The Wizard and the Warlord (The Wardstone Trilogy Book Three) (51 page)

The beast’s snarling maw opened only a foot from Dieter’s face. A brimstone-tainted roar blasted at his long, golden hair and filled his eyes with blurring tears. The elf with whom he had been conferring was now lying in a steaming heap of entrails at his feet. Another elf stumbled aimlessly toward the unprotected middle of the clearing, his head a bloody mess.

From Dieter’s left an arrow loosed at the beast. From his right, one of the Queen Mother’s elves plunged his black-blood-stained sword deep into the creature’s guts. When the soldier’s sword hit its vitals, the demon twisted toward the attacker and snapped out at him. Dieter had no sword, but as calmly as if he were about to peel an apple, he pulled out his dagger and laid open the beast’s throat. A spew of hot crimson gore covered him, and an unseen hand yanked him clear of the demon’s death throes.

As surely as he had killed the monster before him, a certain dread filled Dieter’s heart. The Heart of Arbor had helped spare him, just as it had in the clearing before. He knew why he had been spared. He was the only elf who had a chance of getting them into Xwarda. The humans would surely leave them to their own fate, just as the elves had done to humans not so long ago. But Vaegon had fought to the death with the men of Xwarda. If he told them who he was, they would listen. Even though it went against the new Queen Mother’s order to stand and fight, Dieter decided what he was going to do. If she didn’t understand, then so be it.

Once he was back among the main group of elves, Dieter leapt gracefully to a low-hanging branch and whistled for silence. The eyes that fell on him grew wide. He was covered in blood and looked half-demon himself.

“We must flee the forest!” he yelled. “It will be here for our return, but if we stay, we will surely be destroyed by this unearthly force. If you wish to live to see your homes again, then follow me. If you wish to stay and die, then at least do so to stall their pursuit of us. Grant the children and the untrained a chance. We have a long way to run, but we are fleet and we know the forest.” He paused, feeling the Heart of Arbor pounding in his chest. “Come, children of the Evermore, our future lies even farther south.”

Most gathered there could feel the Arbor Heart speaking through Dieter and didn’t question the young elf, but some of the older males, who’d long forgotten the dreams of youth, lagged behind. Whether by the will of the forest, or by the stubbornness of their ways, they gave their lives for those who followed Dieter.

Through that night and all throughout the next day the elves continued their run toward Xwarda. The first night the demons harried them, but then as if some magical force began to protect them, the pursuit seemed to break off.

When the group reached Xwarda, hungry and exhausted after two nights and two days of continuous retreat, they found the gate to the city open, but the alert troop of soldiers guarding the portal was unwilling to let them inside.

Most of the elves had never seen a human city, and Xwarda was one of the grandest to look upon. Reaching towers and hundreds of arched windows could be seen over the city’s outer wall. The roofs were beaten copper, or brightly colored tiles. Banners showing Queen Willa’s black sword on white and the High King’s golden lion fluttered proudly from a hundred poles. It was as strange as it was awe-inspiring to a people who made their lives living amongst the trees.

Dieter had sweated most of the blood and gore from himself. He looked more than battle-worn when he demanded to speak with Queen Willa. The elves, tattered and dejected, watched as human folk from outlying towns were let inside for protection. The guards gave Dieter a cold shoulder and a small force was marched out to ensure that the elves stayed where they were.

It was clear that the people of Xwarda had been warned. From his position huddled on the roadside, he could see no threat yet. Dieter couldn’t tell if Xwarda had been attacked or not. It didn’t look like it had, but they were ready for it. On the towering white stone walls at well-spaced intervals, half-giants were loading huge, pivoting crossbows. Barrels of what Dieter assumed to be oil or pitch were being rolled into positions near dark-stained murder holes. The hundreds of archers lining the wall top could be seen between the square teeth-like crenelations. It was also obvious to Dieter that part of the wall here had been rebuilt recently. A lot of the stone was unweathered, and the mortar was rough and unrubbed. Dieter knew that his brother had died on these very walls, and it irked him that the men wouldn’t listen to his pleas.

A passage from his brother’s journal came to him. It pertained to Queen Willa’s strange choice of advisors. There was a pixie named Starkle, if he remembered correctly.

