by Ben Wolf
Even so, they were cutting it really close. The new moon was that night, and with Valdis Keep just now in view in the earliest moments of daylight, they’d have to rush down to it, find a way in, and stop the ritual from happening before it got started.
So even though Garrick didn’t like it, Aeron had been right to rush them. Had they dawdled much longer along the way, they almost certainly wouldn’t have made it in time to intervene.
As they rushed to descend toward Valdis Keep, the old sensation of fear crept back into Garrick’s chest. Not just fear of Lord Valdis and his terrible power, but the fear of failing, of his reputation being ruined forever, of never amounting to anything ever again.
They were foolish fears, of course, but then again, most fears were foolish. Fear was just a reaction to a lack of control, and a lot of the time, it wasn’t even the right reaction.
It certainly wasn’t the right reaction now, when Kallie’s life was on the line. His reputation and future didn’t mean anything next to that.
And hey, if they actually managed to succeed, he wouldn’t have to worry about Lord Valdis anymore. Maybe they could raid his coffers, too, and Garrick could retire early. If he could get rich, his reputation wouldn’t mean anything then, either.
Thanks to some aggressive flying by Wafer, the descent took only a fraction as long as it would’ve otherwise taken. By the time the sun reached its midpoint in Xenthan’s clear red skies, the Blood Mercs had reached the outer gates of Lord Valdis’s courtyard.
Strangely—and suspiciously—no soldiers guarded it, and no soldiers roamed the castle walls or manned the heavy weapons along the battlements, either. It was almost as if the place was totally deserted.
The Blood Mercs wasted no time cutting across the courtyard and approaching the twin doors that led inside. And also to their surprise, the doors opened easily, and the dark, yawning mouth of Valdis Keep invited them to enter its black throat.
They gladly obliged.
The naginata felt good in Aeron’s hands, so much that he actually felt as comfortable with it as he had with the spear that Commander Brove had taken from him. Thus far, he’d only used it to spar with Garrick back in Fjorst’s armory, and while it had felt good then, too, Aeron was itching to try it out for real.
As before, Wafer hadn’t been able to join Aeron when he’d ventured inside Valdis Keep. He would’ve fit through the main entrance doors and probably could’ve squeezed through most of the halls and corridors, but it would’ve meant limited mobility at best. Wyverns and limited mobility didn’t mix, so Wafer had stayed outside.
The same gray gargoyles glowered down at them from their perches along the halls, and Aeron was all the more watchful in case they decided to drop down and attack. With Lord Valdis undoubtedly on high alert for their arrival, who knew what might happen?
But the gargoyles didn’t attack. Nor did anyone emerge from the deep shadows within the castle halls to try to stop their advance.
The absence of anything living within Valdis Keep gave Aeron more anxiety than he’d ever experienced, and he couldn’t bring himself to take one of his shrooms to combat it.
The ones with the purple stripes would’ve been perfect to calm him down, but they acted as a muscle relaxant, too, and he couldn’t risk lethargy while fighting for his sister’s life.
He’d taken a painkilling shroom before they’d entered, though, and it had just started to kick in. That was a good thing; fighting without pain—or at least with less pain—meant fighting better.
When they reached the double doors to Lord Valdis’s throne room, Kent had positioned the ice cannon on his shoulder, ready to fire it if the dragon was waiting for them inside. Garrick flung the doors open and backed away so the others could enter first.
Kent stepped forward, flanked by Mehta on his left and Aeron on his right, each of them holding their new weapons. Garrick chased them inside with his hammer ready for action.
Empty.
The iron bowls along the pillars that usually burned with fire weren’t burning, and a heavy darkness blanketed the room. But the darkness wasn’t just normal darkness—it was something more sinister. Aeron could feel it, could tell by the way it fought to subdue the light emanating from their glowing weapons.
“Mehta,” Kent whispered. “What do you see?”
“Nothing.”
“So it’s safe to move forward?” Garrick asked.
