The nimble Kharrihan had scampered quickly around the not so agile oroks, ducking sword strikes, leaping over backs, and skidding to a halt near the companions’ belongings just ahead of the Knight. A longtime friend of Bart’s, he well knew the value of the bard’s sword-staff and grabbed for it first. With a glance at Bart to ensure he was looking, Kharr threw the staff like a spear to his friend who was fighting his way towards the small elf. The man is a marvel to watch, thought Kharr. A master of the Volan form of unarmed combat known as the panther, a veteran of the Arnathian gladiatorial games, and an ex-mercenary of some renown, the unarmed man was handling even these organized and brave oroks with deadly skill. The elf knew something else about the bard’s background, too; but Bart’s lineage would remain secret as long as the bard wished it so.
Quick as lightning, Bart plucked his sword-staff from the air and quickly incapacitated a pair of oroks with two strikes. Then he separated his staff into two pieces; in his right hand he gripped one rapier, in his left the other rapier still sheathed in the rest of the staff. He whirled the flute section in the air, this way and that, in circles and in figure-eights, producing a melancholy dirge. With his other hand he deftly worked the rapier into the gut of an orok that was lulled into inactivity by the music.
His music was drowned out by another sound; a cacophony of riotous screaming, screeching, and hideous laughter! He looked around wildly and saw shadows and shapes flitting around the room, diving into and away from Orokish guards. Two oroks, who had been standing near the throne, were lying on the ground with their throats flayed wide open, droplets of blood falling from unseen hands suspended above them.
The bard wasn’t sure if he should be grateful for the unseen help, but figured that any chance of escape was better than none. Now, with his old friend Kharrihan at his side, the two battled Orokish reinforcements who were pouring into the room. Back to back the pair skillfully fought the toughest oroks either man had ever seen.
Carym used the raw power of the Sigil Stones to strengthen the Tides that were already swirling riotously around him. The power of the Flamestone surged through his body and flowed outward, forming a sword of pure flame in each hand. Carym flicked one of the swords of flame in the direction of the advancing death-knight, slinging a small ball of fire across the room. The mini-fireball crashed into Hessan and enveloped him in tendrils of flame; for a moment the ancient evil knight disappeared from view. Then the fire simply vanished, Hessan came on again; his corpse-voice laughing at Carym form somewhere off to the side.
“So, you are a Fyrbold!”
Carym wished that the damn corpse-thing would be cut down so he wouldn’t have to listen to that sickening, chortling, voice.
“The Flame Sigil is weak compared to the might of the Shadow! Join me and taste its power!”
Carym remembered the Spirit Stone! He had no formal instruction in the use of any of the Sigils other than the Flame Sigil, and knew that dabbling could prove dangerous, even fatal, if done improperly. It was a completely foreign language and he was making assumptions about its use based on the very little he knew. But he had little choice; dabble or die.
Hessan swung the tip of his scythe toward Carym, mocking the man’s pervious attack and launched a deadly missile of his own. A skull trailing flames of blue and black sailed across the room, shrieking so that Carym felt his stomach turn and the desire to fall to his knees almost overcame him. He knew that to do so was to die.
He swung his sword of flames at the skull and the impact caused a powerful concussion, destroying the devious magical construct, showering the room with fiery embers; still the Rider came on. Suddenly the evil knight was there and his seven foot frame delivered a devastating blow with his sword down toward the top of Carym’s head. Carym held his enchanted blades up to the attack, but bowed somewhat under the unnatural weight of the deadly being. Carym gave way to the downward pressure and rolled to the side, causing the Rider’s blade to crash downward into the floor. On the ground now, Carym swung his stick with all his might, trying to sweep one of Hessan’s legs while he was off balance. Though it felt like striking the trunk of an oak tree, and his hands stung from the effort, he succeeded in causing Hessan to stumble.
Carym quickly rolled out of sword range and remembered his magic. Why did he always resort to martial combat when he had magic at his disposal? Safely out of range of the recovering Rider, he tried to finish what he had begun earlier and forced the Spirit and Firestones to bend to his will. Suddenly Carym’s flaming swords surged with tendrils of silvery flames from the power of the Spirit Stone, crackling with now with flames of both silver and red.
