calliande snarled and gathered her own magic, preparing to blast Archaelon from the walls of Castra Chaeldon.
“My lady!” said Rallios. “The walls!”
Yes, of course. Her spell of earth magic was ready, the power only waiting for her to unleash it. Oathshield would protect Ridmark long enough for Calliande to breach the walls.
And when she did, Archaelon would have something else to hold his attention.
Calliande bent her full will and power upon the whirling cylinder of purple fire, releasing the spell and directing its strength towards the wall.
The ground shuddered a little beneath her boots.
###
Tamlin looked in amazement as the Keeper unleashed her power upon the walls of Castra Chaeldon.
The cylinder of purple light plunged into the earth and vanished, and an instant later a wave of purple light shot through the ground, looking almost like light reflecting off rippling water. As the wave surged through the ground, the earth began to fold and twist, once again reminding Tamlin of a banner caught in strong wind.
And as the wave reached the wall, it snapped the ground like a woman shaking the dust from a carpet.
A section of curtain wall about ten yards across heaved up and then down again in the grip of the earth magic, and when it came down again, it collapsed into the castra’s courtyard. Shouts and screams rose from the courtyard, followed by the roar of collapsing masonry. Archaelon broke off his attack, his eyes wide, and looked at the shattered wall.
“Now!” roared Rallios in the battlefield voice of a veteran decurion. “At them! Move! Move! Move!”
“For God and Owyllain!” shouted Aegeus. “Owyllain and victory!”
The hoplites sprinted forward, shields raised, swords drawn back to strike. Tamlin ran with them, his dark elven sword in his right hand, his left already crackling with lightning as he called his magic. The other Arcanii accompanied him, and he saw Kalussa summoning fire as Aegeus and Parmenio both began casting spells of their own.
Archaelon whirled and vanished from the ramparts an instant before Calliande’s lance of white fire would have burned him to ashes. Tamlin looked down and saw that Ridmark had joined them, his soulblade burning in his hands.
Chaos ruled in the courtyard as the dust cleared. Orcish warriors shouted instructions, and undead creatures surged from the central keep. The orcish warriors were attempting to form a shield wall behind the breach, no doubt hoping to keep the hoplites back so archers could rain arrows from the wall.
Tamlin couldn’t have that.
“Arcanii!” he shouted, raising his left hand as he focused his power. “Now!”
Tamlin cast his spell, and the other Arcanii followed suit.
A bolt of lightning erupted from his hand, forked, and killed two of the orcish soldiers, driving them to the ground. Aegeus flung a lance of ice that speared an orcish warrior through the chest. Kalussa hurled one of her fiery bolts, sheathing an unfortunate orc in snarling flames. The other Arcanii threw bolts of fire or spheres of sputtering white acid, and the half-formed shield wall wavered, the orcish soldiers flinching under the magical attacks.
Then the men of Owyllain tore through the breach and into the orcs, and Tamlin had no more time for magic, only swordplay.
###
Fire and ice and lightning slashed past Ridmark and tore into the orcish defenders, and he called on Oathshield for speed. The orcs tried to reform, tried to make a shield wall, but it was too late. The magical attacks had disrupted their formation, and they had no time to recover.
Not with Oathshield fueling Ridmark’s speed.
He sprinted forward, leaped over the rubble, and into the courtyard of the castra. Around him he saw chaos, orcish warriors rushing towards both the walls and the breach and undead creatures pouring from the keep. There was no sign of Archaelon or Khurazalin. Ridmark needed to find them. They were the most dangerous foes the hoplites faced, and he was the one best equipped to deal with the necromancer and the warlock.
But first, he had to find them.
Ridmark charged into the orcs, sweeping Oathshield before him with mighty blows. He took off the head of the nearest orc, green blood spattering across the ground. A second orcish warrior attacked him, and Ridmark parried, snapping Oathshield up in guard. The bronze blade rebounded from the sword, and the orcish warrior staggered. Before he could recover, Ridmark riposted, driving his soulblade’s point through the warrior’s leather cuirass and into his heart. Two orcish warriors came at him in tandem, one thr
usting with a bronze spear, the second chopping a bronze axe. Ridmark stepped into the attack, trusting in his dark elven armor to deflect the spear’s point, and raised his sword to parry. The spear scraped off his chest armor, though the shock hurt, and he parried the axe. Ridmark disengaged with lightning speed, ripping Oathshield around to open the axe-wielding orc’s throat, and then shifted his stance to block the next thrust of the spear. The spear-wielding orcish warrior overbalanced, and Ridmark killed him with a chop to the neck.
