The Sorcerer's Scourge (48 page)

“I did not save Malek. He saved himself by anchoring his spirit into his medallion. I merely helped return it to his body. I cannot restore her any more than I can restore you. Faithful Samone’s spirit was lost long ago. It is not mine to return. Take comfort that her soul now resides within my celestial kingdom and is finally at peace.”

Maude stood furiously. “I don’t understand you! You stand here telling us what you cannot do. Where were you when we were dying? Why did you not simply crush this thing before he even started all of this? I saw in that thing over there what was happening! How many people died tonight because you chose to sit on your holy arse?”

Solarian held up a hand to stave off Corana and the elves’ rebuke of the woman. “You must understand that we gods are bound by rules. Our ability to interfere in the lives and struggles of mortals is limited. We are but the hand that moves the pieces upon a chessboard, not the makers of the game itself.”

“So this is all just a game for the gods to play? Did you ever ask any of us if we wanted play?” Maude demanded.

“The game was started with the creation of the universe. None was given a choice, not even the gods. Even we are but newcomers to an ancient struggle and are bound by the rules governing the cosmos.”

“Rules? How can a god be bound by rules? Why would a god have rules that kept them from doing anything to help those that worship you and rely on you to protect them in the darkest times?” Borik shouted as he finally managed to crawl out from under the heavy stone box.

“Unfortunately, you will very likely see what happens when gods are not bound by rules. Your kind faced them once before and only barely survived. Soon you shall face them again, and this time your prospects are even grimmer.”

“And you can’t do anything to help us?” Maude asked.

Solarian smiled. “We do everything we can to help you. For if you fail, we fail. We look upon the lines of fate and place our pieces in positions to best defeat the enemy just as we did here and elsewhere. What happened here needed to happen. Just as what happened out there,” he pointed in the direction of Valaria, “needed to happen. Thousands died this night so that the rest might have a chance of surviving tomorrow.”

“We have to go through more of this crap tomorrow?” Borik asked hotly.

“He was speaking metaphorically, dwarf,” Corana snapped. “At least I hope he was.”

Solarian inclined his head. “I must return now. You have all done a great thing this night, but the struggle goes on. Stay resolute, work together, and you shall prevail.”

Solarian vanished like a snuffed out candle, leaving the survivors of the battle in the gloom of the cavernous chamber. Maude stepped over to Landrin and Samone as Malek regained his strength and sat up.

“I thought you could not come here?”

Landrin did not take his gaze from Samone’s face. “I could not. Not until he was distracted. I spent several days preparing as many defenses against his power as I could. It was not until your people engaged him that I dared attempt a confrontation. Had I came with you, he likely could have seized control of me before we ever reached this place. I am simply another piece in the same game, and I had to choose the best time to be played. Perhaps I chose wrongly.”

“Thank you for coming. We may have all failed had you not. Let’s take our dead out of this place and put them to rest.” Maude looked around then asked, “Anyone seen Tarth?”

Tarth muffled voice sounded from above them. “I am up here. Please get me down. I fear this cocoon is ruining my clothes!”

“How the heck do we do that?” Borik asked and turned to Corana. “Think you can shoot him down?”

CHAPTER
19

Azerick picked out a pinprick of light ahead and found Rusty and Allister once again. Just over seven thousand men gathered in a huge circular mass, the outer ring standing against the undead onslaught. When a man went down or became too fatigued to fight, he was pulled back to the inside of the mass and another took his place. Horror after horror unraveled before the eyes of men as they fought a seemingly unending tide of undead nightmares.

Undead are bound and reanimated with strands of magic much like any other spell, and by inflicting enough damage, those strands are broken and the undead creation destroyed. However, the strange fog seemed to reattach those strands soon after disruption unless they destroyed the host with fire, magic, or hacked it into so many pieces that it was no longer viable. The worst thing to behold was when the reaching and clawing hands of the monstrosities pulled a man out of the defensive circle only to reappear minutes later, madly trying to slay his former brethren.

Even Azerick had exhausted his ability to summon and channel the Source and now relied on the sparing use of his staff. Rusty and Allister were both down to a single wand and a few lesser spell-storing magical accoutrements. The priests standing behind the first few ranks of soldiers were exhausted as they poured all of their strength and faith into simply holding back and channeling the undead into groups that were more manageable for the fighters and mages to destroy.

Even with shifting the men around to give them a rest, Azerick saw the fatigue evident on the soldiers’ faces. Some looked grim, some angry, others just resigned to what they saw as their eventual fate, but all of them kept fighting. Even those who were certain they would not live to see another sunrise kept fighting, because it was what they did. Not just as soldiers, but as human beings. They would fight to the end; fight for the right to live just one more minute and then another minute after that and another after that.

Thinking of another sunrise, Azerick was certain that enough hours had passed even in this daytime deficient land for the sun to rise. He thought there might have been a very slight shift from pitch-blackness to extremely deep grey, but it was hard to tell. The sorcerer stood back from the battle and studied the mists more closely. After several minutes, he concluded that there was a noticeable brightening and thinning to the fog. It looked as though the light from both magical and combustible sources pierced the gloom a bit further. Soon, there was no longer any doubt. The dreadful fog was receding.

