Soul of Sorcery (Book 5) (8 page)

His orcragars followed, glaring at anyone who strayed too close. 

The great mass of Tervingi commoners followed, the bondsmen, the hold farmers, the blacksmiths and the craftsmen and the artisans, each following their holdmistress or headman. 

Aegidia walked between Ragnachar’s and Athanaric’s bands, straight and strong despite her limp and staff. Riothamus suspected she did it to keep the peace between Athanaric’s and Ragnachar’s men. The last thing he Tervingi needed was a war between the final two hroulds – they would destroy each other, and the Malrags would devour whatever was left. 

The skythains on their griffins wheeled overhead as the long column of men and women and beasts marched south. Carts rumbled along, pulled by snorting oxen, and bondsmen labored with axe and spade to smooth the path. From time to time Riothamus saw ruins atop the steep hills, delicate spires and pillars of white stone rising from the earth. Other ruins were black, their stone dark and reflective, adorned with reliefs of dragons and men in robes with staffs in their hands.

The Tervingi gave both sorts of ruins a wide berth.

“The middle lands are old lands,” said Aegidia, gazing up at the pale bulk of a Dark Elderborn ruin. “Many nations have lived here before the Tervingi. The High Elderborn, before the advent of the Urdmoloch. The Dark Elderborn and their empire. The dragons and their kingdoms. The horsemen of the south. The San-keth and their secret temples. Now gone, forgotten, swept away.”  

“If the Tervingi do not leave,” said Riothamus, “we shall be swept away and forgotten as well.” 

“Perhaps,” said Aegidia. “The Tervingi will find a new homeland. But even the Sight has not shown me where it shall be.”

She spoke no more on the topic.

After two and a half weeks of marching, Riothamus saw the mountains in the south.

###

“We are going into the mountains?” said Ethringa, hands on her hips. 

The prospect did not please the holdmistress.

“We are,” said Riothamus. 

The Tervingi camped at the base of the mountains’ foothills, spread out among a dozen small valleys. Ethringa’s folk, and the folk of a few other holds, had taken this valley for their own. Riothamus disliked having the Tervingi so spread out, but it was the only way to ensure enough water and pasture for all the animals. 

The mountains loomed over them like silent gray giants. Riothamus had seen the Great Mountains once, years ago, when Aegidia had journeyed far to the west, and these mountains were far smaller.

But they were still large enough.  

Ethringa shook her head. “A fool’s plan. Perhaps we could hide from the Malrags in the mountains. But we cannot grow crops on hard rock, and sheep and goats cannot graze on ice and snow. We shall all starve once our supplies run out.”

“No,” said Riothamus, glancing at Aegidia. The Guardian stood with her eyes closed, her forehead leaning against her staff. He wished she would intervene. One word from her would quell Ethringa’s ire.

“Then we are traveling to the other side of the mountains?” said Ethringa. “No man of the Tervingi has ever traveled south of these mountains. Even in the wildest tales of the loresingers, no Tervingi has ever traveled so far.”

“No,” said Riothamus. “The skythains have found a valley in the midst of the mountains. Broad and deep, but with enough arable land to support us. The only entrance is a narrow pass. We can easily fortify it and hold out the Malrags. Our people can shelter there for generations, until the Malrag hordes destroy each other or leave the middle lands.”

At least, that was what Athanaric and Ragnachar and Aegidia said, but Riothamus wasn’t sure he believed it.

The memory of fire and screams danced behind his eyes.

Was anywhere safe from the Malrags? 

“Very well,” said Ethringa, though she sounded unconvinced. “What does the Guardian say? Does this valley in the mountains exist?”

“It does,” said Aegidia, her eyes still closed. “The Sight has shown it to me. Though what awaits us in the valley, I cannot say.”

Ethringa snorted. “How reassuring.”

The lines of Aegidia’s face deepened.

“Is something amiss?” said Riothamus.

“Stride softly,” whispered Aegidia. 

“I don’t understand,” said Riothamus, looking around the valley. The sun had begun to fade away to the west, long shadows stretching across the ground. A few of the women had already lit campfires. “Are we making too much noise here?”

“No,” murmured Aegidia. “I sense…something. As if someone is talking care to walk without noise.”