Hessan must have sensed the presence of the new element for he hesitated; Carym seized the initiative. Body and weapons infused with magical energy, Carym charged the undead knight with magical speed. His blows reigned down with ferocity and power, causing Hessan to fight defensively. He scored a hit to the evil knight’s elbow, followed by a successive hit to his thigh. Each time Carym found his mark he was rewarded with an explosion of sparks of silver and red. The rapid succession of blows forced the undead knight into pure defensive maneuvering, backpedaling, parrying Carym’s dual sword attacks with his own sword and scythe. Carym delivered a strike to Hessan’s right shoulder, which the Rider willingly accepted as he found an opening in the mortal’s defenses. The Rider, gaining the opening he needed, was able to drive his elbow into Carym’s head, stunning him. Carym stumbled backward, his magical blades dimming from his lack of concentration, his vision blurring.
“Join me, and I will teach you the true power of the Sigils!”
Carym answered by regaining his focus and standing with his magical blades fiercely burning once more. Hessan cackled then.
“Very well. Let us finish this, mortal!” The Headless Rider raised his sword high and his scythe low, confusing Carym with whatever attack the creature had in mind.
It was then that the Black Baron struck. A cloud of inky blackness swirled and writhed around the Headless Rider causing him to swat at it in dismay. “No!” shouted Hessan as he ferociously swung his blades. “You are my prisoner!”
“I am NO ONE’s prisoner!” came the angry and malevolent voice. Slowly the semblance of a man appeared in the blackness that gripped the evil knight. Hessan struggled but found his arms bound to his sides. Then the cloud flowed down and into the gaping hole in the neck of the dead knight, causing Hessan to jump up and down, cursing, attempting to swat away the inky cloud, trying to throw off his attacker.
“Oh, SHUT up!” came the silky voice of Baron Tyrannus. The corpse serving as the voice of Hessan the Headless Rider burst into flames and was silenced. A gaping hole of inky blackness appeared next to the struggling Headless Rider. Silvery snake-like tendrils darted out of the hole binding the struggling death-knight; Carym staggered back from the gaze of the hungry eyes that glittered in the dark portal. For a moment Carym feared more enemies would pour from this sinister doorway. Then the evil knight was dragged, thrashing, into the dark portal as it snapped shut. The face of the evil Baron Tyrannus glimmered into view and Carym thought he would have to fight that one next.
Fear evaporated as the despicable Baron threw a sly wink at Carym and vanished.
All around him was chaos. His friends were battling oroks as well as their tall human reinforcements from the courtyard above. Inky black shadows with silvery blades were raining murder on the forces of the Headless Rider who was now nowhere to be seen.
In all the confusion Gennevera had the presence of mind to find the companions’ belongings and guarded them closely. When one came near she would offer them something to help them fight. It had seemed a desperate thing, and she wasn’t optimistic they would escape until the hell of the ghosts broke loose upon the living.
When it seemed that the tide was in favor of the Baron’s ghostly soldiers, momentum shifted away with the arrival of living reinforcements. Then the room filled with a thick hazy mist hiding the occupants from eac
h other. Soon the chill screams of the dead and the roaring of the living filled the air as Baron Tyrannus’ minions sought revenge on living flesh. Carym found Gennevera in the confusion. Quickly he searched for the magical device, Fyrendi’s Home.
“The device, it’s gone!” he shouted. “And the wand we found in the Underllars!”
“One of the guards must have-”
“No! Nothing else has been disturbed. Everything else is here. My cloak, my Sigilbook, my weapons. A thief would have taken them all, a wizard would have taken the device and the Sigilbooks.”
“Then where?”
“Zach,” he growled. Carym glanced at Gennevera, seeing compassion in her eyes and he exhaled deeply.
“Sir Ederick, we must go. This is our only chance!” Carym said as he placed his hand on the knight’s shoulder. Ederick lifted his head and looked Carym in the eyes. Carym saw someone else in that face; someone who was wise and powerful beyond reckoning. Something that wanted desperately to be let loose, to fight and kill and destroy evil. Even if that evil was a force that was enabling their escape.