Azerick was not the only one to notice the change in the gloom and pitch of the battle. The fighter’s dark form broke away from the front lines and sought out one man. It took some time, but he had a good idea where he would be. Jansen spotted the captain of the King’s Blackguard near the supply wagons.

“You, oath breaker!” Jansen shouted and pointed one of his swords at Rayan.

Rayan swallowed the water and hung the tin cup back on the peg of the water barrel. “Well, if it isn’t Jansen, my old friend.”

“You are no friend to me, traitor!” Jansen seethed, trembling with barely suppressed rage. “I left the safety of the King in your hands and you betrayed him. You betrayed me!”

Rayan struck a casual pose and leaned against the side of the wagon. “Betrayal is really in the eye of the beholder—and the writers of history. Some might say you are the betrayer, setting aside your own oaths for some personal vendetta.”

“I sought the man that killed the King! It was my duty!”

“Yet in your attempt to repay the cost of your failure to protect the King, you failed to protect his heir as well. Tell me, is it true that after so many years of chasing the Rook’s shadow you did not even kill him, and that he was brought down by some lowly goblin? Hm, that’s got to sting.”

Jansen’s jaw clenched and he took a deep breath. “All I care about is that the assassin is dead.”

Rayan quirked the corner of his mouth up and asked, “Is that what you tell yourself to help you sleep at night?”

“What helps me sleep at night is the knowledge that I am about to fix the biggest mistake I ever made.”

“By all means, let’s have at it. But even if you do manage to kill me, your King is still a dead man. Your wizards are exhausted and our men outnumber yours better than two to one. It seems your entire existence is just a long string of failures, Jansen. It’s kind of sad really. Oh well, let’s hope you haven’t let your sword skills wane, or that’ll be yet another failure you’ll be taking to your grave.”

Jansen, completely out of character for his usually silent, stoic manner, let out a vicious snarl and charged the Blackguard, unleashing a flurry of swings from his twin blades. Rayan intercepted the blows with a nearly identical pair of swords. He did not even attempt to take the offensive, instead choosing to parry the ferocious yet reckless assault.

This was not how a true Blackguard fought. The Blackguard were trained to be calm, cunning, and steadfast in their lethality. It was what allowed them to take on several times their number against even skilled swordsmen and still prevail. Rayan saw that the years of Jansen’s single-minded pursuit had changed him, and he would pay for it with his life.

Jansen saw the confidence clearly written on Rayan’s face as the man maintained his defensive posture. He knew what the man was thinking; that he had lost his edge and that his years chasing the Rook had degraded his Blackguard training. It was what he wanted him to think. It was what he would have thought had their roles been reversed, and he was partially correct. Jansen had changed. He had to if he had any hope of catching and defeating the most deadly assassin in the kingdom.

Blackguards were deadly in single combat, but their real strength lay in fighting as a small group. They trained to compliment each other’s skills and fight as a single unit. A typical squad of four or six Blackguards could face as many as ten times their number and have an even chance of achieving victory.

However, Jansen had not had a squad, only himself. So he adapted and he learned from studying how the Rook fought. Four times he had crossed blades with that damnable assassin, and four times he had survived the encounter if just barely. But each time he learned something, and each time he came a little closer to victory. Jansen was certain that the Rook would never have survived a fifth encounter with him. All of that became moot when the assassin had made a very simple yet crucial mistake and had gotten himself killed by Azerick’s rat killer.

Jansen knew he probably could have beaten Rayan even if he had stuck to his original training, but it would be a long and exhausting battle. Better to let his opponent think he was sloppy and fought with more passion than skill. He continued to batter at Rayan’s defenses; thrusting, slicing, and spinning like a frenzied acrobat. Their fight did not go unnoticed, but none of the men watching was about to get between the two master swordsmen. It was obvious that the two men were settling a personal grudge of some kind. Best to let them sort it out themselves.

Jansen spun again, lashing out with his foot. Rayan leaned back and twisted out of the way but misjudged Jansen’s reach. He had failed to notice the one-inch triangle of black steel protruding from the toe and heel of each of Jansen’s boots. It was a lesson Jansen had learned the hard way the very first time he had fought the Rook. He still wore the scar across his stomach from that fight along with no less than a dozen others.

The small but sharp blade sliced across the back of Rayan’s left hand, cutting through skin and severing the tendons. The sword fell from Rayan’s grip as Jansen continued his spin, sweeping across with his left sword, which Rayan blocked with his right. Jansen thrust up and under Rayan’s guard and into his stomach just below the ribcage with the other blade.

The Blackguard captain dropped to his knees in front his former mentor and friend. Jansen glared down at the man holding his hand over the mortal wound in his chest, breathing heavily.

“Now you die a traitor’s death,” Jansen proclaimed and took the man’s head in one clean stroke.

He did not know if taking Rayan’s head would prevent him from rising as one of these dreadful abominations, but he was not going to take that chance. Jansen grabbed the head in one hand and Rayan’s ankle in the other, dragged him to the nearest fire, and pitched them both into the flames.

He then turned and glared at the men standing around watching as he gripped the hilts of his sheathed swords, daring any of them with his eyes to take a stand against him. None did. That was when he noticed that he could see for nearly a hundred yards in all directions and still the mists were retreating. He looked out to the farthest lines of battle and saw that the fighting had died down to a few isolated conflicts. None of the undead was rising again once they fell. Whatever magic had created this nightmare, it had apparently run its course.