Her frown deepened.

And then her pale eyes shot open. 

“Malrags!” she hissed.

“What?” said Ethringa. 

“How did they elude your senses?” said Riothamus.

“Ah, the devils have a shaman with them,” said Aegidia. “One clever enough to use a masking spell. Or maybe more than one.” She raised her staff and shouted, and Riothamus felt the immense surge of power as the Guardian unleashed her spell.

A bolt of lightning ripped out of the darkening sky and exploded against the crest of a nearby hill. 

And in the glare of the lightning blast Riothamus saw Malrags.

Hundreds of them, pouring down the hillside in a black tide. Even worse, Riothamus saw three gaunt Malrags in robes of black leather, a third eye glowing with green light in their foreheads. Malrag shamans, able to call down blasts of dark magic. And at the head of the Malrags strode a massive figure in black armor, a two-handed greatsword in its right fist.

A Malrag balekhan, larger and more powerful than most Malrags. A balekhan could command hundreds, even thousands, of Malrags, and lead them into battle with far greater coordination than a typical Malrag warband. 

“To arms!” shouted Aegidia, her voice ringing like the thunder of her lightning. “Men of the Tervingi, to arms! We are attacked! To arms!” 

The Malrags roared their terrible battle cries and surged forward, racing toward the camp. They would overrun the valley in a matter of moments. The camp held enough men to repulse the Malrag assault, but they were scattered throughout the tents. By the time they armed and assembled themselves for battle, it would be too late. 

“Ethringa!” said Aegidia, a pale white light flaring in the sigils of her staff. “Gather the women and children in the center of the camp, and bid the men to make haste. Quickly, girl. Go!” Ethringa grabbed her skirts in both hands and ran. “Riothamus, with me! Keep the shamans from killing me while I slow down the Malrags.”

She lifted her staff, pointing it at the Malrags, and began to chant. Riothamus hurried to her side. He saw the Malrags charging towards them, felt the weight of the balekhan’s malevolent gaze.

He saw the three shamans standing atop the hill, working spells of their own. 

Riothamus reversed his grip on his spear, plunged the steel point into the earth, and began casting a spell. 

The shamans thrust out their hands, and three blasts of green lightning roared out of the sky, screaming toward Aegidia. Riothamus had faced Malrag shamans in battle before, and what they lacked in subtlety they made up in raw power. Their lightning blasts could slay a score of men in a heartbeat, and could tear through any warding spells Riothamus raised.

So he didn’t even try to block the lightning.

His spell twisted the lightning bolts away from Aegidia. The blasts struck his spear, surged down a thin strip of metal along the weapon’s shaft, and disappeared into the buried head.

Dissipating harmlessly into the earth. 

The shamans turned toward him, and Riothamus cast another spell, drawing more magical power. He gestured, and blue-white lighting thundered out of the sky. The shamans cast a warding spell, and Riothamus’s lightning bounced away from their magical defenses. 

Yet the distraction kept them from striking at Aegidia. 

Then the black tide of Malrags reached them. 

Riothamus cursed, yanked his spear from the earth, and began spinning it like a staff. He knocked the legs from beneath one Malrag, whirled, and drove his spear’s point through the eye of the next creature. Riothamus ripped the weapon away, gaining just enough time to work a quick spell. The earth near his feet trembled, knocking the nearby Malrags to the ground, and Riothamus managed to kill two before the others recovered.

The balekhan stalked towards him, its helm a faceless mask, its greatsword raised. Riothamus spun to meet the creature, spear raised, but the massive greatsword would cut through his spear like a twig. Could he work a spell in time to slow it? Or…

Aegidia shouted and slammed her staff against the earth.

A wall of mist, twenty feet high, sprang up before her. It divided the entire valley, blocking the Malrags from sight. 

Yet it would not hide the Tervingi for long.

Then Aegidia swept her staff before her, and the wall of mist hardened into gleaming ice. It caught the final rays of the setting sun, shining with the color of blood. Riothamus heard the Malrags bellow in fury, heard the noise as they began hammering at the ice with their weapons. 

Aegidia limped forward and gave the ice a gentle tap with the head of her staff.

The wall of ice exploded.