Dieter smiled. He knew how to get to the queen then. He found an older elven woman who was wise in the ways of the Evermore’s little folk. The fae folk lived among the elves sometimes in the spring, and there were ways to call upon them.

“A pixie? Here?” the old elven crone nodded her disbelief. “Are you sure?”

“I am,” Dieter answered. “Can you summon a pixie, Lady Poplar? It’s most important that you try, if you can.”

“I can try, Master Willowbrow,” she said with a look of doubt. “I’ve managed to summon a sparrow rider and some glitter wings in my day, but have never called a pixie yet.”

Dieter gave the old woman room, but was distracted from her murmuring incantations when a ranking officer broke formation by the gate and started toward them with a strange, almost frighteningly pale look about him. The look only grew more intense the closer the man got, but a sigh and a fast flutter of eyelids when he was upon Dieter seemed to break the trance. “You look so much like Vaegon that there has to be a relation.”

“There is.” Dieter looked at the bar on the man’s collar and the colorful medals pinned to his breast but didn’t know what level of service they indicated. Dieter smiled. “Vaegon was my brother. We, my people, have been decimated. Our forest homes were overrun by demon kind.”

“Demon kind?” the soldier asked. “By the gods, is that what’s coming?”

“I don’t know, sir, but most of my people were killed.” He indicated the haggard women and children who had run for days without food and water to get there. “We’ve been afoot for days and have nowhere to go.”

“I see bows and swords among your people. Can those able lend their strength to our defense?”

“Of course,” Dieter answered, feeling the first bit of hope he had felt in days.

“I cannot make that decision myself,” the lieutenant said. “But I'm sure my captain would welcome any who followed Vaegon’s kin to our side.”

“If I can die half as bravely as Vaegon lived,” Dieter said with a proud bow, “then I have done much.”

They exchanged names and Lieutenant Torkav gave the order for some barrels of fresh water and hard biscuits to be carried out for the elves while he located his superiors.

While they waited, a tiny, blue-skinned pixie came fluttering out of nowhere, complaining about the cold in a voice far too deep for his hand-sized body. Before a dialogue could be established, a collective gasp of awe erupted from men and elves alike. For now, swooping down out of the sky, looking as haggard and worn as the elves felt, was the High King on his magical winged steed.

Normally Mikahl would have landed by the huge fountain in front of the palace, or even flown into the structure through one of the large rectangular holes left when Pael destroyed the glorious stained-glass depictions that once filled them. The presence of the elves, though, and the collective sorrow and concern his sword picked up from the group, brought him down between them and the soldiers. He nearly cursed when he saw Dieter. So much did the elf resemble Vaegon, and so weary and travel-drained was Mikahl, that he almost believed he was seeing a ghost.

Every human in sight had fallen to a knee, leaving the elves standing with uncertainty and utter astonishment showing in their wild-looking yellow eyes.

Dieter made a half-bow and the rest of his people followed. Mikahl stepped from the bright horse and placed his palm against Dieter’s heart, in the old elven gesture of greeting. Dieter smiled broadly as he returned it.

“You’re Dieter, then,” Mikahl asked, following Starkle’s buzzing path back to the palace with his eyes.

Dieter nodded. “You’re King Mikahl.”

“Aye.” Mikahl’s voice was soft and full of sadness. “Is this all of you who survived the demons?”

Again Dieter nodded. “The new Queen Mother and her escort still live, as well,” he said grimly. “We can feel her life force, but we know not where she is.”

“The demons are gathering to attack,” Mikahl said, wondering if Hyden Hawk was here. For some reason he knew his friend wasn’t. If he had been, these elven refugees would have long since been admitted to the city. “Come, Dieter, bring your people. I’m too weary to think about the past failings of our races.” Mikahl sighed heavily. “We will be lucky if we can win ourselves a future.”

In the halls of Afdeon, near King Aldar’s personal teleportal, battle raged. The giants had contained most of the demons that emerged inside the tower city, but there was more than one teleportal built into the castle. Some demons had escaped, and now several bloody skirmishes were taking place on a number of floors. The demons and devils wanted out, but the giants fought them with fearless intensity. The hellborn creatures were either destroyed or driven back into the holes from which they were trying to escape.

