“Then lead the way,” said Rilmael. “Hurry! Every second we delay could bring disaster.”
Rauldun nodded and pointed at the door the retreating cultists had used, and they hastened towards it.
***
Chapter 8: Dragon Masks
Tyrcamber took the steps two at a time, his sheathed sword banging against his legs, his heart racing, his breath rasping in his lungs. The cultists had a secret spiral stairwell that led to their shrine, and Tyrcamber and the others ran up it. His legs burned with fatigue, but Tyrcamber ignored it. Those damned cultists were on their way to kill Adalhaid and her family. Tyrcamber could not let that happen.
And Sir Dietrich Normand was about to transform into a Dragonmaeloch.
Rilmael didn’t know how long the transformation would take. The details depended on the strength of will of the individual Dragonmaeloch. Dietrich might transform in a day, or in five minutes.
It depended on how long it took for the power he had summoned to destroy his reason.
“How much farther?” said Olivier, wheezing a little. Tyrcamber suspected the Knight of the Griffin found the run up the spiral stairs even harder than he did.
“We’re almost there,” said Rauldun. The preceptor did not look well, his face pale and covered with sweat. One of the dead cultists had carried a short sword concealed beneath his robes, and Rauldun clutched the weapon in a death grip. Rauldun needed rest, but he insisted on coming along, and it wasn’t as if they could have left him in the catacombs. “Just another few turns…there!”
The spiraling stairs came to a sudden halt, ending in a wall of rough stone.
“There was a hidden lever,” said Rauldun, looking back and forth. “I think…”
“Here,” said Rilmael, and the Guardian reached out and grasped one of the rough stones. He pushed it down. There was a loud click, and a portion of the wall slid aside with a deep rumbling noise. Beyond Tyrcamber saw a dusty cellar, with casks and barrels stacked up along the left wall, and sacks of grain and rice along the right. It was one of the castle’s storage cellars.
“God and the apostles,” growled Rauldun. “We scoured the city for cultists, and all this time they could come and go as they pleased.”
“Do not blame yourself, preceptor,” said Rilmael. “The Dragon Cultists are masters of deception. Sir Dietrich fooled even me. But come!”
They crossed the storage cellar, and Rilmael flung open the door. They stepped into a wide stone corridor, thick oak doors on either side of the hallway. A middle-aged serving woman in a dress and an apron stood there, holding a sack of flour, her eyes wide with alarm.
“What…what is going on?” she said. “Are you here to rob the castle?”
Tyrcamber wondered if the woman was part of the cult.
“Take shelter,” said Rilmael. “The Dragon Cult is about to attack.”
The woman’s eyes went wide. Rilmael did not wait to see if she followed instructions, and Tyrcamber ran with the Guardian down the corridor. He supposed Adalhaid and Faramund and their children would be the cult’s primary targets. Only after the Duke and his family had died would the cult turn their attention to anyone else.
Or Dietrich would burn the castle to ashes if he became a Dragonmaeloch.
The corridor ended in another flight of steps, though fortunately one far shorter than the stairs that had led up from the depths of the catacombs. They raced into a kitchen, the air hot from the ovens, and past a dozen startled cooks.
“This way!” barked Rauldun, pointing his sword at a wooden door.
Rilmael hurried across the kitchen and kicked the door open, and Tyrcamber and the others ran after him. A short corridor led to another door, and then Tyrcamber found himself back in the castle’s great hall, where he had dined with his sister and her family last night. The hall was about half-full, with men-at-arms and knights taking the noon meal, and Tyrcamber spotted Adalhaid sitting at the high table with Young Faramund and Donarr and their troop of nurses. Duke Faramund stood before the high table talking with a pair of knights, a scowl on his face.
Tyrcamber felt a wave of relief. They were not yet too late.
He ran towards the Duke.
“My lord!” said Rilmael. “My lord!”
The murmur of conversation came to a halt.
“Guardian?” said Faramund, his frown deepening. “Sir Rauldun? What the devil? Where have you been? I just got a message from your chapterhouse asking if you were here. Did…”
“My lord, you have been betrayed,” said Rilmael. “Sir Dietrich Normand has led you false.” Tyrcamber took a quick look around the hall, trying to find Sir Dietrich, but there was no sign of the castellan. “He is the leader of the Dragon Cult in Tamisa, and he has sent men to kill you, your wife, and your children this very day.”
