by C. Greenwood
She caught a glimpse of herself in a long mirror and was startled at the effectiveness of her transformation. It gave her a queasy feeling to look into the glass and see her body covered in the oracle’s skin. She averted her eyes quickly and busied herself with concealing the unconscious oracle. If anyone walked in and discovered her asleep, the ruse would be over.
Eydis drew the blanket more fully over the other woman and moved a long wooden chest to a position where it would block her sleeping form from view. Then she took a deep breath, exited the tent, and gave instructions to the still-waiting messenger to inform Branimir of her readiness and to bring around her horse.
Her orders were obeyed without hesitation. The servant never blinked at the sight of her.
Her racing heart slowed a little. It looked like her plan might succeed. Nobody seemed to notice anything odd in her appearance.
In the distance, the edge of a golden sun peeked over the horizon.
* * *
The walls of Endguard looked more formidable than ever as they loomed closer and closer. Astride the oracle’s black steed, Eydis rode at the head of the army, alongside Lord Branimir. Like the foot soldiers in the rear, the cavalry in the lead held back their speed until they drew nearer the fortress. They were waiting for the battle horns that would give the signal to charge.
But Branimir seemed in no hurry to give that signal, even as they approached their target. The lord’s face was tense, his eyes fixed on the enemy’s walls, as if he awaited some sign. Eydis couldn’t guess what he was expecting.
She was distracted by troubles of her own. She had been planning to have a word with Orrick before setting out. There was no telling what today would bring, and it would have been good to have a chance to say good-bye. If the battle went badly, they might never have another chance. But she hadn’t been able to find him in the camp. Twisting around now, she looked back over the company of soldiers on horse and on foot. Still there was no sign of him or his companions, the one-eyed dwarf and the vampire woman. She wondered if he too was looking for her. If so, he would never recognize her disguised as the oracle.
Returning her attention to the front, Eydis saw there was new activity at the fortress walls. The enemy wisely kept themselves shielded behind the strong barriers. But they were obviously preparing for what was coming. The battlements were crowded with a seething mass of fearsome-looking creatures. There must be two or three thousand of them sheltered within the fortifications, a larger number than the army Branimir had brought.
Eydis had seen a minohide before, but beholding this many of the beastly creatures together was a terrifying thing. Winged aviads were there also, some jostling the minohides, some fluttering and hovering in the air on powerful feathered wings. The birdmen might have been a magnificent sight if she hadn’t been all too aware of the damage they could inflict.
There was another kind of soldier atop those walls, a familiar type of enemy Eydis had faced before, skeletal creatures with rotting flesh and tattered clothing. She had fought those at the fall of the Asincourt seclusionary and had observed them up close while a prisoner to Varian Nakul. Those were the undead. The reanimated corpses Nakul had raised to fight for his dark master. That meant her glimpse through the wizard’s gazing ball had been accurate. The servant of Rathnakar had managed to reach the fortress and join his army to that of the Lostland creatures. It remained only to be seen if the Raven King himself had arrived yet. Surely he had not. She would have felt his presence in some way.
Eydis was startled out of her thoughts by the sudden blast of a horn. The sound was taken up by others until it echoed across the plain. Branimir must have given his signal while Eydis was lost in her thoughts. Had he seen whatever it was he had been waiting for?
Eydis’s horse knew what the horn meant better than she did. The animal picked up speed, its long strides eating the distance so fast Eydis couldn’t look at the blurry landscape flying past without growing dizzy. There rose a roar among the soldiers, but Eydis could hardly distinguish their shouting from the thundering of horse’s hooves.
The horsemen had left the foot soldiers and their siege engines to fall behind, almost as if they didn’t expect to need them. Whatever Branimir planned, it surely involved a clash outside the walls. Yet no sign of resistance appeared on the ground. The enemy gates remained tightly shut.