“No,” Mehta said. “I mean there’s something wrong with this darkness. I can’t see through it nearly as well.”
That confirmed Aeron’s suspicions and set him even more on edge.
The Blood Mercs glanced at each other. If this was some sort of trap, they had to spring it. Moving forward was the only way to save Kallie, so they advanced deeper into the throne room.
No hidden enemies jumped out at them, and no perils stabbed at them or opened beneath their feet. But a pervasive, unnatural silence and calmness oozed from every inch of the room.
When the throne finally came into view, they stopped. Even in the oppressive darkness, they could tell that someone was sitting on it.
At first, Aeron’s heart demanded him to attack, but it might not even be Lord Valdis. It was too hard to tell anything in the dark beyond that someone was sitting on that wretched throne of twisted, black bones, unmoving.
Aeron glanced at Kent, who still held the cannon over his shoulder, but Kent wouldn’t break his focus from the figure on the throne.
“Mehta,” Aeron whispered. “Is it Valdis?”
Mehta shook his head. “I can’t tell.”
“Stay here.” Garrick started toward the throne.
But as Garrick approached, the figure on the throne twitched.
Garrick swung his new hammer the instant the figure moved. It crashed into the form and plowed straight through the black throne itself, which shattered from the force of Garrick’s blow.
When Garrick pulled his hammer back, he studied the now-frozen remains of the figure, which lay in pieces along with the remnants of the throne. It wasn’t Lord Valdis.
Obliterating his throne had invigorated Garrick, but it would’ve been so much more satisfying had Lord Valdis been sitting there instead of… a skeleton clad in an old set of armor?
He turned back to the other Blood Mercs and shook his head. “Not him.”
But they weren’t looking at him anymore. They were looking at something behind and beyond Garrick.
It was then that Garrick noticed that the throne room had lightened to some degree, and the darkness felt different than it had before. It crawled past his feet and oozed between his arms, legs, and fingers. He could actually feel it moving.
He turned back toward the throne and, for the first time since entering, saw the Sigil of the three-horned ram hanging on the back wall. Before that sigil, the darkness had gathered into a formless mass of swirling shadow.
As Garrick watched, it took the form of a huge man, easily Garrick’s size or bigger, but it didn’t solidify—it was just a fluid shape, roiling and angry, but not solid. Then the sound of armor clanking and shifting with heavy footsteps sounded from beyond the mass of shadows.
It was Boros, the huge soldier who’d stood at Lord Valdis’s side the last time Garrick had seen him. He emerged from the darkness, illuminated only by the blue light glowing from the Blood Mercs’ weapons, and walked right into the mass of swirling shadows.
Then his back arched, his arms spread wide, and his gloved fingers seized and shook. The trembling spread through Boros’s arms to his chest and down his legs until he was fully convulsing. The shadow was merging with his body.
Two loud slams echoed from far behind the Blood Mercs—the throne room doors closing. Then the iron bowls on the pillars ignited with fire, casting orange light throughout the space. A dozen soldiers clad in black armor emerged from behind the pillars, armed and ready.
Boros’s convulsing stopped, and he pulled a gigantic broadsword from his back. It had a black blade
with violet edges and a red, wooden handle—no doubt a companion blade to the battle-axe and flail hanging from Garrick’s waist. He pointed it at Garrick without so much as a word.
“I’ll take the walking blacksmith shop,” Garrick said without turning back. “You three handle the rest.”
Then he swung his hammer at Boros.
Steel sang and then promptly cried out as it chipped and fractured and shattered against Aeron’s naginata.
At least a dozen soldiers had appeared in the throne room, and they all rushed Kent, Mehta, and Aeron at the same time from multiple angles. Kent had handled some with a blast of ice magic, and Mehta downed three of his four with his shuriken in seconds while the fourth approached him with tentative steps.
