The Lord Of Lightning (Book 3)

by K. J. Hargan

  Then, the wolf whimpered and crouched with the painful, deep sound generated by the earthquake before it hit.

  Arnwylf and his human soldiers charged at the front line of charging garond soldiers. Before they met, Arnwylf felt his body being lifted up. He didn't understand what was happening, until he glanced sideways, and saw all the human soldiers also being lifted up off the ground.

  Ravensdred saw the shock wave coming. Like a wave of dirt, throwing the humans up, the crest hit his soldiers before he could bark a command.

  Derragen and his archers, on the opposite bank of the river, peppered the garonds still on the long boats with an unceasing volley of arrows from the higher ground advantage.

  The Archer had seen the elvish ships crash into the huge crowd of long boats down the river. He hoped the elf was on board one of the ships and safe, but he concentrated on killing as many garonds as he could.

  The Archer was perplexed for a moment as the water of the river seemed to slosh completely out of the river bed and come towards them.

  He tried to say 'get back', but the words never left his lips as the earthquake threw him backwards. The water of the river washed over Derragen and his archers, violently pushing them back.

  The reians were climbing over the sides of the tall, foundered, elven ships with rope bridges. The ships had caught the fire of the burning garond long boats. But the fire was slow to spread to the gray ships. The elvish wood still held some protective power in its ancient construction, however its elderly hull was beginning to give up its old magic to the growing flames.

  Iounelle heard the deep, deep growling of the moving earth before she saw it.

  "Hold tight!" Iounelle screamed in her unnaturally loud elvish Voice. "Earthquake!"

  The gigantic, gray elvish ship pitched over towards the far bank with the displacement of the river, then the titanic ship slowly pitched back to the other side. Reian soldiers and civilians slid across the deck as the huge ship leaned all the way and smashed to the bank of the river. All seven of the massive ships followed the same slow, frightening motion, one after the other, down the line, rocking to one side, then back to crash against the river bank.

  "At least we're on the right side of the river," the elf murmured to herself.

  The elf climbed up onto the river bank. She handed the infant, little Mót, to an elderly reian woman who was safely off the ship, and would stay behind the fighting.

  "Warriors of Reia!" The elf said in the Voice, "there is no time to lose! With me!" The elf charged after the garond army, with almost a hundred thousand reian warriors quickly making their way off the toppled elvish ships, and following at a run.

  Deifol Hroth casually walked to Yulenth and took the Lhalíi from his hands.

  Yulenth rose, and whipped out his sword and slashed at the Dark Lord. Deifol Hroth held up His hand and the sword stroke was deflected with a flash of light and concussive burst. The Dark One sneered. Another slight gesture and Yulenth was bodily thrown to the earth as if roughly pushed by many strong, invisible hands.

  The elderly glaf, covered with ash, lay on his back, gasping for breath. Deifol Hroth saw the fear in Yulenth's eyes as he stood over him.

  "Do not worry, Yulenth of Glafemen," the Dark One purred, holding the Lhalíi in one hand and the Ar in the other. "I will not kill you. I want you, of all people, to see the end of the world as it happens."

  Conniker, the white wolf, barked an order for the two hundred wolves with him on the banks of the Syrenf River to wait. Conniker could see the vyreeoten gathering their ranks just downstream. The vile sea serpents writhed and coiled their slimy bodies around each other. There was at least one vyreeoten for each wolf. And, with the vyreeoten being three times the size of a horse, the fight appeared unequal, favoring the sea worms.

  Why do they wait, Conniker wondered to himself. Then he saw the answer. Wriggling up the mass of long, oozing, twisting bodies, a yellow vyreeoten, twice the size of any other appeared. Conniker knew this one very well.

  "Klaaug!" Conniker howled in wolfish. "Across many worlds we have fought! Have you come to let me finish what I began!?"

  Klaaug, the yellow vyreeoten reared up and answered in the language that all animals understood.

  "How is your tail?" Klaaug screamed. "I hope it has healed! I want it as a badge of our victory!"

  "Come and see for yourself!" Conniker barked back, his yellow eyes blazing with anger.

  The hundreds of vyreeoten splashing in the river reared up. With an frightening scream from Klaaug, the sea beasts charged. Just before the sea serpents closed with the wolves, an ear shattering twin bellow made all start and turn.