He stepped back, wondering what the hell was taking the hoplites and the Arcanii so long, and then realized that only a few seconds had passed.
Right then the hoplites and the Arcanii charged into the disorganized orcs, shouting at the top of their lungs, and the shock of their charge drove back the enemy.
Ridmark found himself fighting side-by-side with Tamlin and Aegeus. Tamlin wielded his dark elven sword with skill, the blade flicking back and forth as he stabbed and slashed. Lightning sparked and snarled around the fingers of his left hand, and when he hit an enemy with his left hand, the lightning stunned his foe long enough for him to land a blow with the sword. Aegeus did not have Tamlin’s skill, but he made up for it with raw strength. His magic conjured a shield of ice on his left arm, which was hard enough to block the blows of bronze swords. Sometimes Aegeus slammed the shield across the face of a foe, shattering both his shield and his enemy’s face, but he conjured another at once.
Ridmark and the Arcanii served as the tip of the spear, and they forced their way into the courtyard, more hoplites spilling through the breach behind them. A wave of undead warriors charged at the hoplites, hoping to force back the living soldiers. They might have done it, but the undead were of no use against a Swordbearer. Ridmark tore into the undead, destroying one of the creatures with every blow and leaving motionless corpses and crumbling bones in his wake.
Then all at once, the orcish warriors were falling back, fleeing towards the keep. Ridmark looked around, trying to spot Archaelon, but there was no sign of the traitor. He ought to have been on the walls, but perhaps he had fled to the keep and its dungeons as soon as the wall had been breached.
Maybe he would try to buy his freedom with the lives of the hostages, including those of the children.
Ridmark hurried towards the keep, Oathshield’s urgency matching his own.
###
“Go!” barked Rallios, pointing his sword. “The stairs! Get that goddamned gate under our control! Move!”
Kalussa nodded and followed the decurion and the troop of hoplites. Ten hoplites ran up the rampart stairs, shields raised, swords drawn back to strike. Kalussa had no sword, but flames crackled around her fingers as she held her magic ready. Once they had control of the gate, they would have command of the curtain wall itself, and they could keep orcish archers from pouring arrows into the battle below. It would also give the Keeper a secure place to stand and bring her magic to bear against the orcish warriors.
And against Archaelon and Khurazalin, once they revealed themselves.
The hoplites charged up the stairs and towards the gatehouse, and a half-dozen orcish warriors burst out to meet them. A hoplite died at once, an orcish blade driven through his helmet, as did an orcish warrior, his throat opened by a hoplite’s sword.
The hoplites strove against the orcs, and Kalussa began casting spells. She flung a bolt of fire that set an orcish warrior aflame. The warrior screamed as both his clothes and his leather armor caught fire, and he stumbled and fell to his death in the courtyard below. A moment later she gathered her power again. This time her fire blazed hotter, and her spell turned an orcish warrior’s head to a smoking, charred skull.
Between that and the spells she had cast during the initial breakthrough, her power was exhausted, and it needed time to recover. Instead of casting another spell, she snatched her bow from over her shoulder, yanked an arrow from the quiver at her belt, and set it to the string. A drawn breath to steady her hands, and she drew back the string, aimed, and released all in one motion. Her arrow thudded into an orcish warrior’s shoulder. The orc stumbled back, his red-glazed eyes glaring at her, and the moment of distraction let one of the hoplites cut him down.
Kalussa drew another arrow, looking for foes, but they had cleared the gatehouse.
“Go!” said Rallios. “You, you, you, get that gate open!”
The hoplites scrambled to obey. Kalussa hesitated, wondering if she should help them, but she wasn’t strong enough to make much difference in the raw effort of wrestling the gate open. Instead, she looked at the courtyard and saw the hoplites storming through the breach and cutting down the enemy.
She also saw Ridmark carving his way through the undead, striking down one of the creatures with nearly every step. He was forcing his way towards the keep, and sooner or later Archaelon and Khurazalin would respond to the attack. Both the traitor and the Maledictus were now trapped within Castra Chaeldon, and they had no choice but to fight for their lives.