Until they didn’t. Just as they drew near enough that Eydis felt the cold shadow of the walls fall over her, there came a deep rumbling, grinding sound. For a moment Eydis thought it was the noise of her own army advancing. Then she saw movement ahead. Incredibly, the great towering gates of the fortress were drawing apart and swinging outward. Eydis blinked, but the sight didn’t go away. For some impossible reason, the enemy was opening their gates as if to welcome them in.
In another instant the cavalry would be pouring through. Eydis drew her sword, mentally preparing for whatever horrors would meet her when she swept through those walls.
But just before she reached them, an earth-shattering sound cut through all the lesser noises. It was the whine and the scream of a thousand cyclones, the blast of a mighty wind that sounded as if it could carry every stone of the fortress away. But there was no wind, only the roar of one. Eydis couldn’t help but look back. Horses neighed and stumbled, hastily reigned in, as every head in the company looked back to see what was happening behind them.
A dense black cloud sped along the earth, a whirling storm traveling across the plain at a powerful speed. The racing cloud, wide enough to encompass a village, stopped just short of the foot soldiers in the rear. Suddenly the mysterious mass dissolved, like a storm cloud broken up by the wind.
In its place, it left behind an army.
The fierce-looking soldiers must have numbered at least two thousand. These were not more of Rathnakar’s undead, nor were they his Lostland beasts. They were healthy-looking human fighters, unremarkable but for their tough appearances and heavy weaponry. They were accompanied by three horned beasts unlike anything Eydis had ever seen. The monsters were tall, had scarlet-colored skin, and carried great spiked clubs.
Where these fresh enemies came from and what magic had transported them here could only be guessed. But Eydis knew there was only one with the power to create and swiftly move such an army. She looked beyond the men and the monsters, and there he was. The black armored figure of the Raven King in his skull-shaped helm, his eyes glowing the color of blood, rose into the air, hovering above his dark army. He carried in his metal gauntlets an object Eydis would have known across any distance, the golden scepter she had once been responsible for protecting.
Branimir’s foot soldiers had no chance to react to the army that had suddenly been dropped out of nowhere at their rear. The Raven King pointed his scepter into their ranks and, instantly, a stream of bright light shot from its end. The searing light incinerated the nearest of Branimir’s soldiers where they stood. Then Rathnakar’s hoards, led by the three club-wielding monsters, charged into their midst.
Branimir’s army was unprepared for an assault from behind and rapidly fell into disarray. Unwilling to lose the advantage of the open gates, or perhaps simply too confused to await a change in orders, most of the cavalry in the lead surged through the wide gates to engage the enemy behind the fortress walls.
The foot soldiers were left behind, outnumbered, to deal with the new threat. Eydis’s heart sank as she realized there was no scenario where they could win this fight. The enemy had doubled its numbers, and Rathnakar himself was now here to work his evil powers. She cast a look after the front half of the company as they road into the fortress. But there was no question where she belonged.
Compelled by an unavoidable sense of destiny, she fought her way through the tumultuous crowd, toward the rear. She alone must face Rathnakar.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Geveral
Geveral was unprepared for the confusion of the scene spread out on the plains below. As he and Keir soared through t
he pale morning sky on the back of Kalandhia, Endguard was a dark blur in the distance. The warring soldiers in the fortress’s shadow looked like busy swarms of ants, one group of tiny black dots clashing angrily with another, while a third poured between the open gates and past the walls.
The whooshing sound of Kalandhia’s massive wings and the beating wings of scores of larger dragons flying on either side drowned out any sound that might have come from the ground. Geveral felt eerily isolated from the activity below and could only watch as they drew nearer the frenzied fighting.
“Do you think we’re too late?” he asked Keir.
The shadowy half form of his friend didn’t respond. Maybe he hadn’t heard, or maybe he was too absorbed in his inner struggle to answer. Keir had seemed more and more distant the farther they put the Arxus Mountains behind them and the closer they got to their destination. Geveral had the uneasy feeling the nearer they drew to Rathnakar the greater Keir’s conflict with the shadow monster inside him grew.