Riothamus threw up a hand to shield his face, but wall exploded toward the Malrags, driven by the force of Aegidia’s magic. Thousands of razor-edged shards tore into the Malrags, and the entire front rank of the creatures disappeared in a flash of black blood. The Malrag attack faltered, the creatures stumbling over the corpses of the slain.

Aegidia slumped against her staff, sweat glistening on her brow, thin shoulders trembling beneath the cloak of raven feathers. 

But her voice was still strong. 

“Forward!” she shouted. “Strike, men of the Tervingi!” 

Ragged bands of spearthains and swordthains charged the Malrag lines. Groups of men sprinted over the nearby hills – the other camps must have heard the fighting. Ragnachar himself descended upon the Malrags, followed by his orcragars. The shamans began another spell, only to meet the charge of Athanaric’s spearthains. 

“Are you all right?” said Riothamus, voice low.

“Not particularly,” said Aegidia. “Ah, by all the gods above and below, that drained my strength. But it was necessary.”

“Had you not acted, the Malrags would have slain us all,” said Riothamus.

“Aye,” said Aegidia. She glanced toward the dark shape of the mountains. “As they still might.”

Riothamus looked up just in time to see Ragnachar cut down the balekhan.

###

The next morning a griffin dropped from the sky and landed in the center of the camp.

Riothamus walked toward the beast, unable to hide his grin. The griffins had always fascinated him, and as a child he had dreamed of becoming a skythain and soaring among the clouds to hunt the wyverns and manticores and other winged beasts that preyed upon the Tervingi. 

Then Rigotharic’s hold had burned, and Riothamus had become the Guardian’s apprentice.

The griffin was a magnificent beast. Its golden fur ruffled in the wind, and its beak and claws looked sharper than any razor. The griffin turned its head, like an eagle’s but many times larger, and regarded him with a gold-rimmed black eye. 

A man dressed in ragged leather dropped from the harness on the griffin’s back. He was short and slim, like most skythains, with a weathered face and watery green eyes. A sword and dagger hung at his belt, and a short bow and a quiver rested in his shoulder harness. 

“Toric,” said Riothamus. “Welcome.” He knew the skythain reasonably well – he often carried messages from the hroulds to the Guardian. And unlike most of the Tervingi, he showed no fear of magic. 

Flying a thousand feet over the ground on a griffin’s back seemed to boil most of the fear out of a man. 

“Witcher,” said Toric. His face was grim. “Where is the Guardian? I must speak with her at once.”

“This way,” said Riothamus. He led the skythain through the camp. Enormous pyres crackled far from the tents as the bondsmen burned the dead Malrags. 

“You’ve had trouble with the Malrags,” said Toric.

“Aye,” said Riothamus. “A warband ambushed us. Their shamans used their spells to hide from the Guardian’s Sight, but she found them in the end.”

“Did they come from the south?” said Toric.

“They did,” said Riothamus. “How did you know?”

“Toric!”

Aegidia walked around a tent, leaning on her staff. Her limp seemed worse than yesterday, and her face had a gray tinge. The battle had taken more out of her than she wanted to show.

“Aye, Guardian,” said Toric.

“And from your face,” said Aegidia, “I think you have ill news.”

Toric gave a sharp nod. “I do. I wanted to tell you first. I’m Athanaric’s man, I tell you true. But if I tell him first, half the camp will know before the sun goes down. And the gods only know what Ragnachar and his lot will do.”

“What did you see?” said Aegidia.

“Athanaric bade me to scout the mountains,” said Toric. “To make sure no Malrag warbands waited to ambush us in the pass. And on the way back, I flew over the valley.” His face grew grimmer. “The one where we hope to settle.”

Dread gripped Riothamus’s heart.

Aegidia closed her eyes. “And what did you see in the valley?”

“Malrags, Guardian. A great horde of the devils. At least a hundred thousand of them.”

Chapter 8 – A Knight of Old Dracaryl

Castle Cravenlock slept, but Lucan Mandragon did not. 

He slipped through the corridors, taking care to remain unseen. From time to time he encountered a servant performing a late errand, and a simple spell kept him unnoticed until the servant moved on. 

Briefly, Lucan wondered why he bothered. He was fighting to defend the Grim Marches from dark magic. Anything he did to further that goal was justified. So why conceal his actions?