“This is evil beyond redemption! Abomination!” the knight said tersely. “We must finish this!”
“Ederick! We cannot. We must leave!”
“What?” the knight’s eyes shifted dangerously to Carym. “What did you say?”
“The reason we escaped is because I freed the Black Baron. Hessan had control of the item which bound him to this castle and damned him to eternal misery.”
“You did what?” the knight rounded on Carym, eyes alight with anger. “You released the Black Baron?”
“Yes, it was the only way for us to escape; and we must do so now.”
“Better we all die than to aid the likes of him! What have you done?” the knight demanded, angrily rounding on Carym. It was clear he was considering taking his anger out on his companion.
“I warn you now, Ederick: If you raise your sword against the minions of Baron Tyrannus, you will doom us all,” hissed Carym.
“You made a deal.”
Carym nodded at the knight’s observation.
“Very well. Honor is honor.”
The knight was no stranger to negotiations; in battle it is frequently done. He could respect the cost of such action, but he would have been loath to do so himself. Ederick recognized that he was part of the group and for now, he was not in charge.
Seeing that everyone was armed, and all the oroks and men belonging to Hessan were occupied in the deadly melee with ghostly fighters, Carym turned and hastened towards a staircase leading upward and out of the dungeons to the courtyard above. Carym was relieved to find Bart and Kharrihan fighting in concert with the spirits of the Black Baron; the pair fell in behind Carym and the others as they climbed the stairwell.
Carym hoped that the ghostly baron would not turn on the companions. The companions encountered several lusty eyed ghosts who watched the group closely but did not attack. As they neared the top of the stairs, Carym found himself facing a pair of oroks fleeing from a shrieking poltergeist. The malevolent spirit immediately disappeared, leaving him and his group unmolested as they slayed the terrified orok. Another of Hessan’s orok guards charged up the stairs behind the companions attempting to flee from a spirit that was slashing a silvery scimitar at its back. Gennevera turned and with one deadly stroke, crushed the orok’s skull with a cudgel she had acquired during the chaos. Again, the spiritual pursuer fled without confronting the group.
Finally, reaching the courtyard above, Ederick opened the door and the companions were surprised to see that the portcullis had been raised; all the troops were gone. Deciding that it was best not to question their good fortune, the knight spurred the group onward.
“Dawn comes!” said Gennevera, noting the lightening of the sky above the mountaintops to the east. “The sun will weaken the power of the dead and Hessan’s men will be free to follow!”
“Hurry, Carym!” urged the knight.
Carym agreed. A sense of foreboding inspired him to pick up the pace and the rest followed suit. As the companions neared the tree line beyond, Carym heard something that stopped him in his tracks.
A shrill scream twisted his stomach with fear, and he could not tear his gaze from the object that was now floating ominously through the air from the castle. Then he was shoved hard from behind and snapped out of the spell’s hypnotic effect. He fell to the ground covering his ears, the screaming voice of the skull was painful. He wanted it to stop so badly! Gripping the red stone in one hand he thrust his bo-tani fighting stick out before him and willed a burst of magical fire to shoot forth. A glowing ball of red flames hurtled through the air, crashed into the lazily drifting skull of blue and exploded. A shower of red and blue flames and crackling lightning bolts demonstrated that his spell had worked.
Who did that? He wondered wearily, not knowing if he could withstand another skull spell. Was the Black Baron betraying the group? But he saw no evidence of the spectre’s involvement. Then he saw a figure emerge from the courtyard beyond the portcullis. A very real figure cloaked in black with the cowl of his hood drawn low, and a wand held in a very pale hand extended from a sleeve.
He turned back toward his companions, who were now quite far ahead of him, and began to run; he knew a spell caster when he saw one! Then he heard it again, another screaming skull! He knew he would never make the safety of the tree line with his companions, he had to do something. He turned and thrust out his bo-tani again, one hand clutching the Flamestone tightly, uttering the Sigil word he hoped would effect a spell to protect him. The screaming blue skull collided into a shield of flames which he had projected from the end of his fighting stick. And the force of the explosion rocked him backward into the dirt.
