The Sanctuary Series: Volume 02 - Avenger

by Robert J. Crane

  The second and third ghostly appendages carried a bladed appearance and snaked down at him, each skimming off his breastplate and missing his side as they hit the ground. The fourth and fifth were both smaller blunt instruments. The fourth missed him on the swing as he rolled across the ground and scrambled to get away, but the fifth hit him square in the backplate, smashing his face into the cobblestones.

  The sixth appendage was sharp like a dagger and Cyrus looked behind him in time to see it slam down into the gap between his greaves and backplate, cutting its way through the chainmail beneath and stabbing him in the kidney. He felt the point of the blade dissolve, snaking its way up into him.

  The first appendage returned with a brutal smash to his shoulder, driving him back to the ground as the sixth continued to cut inside him. A sharp pain was slowly driving its way through him. A howling filled the air. He couldn't be sure whether it was the specter or himself, so great was his agony. Two more bladed limbs came down on him and he felt his arm go numb.

  Urgent shouts filled his ears and the fires got hotter around him. The smell of something burning was strong in the air as the lightheadedness threatened to overcome him. He tasted the dirt between the cobblestones as he forced his head down to cope with the agony. The pain inside was getting duller and duller, and he thought it was somewhere around the bottom of his lungs, because it hurt to breathe.

  “Where are you, Andren?” His words came in a wheeze. It was getting darker now; the flames were licking at him; he was sure of it even though he couldn't lift his head to see them. It was so hot.

  “Hold on,” came a voice to his left. Even with his cheek pressed to the road, he could see Aisling. Is she dying too? he wondered. Thoughts were becoming difficult to form.

  Her face was next to his now. “It's okay,” she whispered, and her hands were running through his hair. In spite of the heat and the fire above him, it seemed to be getting darker. Rough hands seized him and he was facing upright. The specter was gone and there was no fire. Still so damned hot.

  “My spells are having no effect on him,” Erith's voice faded in from above, her face looking down at him.

  “That thing cut his arm off...”

  “Help me put it back on,” Erith ordered, voice frantic. “Hold it in place, I'm going to try another mending spell.” She breathed a few inaudible words, then cursed. “Nothing! What the hell did it do to him?”

  Aisling's voice was clear, but he couldn't see her anymore. “Did it get him with the darkness, like it did those others? Would that keep your spells from working?”

  “I don't know. Did someone go to get Malpravus?”

  “Nyad left as soon as the specter died,” Aisling answered. “He won't make it if you can't mend these wounds; he's bleeding to death.”

  Cyrus coughed and a horrible, metallic taste filled his mouth as he began to choke.

  “Roll him over!” Erith ordered. “He's coughing up blood!”

  “The darkness is enshrouding him,” came a calm voice. “It's blocking your spells.”

  “What?” Erith said, looking up in surprise. “Vaste?! Where the hell have you been?”

  “Facing the darkness,” came the troll's calm reply. “Stand back.” The troll began to speak low, almost a hum in a steady stream. Light blinded Cyrus, then was blotted out by darkness, then light cut through it, burning his eyes, filling him. He tried to breathe, but it choked him, as though something heavy was on his chest, forcing the life out of him.

  I can't breathe, he wanted to say. I can't...

  With a flash, the light was gone, and darkness crept back in. Faces stared down at him once more – two of the darkest blue, one green and leering. Vaste murmured a few words and Cyrus felt the wounds begin to close.

  “How did you know that was there?” Erith regarded him with suspicion. “And what the hell is it?”

  “The specter is composed of living darkness, a creation of Yartraak,” Vaste replied. “It seeped into him, gave him a fever and blocked healing by draining the energy of any mending spells. Not a pretty way to die.”

  “Indeed.” Erith regarded him with suspicion. “Good thing you saw it. How did you do that, through his armor?”

  “I saw it draining his spirit.”

  “What?”

  Whatever further reply Vaste might have made was stifled by Cyrus staggering to his feet. “You should rest for a few minutes,” Erith insisted.

  Cyrus dismissed her. “Yeah, I'll take a nap right here in the Realm of Darkness.”

  Nyad arrived in a huff. “I spoke with Malpravus. He says it's unfortunate that Cyrus is dying, but he's preoccupied with other things at the moment.”

  “What's he preoccupied with?” Cyrus looked at her with undisguised curiosity.

  “Three of those specters are attacking his army.”

  “He'll need help.” Cyrus put aside once more the thought of Andren, even as another flash of Enterra crept into his mind – the two of them, side by side in the tunnel, waiting for Narstron to return. He'll be fine. He has to be. It can't happen again.

  “Why can't his armies help him?” Erith looked at him with undisguised irritation.

