“There!” said Kyralion, pointing over the earthwork wall. “The enemy comes!”
He raised his bow and started shooting, sending burning arrows hurtling into the field.
Ridmark didn’t see anything at first.
Then he saw the rippling.
It had been hidden in the gentle undulating of the thick grasses of the plains, but Ridmark had seen that rippling more times before than he would wish.
Urvaalgs were coming.
He cursed and wrenched Oathshield from its scabbard, taking the soulblade in both hands and calling on the weapon for speed and strength.
One of Kyralion’s burning arrows slammed into something in midair, and the urvaalgs appeared.
And as it turned out, Ridmark had not killed all of the High Warlock’s urvaalgs at Castra Chaeldon.
Nearly fifty urvaalgs appeared, racing towards the earthwork wall. Each urvaalg had a bronze collar marked with the High Warlock’s jagged personal glyph. Behind the urvaalgs came several larger shapes, twisted creatures that looked like deformed hybrids of bears and apes. Their claws ripped at the earth like the blades of swords, their muzzles filled with fangs like black daggers. Eyes burned with red fire over their mouths, and each creature had to weigh as much as three urvaalgs combined.
“What are those?” said Kalussa, her blue eyes wide.
“Ursaars,” said Third, drawing her short swords.
“To arms!” roared Obhalzak, brandishing his axe. “To arms, warriors of Mholorast! We are under attack!”
Chapter 11: White Cloak
Ridmark raced towards the earthwork wall, Oathshield ready in his hands.
The wall was only six feet high, and the ditch before it wasn’t much deeper. It had been intended to slow infantry charges, and it presented no barrier to creatures with the speed and strength of urvaalgs and ursaars. The urvaalgs bounded over the earthwork wall in a tide of black fur and red eyes and slashing fangs, and the slaughter began.
Blades of bronze were useless against the urvaalgs, and most of the Mholorasti orcs carried bronze swords and axes. The urvaalgs tore into the warriors, claws and fangs slicing through orcish flesh, green blood spraying from the wounds. The jotunmiri proved more effective. Vimroghast bellowed something in his native tongue and swung his club. The blow caught an urvaalg in the face, flipped the creature head over tail, and slammed it into the earthwork wall. Ridmark heard the crackling snap as the urvaalg’s bones shattered.
But the urvaalg bounded back to its feet at once, its body rippling and shifting as the creature’s unnatural vitality healed the catastrophic wounds that Vimroghast’s club had inflicted. Only magic, flame, and dark elven steel could kill an urvaalg. None of the jotunmiri or the orcish warriors had any such weapons. But Ridmark had Oathshield, Kyralion his soulstone-enhanced weapons, Third and Tamlin blades of dark elven steel, Aegeus his dwarven axe, Kalussa the Staff of Blades, and Calem the mighty Sword of Air.
If the urvaalgs and ursaars were to be stopped, it was up to Ridmark and his companions. They knew it, and he knew it.
He met the urvaalgs, Oathshield burning in his fists.
One of the creatures bounded at him, jaws snapping, and Ridmark dodged, bringing his soulblade hammering down. Oathshield sliced through both the bronze collar and the urvaalg’s neck, and the creature collapsed, the black slime that served as its blood spilling into the dust. A second urvaalg leaped at him, and Ridmark swung, catching the creature in mid-air. The impact exploded up his arms and knocked him back several steps, but the urvaalg fell with a sizzling gash across its ribs. The creature surged back to its feet, but before it could kill him, Oathshield’s blade found its heart.
Another urvaalg leaped at him, and Ridmark had to dodge, the black blood of the dead urvaalg burning off his soulblade. He recovered his footing and prepared to dodge again, but before he could, blue fire swirled behind the urvaalg. Third appeared, her blue swords blurring in her hands, and she hamstrung both the urvaalg’s hind legs. The creature collapsed with a howl as its legs buckled, and Ridmark opened its throat.
More urvaalgs rushed towards him, and he and Third fought alongside each other as they had so many times before.
###
Kyralion sent arrows hurtling towards the urvaalgs, and Tamlin moved to cover him.
