This was Ridmark’s chance.
Ridmark turned towards Justin, bracing himself to run.
Urzhalar glided forward, blue fire snarling around his skeletal hands, and cast a spell.
A tight beam of blue flame and shadow stabbed from the Maledictus and drilled into Ridmark. Pain exploded through him, and he stumbled, only the strength of the Shield Knight’s armor keeping him upright. The beam of fire shrieked against the cuirass of his armor, and a web of shadow crawled out from it, spreading over the blue plates of metal. Urzhalar’s magic was disrupting the power of the Shield Knight.
Ridmark staggered forward one step, and then another. Next to him, he saw the flashes of green light as Justin flung the full might of the Sword of Earth against Calem. How much longer could Calem last?
Likely longer than Ridmark would once that web of shadows broke through his armor.
He forced himself forward another step, but the pain redoubled, and the blue fire pouring from Urzhalar’s hands brightened. The Maledictus was throwing his full power and will into the spell.
Something dark blurred behind Urzhalar.
Ridmark just had time to glimpse Third’s determined expression before she struck, her dark elven blades dancing in her hands. The sword in her left hand came down with enough force to take off Urzhalar’s left arm at the shoulder, and the withered limb fell to the ground. Third’s right-hand sword punched through Urzhalar’s back and burst from his chest. The Maledictus’s heart was likely nothing more than a withered lump beneath yellowed ribs, and the undead could not feel pain in any event, but Urzhalar jerked forward, his back arching, and the spell hitting Ridmark collapsed.
He charged as Urzhalar ripped free from Third’s blades. The Maledictus still hovered a few inches over the grass, blue fire sputtering around his remaining hand. He flung a spell at Third, but she dodged with fluid grace, her impassive expression never changing. Ridmark sprinted towards the Maledictus, and Urzhalar reached for the Sign of the New God hanging from his chest.
As he grasped it, he became a wraith of mist and smoke. As both Khurazalin and Qazaldhar had done before him, Urzhalar turned and fled to the north, moving with inhuman speed.
An instant later he vanished from sight.
“Good timing,” said Ridmark.
Third inclined her head. “Queen Mara would be disappointed if you were killed.”
“Then let’s finish this,” said Ridmark, and together they ran towards Calem and Justin.
Chapter 20: Shield & Sword
Justin turned the earth to smoking mud beneath Sir Calem’s boots, and the bearer of the Sword of Air stumbled at last.
He caught a glimpse of the youthful face beneath the thick black hair, and Justin saw the weariness there. The man could be no more than twenty-five at the most. Just how the devil had he gotten ahold of the Sword of Air? The weapon had disappeared from Cathair Animus after the fighting, and Justin had never been able to track down what had happened to it. In recent years there had been rumors of a mysterious assassin in a white cloak who killed the Confessor’s enemies, but Justin had discounted that story.
Well, it seemed that he had been wrong.
Likely the Confessor had wrapped the boy in spells of dark magic, binding his will and then giving him the Sword of Air. Though Justin wondered why Sir Calem had wound up fighting for Hektor.
Perhaps Urzhalar could discern the truth once he dissected Calem’s corpse after the battle.
Justin ran towards Calem as the younger man recovered his balance. Calem brought up the Sword of Air, the blade flashing in the sunlight, and Justin called on the magic of the Sword of Earth. The ground beneath Justin’s boots began to ripple and fold like a banner caught in the wind. It would knock anyone from their feet, but the Sword of Earth obeyed Justin, and he ran across the undulating ground as if it had been flat and level.
Calem stumbled, caught his balance, and went on the attack, launching a brilliant flurry of slashes and swings at Justin. The boy was good, very good, and Justin would not have wanted to face him in a fair fight. But Calem was already exhausted, the ground was shifting and writhing beneath his feet, and Justin had held a sword nearly every day for most of his life. He parried Calem’s rapid swings, sidestepped, and slashed. The young man wore dark elven armor, which was practically impervious to bronze, but the Seven Swords could cut through almost anything. The Sword of Earth bit through the dark elven steel and started to slide into his ribs. At the last possible instant, Calem twisted aside with a grimace of pain, raising the Sword of Air to deflect Justin’s next swing.