“Impossible,” said Faramund.
Adalhaid surged to her feet and barked instructions to the nurses. Tyrcamber saw a swirl of white mist around the fingers of her right hand. She was holding her magic ready, preparing to strike if anyone threatened her children.
“Sir Dietrich has served me well for years,” said Faramund. “Why would he…”
In one smooth motion, the knight near Faramund drew a dagger, raised it high, and brought the weapon plunging down towards the Duke’s chest.
But Tyrcamber had seen it coming, and he sprang forward with a yell, stabbing his dark elven sword. His blade intercepted the dagger, and the strike that would have found the Duke’s heart instead plunged into empty air. The second knight stabbed at Tyrcamber, but by then Olivier was at his side. The Knight of the Griffin swung the dwarf-lance like a quarterstaff, and the shaft cracked into the side of the knight’s head. The man staggered back, his eyes wide.
For a moment stunned silence hung over the hall.
“What vile treachery is this?” said Faramund, drawing his sword. Throughout the great hall, men got to their feet and reached for weapons, giving each other cautious looks. Other men hurried towards Faramund, swords in hand.
“In the name of the Dragon!” screamed the knight who had tried to stab the Duke. “For the conquest of the Malison!”
The knight gestured, casting a spell, and flames erupted from his head. The flames coiled around his face, seeming to form the shape of a dragon’s head. Across the hall, dozens of men-at-arms and knights cast the spell, sheathing their heads in magical flames.
The Tamisa chapter of the cult had been far, far larger than anyone had ever known.
“Kill them!” screamed the knight, and the dragon-mask made his voice distorted and monstrous. “Kill them in the name of…”
Faramund’s sword flashed out, and the cultist knight’s shout turned into a dying gurgle as the Duke’s blade opened his throat. The second knight lunged at the Duke, and Tyrcamber struck, his blade punching into the knight’s side and angling into his chest. Rauldun and Olivier shouted, rushing to meet the fire-masked cultists charging at the Duke. Shouts and screams erupted throughout the hall as the cultists struggled against the loyal men.
“Sir Tyrcamber!” shouted Rilmael, striking the end of his staff against the ground. Lightning snarled up the staff, and the Guardian gestured. A Lance spell leaped from the staff in the form of a whirling sphere of lightning, and the globe struck a cultist and threw the man to the floor. “I will defend the Duke! See to your sister!”
Tyrcamber looked to the side. Chaos ruled in the great hall, loyal men struggling against the Dragon Cultists with their masks of fire. Already a dozen men lay dead upon the ground, and a dozen more were wounded, some of them screaming in agony. Adalhaid and the nurses had backed into a corner behind the high table, two of the women holding the terrified children. The nurses themselves looked just as frightened, but Adalhaid’s face was a cold mask of resolution. At that moment, she looked a great deal like Duke Chilmar. She cast a spell, and her Lance took the form of a spike of glittering, granite-hard ice as long as Tyrcamber’s arm. The spike punched through the neck of a char
ging cultist, extinguishing the fire mask and throwing the man to the floor.
But a half-dozen cultists charged towards Adalhaid, all of them casting spells. Tyrcamber supposed the wretched cowards thought the women and children would make easier targets than the Duke and his knights.
Well, he would make them regret their evil intentions.
He sprinted across the hall, leaped onto the dais, and cast the Lance spell. A bolt of fire tore from his hand and took one of the cultists in the back. The man fell dead to the floor, smoke rising from the crater blasted into his spine. The other cultists whirled to face Tyrcamber, and Adalhaid struck again, lips pulled back from her teeth in a snarl as cold as her magical ice. Her Lance spell killed another cultist.
One of the cultists stepped towards Tyrcamber, and he realized why they had created those fiery masks. He had assumed it had been an identifying mark, a way for the cultists to know each other in the heat of battle. Tyrcamber had wondered if the masks provided protection from magic, but given that he had just killed a cultist with a Lance spell, that seemed unlikely.