He rebuked himself for carelessness. If Mazael knew, he would do his best to stop Lucan. Lucan intended to rid the world of the Demonsouled, now and forever. But Mazael Cravenlock was a dangerous man, and confronting him prematurely would be suicidal.

So Lucan remained unseen as he made his way to the castle’s cellar. 

The cellar was a gloomy expanse below the great hall, the ceiling supported by thick pillars of rough stone. Sacks and barrels stood stacked throughout the cellar, and a massive steel door rested in one wall. Lucan supposed it was strange that the castle’s food and artifacts of dark magic were stored next to each other, but it wasn’t as if the servants could get into the vault.

Lucan wasn’t sure he could get into the vault.

He stopped before the steel door and took a deep breath, probing the wards that lay over the door. Timothy was not Lucan’s match in power, but the man was certainly not a fool, and building an alarm ward was not that difficult. Attempting to force the locks and open the door would unleash a blast of flame. Even if Lucan disabled that ward and entered the vault, the alarm spells woven into the door would activate and alert Timothy of an intrusion. 

Unless the wards did not see Lucan.

He remembered the runedead walking through the walls, transformed into wraiths of mist and green light, and began casting the spell.

Marstan had always known the spell, which meant Lucan knew, but he had never possessed the power to cast it. He drew upon the well of Demonsouled power in his mind, and poured it into the spell.

The world went misty before Lucan’s eyes, and he saw his hands transform into pale shapes of swirling green light as he took the form of a wraith. 

A form he could maintain for only a few moments.

Lucan strode through the steel door, passing through it like it was not there, and entered the vault. The stone room held only a rough wooden table. Upon that table sat a massive black greatsword, the runes in its blade flickering with green light, and a black diadem fashioned in the shape of a dragon cradling a massive emerald.

The Glamdaigyr and the Banurdem. 

And in the grips of his wraith-spell, Lucan saw the raw power woven into the steel of the Glamdaigyr. The sword offered tremendous power over the undead, and the ability to drain the energy of his foes. Combined with the Banurdem, he could…

No. Too dangerous. 

The black sword of Ardasan Mouraen leaned against the wall, looking like a small copy of the Glamdaigyr. 

Lucan reached for the sword, focusing his will upon it. The blade turned into a shaft of green haze when he touched it, his wraith-spell extending over it. Lucan felt his grip on the spell tremble, and he turned and strode through the steel door.

A moment later he became corporeal once more, the undead knight’s sword in his fist. 

Lucan waved his free hand over the door, probing the vault's wards. He extended his magical senses, watching for any sign that Timothy's magical alarms were about to activate.

Nothing.

Lucan let out a long breath, wrapped the sword in a canvas sack to conceal its glowing sigil, and left the cellar.

###

A few hours later Lucan sat upon the stone throne in the tomb below the castle.

Ardasan’s sword lay upon the gleaming black floor. Around it Lucan had drawn an intricate series of circles and sigils in white chalk, now glimmering with a faint green glow. Thirteen candles stood in a circle around the sword, placed on specific sigils. 

The spell was ready.

Lucan stood, cleared his mind, and began to chant. 

The air in the tomb grew chilly. The candles flickered and danced, and the green luminescence around the chalked circles flashed brighter. A shadowy darkness rippled above the sword, a breach into the spirit world. Ardasan’s spirit was gone, of course. Lion’s fire had destroyed its house of undead flesh and sent the spirit howling to hell or oblivion or whatever other fate awaited. Yet every man left echoes of himself in the spirit world. A man could cast a long shadow over the spirit world, and the shadow of an ancient undead like Ardasan Mouraen would indeed be long and black. 

Lucan finished the spell and clapped his hands. 

A cold wind blew through the tomb, making the candle flames dance. The darkness hanging over the sword rippled, and then seem to twist sideways. A ghostly, translucent shape appeared within the circles, the image of a strong man of middle years, clad in gleaming black plate armor.

Ardasan Mouraen, no doubt as he had appeared in life. 

“Who dares call me forth?” said the shade. 

Lucan titled his head to the side. “You do not recall me?”

“I do not…ah.” Ardasan’s face twisted with contempt. “The little wizard who hindered my spells. I shall crush you like a gnat!”