Corva and Jicks fought madly at first, but had been forced out of the way by the giants and their wild-swinging axes and wide-bladed swords. At the moment they were shuttling spears and pole axes up from an armory on a lower floor.

After battling alongside the guardians with the Tokamac’s magic that first night, Hyden had gotten a grasp of how to manipulate the power of the crystal Verge. He’d accidentally blown a hole the size of a farmhouse into the side of the castle’s wall. Near that particular teleportal the icy air bit almost as sharply as steel, and the warriors had to fight in shifts to keep from exhausting themselves in the thin air. Hyden, now asserting his will over the Tokamac Verge instead of the other way around, was trying to clear the guardians back from the bottomless portal hole in the floor so that he could cast his next spell.

A Choska demon had broken free and was awkwardly fighting its way toward the blast hole Hyden had made in the castle. In the close confines, it couldn’t open its wings and gain the advantage of flight, but still its toothy maw and razor claws did formidable damage. More than one giant lay dead or dying.

A shout from Durge relaying the human wizard’s intentions gave Hyden the opening he needed. Some insectoid creature with beetle-like pincers on its antennaed head was half in, half out of the hole. It took the sudden pause in the giants’ attack as a chance to skitter all the way out of the breach. It almost made it.

Using the power of the ring he wore, and the magnifying crystal Verge, Hyden conjured up a sheet of ice slightly larger than the hole in the floor and easily a foot thick. Why he hadn’t thought of such a simple thing earlier was beyond him. The creature coming out of the hole was suddenly stuck. The lower quarter of its fat, slime-filled body was crunched and pinned in place by the massive slab. The big bug twisted and clicked and hissed, impaling a staggering swordsman through the chest with one of its pincers, and lashing the hand off of another with its flailing barbed forearms. The fit was quelled quickly, though, as other guardians carrying long poleaxes reached in and filled the bug’s exoskeleton with holes.

A sudden roar, so loud and powerful that even the Choska stopped battling for a moment, came from outside the castle. The Choska recovered its wits first and darted for the jagged opening to make its escape.

Hyden charged into a room where the door frame had been turned into an archway by the rumbling quakes earlier. He threw open the wooden shutters and climbed onto the enormous sill. When he looked out he expected to see the massive red dragon Claret. What he saw was as baffling as it was terrifying.

Two blue-scaled dragons, both more than a hundred feet from snout to tail, were spiraling through the pillowy steam. Both wyrms were drakes, and they seemed to be challenging one another to battle. Hyden sensed the territorial instincts roiling within them, almost as clearly as if he were thinking the thoughts himself. One of the blues came streaking by close, its sapphire scales glittering like sun-bathed jewels in the afternoon sun.

The Choska demon won free of the guardians and shot into Hyden’s view. It flapped its leathery wings frantically to carry it away from the giants’ castle. Then, seeing the dragons, it dove like a rock into the steam. Instantly, like a pair of winged canines chasing a thrown ball, the two blue dragons dove after it. The steam closed over their passage so quickly that the sky was now empty, as if they had never been there.

A distant roar came from below, followed by another and a short, high-pitched shriek. Suddenly, almost half a mile away, one of the blues shot up out of the steamy cloud with the limp, bloody Choska barely protruding from its mouth. The other dragon was right on its tail.

Brothers, Hyden decided. The two blue dragons were brothers, but why were they here? Where did they come from? The hope of riding one of them to Xwarda came and went as he probed their minds. These were wild wyrms that lacked the compassion and intelligence of a creature such as Claret. A yell full of pain came from inside the castle, drawing Hyden’s attention. Quickly, he ran back to the teleportal chamber and began healing those that he could. Most of those who were uninjured had gone on the lift to join one of the other battles still raging in the castle. When Hyden was finished healing, he went after them. Not far from another skirmish, he saw Cade talking to one of the captains of the guardians.

“Will you ice over this one, like before?” Cade asked.

“It won’t work here,” Hyden answered.

“Why not?” the giant asked, as if all of his hope escaped with his sighing breath.

“The hole I made in the castle up there keeps the cold air flowing over the ice slab,” Hyden explained. “Down here, the ice will just melt away. The closer to the cauldron we get, the faster it will melt.”