The jaws of the burning mask yawned open, and it spat a jet of searing flame at Tyrcamber. He reacted at once, casting the Armor spell as fast as he could, and flames erupted from him in time to intercept the mask’s fire. The impact staggered Tyrcamber, but his Armor spell protected him from the attack. The cultist swung his sword, and Tyrcamber dodged, trying to get his own blade up in time to intercept the attack. The cultist’s blade struck his chest with terrific force. His chain mail turned aside the sword’s edge, but the force of the impact knocked Tyrcamber back, and he landed hard on his back, his Armor spell vanishing as he lost concentration.
The cultist grinned behind his mask, the fiery jaws yawning wide. That proved to be a mistake because it gave Tyrcamber time to fling another Lance spell. It was weak and unfocused, but it slammed into the cultist’s face. The man stumbled back with a scream, dropping his sword with a clang as his hands flew to his smoking face, and Tyrcamber surged back to his feet and killed him with a quick stab.
He sprinted forward as the other cultists closed around Adalhaid, Shield spells held ready to deflect her magical attacks. The nurses not holding the children cast spells, throwing Lances, but their efforts were weak and ineffective. Not everyone had the will to kill with magic, just as not everyone had the strength to swing a sword, and their attacks did little. Adalhaid fought on, holding a Shield spell with her left hand and throwing Lances with her right, but already her face glittered with sweat. Soon her stamina would fail, and she would have to abandon magical attacks or succumb to the Malison. Or, more likely, the cultists would cut her down.
Tyrcamber yelled at the top of his lungs and attacked, and his two-handed swing took off a cultist’s head. Blood spurted from the stump of the neck, and the cultist’s body fell to the floor, the dragon mask vanishing. The other cultists turned to face the new threat, and Tyrcamber cast the Armor spell, throwing all his strength into it. Flames burst from him, and he flung himself at the cultists. They screamed and retreated as the fires burned them, and Tyrcamber killed another. Adalhaid shouted and flung a Lance spell, and the ice spike slew a cultist. The final man stumbled back, waving his sword back and forth before him, and Tyrcamber stepped into his guard and killed him.
He whirled, sword ready to strike, but no other foes were nearby, though the melee still raged in the great hall.
“Brother, go!” said Adalhaid, her voice tight. “Aid my husband. I will look after the children. Go!”
Tyrcamber nodded and ran from the dais, rushing towards the melee that filled the great hall. The battle had coalesced around the Duke. The cultists rushed at Faramund, but at the same time, the loyal men had rallied to him, fighting to defend their liege lord. Rauldun and Olivier struggled alongside them. The preceptor had taken wounds from his lack of armor, but had seized a longsword and a shield from one of his slain foes, and fought on with grim determination. Olivier flung Lances of lightning, stabbing with his dwarf-lance.
The Guardian proved the most effective of all.
He stood wreathed in some sort of complex Shield or Ward spell that Tyrcamber didn’t recognize, but it protected him from both swords and Lance spells. Rilmael flung Lance after Lance, cutting down the cultists like a peasant taking a scythe to his crops. It wasn’t as powerful as the spells that Tyrcamber had seen the Guardian use on the Valedictor’s goblins at Tongur, but likely Rilmael could not bring his full power to bear in the enclosed space of the great hall. If he unleashed the lightning blasts or the fireballs that Tyrcamber had seen at Tongur, likely Rilmael would kill everyone in the hall, friend and foe alike.
Tyrcamber rushed to Faramund’s side. The Duke’s sword and clothing were spattered with blood, but none of it appeared to be his own. A cultist lunged at Faramund, and Tyrcamber worked the Lance spell. The blast of magical fire clipped the cultist’s shoulder, and the man staggered. Olivier stabbed with the dwarf-lance, the weapon telescoping out, and the blade stabbed through the cultist’s armor and into his chest. The cultist had been wearing chain mail, but normal steel was no match for the weapons of the dwarves.
Another cultist attacked Rauldun, trying to force his way past the preceptor. Rauldun fell back, deflecting blows on his shield, and Tyrcamber attacked. His dark elven sword slashed across the cultist’s right knee, and the man stumbled with a bellow. Rauldun looked exhausted, but his sword still stabbed out with quicksilver speed, and blood fountained from the cultist’s neck as the preceptor’s sword opened his throat. Rauldun nodded his thanks, and Tyrcamber turned to face the oncoming enemies.