When that happened, Kalussa would be ready. She would hold her magic in reserve until that moment came.
Until then, there were plenty of orcish warriors left to kill.
Kalussa stood upon the ramparts and loosed shaft after shaft at the orcish warriors below.
###
Tamlin cut down another orc, his blue sword running with green blood, and risked a look around.
They were winning. But the battle still hung in the balance. Ridmark was cutting through the undead like a scythe, and the gate was opening, which meant Calliande would soon bring her spells to the fray. But Archaelon and Khurazalin had not yet shown themselves. Tamlin had seen the wraiths that Archaelon had conjured, and he knew firsthand the terrible magical power of a high priest of the Maledicti.
When they struck, they might turn the tide of the battle in their favor.
But there was something Tamlin could do to prevent that.
They had driven the enemy back, across the courtyard and towards the doors to the main keep. As the orcs retreated and the undead fell to Ridmark’s fury, they had left the sides of the octagonal keep unguarded.
Including the door that led to the keep’s dungeons.
“Aegeus!” said Tamlin. “It’s time!”
Aegeus lifted his sword, nodded, and shouted instructions to the hoplites behind him. Ten men followed the two Arcanii as they rushed across the courtyard to the base of the keep. There was a narrow door there, locked and barred, and the hoplites took axes to it and had it open in short order. Tamlin wrenched the door open and hurried down a narrow flight of stone steps.
He came to the gloomy dungeons below the central keep. It was a wide, low chamber with a barrel-vaulted ceiling, the thick pillars standing like a forest. Hundreds of bronze cuirasses and swords had been stacked against one wall, and bronze bars sealed off most of the dungeon from the stairs, with a single door built into the bars.
Hundreds of unarmed hoplites waited behind the bars, surging to their feet as Tamlin and Aegeus hurried over.
“Thunderbolt!” shouted one of the hoplites.
God and the saints, but Tamlin hated that nickname.
“Men of Owyllain!” he shouted. Aegeus went to work on the lock holding the bronze bars, freezing the metal and making in brittle. “In the name of King Hektor Pendragon, we are retaking the castra from the traitor. It’s time to fight.”
“We’re ready!” said another hoplite. Aegeus wrenched the frozen lock away from the bars and swung the door open.
“Good,” said Tamlin. “We’ve work to do. Get yourselves armed and armored and follow me.”
###
Calliande ran for the opened gate, flanked by four hoplites that Rallios had assigned to guard her.
The hoplites had poured through the breach, cutting down every orc in their path. Between the orcs and the undead, Archaelon had greater numbers, but as Calliande ran through the gate, she saw that the hoplites were holding fast against the orcish warriors, and Ridmark was tearing
his way through the undead like a storm.
She came to a stop as more hoplites streamed from a door at the base of the keep. Did Archaelon have reinforcements? No, those were his prisoners, the men he had taken captive to fuel his necromantic magic. Even as Calliande looked, the freed prisoners charged into the fray, shouting as they avenged themselves on their captors, and the orcish resistance crumbled.
They were winning, but it would not be over until they had defeated Archaelon and Khurazalin.
It would not be over until Calliande had found her sons.
She called on the Sight and swept it over the castra, seeking for both her children and her enemies. At once she found Gareth and Joachim. This close, the necromantic aura did nothing to distort her Sight, and she found the children in one of the higher levels of the keep. Ridmark was heading in that direction, and Calliande would join him, using her magic to burn through the rest of the undead.
As for Archaelon and Khurazalin…
A surge of dark magic blazed before her Sight.
###
Ridmark cut down one last undead creature and strode towards the opened doors of the keep.
Inside he saw a shadowy great hall, dim light leaking through the narrow windows. No doubt Archaelon had fled into the keep once the wall had been breached. Well, he would not be able to hide. Ridmark would find him, and when he did…
Archaelon stepped into sight, striding towards Ridmark.
In his right hand, the traitorous Arcanius carried a bronze sword that crawled and writhed with shadow fire. In his left hand, he carried a staff that looked as if it had been fashioned from human femurs lashed together with bronze wire. A grinning skull topped the staff, its eyes glowing with blue fire.
Ridmark stopped at the base of the shallow stairs leading to the doors, and Archaelon stared at him.
Sevenfold Sword: Champion Page 28