“You could have,” said Lucan, “but Mazael destroyed your corporeal form, and your soul has gone screaming down to the abyss. All that remains is this tattered shade, trapped by chalk and candles and a simple spell.” 

“Why have you conjured me?” said Ardasan. “To gloat?”

“No,” said Lucan. “For information.” 

Ardasan laughed. “You shall wring none from me, little wizard. Perhaps you have skill enough to blunt my spells and to conjure me safely. Yet I wielded the arts of necromancy centuries ere you were born. You cannot compel me.”

“I need not compel you,” said Lucan. “Your obedience is mine by right.” 

“Oh?” said Ardasan. “And what right is that?”

“By your oath of loyalty to Randur Maendrag, a high lord of Dracaryl,” said Lucan.

“The High Lord Randur has been dead for centuries,” said Ardasan. “Else he would have collected me from this tomb.”

“You are correct,” said Lucan. “And I am his heir.”

Technically, he supposed, his father would have been Randur’s heir, but Ardasan didn’t need to know that. 

“What folly is this?” said Ardasan. 

“When Randur perished in the cataclysm that destroyed Dracaryl,” said Lucan, “one of his sons fled here, to the Grim Marches. He built a castle at Swordgrim, and as the language of Dracaryl decayed over the centuries, his name changed from Maendrag to Mandragon. I am of his blood, and therefore I am his heir. Your obedience belongs to me, shade.” 

Ardasan said nothing for a long moment.

“Why not?” said the shade at last. “Dracaryl has fallen into ruin, I see that now. And the last remnants of High Lord Randur’s once-proud blood squat in the crude castles of barbarians, playing at lordship. Why should I not answer your questions, little wizard? The results might well be amusing. Like giving an ill-tempered child a poisoned sword.”

Lucan suspected that Ardasan had more than that in mind. Shades were notoriously malicious. 

Yet he was prepared for that.

“Before we fought,” said Lucan, “you spoke of the Glamdaigyr.” 

“I did.”

“Why did you desire to claim it?”

Ardasan laughed. “Because it has great power, little wizard. With that blade in my hand, I would have wielded strength to match the magic of the mightiest high lord. Who would not desire to command such power? With the Glamdaigyr I could have raised armies of the undead. With the Banurdem I could have enslaved the dragons of the mountains and brought fire upon my enemies. I could have become the tyrant of a new Dracaryl.”

“Yet you did none of those things,” said Lucan, “and now you are nothing more than a shadow trapped in a spell.”

Ardasan’s lips pulled back from his teeth.

“And when you spoke of the Glamdaigyr,” said Lucan, “you said that it had been forged to steal the power of the Demonsouled. Explain.”

Ardasan said nothing, face expressionless.

“I command you to explain,” said Lucan.

“It was the great work, the Great Rising,” said Ardasan. “The High Lord Randur conceived it.” 

“And just what was the Great Rising?” said Lucan.

“To transform the high lords into gods,” said Ardasan, “by killing every last Demonsouled and stealing their power.”

Lucan blinked, once. He had stolen a small portion of Mazael’s blood to create the bloodstaff, and even that had vastly augmented Lucan’s magical power. The amount of power generated by killing every Demonsouled in the world at once…

“Tell me more,” said Lucan at last.

“A great spell of the highest necromancy,” said Ardasan. “Randur planned the Great Rising, a mighty spell to raise thousands of runedead across the entire world. The runedead have the ability to sense the presence of magic, and Randur would command them to slay every Demonsouled they could find. Once they were slain, he would trap their power and transfer it to the high lords.”

“How could he achieve this?” said Lucan. “Even a high lord of Dracaryl could never wield such power unaided.” 

“Randur forged three artifacts of might to aid his efforts,” said Ardasan. “To drain the power from the Demonsouled, the Glamdaigyr. To command the runedead, the Banurdem. And to raise the runedead, the Wraithaldr.”

Lucan nodded. Mazael had taken the Glamdaigyr from Corvad's corpse in Arylkrad. Corvad had carried the Banurdem, though Molly claimed he had found it in an ancient ruin near Castle Arminius. This Wraithaldr, though…Lucan had never heard of it.

“What was the Wraithaldr?” said Lucan.