  Grisn and Josr, the Kaprk-Uusshu, roared down the Syrenf, pushing up a towering wave, their colossal bodies churning water, as they bore down on the vyreeoten.

  The Archer, with his three hundred kiplethite archers at his heels, running back up north, arrived just in time to see the Kaprk-Uusshu plow into the vyreeoten. The massive wave washed most of the river down stream.

  "Cross! Cross!" Derragen ordered his men, seizing the advantage of the low water in the river, as the Kaprk-Uusshu smashed into the vyreeoten downstream.

  The garond army hit the human army with an ear splitting clash. Three hundred thousand garonds bodily pushed the eighty thousand humans back several steps, but the humans held their ground as limbs were hacked, hearts pierced, heads cloven in twain.

  Klad, the garond captain, made his way to Ravensdred, who was waiting to unleash the terror of his evil weapon, the Ulokem Swogger.

  "Great general," Klad said, "all is ready."

  Ravensdred looked down at the cloth wrapped package in Klad's paws, similar to the one strapped to his back.

  "Do not fail," was the only thing Ravensdred said. Klad nodded, and with his elite troops pulled back and waited for their chance.

  Arnwylf spotted Ravensdred towering over his garond troops, the swords, covered in cloth, strapped to his back.

  "Kill the general!" Arnwylf ordered. "Kill Ravensdred! He must not reach Deifol Hroth!"

  Ravensdred let the black chain of the Ulokem Swogger play through his hands.

  "Wad (grunt)!" Ravensdred boomed, and his soldiers fell back. Ravensdred whirled the black scimitar, his mighty arms bulging with the strain, as a circle of twenty humans lost their heads with the arc of the flying blade.

  "General! They attack from behind!" A lieutenant called to Ravensdred.

  "Then turn and fight them!" Ravensdred snarled. Then he thrust the black horn on the far end of the chain through two humans soldiers that had charged him.

  Arnwylf heard a grinding, clanking sound and turned. "Ronenth!" Arnwylf cried. "Here! Ravensdred is here!" Arnwylf saw the human soldiers parting as the glaf boy with his silver, elvish weapon casually walked towards the front line. The paricale was ever moving, a train of silver leaves tracing a ribbon of death and destruction. A strange look was on Ronenth's face.

  Arnwylf turned to Stralain, who was at his side. "Keep pressing them. I am going back to kill the Lord of Lightning."

  "I know that only you can do it," Stralain valiantly said. "But, be careful."

  High overhead, the Wanderer reached its zenith.

  Frea picked herself up after the strange earthquake, and looking back, saw her mother, Halldora, and an army of women and children rising to attack. But what? Who?

  Frea ran forward, and then saw the single solitary figure. And, she knew who it was.

  "Athelings of man!" Frea cried. "Attack the Dark Lord! And protect the women and children!"

  But before they got two steps, someone to their left flank cried, "The garonds!" Frea turned to see the strange garonds, twisted by dark magic, furiously breaking their chains, bellowing in weird and terrifying screams.

  "Left flank!" Frea commanded. "Hold them back!"

  But before any soldier could move another step, the earth opened wide with noxious cracks in the flat grassy plain. The first ghaunt crawled up from the earth
holding a long, large, black iron spear.

  Iounelle tore into the line of garonds advancing north. The reian warriors, to their credit, kept up the sprint behind the elf, up the river, to attack Ravensdred's flank. And, the army of Reia was a hundred thousand strong.

  Iounelle wielded an elvish sword. She didn't know the name of the sword, as all elvish swords had names. Her family sword, Bravilc, was still with the Archer, and Iounelle knew it would keep him safe.

  The garonds fell, two, three at a stroke, as she viciously extracted her revenge on the race that had killed all her people.

  "We must make for the heart of the army," Iounelle called to Hetwing, who fought with skill and strength that belied her sixteen summers of age. "We must stop the garond general, Ravensdred. He has the Sun and Moon Swords. He must not give them to Deifol Hroth!"

  Hetwing nodded, her orange hair trailing her like a wild flame. The Princess of Reia ordered her warriors into a wedge formation behind the elf.

