Awakener

by J. C. Staudt

  “Your majesty,” said the bald Warpriest, taking a prepared spell in hand.

  “Vicar Norne,” said the king. “Thank the gods it’s you.”

  An impish grin crossed the priest’s face. “Oh, don’t thank the gods, sire. They’ll only let you down.”

  The king took a step back. “Vicar Norne… what is the meaning of this?”

  “With warmest regards from Rylar King of Korengad, I must bid you farewell.”

  The king turned on his heel and fled, only to fall face first into a long puddle. The Warpriest staggered out into the rain after him. Olyvard scrambled to his feet as the priest gained ground. Draithon was about to intervene when a figure leapt from a high battlement to land across the yard in a crouch, his fist driven deep into the earth.

  The ground rippled out from his fist and tore a rent across the yard. The Warpriest dove aside and narrowly avoided it, but the king was not so fortunate. The bulging earth flipped him off his feet as he tried to stand. He landed hard on his back and lay groaning in the mud.

  When the figure stood, he towered. Tattoos lined his bald skull above pointed elven ears; his velvet traveling clothes were soaked with rain. His voice boomed across the yard, eclipsing the sounds of storm and battle. “Did you think you could escape my wrath?”

  “Hello there, Blinch,” said Norne. “I haven’t killed you yet, have I? I suspected you might wish to be next in line, given the untimely deaths of your master and brother.”

  “Master? Brother? We are the vessel of Dalahmet. His power incarnate. I have come for the sacrifices you stole from my altar on the day of penitence.”

  “The vessel of Dalahmet, eh? His earthly power could stand to undergo a few improvements.”

  A dark smile spread across Blinch’s face. “I expect you’ll find it already has.”

  Norne pushed his spell. Mist streamed from his outstretched hand to shower Blinch in tiny corrosive droplets. Norne fled toward the keep and disappeared through the doors; Blinch followed, grunting and wiping his eyes as the droplets sizzled over his skin.

  The rain intensified as the sphere-storms boiled across the skies, now stretching as far as Draithon could see. The king lifted his head in a daze and looked around. He began to rise, but ducked and covered his head when the side of the keep burst open. Norne flew out like a flimsy poppet and crashed to the yard in a jouncing halt. Blinch leapt out after him, cratering the ground to send both king and priest tumbling away. Blinch’s skin was blistered and pockmarked, yet he evinced no pain as he trudged over to Norne and lifted him by the collar of his robes. “Where are my sacrifices?” he demanded. “Where are they?”

  “To you they not belong,” called a thickly-accented voice from across the yard.

  Rylar King stood with Alynor beneath the ward gate in a cluster of floating spells. Norne looked relieved to see Rylar, but Blinch’s attention was fixed on the two small girls cowering behind their mother’s skirts. He tossed the Warpriest’s body against the keep, where it struck with a bony crack and slouched to the ground. “Give me those children,” he roared, marching toward them. “I will have my sacrifices.”

  “You’ll have nothing,” Alynor said, “and you’ll have it in great abundance.”

  Taking a spell in each hand, she stepped forward and hurled them at Blinch one after the other. The first broke over him in a wave of flame. The second skipped across the ground, sprouting clusters of pale luminous crystal as long and sharp as spears.

  Blinch emerged from the fire with a growl and spun to avoid the crystal, catching slashes across his thigh and upper arm. He examined his wounds, then glared at Alynor and broke into a run toward her. Rylar touched his chest with a spell; a shimmer of blue flashed over his body as he stepped into Blinch’s path. Blinch cast his own spell, and a pair of glowing ethereal blades flared to life in his hands.

  The two men clashed beneath the gate, Rylar’s longsword against Blinch’s massive ghostly blades, curved and sharp as fangs. Steel and wild-song met in a bright crackling discharge. Blinch swung low, but Rylar’s protective spell flashed blue at the hip. The King of Korengad was no small man by any stretch, yet Blinch outclassed him in both height and reach.