Two urvaalgs staggered, growling and snarling as Kyralion’s burning arrows pierced their flesh, and Tamlin raced to attack before they recovered. He hurled a lightning bolt at the urvaalg on his left, and the creature rocked back, stunned by the elemental magic. Before it could shake off the attack, Tamlin plunged his sword into its neck. The dark elven steel opened its throat, and the urvaalg collapsed with a gurgling groan.
The second creature snapped at him, and Tamlin dodged and lashed out with his sword. The urvaalg retreated, claws tearing at the turf. One of Kyralion’s arrows punched into its side, but the creature ignored the impact, its burning eyes fixed on Tamlin. If it decided to spring on him, its weight would bear him to the ground.
Tamlin shifted his stance, and then Aegeus attacked. The urvaalg didn’t see Aegeus coming, and so made no effort to dodge the sweep of the dwarven axe. Aegeus buried the bronze-colored blade in the urvaalg’s skull, and the creature jerked once and then collapsed.
“Good timing!” shouted Tamlin, looking around the battle for more foes.
Though it was less of a battle than more of a furious brawl. The urvaalgs had come over the wall in a furious rush, and there had been no time to organize a defense. Bands of Mholorasti warriors and jotunmiri struggled against urvaalgs and ursaars, and the creatures of dark magic were winning. None of the orcish warriors or the jotunmiri had weapons that could hurt the urvaalgs.
Yet Ridmark and Third were holding. The Shield Knight tore through the urvaalgs like a storm, Oathshield a torch of white flame in his hand. Third flickered in and out of the melee, wounding and distracting the urvaalgs long enough for Ridmark to finish them off. The two of them were a terror on the battlefield. Little wonder they had defeated the Frostborn, whoever they were.
“Stay together!” said Tamlin, looking at Aegeus and Kyralion. They both nodded. Where the devil had Kalussa and Calem gone? Tamlin could not see them in the furious melee. “We’ll fight our way to Ridmark’s side, and…”
One of the jotunmiri warriors fell with a furious bellow, landing with enough force to make the ground shake. An ursaar crouched atop the slain jotunmiri, and with a savage twist of its jaws, the bear-like monstrosity ripped the jotunmiri warrior’s head free.
The creature’s coal-like eyes met Tamlin’s, and it lumbered forward with a deafening roar.
###
Shock and fear froze Kalussa for an instant, the crystal at the end of the Staff of Blades writhing like a banner caught in the wind.
She had fought urvaalgs before when she and Ridmark had encountered a rogue pack of the creatures south of Castra Chaeldon. Well, Ridmark had done most of the fighting, though Kalussa had helped distract the urvaalgs with her fire magic. Nonetheless, at the time she had given herself credit for fighting alongside him, certain that her magic could overcome any obstacle.
What a fool she had been, what a proud, blind fool.
They faced so many things that could crush her in a blink of an eye. She had been like a child playing with a wooden sword who thought that the toy made him a knight. The fear gripped Kalussa, and for an instant, she was paralyzed.
Three urvaalgs bounded towards her, and then a flash of white blurred before her.
Calem moved to attack, the Sword of Air shining in his right hand, and the shock of seeing him move shamed Kalussa into action. Goddamn it! She was a Sister of the Arcanii and a daughter of the ancient House of Pendragon, not a sniveling child to hide behind the bed when monsters came.
She focused her will and cast a spell, but it hardly seemed necessary.
Calem moved with the speed and fluidity of a striking serpent, the silver sword a blur in his hands. He swung the blade at one of t
he urvaalgs, and the impossibly sharp edge of the Sword of Air cut the creature in half from muzzle to tail. The twin halves of the urvaalg fell to the ground, and Kalussa’s sphere of flame slammed into the second urvaalg. The creature started burning, and it snarled and turned towards her, only for its neck to meet Calem’s descending sword. The urvaalg’s head fell to the ground, and the third creature lunged at him, jaws snapping. Calem leaped back, white cloak billowing around him, and Kalussa threw another sphere of fire into the urvaalg. Its fur caught on fire, and Calem took its head off with a flick of his wrist.
He started to turn towards her and an urvaalg leaped, preparing to land on his back and drive him to the ground.
