Soldiers of the Crown

by Stephen L. Nowland

  A curved blade suddenly poked through the gap stabbing blindly in the hope of hitting someone. The two men heaved with all their strength, but Aiden could feel his boots skidding across the carpet as the superior numbers of their opponents were slowly pushing the doors open.

  Suddenly, it started closing again, as if several stout men had come to their aid. Without taking the time to find out why, Aiden and the knight redoubled their efforts until the doors slammed shut, and then Maggie rushed over and put the lock back into place. Turning to see who had helped them, Aiden saw Sayana standing there, palms outstretched towards the door and the faint light of her glowing tattoos shining along her arms.

  Cries of help from across the room caught their attention, and it quickly became obvious that Valennia, Ronan and Pacian were outnumbered by the robed warriors, many of whom had simply rushed past and struck directly at the nearest senators, three of whom already lay dead on the plush carpet.

  Sayana stretched out an arm and a trail of fire shot across the floor, all the way to the opposite wall. The line of fire swelled, billowing upwards to create a wall of flames that caught two of the assassins in its wake. They thrashed about as their clothing burned until they fell and stopped moving.

  “We have to protect them!” Criosa cried, pointing at the terrified senators looking for some way to flee. She reached down to pick up the sword from one of her fallen guards as the sound of weapons hammering against the double doors grew louder. Thinking quickly, Aiden grabbed the nearest chair and threw it against the door, repeating this until furniture was piled high against it.

  While Aiden went about blocking the door, Sir William lowered his visor, drew his sword and rushed forward to support his comrades. The palpable aura of darkness which had engulfed them vanished completely as Nellise channelled brilliant light to push it back.

  Aiden went to Criosa’s side as he took stock of the situation. His companions were involved in skirmishes all around the chamber, holding back the mysterious assailants to give the senators some space.

  There was one robed warrior who had not rushed forward into the fight, and it was this man that Aiden suspected was responsible for the darkness. Holister had mentioned these men were part of some cult, and they clearly had access to dark powers as a result of their twisted devotion.

  Valennia was their rallying point in the fight, for the Akoran warrior towered over the black robed figures surrounding her. With Ronan and Pacian keeping them busy with swift, darting attacks, Val was unleashing her full fury on the cultists, swinging her great axe back and forth with abandon.

  Ronan took advantage of the chaos, his swords stabbing at their preoccupied enemies. The melee was furious, revealing the deadly skill of their opponents. The assassins Aiden and the others had faced had been trained for hit and run attacks, and faultered under the direct assault. But these men, armed with short, straight-bladed scythes four feet in length were clearly warriors first, priests second.

  When Ronan thought he had the advantage of his opponent, another robed warrior dashed to aid his comrade and brought his blade across in a slashing strike to Ronan’s side.

  It was a deep cut, and the sailor couldn’t recover from it fast enough to avoid the handle of the weapon coming up in a reverse motion, striking him in the face and dropping him to the floor, dazed and bloodied from the force of the blow. The assassin raised his weapon with the point down, intending to finish Ronan off in one strike when Valennia slammed into him, shoulder first against the wall.

  Before the cultist could recover, she struck him in the head with the weighty haft of her axe, and then brought the sharp end around to take his head off in one swing. Sensing an attack from her flank, Valennia tried to dodge out of the way but wasn’t quite fast enough as a blade cut into her arm.

  Maggie darted her way through the fight, cutting and stabbing at the legs of the cultists as she went, too fast and small for their huge weapons to hit. When Ronan fell, she immediately went in his direction to see if she could get him back into the fight.

  Sir William cut his way through the melee in an effort to take the pressure off Valennia, Solas Aingeal seeming to be particularly effective against their opponents as it sliced through armour and flesh alike. With Aiden guarding his flank, the knight dropped a cultist with a series of slashing strikes.