Meanwhile, Aeron’s naginata danced and battered his first two opponents’ weapons from afar, and it soon rent their armor and flesh as well. Without that weapon, the fight would’ve looked a lot different.
Whenever one of the soldiers went down from an ice-forged strike, crystals of ice formed wherever they’d been struck. The effect resembled that of Garrick’s old snow steel sword and shield, only quicker and more severe. The crystals were bigger—often protruding from wounds like they had from the frostbloods’ bodies.
Aeron suspected that the ice delved deeper into the soldiers’ bodies as well, but he couldn’t tell for sure. Any time he struck one of them, the wound froze on the outside, and whatever body part was cut stopped moving. If ice spread throughout the flesh and blood and bone around the wound, it would explain the soldiers’ newfound immobility.
Two soldiers came at him at once, and he turned to face them next. As with the first two, he picked them apart from a distance, and he did it without any remorse whatsoever. These men stood between him and getting to Kallie. They would get what they deserved.
After throwing the first of his new shuriken in live combat, Mehta decided he’d been overlooking their value for years. It hit its intended target—through and through one of the soldiers—and immediately returned to Mehta, as Fjorst had promised.
More interesting still, Mehta could actually feel it returning to him, almost as if it were attracted to his palm itself. He threw two more of them, lightning-quick, and then caught the first without so much as a scratch on his hand.
Even if conventional shuriken wouldn’t have come back to him, he could think of numerous times, both as a Xyonate and since then, when shuriken would’ve evened long odds or given him an advantage in precarious situations.
Then again, he’d survived thus far without them. Perhaps he would’ve come to rely on them too much and gotten lazy with his knifework in the process, and perhaps he might’ve succumbed in a hard situation where he wouldn’t have otherwise.
In the end, it was all speculation. Going forward, he resolved to use them as he saw fit, but not at the expense of his close-quarters skills. He could be tactical with the shuriken and maintain his knifework, too.
The first three soldiers went down as quickly as Mehta had thrown his shuriken, but he hesitated to throw the fourth. When the fires had ignited in the throne room, he’d recognized one of the soldiers.
He’d seen the soldier’s blue eyes before, and he’d thought then that they reminded him of Kent’s. Dark stubble accented his square chin. He was a light-skinned young man, about Mehta’s age.
He was alive today because Mehta had spared him during the attack on his village along with his comrade, who’d only received a knife in the back of his knee.
Mehta had tried to drive his knife through the young soldier’s eye, but thanks to a quick reaction, he’d caught the stab with the meat of his hand. It had perhaps cost him the full use of his left hand, but he’d saved both his eye and his life that day.
Mehta had spared him, though he didn’t fully know why at the time, nor did he know now. But instead of taking him down with a shuriken, Mehta waited for the young soldier to advance.
He didn’t move.
By that point, Aeron and Kent had felled the soldiers coming after them, and now this one soldier remained. They joined Mehta’s side, all while Garrick’s battle with the huge soldier raged behind them.
Aeron advanced with his naginata raised high.
Mehta caught him with an arm to his chest and held him back, all without taking his eyes off the young soldier. “Wait.”
It was only one word, but it stopped Aeron’s progress.
Mehta affixed his shuriken to his belt near his knives and walked toward the young soldier.
“Do you remember me?” Mehta asked.
The young soldier nodded, his expression caught somewhere between fear and confusion, and he held up his left hand.
“Where is the girl?” Mehta asked.
The young soldier shook his head but didn’t lower his sword. “Don’t know anything about any girl.”
“Then where is Lord Valdis?”
The young soldier swallowed a gulp of air and cleared his throat. “I… I can’t—”
“You’re alive today because of my mercy,” Mehta said. “Tell us where he is, and I will grant you that mercy once more.”
It took a moment, but the young soldier nodded. “He’s in a tower to the east. It’s an Aletian ruin, but it’s a place of ancient power. He’s doing some sort of ritual there.”
“How far east?” Kent asked.