“To me!” shouted Faramund, cutting down another cultist. “To me, my loyal men!”
The tide of the battle turned. Between Rilmael’s magic and the fury of the loyal knights, the Duke’s defenders began to win. Cultist after cultist fell, their dragon masks unraveling, and soon the loyal men outnumbered the cultists.
The Dragon Cult fought to the death. They knew they would receive no mercy from the Duke, no mercy anywhere, and one by one the cultists fell. At last the final cultist fell with a scream, and the sounds of battle were replaced by the groans and cries of the wounded. The stench of blood and death filled the hall, and dead and dying men lay scattered across the floor. Tyrcamber wiped the sweat from his eyes and looked around. How many cultists had there been? Forty? Fifty?
“Adalhaid!” called Faramund, looking towards the dais and the high table.
“Husband, I am well,” said Adalhaid. “So are the children.”
“God be praised,” said Faramund. “Gather the women of the castle, anyone who has skill with the Heal spell. And summon every physician and apothecary from the city. We have many wounded men.”
“Sir Dietrich!” said Rilmael. “Has anyone seen Sir Dietrich?”
No one had.
“My lord, Sir Dietrich was the leader of the cult chapter,” said Rilmael. “I fear this will not be open until we find him.”
“Perhaps the cowardly dog fled,” said Rauldun.
“No, he is near,” said Rilmael. “I can see the dark power of the Malison that he has pulled into himself.”
“Very well,” said Faramund, and he began giving orders. “You, you, you, stay with the Duchess and the children and guard them. You, you, organize search parties and start going through the castle room by room. Find Sir Dietrich, and…”
Rilmael’s head snapped around, his eyes locking on the doors to the courtyard.
A heartbeat later the doors exploded in a blast of fire.
A thunderclap rang through the hall, and the twin doors ripped from their hinges. The doors to the courtyard were massive slabs of iron-bound oak, but they tumbled through the air like leaves and smashed into the tables. Tyrcamber saw a wounded man perish beneath one of the doors, his head crushed to a pulp beneath the falling edge.
Sir Dietrich Normand strode into the great hall, golden fire blazing in his eyes and dancing around his hands.
He look
ed utterly mad.
When Tyrcamber had met him on the causeway, Dietrich had looked like a typical knight of the Empire, his expression proud and haughty behind his red beard. Now his eyes were wide, his face flushed, his mouth pulled back in a rictus of a grin.
And the golden fire of the Malison burned in his eyes. The last time Tyrcamber had seen that fire, it had been flowing up the limbs of his friend Corswain Scuinar, transforming him into a dragon as the Malison had taken hold. But Corswain’s eyes hadn’t burned like this, and Tyrcamber could feel the waves of magical power rolling off Dietrich like heat from a blacksmith’s fire.
The Malison had taken him.
But it hadn’t transformed him into a dragon.
The power that the Dragon Cultists had summoned with their ritual murder had made Dietrich Normand into something worse.
Rilmael thrust his staff, and a bolt of lightning hurtled towards Dietrich. The traitorous knight made a gesture, and the lightning rebounded from him. The impact knocked him back a few steps, but the bolt of lightning arced upward and smashed into one of the rafters. The wooden beam split asunder and fell in burning shards to the floor, and several of the planks of the ceiling came smashing down.
“Blasphemer!” thundered Dietrich, though he smiled as he spoke. “You dare to raise your hand to strike against your god?”
“If you stood back and let your men get slaughtered,” spat Tyrcamber, “then you are a weak and feeble god indeed.”
Dietrich laughed, mad and high and wild. “But I am a god! I have become what I was destined to be from the foundations of the cosmos! And behold, is this not proof of my divinity? You slew the cultists, but their souls were already mine. How much more glorious will it be when you fall to your knees and worship me as your rightful god when your hearts and souls are mine forevermore?”
“Treacherous dog!” said Faramund. “You have betrayed your oaths to your liege lord, to the Empire, and to God Himself! For your crimes, I pronounce sentence of death upon you.”
Malison: Dragon Fury Page 11