They had hoped to encounter along the way the oracle and whatever forces she had been able to muster. But they had delayed too long, and now the oracle’s army had already arrived before them to engage the enemy.
From up here, it looked as if the battle went badly. One half of the oracle’s troops had obviously breached the fortress walls, but the other half was under attack from the rear and appeared to be outnumbered.
As the dragons dropped lower toward the ground, it became clearer why the oracle’s people were losing. They weren’t fighting the expected undead soldiers back there but burly healthy-looking fighters, heavily armed and accompanied by several monstrous creatures with horns. With a single swing of their massive spiked clubs, the monsters could slay half a dozen men. Those creatures had to be stopped.
Kalandhia seemed to read his mind. The dragon tucked back its wings and dove. Nearly unseated, Geveral had to hang tight as they plunged into a dizzying downward spiral. The approaching ground was a blur of color and motion. Geveral shut his eyes tight, thinking they would crash into the earth and be smashed to bits.
At the last possible second, the dragon unfurled its wings to bring their descent to an abrupt stop. Geveral was nearly shaken loose by the jarring halt in midair. It took him a few seconds to stop holding his breath and look around him. Before he could get his bearings, they were on their way up again.
Kalandhia had snatched one of the large monsters from the ground. Clutching the horned creature in its front claws, the dragon carried it up swiftly into the clouds. Then it dropped the monster. With an animal scream, the thing plunged earthward to disappear into the swirl of dust and motion below.
Their second descent was as rough as the first, but at least this time Geveral was prepared for it. As they swooped low over a line of enemy fighters, the dragon opened its jaws and spewed a stream of flames onto the soldiers. Geveral started, feeling the blast of heat from his safe position.
“What’s he doing?” he shouted to Keir. “Kalandhia’s too young for fire breathing.”
“Not anymore,” Keir shouted back.
The dragon had certainly come into its ability. Now it let loose another torrent of fire on one of the remaining horned monsters.
All around them, other dragons were joining the fight. Their winged Drejian riders were also diving from the dragons’ backs and circling to the ground to engage Rathnakar’s warriors.
But just as it looked as if the Drejian reinforcements might turn the tide, Geveral saw a chilling sight ahead, a figure in black armor with a helm shaped like a winged skull. The dark knight floated in the air over the heads of the fighters. He held a golden scepter in his fist, and wherever he pointed it, bright light shot out, burning his enemies to ash. As Geveral watched, he struck a dragon down from the sky, incinerating the creature before it could react.
Although Geveral had never before laid eyes on Rathnakar, he knew he was looking at him now. He knew also that he must confront the Raven King.
As if sensing his thoughts, Kalandhia swooped low toward the armored figure. But before they could reach him, they were suddenly struck by a powerful blow. Geveral couldn’t see what hit them, but he felt the strength of the impact. Kalandhia let out a scream of pain. The dragon thrashed clumsily, seemingly losing control of its wings. It crashed to the earth.
The force of the landing knocked Geveral from the dragon’s back. He flew through the air, then struck the ground and skidded a distance. For a moment the world seemed to stand still. The only thing Geveral could feel was pain, and the only sound he could hear was a high-pitched ringing in his ears.
But gradually the swirl of colors before his eyes resolved into frenzied figures hewing at one another with swords and axes. The ringing in his ears was replaced by a roar of indistinct shouts and screams and the clang of steel on steel. Dropped into the thick of the fighting, he had to scramble to his feet quickly to avoid being trampled in the confusion. Somehow, even while being tossed off the dragon’s back, he had managed to maintain his hold on his sword, although his staff seemed to be gone.
He shook aside his dizziness and the soreness from his fall and spun around, trying to get his bearings. Where were Keir and Kalandhia? Were they all right?
Another pained scream from the dragon drew Geveral’s eyes to a spot nearby. There was Kalandhia. The dragon’s bloodied and shattered wing dragged on the ground at its side, as the beast crouched defensively. A red-skinned monster was closing in on the wounded dragon, hefting a massive spiked club stained with blood. This must have delivered the blow that had struck them out of the air.