“I don’t know. I’ve never been there. Maybe five miles?” He added, “It’s ahead of the mountains that separate this place from Tebaryx.”
“I remember seeing it from the air while we were traveling here from Tebaryx awhile back. I had no idea what it was and just assumed it was an old monument to some god. It’s not far,” Aeron said. “We can make it.”
“Go now, and flee this place,” Mehta told the young soldier. “I’ve spared you twice. It will not happen a third time.”
The young soldier nodded and lowered his sword. “Who… who are you people?”
“We’re the Blood Mercenaries,” Mehta replied.
The young soldier nodded again and then rushed back toward the throne room’s double doors. Contrary to Mehta’s belief, they weren’t sealed, as the young soldier managed to open one and leave right away.
“Come,” Kent said. “We must help Garrick end this before we can leave. We cannot allow a monstrosity like that to pursue us through these castle halls or beyond.”
Mehta turned and drew his ice-forged knives, and he, Kent, and Aeron joined Garrick in the fray.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The black magic running through Boros’s body made him far more formidable than Garrick could have imagined. It felt like fighting the duotaur from the dungeon in Etrijan all over again, only this time stronger, faster, and with one fewer head.
Garrick had managed to land several solid blows with his hammer throughout the fight, but each time the response looked the same: Boros shook off the blow and the swath of ice that it had generated, and he kept coming.
He’d managed to inflict a handful of small cuts on Garrick as well—nothing fatal, but Boros’s phantom steel sword had done its job in draining some of Garrick’s essence—some of his energy. The wounds weren’t healing quickly, either. Had Garrick anticipated that latter effect, he would’ve fought more carefully from the beginning.
Now blood oozed down his arms and legs from the various cuts. Garrick wasn’t used to seeing his blood at all, so the sight of so much of it enraged him.
As he ducked under a mighty swing of the sword, Garrick lurched forward for another attack. His hammer connected with Boros’s gut hard enough to double him over, but not hard enough to take him down.
But the blue-white blast of ice that smacked into his chest and shoulders did. Boros dropped to the floor on his back, his midsection and arms frozen in a block of ice.
Garrick glanced back in time to see Kent pointing his new sword ahead while Mehta and Aeron flanked Boros, each with their ice-forged weapons at the ready. The sight annoyed Garrick.
“I
said he was mine,” he growled.
“We are all in this together, Garrick,” Kent said. “We know where Lord Valdis is, so finish him and let us be on our way.”
“He’s not here?”
“No,” Kent replied.
The sound of ice cracking and shattering turned Garrick back around, but Mehta and Aeron were already on the move.
Boros sprang to his feet and parried a stunning blow from Aeron’s naginata, but as he was doing it, Mehta slid along the smooth floor and dug his knives into Boros’s leg. Then Mehta popped up to his feet and slashed back and forth along Boros’s leg and torso, coating it with ice along the way.
By the time Boros brought his sword around to fend Mehta off, Garrick was back in motion. He hefted his hammer high, swung it in a downward arc and drove it up hard—right under Boros’s helmeted head.
CLANG.
His helmet tore off his head and careened toward the giant three-horned ram sigil hanging on the back wall. It hit the bottom of the sigil with a thunk and fell to the floor.
The blow Garrick had delivered probably would’ve killed anything that had ever lived, gods or goddesses included, and it rocked Boros through and through. His head went up, followed by his body, and then they both went back down hard.
Aeron lashed his naginata at Boros’s wrist and cut his sword hand clean off, and Mehta leaped on top of him and drove his knives deep into Boros’s armored chest.
When Garrick got close enough to drive home a final blow, he saw nothing but a withered skull in place of where Boros’s head should’ve been. Whether Boros was already dead or not, Garrick slammed his hammer onto his face so hard that it fractured the stone floor underneath.
The skull exploded into a million frozen pieces of bone, and Boros’s massive body went totally limp. Shadow oozed out of the stump where his neck had just connected to his head, and it collected into another roiling mass before them.