As he lay on his back, the wind knocked from him and unable to move, he wondered if he was going to die from another of those abysmal skulls, driven to the brink of insanity just before death. He cursed himself bitterly for accepting the first opportunity to escape and allying himself with such an incomprehensibly evil force as Tyrannus and ruefully wondered if he was now about to meet the Bloody Baron in the afterlife...and where in the afterlife that meeting might take place.
He struggled to make himself move and was aware of an awful sensation like pins and needles poking every inch of his body. Out of his peripheral vision he could see the spell caster approaching. The black cowl and black robe were decorated with silvery patterns of stars and moons. He hadn’t noticed any spell casters lurking about when the companions had been apprehended. But then, he assumed, it wasn’t likely that the ancient Hessan would reveal all his cards so easily. As the mage walked slowly closer, Carym saw the disfigured spell caster for what he was, a binder mage!
Binder mages were known to be some of the most despicable spell casters on Llars. They gained their magical powers by making pacts with demons or spirits of powerful beings long dead; a pact that usually came with a terrible price. Carym could see the price this one paid readily enough for the hand that gripped the magical wand was no hand at all, but a tentacle!
Terror coursed through him and he frantically struggled against the magical paralysis. The Flamestone was still in his hand he realized, and he reached out to the stone with his mind. He used the stone to call the tides of the Flame Sigil and flooded his body with the tidal energies, hoping to push out the effects of the dark magic used upon him.
It worked!
Pain shot through his muscles but he could definitely feel them again. Not wanting to lose the element of surprise, he feigned the effects of paralysis until the powerful binder mage was closer. The man was fooled, and sauntered up to his prize very slowly. An ugly face full of tattoos and piercings leered down at him and foul breath wafted through the cold air and into his nose.
He fought back a wave of nausea and prepared himself for the tricky procedure of calling a Sigilspell with nothing but the force of his will, he could use no command words lest he give his opponent the chance to interrupt hi
s Sigilspell. Now that he had his desired effect pictured clearly in his mind, along with a clear image of the Sigilword that would command his magic, he gripped the Flamestone tightly in his hand and again the Tides of the Flame Sigil coursed through him. He would have to be quick, for a seasoned warlock would certainly be prepared for surprise attacks.
The tentacle began to caress his face and Carym’s mind began to lose focus. He fought valiantly, but he could now feel another presence at the edge of his mind, intruding. He had to act now before this hideous man used his demonic powers to read his mind and predict his next move.
He focused his mind on the Flamestone and the great power that was held within. He willed the stone to channel the power of the Tides to do his bidding. A pillar of flame erupted from the ground beneath the feet of the binder mage. In seconds the man’s clothes were on fire, then his body was on fire; the screaming began. Finally the man fell down, consumed by the flames and he was gone.
Carym struggled to his feet knowing he would not be alone for long. He heard a woman’s voice shouting for help. Trying to listen over the beating of his own heart, Carym heard it again. It was definitely a woman calling for help. Then he saw the source of the plea for help; that strange girl who had also been a prisoner of Hessan’s had staggered into the courtyard and fell holding her side.
Carym doubted his course of action. Who was this woman? His friends needed him and were likely awaiting his return to the group. Could he take the time to try to rescue her? The sting of shame pierced his conscience and he berated himself. Of course he would! How could he do any less and still be a man? Perhaps these dark thoughts were signs of the Shadow Tide tickling his mind.
He took a deep breath, turned and ran back through the portcullis. The girl was struggling, crawling across the courtyard toward him and freedom.
Then he saw another binder mage, taller and meaner looking than the first, enter the courtyard. This one was wearing brown robes and his flesh seemed to be rotting on his frame, flies buzzing around him; he was armed with a wicked whip. The whip cracked like a thunderbolt and latched onto the girl’s ankle, crackling with magical energy.
The Black Keep (The Chronicles of Llars) Page 21