  "Hanarry! Myanne!" Hetwing ordered. "Take all soldiers with crystal knifes to fight the vyreeoten on the river."

  Hanarry, with golden curly hair, a laugh always on his lips, and Myanne, with black straight, short hair and a perpetual scowl on her face, motioned for a special regiment of reian soldiers to peel away and follow, their crystal knives out and sparkling in the afternoon sun.

  The reian army, with the elf at point, cut their way into the crush of the garond army with deadly efficiency. The garonds were confused and pushed up against the main body of garond soldiers trying to move forward. Few could turn around to fight Iounelle and the reians, who tore through the garond army with lethal precision.

  Ronenth let his paricale hang down on either side as he stepped up to the front line. The strange, elvish weapon was quiet and limp in Ronenth's hands. Ronenth's expression was blank as he stared without blinking at the garond General.

  The garonds pulled back from around Ravensdred, as they faced the glaf boy. They had seen the elvish weapon, and its devastating effect before, at the Battle of Byland. No garond was eager to engage Ronenth.

  The human soldiers and garonds all around gasped as Ravensdred let fly the black horn of the Ulokem Swogger with lightning speed, straight at Ronenth. The dark haired glaf boy answered by throwing out the paricale, and the foremost segment clashed against the black horn of the Ulokem Swogger with a shockingly loud, ringing note. Sparks and pieces of the horn showered the soldiers. The paricale left a wicked mark on the black horn. Ronenth smiled.

  "Come on, fat garond," Ronenth slowly said from gritted teeth, his eyes ablaze. "I, and the people of Glafemen, have much to repay to you."

  Before Ravensdred could strike again, Iounelle came from behind, leaping above the battle, from garond helmet to garond helmet. The elf tore the cloth bundle from Ravensdred's back, leapt up from the garond's massive back, up, flipped and lightly landed next to Ronenth.

  Iounelle ripped away the cloth to reveal two plain, iron swords.

  "It's a feint," Iounelle said with a murderous glare at the garond general. "Some other garond is delivering the Sun and Moon swords to Deifol Hroth. Ronenth. Kill him." Then, the elf back flipped with a leap into the crowd of human soldiers, and sprinted towards the rear, towards the Lord of Lightning.

  "You heard the elf," Ronenth snarled with a smile, easily twirling the paricale on either side.

  Several garonds growled and flanked Ravensdred to help him. The garond general hissed and swung at the garonds on both sides to keep them away from his prey. The black scimitar of the Ulokem Swogger disemboweled one of his own garonds.

  "No one touches this... human, but me," Ravensdred growled deep and low.

  The twisted garonds came at the Athelings of Man with claw and fang. Their terrible mouths tearing into human flesh. The Athelings began to retreat.

  "No!" Frea cried and a wind seemed to come up behind her.

  Derragen and his Kipleth archers arrived behind the soldiers of Man and saw what was happening.

  "Quickly!" Derragen cried to his archers. "Fire!" Three hundred arrows sang from their bows and caught the wind that Frea commanded. The arrows of Kipleth pierced the twisted garonds with a powerful velocity, passing through two, three, four twisted garonds at a time, ripping through their loathsome flesh. The screams of the twisted garonds were horrendous.

  Halldora commanded the women and child warriors back behind Frea and her soldiers of Man. With the lack of support from the rear, Ravensdred's garonds began to break through, until the whole field was a vicious mix of garond and human, slashing, hacking, clubbing, blood flowing in a leaderless, confusing melee of violent carnage.

  The ghaunts were unstoppable. With a limb hacked away, the undead warrior would move in to bite, stab or throttle a surprised human. Frea saw with horror that her right flank was crumbling under the persistent mayhem of the dead human creatures. And, the ghaunts kept clawing their way out of the putrid cracks in the earth. There seemed to be hundreds of them swarming out of the noxious subterranean caverns.

  With the help of the mighty Kaprk-Uusshu, Conniker and the wolves held the vyreeoten back. The Syrenf River ran red and purple with the blood of the fiercely slashing animals. With both tooth and claw, the fighting among the beasts was a ferocious, violent frenzy, whipping the river up into a froth.

  The white wolf took heart as Myanne, Hanarry and the special soldiers of Reia leapt from the river bank and buried their crystal knives into the surprised and squealing vyreeoten. The shining knives hurt the vyreeoten with a shock they had not encountered before, and many of them fell.