  Aiden managed to get a close look at the men he was fighting, but all he could see was a metal mask of a helmet worn beneath the deep hood. The countenance of these masked assailants was terrifying enough, but it was the shape of the mask itself that paralysed Aiden in the middle of the fight, for he had seen it before in his nightmare of the Battle of Fort Highmarch. He didn’t know why, but these men were part of the same cult that had been involved in that very battle.

  With Ronan down, two of the cultists broke through the line and headed for the senators. Aiden saw them coming and invoked the power of his magical ring again, swiping away one of their weapons before they could get closer. The other one rushed at them but Aiden grabbed him with the force of the ring and lifted him three feet in the air.

  Criosa stepped in, and with both hands, swung the heavy sword at the helpless cultist, leaving a trail of blood in its wake. Aiden tossed the body aside with a gesture and then drew his sword, moving forward to engage the other cultist. As he approached, the man extended his hand towards his weapon which lay on the floor several yards away. It suddenly flew through the air and landed hilt-first in his grip, and he brought it to bear just in time to parry Aiden’s sword.

  Another cultist rushed forward to assist and Aiden struggled to keep them at bay as they struck at him again and again. Nellise appeared at Aiden’s side and together, they managed to hold off their assailants who suddenly found themselves on the defensive.

  Aiden recognised that his skill just wasn’t sufficient to break through, with every attempt to hit the cultists anticipated and turned away. Fortunately, Aiden was putting up such a fight that the man failed to see Criosa appear at his side and run him through with her sword.

  Now three against one, the last cultist couldn’t bring his heavy weapon around fast enough to hold them off, and soon fell under their combined efforts. Criosa and Nellise heard the warning from a senator about another enemy making his way towards them and rushed to defend. Aiden was about to join them when found himself standing relatively clear of the main skirmish and in direct line of sight to their leader, a towering figure holding a blackened scythe standing at the far end of the room

  With his arms raised at Aiden, black lightning crackled out from his fingertips, striking his body and sapping his strength. The assault continued for several seconds, dropping Aiden to his knees and causing him to gasp in silent pain until a blast of icy shards engulfed the cult leader and his two closest brethren. The black lightning ceased immediately and the leader was the only one to survive the barrage.

  “Maggie, you’re a godsend,” he gasped as the raelani druid appeared by his side and whispered a prayer of healing. As she worked, Aiden reached around to his scroll case and frantically pulled out what he had remaining. There were only two incantations left — one that would summon darkness, much like the cultists had used, and the other was a very complicated arrangement, involving some sort of rapid, limited travel that Aiden had only read about very briefly in his years of study. His headache was slowly clearing, and given the situation, he felt there was little to lose should it go awry.

  His wounds had been staunched somewhat, and Aiden could feel his flesh slowly regenerating even as he crouched there. Whatever their leader had hit him with was devastating and he needed to be stopped before someone like Valennia or Sir William were hit by it, for without them their defence would surely fail.

  Energy surged through Aiden, countering the effects of that strange black lightning and strengthening him beyond his normal capacity. Looking at Maggie with astonishment, she gave him a brief wink before hurrying away time find some other way to be useful.

  His
confidence returning, Aiden unfurled the scroll and began to invoke the runes inscribed upon it. It took a supreme effort of concentration to read out the complex language, and he nearly mispronounced more than one rune.

  When the parchment crumbled to ash in his hands, he had expected to feel different somehow, but there didn’t seem to be any noticeable effect. From what he had read of this sort of incantation, the caster had to exercise his will to achieve the desired result, so, raising his sword, he looked across the chamber to the raging battle and pictured himself stepping behind one of the preoccupied enemies.

  Upon taking one step forward, Aiden felt a wave of energy pass over him, and suddenly he was exactly where he had pictured himself, standing right behind a robed warrior who was trying to break through Valennia’s defences. Aiden stabbed the preoccupied cultist with one swift strike that pierced between the cultist’s armoured plates. It was enough of a distraction for Valennia to take advantage and bring her axe down upon his head, cleaving metal and bone and instantly ending his life in a spray of blood.