  Alynor drew back with her girls, now caught between the duel ahead and the larger battle behind. Things were looking grim for Gaelyn’s druids and Rylar’s mages as Dathiri soldiers from other parts of the city came to bolster Olyvard’s garrison. Norne and Olyvard were both still lying in the mud, the king moving while the priest lay still. Draithon wanted to help someone, but he’d yet to see any sign of his father, and he was beginning to worry Darion had surrendered more than his éadras when he destroyed the spheres.

  Voltaic sparks flew from Blinch’s blades each time they met Rylar’s. Blinch was gaining ground, and Rylar’s protective spell was wearing thin. Other spells still floated before him, but Blinch hadn’t given Rylar a moment’s reprieve in which to use them.

  Alynor crouched to let Ryssa climb onto her back. She took Vyleigh in her arms and tossed a spell at her feet; purple swirls spun up her legs. They vanished, all three, in a streak of color.

  Olyvard sat up in the mud and gave himself a shake. When he saw Norne lying beside him and noticed a clear path to the keep, he stumbled to his feet and ran for the doors. Draithon followed him.

  The keep’s interior was dark and cold. Draithon kept his distance, using the sound of the king’s footsteps to trail him through the castle’s hallways and chambers and stairwells. All the while, Olyvard seemed not to notice there was anyone behind him.

  At the top of a curved staircase lay a dead Warpriest. Blood pooled beneath him and dripped down the stairs to soak the dozens of folded parchment pages scattered there. One was crumpled into a ball. Draithon picked it up and smoothed it out. It was a spell of the wild-song, though he couldn’t at first tell what sort. He salvaged what other sheets the blood hadn’t ruined and slid them into his pocket before stepping carefully over the dead Warpriest. A plain-looking man, and simple for a Warpriest, Draithon decided. There was pain in the man’s stiff expression, but a measure of contentment, too.

  Olyvard climbed the steps of the central tower, where the ruptured turret stood open to the elements. Draithon crept up the stairs behind him until he could see the gray sky and feel the rain on his head. The king plunged his hands into the rounded basin atop a stone pedestal at the center of the floor. When he drew them out, they were stippled in shards of broken glass. He gave a mournful wail and began to gibber unintelligibly.

  When Draithon poked his head above floor level, he saw a broad-shouldered man with long graying hair lying on his back at the opposite edge of the floor, one arm hanging over the steep drop-off where the turret wall had once been. The man wore a pair of soiled leggings and nothing else, save the ornate longsword belted to his hip. A dozen shards of ironglass protruded from his rain-washed chest.

  “Father,” Draithon breathed.

  Olyvard whirled at the sound and saw Draithon crouched on the stairs. “Stay away,” he spat, working his way round the pedestal to Darion’s side. “Stay away from me, traitor’s spawn.”

  Down in the yard, Rylar and Blinch were still trading spells and crossing swords. One of Gaelyn’s druids shifted into a lumbering brown bear and charged into a mass of Dathiri soldiers, tearing them to stringy shreds. Arrows rained upon the king’s enemies from the keep battlements. Alynor and the girls were nowhere to be seen.

  Draithon studied the king and was not afraid. If this was the man from his father’s stories, there was no reason to be. Olyvard was a coward; a vile little man with a poisonous lust for power. Draithon ascended the last few stairs to stand upon the tower floor, facing the king whose decrees had killed or endangered everyone he loved.

  Olyvard retreated a step, nearing Darion. “Stay back, I say. I’ll push him.”

  “It’s too long you’ve escaped the justice you deserve,” Draithon said.

  “There is no justice beyond my own. Wretch. Your fa
ther is, and has ever been, worthy of a traitor’s death. It is my mercy alone which has allowed him so long and fruitful a life.”

  “My father often embellishes his stories. I can see now you were no exaggeration. Your mind is as twisted as he’s always claimed.”

  Darion’s eyes opened. He blinked against the rain, then turned to look at his son. “Draithon,” he said in a weak voice. “Stop this. You don’t understand what you’re doing.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong, Father. Where you’ve always been wrong.”

  Draithon cast a spell. A dark stain spread from his feet, blacker still than the rain. The stone floor slithered and buckled as the stain crept toward the king, slowly at first. It met his feet and worked its way upward, cracking his leather boots, rotting his silken leggings, and spoiling his violet robes.