Justin went into a furious sequence of attacks. He guessed that the nature of the binding upon Calem prevented him from using the Sword’s more powerful magic, which meant that Justin need not fear any lightning or venomous gas or any of the Sword of Air’s more potent abilities. He landed two minor hits on Calem, one on his left arm, and a deeper one on his right leg just above the knee. Justin deflected another attack and then swung twice more, forcing Calem to put his weight on his injured leg.
The tactic worked. Calem grimaced, almost fell, and retreated, slashing the Sword of Air back and forth to ward off Justin. He avoided the frantic strikes with ease, raising the Sword of Earth to finish the fight.
Then something went wrong.
Blue light flashed to the south, and Justin risked a look in that direction.
He glimpsed a black-haired woman in dark armor, the woman with the killer’s eyes he had seen at the parley with Hektor. She was right behind Urzhalar, and one of the Maledictus’s arms fell to the ground, and her second sword went through his chest. That wouldn’t destroy the undead sorcerer, but the woman had distracted him, and the Shield Knight barreled towards the Maledictus.
Urzhalar turned into a wraith and fled before the Shield Knight could close.
Of course, the damned Maledicti would run. The wretched priests of the New God were like cockroaches. They always ensured their own survival. It was just as well for the Shield Knight and King Hektor that Justin was going to kill them today. Otherwise, they would have suffered quite a nasty surprise when Khurazalin turned up again, still spinning his sorcerous webs.
Except that might not happen if the Shield Knight killed Justin first.
The woman in dark armor and the Shield Knight ran towards him. The thought of fighting the dark-haired woman didn’t trouble him, and neither did the thought of facing Calem. The bearer of the Sword of Air was wounded and exhausted, and even one of the Seven Swords could not heal him before Justin finished him off. The woman might have been a killer, but as far as Justin could tell, she didn’t have any magic, and she posed no threat to him.
But the two of them fighting alongside the Shield Knight…that was bad. The Ironcoats with Justin had been slain or had fled for their lives, the useless cowards. All the warlocks had been slain. There were a few Dark Arcanii left, but with Urzhalar fled, it seemed that his pet monsters had decided to follower their master’s lead. Atreus was on his knees with his hands in the air, screaming that he surrendered. Not that he would have been much use in a fight.
Which meant that for the moment, Justin would have to fight all three of them by himself.
That was very bad. Justin had seen the Shield Knight tear through the warlocks and the Ironcoats both, shrugging off spells of potent magic that could have killed a dozen men in the blink of an eye.
Perhaps it was time to follow Urzhalar’s example and retreat. Justin’s army was still winning the battle, and truth be told they had been winning without much help from him. An absence of a few moments could not hurt much, and Urzhalar had thought that the Shield Knight could only channel that level of power for a few minutes.
Then Justin could return and kill them all. Or turn all three of them to statues. Yes, that would be best. The Sword of Earth could create a distraction, and Justin would use that to cover his escape.
Then he would return, kill all three of them, and unleash the Sword’s power against Hekto
r’s army.
Justin started to reach for the Sword’s power, and the Shield Knight stumbled.
###
Ridmark sprinted towards the bearers of the Sword of Earth and the Sword of Air.
Justin was winning the fight, and Ridmark saw blood dripping down Calem’s leg and arm. Too much longer and Justin would have him. Worse, the ground was rippling and shifting like a banner caught in the wind. Ridmark had seen Calliande cast a spell to fold the earth and knock their enemies from their feet countless times, but she had never held the spell so that the ground kept continuously undulating. Third was agile enough that it didn’t slow her, and the Shield Knight’s power let Ridmark ignore it, but Calem was having a hard time keeping his feet.
Just a little further, and Ridmark could close with Justin and end the battle.