  Aiden’s appearance brought chaos into the ranks of their opponents, but as they turned to deal with him, he concentrated and instantly appeared on the other side of the closest enemy, slashing at his less-protected leg and drawing blood. A flash of movement out of the corner of his eye prompted Aiden to twist around in time to see a scythe descending toward him.

  The hit was partially deflected by the metal plates sewn underneath his leathers, but Aiden stumbled to one side from the force of the blow, keeping him purely on the defensive until a vythiric axe flew through the air and lodged itself into the head of his assailant, cleaving straight through the metal of his helm.

  Turning to see an assassin bearing down on her, Sayana gestured with one hand and the axe lifted out of the dead cultist and flew through the air, chopping the newcomer in the chest and shattering his ribs.

  Sayana was suddenly struck by a wave of black lightning crackling around her body. She cried out in shock and fell to one knee as Aiden turned to fix his gaze upon the ominous figure of the lead cultist. A heartbeat later he was standing beside the vile man, bringing his sword down in an overhead swing. It struck a barrier of spectral armour that prevented his blade from penetrating, but it provided enough of a distraction to break off the assault.

  Aiden wasn’t alone in this fight, for enough of the cultists had been defeated for Sir William to break through, the old knight bearing several wounds but with enough strength to continue the fight. Aiden tried to slash at the leader again but his blade was simply unable to cut through his defences.

  As the priest brought his scythe around to attack Aiden, the young man disappeared and reappeared on the other side of the cultist leader, leaving the priest’s weapon to hit only the ground where Aiden had been standing but a heartbeat earlier. Aiden swung his blade as the towering cultist brought up his hand, stopping Aiden’s strike in mid-air before the man simply grabbed him by the front of his leathers and threw him against the wall several yards away.

  Momentarily stunned, Aiden gasped from the pain echoing through his body and slumped against the floor. Sir William bellowed a challenge and rushed the final distance to the priest of death, Solas Aingeal bathing them both in a white light.

  Their weapons clashed and as the old knight used all of his experience and cunning to assail the man. His holy weapon cut through the cultist’s defences with ease. The priest unleashed more of the black lightning against Sir William, surrounding him in darkness, but the light from his sword grew brighter.

  He redoubled his attacks, putting the priest of death on the defensive for the first time in the battle, though Sir William’s face was bright red, and his breath came in short gasps from the effort.

  Maggie, almost forgotten in the fight, darted across the floor towards Aiden. A large gash along her forehead indicated she had not been completely ignored during the battle, and once more she touched Aiden on the forearm and whispered a quick prayer.

  “Ronan’s going to be okay,” she whispered, trying to catch her breath. “He took a nasty hit though—”

  Before she could finish however, four more dark-robed figures burst onto the scene through the windows just above them, scattering glass over the floor. Aiden shook his head, trying to snap himself out of his dazed state but wasn’t quick enough to help Maggie. The nearest of these reinforcements slammed the haft of his weapon into her side and whirled the scythe around to sever her left arm at the shoulder.

  She screamed as the cultist grabbed her with one hand and hurled her through the air with supernatural strength, sending the wounded raelani druid crashing through a window and out of the building. Too enraged to be shocked by the small arm twitching on the ground before him, Aiden snapped out of his stupor and stabbed his blade into the foot of the assassin, plunging right through to the carpet beneath.

  The cultist roared in pain and hesitated a moment before driving his scythe down towards Aiden’s body. Expecting the counterattack, Aiden imagined himself above the cultist and found himself almost directly above the man, just as his scythe stabbed into the carpet where Aiden had been sitting. As he fell, Aiden brought his sword down in a devastating stroke that cleaved through armour and bone, dropping the assassin instantly.

  While trying to regain his footing, Aiden heard a cry for aid from Sir William, who was now surrounded by three of their enemy’s reinforcements. Recognising the danger posed by his holy blade, they moved quickly to eliminate him, cutting into him from all sides.