There was no time to plan, no time to think. Kalussa reacted, her instincts and her training taking over. She leveled the Staff of Blades and sent her will surging through the length of black metal. The crystal at the end shivered and spat out a fist-sized sphere that shot forward with the speed of a crossbow bolt. When she had used that against Calem, his dark elven armor had deflected the attack, or he had been able to block the sphere with a swing of the Sword of Air.
When the crystal sphere impacted the urvaalg’s head, its skull just sort of…exploded.
It was a mess.
One instant the urvaalg’s jaws were yawning wide to seize Calem’s head. The next the urvaalg’s headless carcass fell limp to the ground, bits and pieces of its head bouncing off the earth. Urvaalgs were powerful and deadly creatures of dark magic, and it had taken Kalussa about half a second to kill this one.
Huh. Maybe the Staff of Blades would prove useful after all.
Calem turned, blinked in surprise, and inclined his head to her.
“Thank you,” he said. “Your timing was excellent.”
“Come on,” said Kalussa, calling fire to her left hand and adjusting the Staff in her right. “We had better kill as many urvaalgs as we can.”
###
“Spells!” shouted Tamlin.
Aegeus followed his command and raised his left hand, white mist swirling around his thick fingers, and Tamlin thrust out his palm. Elemental magic roared through him, and a lightning bolt ripped from his hand and struck the ursaar. A half-second later an arm-length spike of ice leaped from Aegeus’s hand and stabbed into the ursaar’s chest, sinking into the corrupted flesh. The ursaar went into a jerking dance, howling in fury, and Kyralion put three arrows into its neck in rapid succession.
None of that seemed to slow the ursaar much.
The creature shook off the attacks and thundered towards them, and Tamlin and Aegeus and Kyralion had to scatter. Tamlin raked at the ursaar with his sword as he dodged, and he opened a gash along the creature’s ribs, though it was nowhere near a killing blow. The ursaar seemed most irritated at Aegeus, and it lumbered after him. Aegeus threw another spike of magical ice, spearing the ursaar through the shoulder, but that still did not slow the creature.
Tamlin sprinted forward, seized a handful of the greasy fur, and leaped upon the ursaar’s back, straddling its spine the way the men of Andomhaim must sit upon the backs of their horses. The creature rose up on its hind legs with a bellow, its clawed forelimbs reaching back for him, and Tamlin took his sword hilt in both hands and drove it forward.
The blade sank into the back of the ursaar’s head, and the creature screamed and heaved even as its clawed paws raked across Tamlin’s chest. The impact threw him back, and he hit the ground hard, his armor rattling. The ursaar screamed again and fell to the ground with a thump, its legs raking at the dirt. Tamlin scrambled backward, trying to breathe through the pain in his chest, and he saw Aegeus hammer at the prone ursaar’s head with his axe.
On the third swing, the ursaar’s head fell off, black slime spurting from the stump. By then Tamlin got to his feet, his chest heaving. The ursaar’s claws had left shiny streaks across his bronze armor, but the metal had held. The blows were going to leave nasty bruises, though.
Tamlin staggered forward and wrenched his sword free from the mass of black slime that had been the ursaar’s neck.
“Thanks,” he croaked, but neither Aegeus nor Kyralion had time to respond.
More urvaalgs rushed towards them, and there was a flare of crimson light from the earthwork wall.
###
Ridmark cut down another urvaalg, sending its carcass to the ground.
The High Warlock’s plan was clear. He would send a wave of urvaalgs charging into the orcs of Mholorast. Immune to bronze, the creatures would tear through the warriors in a wave of blood before the Arcanii could rally to fight back. As the men of Owyllain fought off the assault, Justin Cyros’s army could strike, and perhaps they could break Hektor’s lines.
It was a good plan, and it would have worked, but it had run into Ridmark. Soulblades had been forged to fight creatures of dark magic, and Ridmark had fought urvaalgs many times before. He understood the creatures and knew how to fight them, and with Third distracting and crippling the urvaalgs, he could fight far more at once than he could otherwise. Together they tore through the urvaalgs like a storm through a forest, leaving the twisted creatures leaking black slime upon the earth.