Then the power of the Shield Knight slipped from his grasp.
Perhaps he had held it as long as he could, or maybe Urzhalar’s magic had loosed his grip on the power. But the armor unraveled into white flame and vanished, and exhaustion hammered at Ridmark. It wasn’t as nearly as bad as it had been in the past, thanks to Antenora’s bracer. But he was already tired from a day of fighting and days of marching before that, and the sudden loss of the armor’s strength made him stumble.
With the ground heaving beneath his feet, Ridmark lost his balance, his head bouncing off the ground. Pain hammered into his head, and white light flashed before his eyes.
###
Justin blinked in surprise and then smiled.
He had lost his faith in God and the Dominus Christus, but he remembered the scriptures well enough. In ancient days King Solomon of Old Earth had written that the race was not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong, but time and chance overtook them all.
And for once, time and chance had just aided Justin.
He leveled the Sword of Earth and called on its power, and a sphere of brilliant green light leaped from the blade and hurtled towards the prone Shield Knight.
Ridmark reacted faster than Justin would have thought, raising Oathshield before him. The sphere of green light that should have turned him into a statue instead shattered into a spray of dazzling sparks. Ridmark heaved to his feet, and the dark-armored woman and Calem turned towards him, weapons raised.
Justin found himself smiling.
He could not have taken the Shield Knight and the woman and Calem all at once, but with the magical armor dispelled, he had far greater confidence in victory.
The power erupted out from the Sword of Earth, and the ground heaved and shuddered, throwing Ridmark, the woman, and Calem from their feet. Justin sent his will into the Sword of Earth once more, intending to turn the ground to boiling mud and to send all three of them sinking to their deaths.
He started to call the power, and instead a lightning bolt slammed into his chest, throwing him back.
###
Tamlin’s spell struck Justin Cyros and threw his father to the ground, his armor clattering.
The strange rippling in the ground stopped, and Tamlin hoped that he had killed the King of Cytheria. But Justin bounded back to his feet at once, his gray eyes narrowed, the Sword of Earth starting to glow again in his grasp.
Tamlin threw another lightning bolt, and Justin deflected it with the Sword of Earth.
“So!” said Justin. “The second generation of Cathala’s arrogance comes to trouble me. No matter! I will kill you now as I should have killed you at the Monastery of St. James!”
He strode forward, and the ground started to heave and buckle once more.
###
Ridmark staggered to his feet, and almost fell over again.
His head throbbed, and his limbs ached, but his balance was fine. Yet the ground kept shifting and swirling around them as Justin called upon the power of the Sword of Earth. Even Third was having a hard time keeping her balance. Justin suffered no such troubles, and he carried the Sword in a two-handed grip, sweeping the glowing blade before him. Ridmark recognized the poise of a master swordsman.
With the ground wobbling around them, Justin might be able to win the fight.
The King of Cytheria charged, and Ridmark raised Oathshield to meet him.
Chapter 21: A New Method Of Warfare
“My lady!” shouted Sir Jolcus, jogging towards them.
Calliande ran towards the bearded knight, Kalussa and Kyralion following her.
“Sir Jolcus!” said Calliande. “The hour has come at last. Are you ready?”
“Are we losing the battle?” said Jolcus. “From here…it does not look good.”
“The situation is grim,” said Calliande, “which is why we must act now.
She took a quick look around the field. They were about a half-mile south of the battle proper, the sounds of bronze upon bronze and the screams of men ringing in Calliande’s ears, accompanied by the crackle and explosion of spells of elemental magic. Before Calliande stood Sir Jolcus and a dozen Arcanii skilled in earth magic, and behind them waited the eighty-seven trisalians that they had bound and brought north.
Eighty-seven trisalians? Would that be enough? Would they help, or would the poor animals simply get slaughtered?
It was time to find out.
“Get on your animals and command them to follow you,” said Calliande. She jogged towards the nearest trisalian. “Kalussa, you too. Kyralion, go with her. The trisalian should give you a stable platform for shooting. Go!”