  Olyvard gasped. He looked down at himself, turning his palms upward. Veins bulged down his arms and darkened toward his fingers, puddling in purple bruises. His breaths wheezed, rasping in ever-shorter bursts. Blotches appeared on his face, greened like rotting fruit and sickened with mold. His eyes went wide, blood vessels eroding through the whites in a forest of twisted black branches.

  “You cannot do this,” Olyvard screamed, his voice slumping to a growl. “I am the king.”

  “You are nothing,” said Draithon. “Your kingdom is nothing. Your empire is nothing. And soon you will be… nothing.”

  Olyvard’s lips moved, but no sound emerged. His head sank on his shoulders until he was bent like an old shriveled buzzard. He collapsed to his knees, then to both hands, struggling for breath. The blight flooded through him, and the rain washed the flesh from his bones. Draithon did not cease.

  Soon the king could no longer hold himself up, and he fell over in a heap. His clothes eroded to rags. The bones washed clean and flaked away like brittle porcelain. When the spell finished its work, nothing remained of Olyvard King of Dathrond but a mound of earth-colored residue which the rain rinsed away. Draithon went to his father and knelt to pull him back from the edge.

  “You’ve killed him,” Darion coughed.

  “Give your foe the means to recover, and he’ll take you up on the offer. You gave Olyvard the means to recover once. There was no doing it again.”

  “He was the son of my close friend.”

  “And proof that a man’s birth doesn’t make him worthy to hold lordship over anything.”

  “The law is the law. He was Dathrond’s king.”

  “Enough, Father. Air your regrets after we’ve gotten you well.”

  “There’s no getting well for me, son. This is where I meet my end.”

  “Don’t be dramatic. I’m going to pull out all this glass. Take my hand.”

  “No need.”

  “Of course there’s a need.” Draithon gripped his father’s hand and began to pluck the shards from his chest.

  Darion winced each time, but he did not cry out.

  “You destroyed the spheres,” Draithon said after a time. “How?”

  “I forfeited my éadras.”

  Draithon’s heart sank. “I suspected as much.”

  “You did?”

  “I saw it when I bound in the red sphere. Its weakness.”

  “No force but éadras can penetrate an object imbued with an enchantment like that, unless it’s forged with a failsafe in place. Those spheres weren’t. When I cast my gaze into them, I sensed they were created with a master’s touch—but a master of craft, not of magic. It’s unlikely Olyvard thought to have a safety measure built into them. They were his ultimate weapons of war; he never imagined needing to destroy them.”

  “Yet you did, and we’re all the better for it. Can you not be healed by the wild-song?”

  Darion shook his head. “I’ll have none of that.”

  “You will. You’ll slow our way home if you’re not healthy.”

  “Stop worrying about me. Where are your mother and sisters?”

  Draithon looked out over the castle wards, where the battle was falling into Dathiri hands. “They’ve run off somewhere with a shadow-walking spell. If your friends lose this battle, we’ll be stranded up here.”

  “Then you must run. Find our women and take them far away from here. If anyone saw what you did to Olyvard, there will be no end to the trials you face.”

  “I’ll go,” said Draithon, “but only if you come with me.”

  He pulled the stack of folded parchments from his pocket. Many were water-damaged, their creases worn from countless foldings and unfoldings. He found the crumpled one and smoothed it over his knee.

  “I’ve told you I won’t be subjected to that nature-loving rubbish,” Darion tried.

  Draithon was already casting. Raindrops dotted the page, smudging the ink as he recited the sigils. Darion kept up his protests, but Draithon paid him no mind. He woke the wild-song, took it in hand, and touched it to his father’s chest.

  Streaks of gray ran through Darion’s hair, blanching what brown remained. The last few ironglass shards in his chest eased out and fell from closed wounds.

  Draithon helped his father up. “You’re not done for this world yet, old man.”

  Down the tower stairs, they traversed the upper halls and stepped over the dead Warpriest.

  “The curing spell you used on me,” said Darion. “It was one of his?”

  Draithon nodded. “There were spells strewn all over the staircase.”

  “Yes, I know. I was the one who put them there.”