  Conniker and Josr fought Klaaug, the large, yellow leader of the vyreeoten, to a bloody stand still. Klaaug was stronger than the other sea serpents, and seemed tireless as it pressed its advantage.

  Yulenth rose to see the utter, brutal destruction in all directions. The ghaunts, the magic-twisted garonds, the vyreeoten, the garond army engaging the humans and wolves in a delirious battle without seeming sides or organization. The destruction waged all across the Plain of Syrenf, a devastating insanity. Deifol Hroth had horror at His command, and the humans of Wealdland were on the verge of success or complete extinction.

  But, the Lord of Lightning had a secret advantage, a terrifying weapon of unimaginable power, the Heaven's Key. And now Yulenth knew there was no way of stopping Him.

  The moment was coming and Yulenth held his breath.

  Klad made his way to Deifol Hroth, who stood stock still, the Lhalíi in one hand, the Ar in the other. Energy crackled all about the body of the Lord of Lightning. He seemed calm and happy, almost beautiful in his placid certainty. His face was a picture of serene accomplishment.

  Klad knelt, unwrapped the Sun and Moon swords, and offered them to his Evil Lord.

  Ronenth shot the paricale forward and a line of silver segments flew out in a deadly line directly at Ravensdred. The garond general leaned back as the foremost segment of the paricale shaved the hair from the front of his head. Ronenth recalled his paricale with a flick of his wrist. Blood trickled down Ravensdred's face as he straightened.

  "My turn," Ravensdred growled with a frightening smile.

  Ravensdred swept the scimitar and the horn of the Ulokem Swogger inwards at Ronenth, like a deadly bear hug. Ronenth gathered the paricale into a defensive shield at the last instant, but the scimitar played across his thigh, leaving a burning cut. Ravensdred grinned, all large, sharpened fangs.

  "You are not untouchable," Ravensdred whispered to Ronenth as he leaned in close with the strike. Ravensdred paused.

  Ravensdred quickly pulled his arms apart and the heavy, ridged iron ball in the middle of the Ulokem Swogger's length of chain flew up at Ronenth, who deflected with his paricale still gathered into a shield. The force of the blow pushed Ronenth back, his feet skidding across the sward of the Plain of Syrenf.

  Ravensdred wrapped the black chain around both of his wrists to protect them. Then, he charged with a crushing overhand, windmill blow with the scim
itar in his right hand, his left holding the horn, back for an impaling counter strike, the iron ball in the middle flying up into Ronenth's face to obscure his vision.

  Ronenth brought the paricale out in a straight line to meet Ravensdred's onslaught. The silver segments rang against the scimitar and deflected the iron ball. The high end of the elvish weapon wrapped around Ravensdred's hand and would have cut his right hand clean off if he hadn't wrapped the black chain of the Ulokem Swogger around his wrist.

  Ronenth snapped the lower end of the paricale up into the conical shape for close fighting. Ravensdred's counter with the black horn, low, between their legs, clanged off the silver segments gathered in Ronenth's hand.

  Ronenth brought the conically gathered leaves of the paricale, as he deflected the horn, up at Ravensdred's chin. The garond general whipped his head back just in time to prevent his head from being torn in two. An edge of one of the silver segments traced a thin line, a light cut, barely touching, up the garond's chin. Ravensdred stepped back and wiped the blood from his face, without looking, laughing a dangerous, murderous laugh, eyes immovably fixed on Ronenth.

  All about Ronenth, garond soldiers were streaming past the broken lines of the human armies. Ronenth whipped the paricale out in a wide circle to give himself room to fight Ravensdred. Ronenth could hear the garond warriors bellowing and looking back. The noise even made Ravensdred glance back for a moment to see the human warriors of Reia pushing the garond army forward.

  Ronenth saw the chance and threw the paricale out in a straight line, like a spear. But, some evil power must have warned Ravensdred, who side stepped and wrapped the black chain of the Ulokem Swogger around the furthest two segment of the paricale. Ravensdred was a head taller than Ronenth and weighed twice as much as the glaf boy. With sheer muscular fury, Ravensdred yanked Ronenth towards him, clean off his feet.