Kalussa ran to obey, Kyralion hurrying after her. The other Arcanius Knights sprinted to their animals. Each Arcanius could control between two to seven trisalians at once, depending on their native strength and skill. Jolcus himself could manage seven of the animals, and Calliande could control nine.
She hurried to her chosen trisalian, a hulking, muscular beast whose scaly flanks showed scars from encounters with predators, whose bony shield had been marked and battered with old wounds. Jolcus had told her that the male trisalians engaged in fights over mating rights with the females of their herds, smashing their horns and shields against each other, and this old trisalian looked like it had won many such battles. Calliande reached for her binding to the creature, and she felt his mind, a mixture of placid calm and aggression dulled with age. The animals were not intelligent in the way that humans and orcs and saurtyri were intelligent, but they were not stupid, and she felt the big trisalian’s wariness at the battle to the north.
Calliande commanded the creature to remain motionless as she climbed onto its back. The spot where the trisalian’s thick neck joined with its barrel-like body made for a natural seat and Calliande settled there, her balance secure, even though she was nearly twelve feet off the ground. From here she had no fear of falling off the trisalian’s back, no matter how fast it was going, and the bony shield of its head would protect her from any arrows. Though she still would have liked a saddle and some stirrups. Perhaps if she lived through this, she could convince Hektor to have some suitable harnesses made.
“We are ready, Keeper!” said Jolcus, his voice booming over the herd.
Calliande looked at the herd of trisalians. The Arcanius Knights had scattered to their individual animals, and with the Sight, she saw the spells of earth magic that bound the trisalians to the Arcanii. Kalussa sat on the back of a nearby trisalian, grimacing as she focused on the spells to control the animals. Kyralion waited behind her, impassive as usual, though his golden eyes kept flicking back and forth. Whatever heights the civilization of the gray elves had reached in ancient days, Calliande was reasonably sure that they had never ridden into battle on the backs of trisalians.
She realized that no one in Owyllain had ever tried anything like this before.
Calliande worked a spell of air magic to increase the volume of her voice.
“Follow me!” she called. “Stay close together!”
She sent a mental command to the trisalians, urging them to motion. The beasts began lumbering to the north, slowly at first, and then at a walk. Ev
en a walk was a good pace thanks to their long legs and steady stride.
Calliande sent the Sight sweeping before her, trying to take in an entire view of the battle at once. Blood and pain and death and magic flashed before the Sight in a single instant, and only years of experience and mental discipline let Calliande sort through the nightmarish images. It looked as if the Mholorasti orcs had punched through the Vhalorasti warriors and advanced far to the north, but Hektor’s hoplites and Earl Vimroghast’s jotunmiri had been pushed back.
She steered her trisalian towards the struggling jotunmiri and commanded the beast to a faster pace.
The thunder of the charging trisalians filled her ears.
###
As Kalussa climbed atop the trisalian and laid the Staff of Blades across her knees for balance, a strange wave of intense embarrassment rolled through her.
This was ridiculous, utterly ridiculous. The Arcanii had used trisalians as war beasts before, true, but they had never ridden the creatures into battle. The lords and knights of Owyllain did not ride animals to war. They fought on foot as men ought to fight. For that matter, the women of Owyllain traveled on foot. Servants might drive a cart, and the children and the wounded rode in it, but a free woman traveled upon her own feet.
And now Kalussa was riding the back of a trisalian like a servant.
It was ridiculous, she knew. But she had never felt so self-conscious in her entire life, and that included the time she had been naked in front of the Confessor’s orcs and Ridmark Arban. Looking at the other Arcanii, she saw that they felt almost as embarrassed. Riding beasts into battle? It just wasn’t done. Kalussa knew that her ancestors had ridden horses in war before the animals had died, and according to Ridmark and Calliande, the knights of Andomhaim still rode horses. Riding a horse into battle was the mark of a knight and a lord, while commoners fought on foot.
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