  “You killed him?”

  “I believe he was one of the men who kidnapped your sisters.”

  “What makes you think so?”

  “Only a hunch. Ryssa and Vyleigh were with him when I found them. His robes are well-traveled and sand-worn, not like these other priests who dally about the castle all day in clean white linen.”

  “You did right, then, to kill him. Mother said there were three priests who came to the hamlet. Who were the other two, I wonder?”

  “I wouldn’t doubt Norne Sigurdarsson is one of them. As for the third, I couldn’t say.”

  “I’m going to find out,” said Draithon. “If Norne is still alive, I’ll find out. Along with the names of everyone in their company.”

  “Careful, son. If you make vengeance your guide, it will lead you to dark places.”

  “Our family has seen its share of darkness. Isn’t it time we stopped letting others trample on us?”

  “You’ve accomplished that. Olyvard is dead.”

  “Yet you would let his abettors walk free?”

  “There was a time when vengeance was my only nourishment. It consumed me day and night. Only when I sated my hunger did I come to understand its futility.”

  “I don’t remember you telling of such a time in any of your stories.”

  Darion gave him a somber smile. “I haven’t told you all my stories.”

  “What could anyone possibly have done to you that was worse than this?”

  “It doesn’t matter. What matters is finding your sisters and your mother.”

  “You can’t cast spells anymore.”

  “No,” Darion said, “but you can.”

  “There are Warpriests and Dathiri soldiers everywhere. We won’t make it ten fathoms out the door.”

  Darion drew the longsword from his sheath. “Its name is Bloodcaller. Arixval, to the dwarves. I forged it in the fires of Korvane when I was a young man. I had to sell it to afford passage across the Forscythe when I returned from Korengad to find you and your mother.”

  “This I remember,” said Draithon. “Is it truly the same sword?”

  “Aye, and it’s no less magical than it was in my stories. So you see, we have all we need. You’re a caster. I’m a warrior. Together we’ll make a Warcaster.”

  “But I only know a dozen spells by heart. And you don’t want me playing around with new ones.”

  Darion sheathed the sword and took Draithon by his shoulders. “Forget that now. Our girls are out the
re. If this battle is lost, we lose them too.”

  “I can’t do it, Father.”

  “Draithon Ulther,” Darion bellowed. “If anyone has what it takes to do this, it’s you. Stop doubting yourself. You spoke of the darkness we’ve seen. Now’s the time to end it, and there isn’t a mage in the world I’d rather have at my back.”

  Draithon was astonished. Father couldn’t be telling the truth, given the many powerful mages he knew. Yet something in his trusting stare made Draithon want to show himself equal to the task. He began to cast.

  “That’s right. Begin with your defensive spells,” Darion advised. “Two or three of various sorts.” He waited. “Good. Now start building up an offensive array. You’ll want several kinds within reach. The tides of battle are always changing. Here, try feeding a spell into the sword.”

  Darion drew Bloodcaller, and Draithon touched a bundle of mage-song to the hilt. The blade glinted with a sorcerous light. When they came at last to the keep’s front doors, they could hear the sounds of battle beginning to dwindle outside. That could only mean one thing—the Dathiri were winning. Darion’s eyes met Draithon’s. “Are you ready?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “No one ever is when it’s death they face. Stay with me, now, and keep the spells coming.” Darion pulled open the right-hand door and slipped out into the rain.

  Draithon kept a watchful eye on the towers and battlements as he followed his father across the ward toward the inner gate. Norne lay in the mud; he was moving now, but seemed unable to stand. He called out to them for aid as they passed.

  I’ll be back for you, Draithon thought, casting.

  Chapter 34

  Beyond the castle’s inner gate they found Rylar King lying face down in the grass with his cloak off his shoulders. Darion knelt and rolled him over. The chainmail beneath Rylar’s tunic was cut and melted where something hot had slashed him across the chest. He opened his eyes and stared groggily at Darion. “I survive,” he mumbled. “Elf-giant hit me on head. This only scratch. Wife and childs need you.” He tilted his head toward the far end of the outer ward, where it turned a corner toward the king’s high hall and the gallery above.