The dragon that had been so fierce only moments ago wasn’t breathing fire now. It looked like the frightened youngling it was.
Geveral was about to go to the beast’s aid when an invisible hand grabbed his shoulder. He looked up to find Keir hovering at his side.
“Go after the Raven King,” Keir shouted over the tumult. “I’ll protect Kalandhia.”
Geveral glanced again toward the dragon and the horned monster, but he didn’t argue. Sacrifices must be made to defeat Rathnakar. He turned his back on his friends and hurried off in the direction he had last seen the dark knight.
He had to fight his way through a knot of struggling soldiers of both sides. He was exhausted and his strength half gone by the time he sighted the Raven King again.
Rathnakar no longer hovered above the tumult but stood firmly planted on the ground. As Geveral watched, he cleared the area around him, using the burning light of the scepter to cut a swath through his enemies. Even as the other soldiers shrank back, a new fighter appeared on the scene. Violet-skinned and clothed in gold, she was no ordinary warrior. The oracle of Silverwood Grove was the last person Geveral had expected to encounter on the battlefield. Shouldn’t she have kept to a safe distance?
And yet here she was, her clothing bloodstained, her skin smudged with dirt and sweat, her black veil missing and probably trampled somewhere on the ground. With a shout, she charged on Rathnakar. The dark knight used his scepter like a staff to knock aside her incoming blade. The oracle fell back but was far from defeated.
There was something different, yet familiar, about the defiant gaze she fixed on the Raven King. But there was no time to wonder what was changed. Rathnakar swung his scepter in her direction, its bright beam of light gouging a line in the earth at her feet. He was taunting his opponent. He could easily kill her at any moment.
Geveral could stand back no longer. He rushed to the oracle’s defense, attacking Rathnakar from behind. With a clang, his sword fell upon the thick plate armor of the dark knight and bounced harmlessly away. Distracted from his original prey, Rathnakar turned to face his new enemy.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Varian
Varian felt an unexpected surge of dizziness, a tugging of some invisible force, as though a strong wind buffeted him or a powerful wave were dragging him out to sea. He froze in the act of withdrawing his sword from the corpse of an enemy soldier at
his feet. Why was he suddenly so lightheaded? Had he been wounded?
He examined his person. He seemed sound enough. There were a few minor cuts, but none ran deep. His boots and clothing were spattered with blood, but little was his own. Yet the sight of the crimson stains made him strangely queasy. The hilt of his sword felt heavy and foreign in his hand. Why was he holding such a thing? He was no warrior.
He stared down at the weapon for a moment and then let it slip from his fingers to clatter to the ground. Something was wrong. Where was he? He looked around. He was on a great muddy battlefield, surrounded by struggling fighters and heaps of wounded or dead soldiers. Noise filled the air, the shouts of the living and screams of the dying piercing his ears painfully.
He put his hands over his ears and squeezed his eyes shut. He had to make it all go away, had to think. But his thoughts were jumbled, a whirl of echoes and half memories. Had he been dreaming?
He shook his head, trying to dislodge the confusion. Whatever was wrong with him, the master’s magic would heal him. He reached for the amulet on its chain around his neck, but it wasn’t there.
Panic flared. What had happened to the amulet? He dropped to his knees and fumbled around on the ground. The chain must have broken during all the action, and the amulet become lost somewhere. Without it, the master’s strength was draining away from him. He felt helpless and ordinary, not like the captain of a mighty undead army.
Captain of the undead? Where did such a thought come from? He was no captain but a humble caretaker, a keeper of the crypts at Umanath, a simple soul in service to the First Couple. For an instant he saw himself roaming the cool subterranean passages of the tombs. Then he saw an earthquake and the rise of a dark knight claiming to be the First Father. The dark one had misled and branded him, burning the imprint of his hand into the side of Varian’s face.