“A staff of black crystal, six feet long,” said Ardasan. “It increased the raw magical power of its bearer.”

“Where is it?” said Lucan.

Ardasan smirked. “I know not.” 

“Then speculate,” said Lucan.

“Mostly likely Morvyrkrad,” said Ardasan.

Another name Lucan did not recognize. “What is Morvyrkrad?”

For the first time a flicker of fear went over Ardasan’s face.

“A tomb,” said the shade. “A crypt for the ancient high lords of Dracaryl, buried deep in the caverns of the Great Mountains. Often the high lords raised themselves as immortal revenants. Yet when their immortality grew wearisome, they withdrew to Morvyrkrad to sleep away the centuries. The High Lord Randur went to Morvyrkrad to cast the Great Rising, surrounded by all the high lords living and dead.”

“And what happened then?” said Lucan.

“I know not,” said Ardasan. “Randur left me here to guard the southern border of our realm, to wait until he returned. He never did.”

“Dracaryl was destroyed in a cataclysm of dark magic,” said Lucan. “No one knows the details, not precisely.” Had Randur’s Great Rising destroyed Old Dracaryl? 

“Perhaps,” said Ardasan. “I know not their fate.”

“The spell itself, the Great Rising,” said Lucan. “Do you know it?”

“No,” said Ardasan. “Only Randur knew it. He kept it written in a great tome, bound in black leather, that he kept with him at all times.”

Lucan nodded. Maybe that tome still lay in Morvyrkrad alongside the Wraithaldr and Randur's bones.  

“Do you know,” he said at last, “the way to Morvyrkrad?”

“Yes,” said the shade. “I have been there three times. Twice, for the great procession to convey an undead high lord to his resting place in the crypts.” Again that flicker of fear went over Ardasan’s face. “And the third time, when I became a revenant.” 

“You will tell me the way,” said Lucan.

“You think to go to Morvyrkrad?” said Ardasan. “You desire to take Randur’s Great Rising for yourself, little wizard? Fool. If you are lucky, you will return from Morvyrkrad with only your sanity lost. If you are unlucky…far worse things could happen to you.”

“That is not your concern, shade,” said Lucan. “I am the blood of a high lord, and I have the right to visit Morvyrkrad. Tell me where it is.”

“Deep in the darkness beneath the Great Mountains,” said Ardasan. “You must first go to Red Valley and enter Arylkrad. Enter the throne chamber, and find the entrance to the caverns in the far wall. Then you must navigate the caverns until you reach Morvyrkrad. Malrags infest those passages, waiting for a Demonsouled to lead them into the daylight. The high lords could command the Malrags, little wizard, but I doubt you have the strength. And there are other horrors in the darkness under the mountains, things even older than the Elderborn.”

“How picturesque,” said Lucan. “But any poet could tell me as much. Give me precise directions to Morvyrkrad. Every twist in the tunnel, every bump in the path. Now.”

“As you command, blood of Randur Maendrag,” said Ardasan, a mocking note in his voice. “The safe path through the tunnels is long and intricate. It would be better if I could give you the memory itself.”

Lucan suppressed a smile.

“Oh?” he said. “I’ve never heard of such a spell. How would you accomplish this?”

“A brief touch of your mind,” said Ardasan. “Harmless, and then I would fade back into the shadows of the spirit world.”

“Proceed,” said Lucan. “I give you permission.” 

The final word left his lips, and Ardasan surged forward with a howl of glee.

The shade’s hands reached for Lucan’s temples.

“Mine!” shrieked Ardasan with glee, his pale fingers plunging into Lucan’s head. “You are mine, little wizard! I will live again in your flesh! Oh, what shall I accomplish, once I claim the Glamdaigyr and the Banurdem and wield them with your hands...”

His ghostly hands sank to the wrist into Lucan’s head, and he felt a deathly chill. Ardasan’s thoughts and memories, dark and heavy with ancient blood, brushed against Lucan’s mind, threatening to overwhelm him, to conquer him…

Lucan smiled and opened the well of Demonsouled power within him.

Magic like burning iron flooded into his mind, driving back Ardasan’s cold touch.

Ardasan staggered back, eyes growing wide.

Threads of crimson fire crawled up the shade’s arms.