  Aiden staggered over to assist by engaging the closest of the enemy, drawing his attention with a few timely strokes he’d picked up from Kinsey during their brief training session, but it wasn’t enough. The knight smashed his shield against one enemy and slashed his sword at another, unable to break free from the enclosing ring of steel.

  It was a masterful defence that could have gone on for several minutes, but in the end, Sir William was let down by his aging body which simply couldn’t keep up. His shield arm buckled altogether under the assault of his opponents.

  The knight’s reactions slowed until he finally fell to the ground. Aiden roared with rage, cutting at his enemy in frustration as one by one his friends were struck down.

  One of the assassins suddenly stiffened and dropped his weapon, then fell to the ground, revealing Pacian standing behind him with bloodied daggers. Two of the cultists slashed at him, only to find that Pacian had ducked out of the way with both men in close pursuit. A crossbow bolt struck one of them, quickly followed by another as Nellise provided support from afar. Criosa stood by her side with the bloodied sword in her hands and several long slashes along her dress, determined to keep any approaching enemies at bay.

  Across the room, Valennia faced off against three cultists by herself, blood flowing from wounds in her arms and legs. With her visor down, the Akoran warrior-maiden was a fearsome sight as she tried to parry attacks from the combined force of her opponents, taking hits on her armour as she struggled against sheer weight of numbers.

  A glancing blow to her helmet seemed to rattle Valennia for a moment, and two of her opponents leaped on top of her, attempting to pin her down. She staggered under the weight of the cultists for a long moment until, with a mighty surge of strength, Valennia threw both of them at the wall. The assassins crashed to the floor, but Valennia didn’t give them time to recover, hefting her axe and cutting them into pieces in a berserker rage.

  Aiden had kept his nearest enemy preoccupied while Nellise had lined up a shot, sending one bolt straight into the back of the cultist, allowing Aiden to finish him off with a precise strike. Struggling to catch his breath, Aiden staggered over toward Sayana, who was still trying to regain her footing after the priest’s assault.

  “Go and help Criosa, you’re done here,” Aiden advised, wiping blood from his mouth and steeling himself to head back into the fray. Only four of their enemies remained standing, but that was more than enough to eliminate the terrified senators
who watched the fight from behind the overturned table.

  Aiden could spare no time worrying about the sorceress, for when he turned back to the battle, he saw the priest of death approaching him once more. Aiden pictured himself on the other side of the room, and took a step forward but found that he had not moved. The incantation was spent, and he closed his eyes as he waited for the terrible black lightning to crackle forth again.

  Aiden heard the distinctive sound in the air around him, but he felt no pain. Instead, there was the sensation of a warm breeze washing over him, and opening his eyes he saw that he was bathed in a warm light. Behind him, Nellise had discarded her crossbow and held aloft her crystal and the symbol of Kylaris, the cleric veritably glowing as she looked upon the cultist with a strange mixture of emotions on her face.

  The darkness and the light surged and crackled around them as they fought for supremacy, with Aiden standing amidst the tempest of energies. The light flickered briefly, and he heard a deep chuckle from the robed priest as Nellise struggled to maintain her aura.

  “You have strayed far from the light,” she said to him in a voice tense with strain, but no longer afraid. “Feel the might of Kylaris burn away the darkness within you and face the judgement of your long-lost conscience.”

  “I have embraced the one truth of the universe, little lamb,” the priest replied in a voice made hollow by his metal helmet. “I will show it to all of you before this night is through.” Looking at Nellise’s face, Aiden could see the doubt within. It was a test of pure faith, and the conflicted young cleric whispered her prayers fiercely, holding on to the words passing her lips as if they were life itself.

  Across the room Pacian and Valennia fought the last of the other cultists, but Pace was clearly past the point of exhaustion and his reflexes were beginning to slow. He caught a glancing blow from the cultist’s weapon shaft and fell to the ground, dazed.