The others were fighting back. The orcs of Mholorast were rallying, forming shield walls while the jotunmiri hammered at the urvaalgs. The jotunmiri could hit both the urvaalgs and the ursaars hard enough to stun them, which allowed Tamlin and Aegeus and Kyralion to slice them apart, or for Calem and Kalussa to kill the creatures. Both Kalussa and Calem were proving fearsomely effective. The Sword of Air sliced apart the urvaalgs as if they had been made of butter and the crystal spheres that Kalussa unleashed crushed their skulls like eggs beneath a hammer.
A flare of crimson light burned atop the earthwork wall, and Oathshield jolted in Ridmark’s hand.
He turned his head to see a hunched figure perched atop the wall, clad in a robe of ragged black leather, a twisted staff topped with a glowing crystal in his right hand.
The High Warlock began casting a spell, bloody fire dancing up and down the length of his staff.
Ridmark turned in that direction. The High Warlock had commanded the creatures to attack the army. If Ridmark could cut him down, the fight might end here and now. They would still have to finish off the remaining urvaalgs and ursaars, but the creatures would no longer work together with their master slain.
He made it about one step before the roar filled his ears.
All four remaining ursaars charged towards Ridmark.
He cursed and stopped, taking Oathshield in both hands. Ursaars were bigger, stronger, and smarter than urvaalgs. With Third’s help, he could probably take four of them at once. But he dared not turn his attention from the creatures since a single mistake would be fatal.
Which meant until he carved his way free of the ursaars, he could not deal with the High Warlock.
Blood-colored fire erupted from the High Warlock’s staff and swept across a group of orcish warriors struggling to hold back the urvaalgs. The fire cut through the urvaalgs without harming them. But the magic withered the Mholorasti orcs, reducing them to crumbling, desiccated corpses in the blink of an eye.
Then the first ursaar lumbered towards Ridmark, and he had no more time for thought.
###
The High Warlock’s crimson fire ripped through the Mholorasti orcs and towards Kalussa, and once again she reacted, Calliande’s training taking over.
She thrust the Staff of Blades before her, calling on its power, and the crystal at its end splintered. The splinters expanded and swelled into a shield of crystal that hovered in the air before Kalussa and Calem, and the High Warlock’s fire slammed into it. The crystalline shield shattered into nothingness, but the crimson flame of the dark magic winked out.
Kalussa looked at the slain orcs in horror. God and the saints, that spell had killed twenty orcish warriors in a heartbeat. The High Warlock could stand atop the earthwork wall and rain destruction down upon them while they struggled against his creatures.
Some of the orcs had come to the same conclusion. A volley of javelins hurtled towards the High Warlock, and some of the orcs found bows. None of it did any good. The missiles and arrows struck the High Warlock’s wards and shattered as if breaking against a stone wall.
Kalussa leveled the Staff of Blades and focused her will. She called forth a fist-sized sphere of crystal, and she sent it hurtling towards the High Warlock. His wards had been strong enough to deflect the bronze-tipped arrows and javelins thrown at him.
They had less success against the power of the Staff of Blades.
The sphere struck his wards and exploded with a flash of blue fire, and the High Warlock rocked back a step. He almost lost his balance and fell into the ditch, planting the end of his staff against the top of the wall to keep from falling. His head snapped around, and the weight of his gaze sank into Kalussa. In battle, the black eyes of orcish warriors often gleamed red with the battle rage in their blood, but the High Warlock’s eyes looked like pits into hell.
She had made him angry.
The High Warlock thrust his staff in her direction, the crystal burning like an orb of molten metal. He hurled a spell at her, a screaming lance of blood-colored fire and shadow. Most of the grass had been trampled by the marching boots of the army, but the spell was so potent that the grass beneath it withered into ashes. Kalussa could only guess what would happen if the spell touched her.
She shouted, and again she focused her will through the Staff of Blades. The crystal splintered as she poured all her strength and will into it, and this time the shield of blue crystal was the size of a large door. The High Warlock’s spell hammered into it, and the crystal shield shattered into nothingness, taking the dark magic with it. Kalussa growled and thrust the staff again, and she threw another whirling sphere of crystal at her foe. This time the High Warlock was ready, and he raised his staff before him like a shield. Kalussa’s sphere struck the staff and shattered into nothingness.
Sevenfold Sword_Warlord Page 17