  “His armies will break and run at the first sign of trouble,” Cyrus replied. “Sanctuary, we're moving! Spell casters to the front.” Splitting into two columns, the Sanctuary forces moved on either side of the formations of Goliath's army in front of them. The Goliath soldiers milled about in scattered lines and allowed them to pass. A clamor of battle could be heard in front of them as they passed both Tolada's and Yei's unmoving armies.

  Nyad cast a burst of fire, revealing the forward Goliath army. Malpravus stood back as his forces battled the specters. They attacked in force, spells flying at the specters and combatants trying to strike with swords and other melee weaponry. Cyrus paused for a moment – there was something very unnatural about the movements of the Goliath forces.

  “Malpravus!” Cyrus shouted as the Sanctuary army streamed into place behind Goliath's Guildmaster. “What's the situation?”

  The cloaked dark elf turned back to him, face marked with strain but a malevolent grin creasing it. “Ah, dear boy, I must say I am pleased to see you. We've run into a bit of a snag.” The necromancer turned back to the battle and waved his arms without saying a word.

  The specters were attacking Goliath's forces much as they had Cyrus's army only moments before. Bodies, limbs and other pieces flew through the air as they turned loose their weapon-shaped appendages. Cyrus watched a ranger hit the ground in front of him, dead, neck at an unnatural angle.

  “Ye gods,” he muttered. “Healers –”

  “Ah ah ah!” Malpravus cut him off. “Healers would be most inconvenient for me right now. Save the resurrection spells until we are done.”

  “What?” Cyrus gasped. His eyes dropped to the corpse of the ranger, which had begun to rise, head hanging to the side. Understanding dawned on Cyrus and his eyes swept the scene. “Malpravus,” he said with a sick feeling, “how many of them are dead?”

  “Of my army? All. You really are quite bright, boy; most would not have picked up on that before charging into battle. You show such promise.”

  “You're... controlling them?” Erith's face was lit with shock as Cyrus felt the nausea rise in his stomach. “Casting spells for them? Ordering their corpses to attack?”

  “Indeed.” Malpravus's grin grew wider still. “But I could use some help. If you'd care to add your efforts to mine.”

  “I feel I should add my breakfast to the ground,” Vaste said with a scowl. “What's to stop you from taking over our corpses if we fall?”

  A surprised look crossed the Goliath Guildmaster's face, eyebrows raised. “Your comrades are in the fight of their lives. Wouldn't you assist them, even in death?” Malpravus turned back and waved his hands once more, bringing another twenty bodies lurching back into the fight.

  “I honestly don't know which monster is more deserving of our attacks, the specters or him,�
�� Vaste said, face grim.

  “Alaric will be most aggrieved if we attack Malpravus.” Cyrus's hand masked his expression.

  “I know you're trying to cover how disturbed you are with a joke, but this isn't funny!” Vaste thundered. “He's subverted the bodies of his comrades and now he's preventing them from being resurrected!”

  “No, it's not funny,” Cyrus agreed. “But we can't attack him.”

  “The sooner you help me kill these specters,” the voice of Malpravus chimed in, “the sooner we can start the resurrection spells on these poor, unfortunate souls.”

  “Who follow you for some reason,” Vaste spit at Malpravus, “gods know why – perhaps ignorance.”

  Malpravus's gaunt fingers reached out as though he were taking hold of something delicate, and another body rose on the field of battle. “Strength. They follow my strength. If they fall, they know I will avenge them.” He turned back to the Sanctuary officers and smiled, locking his gaze on Cyrus.

  Cyrus ignored the sudden drop his stomach took and held up a hand to stop Vaste as the troll took a step toward the necromancer. “We fight the darkness first.”

  “If I die and he takes control of my corpse, I'll kill him.” Vaste pulled himself to his full height, eyes narrowed and green skin glaring in the reflected light of the spells flying in front of them. It was strangely silent; none of the dead bodies vocalized as they swung their weapons, creating an atmosphere of metal clanging, flesh being hit and the screeching of the specters as spells impacted.

  “Such misunderstandings do not help our cause,” Malpravus chided without turning around.

  “Shut up,” Cyrus breathed. “Weapons are ineffective, so the spell casters attack from here. I'll have the warriors and rangers form a line to protect them.”

  After a moment to organize, the spell casters lined up in ranks behind Cyrus and the others and let fly a barrage of spells that struck down the first of the specters. Corpses of the Goliath army swarmed over the fallen enemy until it discorporated, fading like dust in the wind.

  It took several more volleys to bring down the second specter, but when it finally fell, a ragged cheer rang through the Sanctuary army. Goliath's first army, already throwing themselves after the final specter, was still silent – but at least this time, Cyrus knew why.

  Another specter's scream tore across the dark landscape. The last of them flung a wave of Goliath's fighting corpses out of its way and slithered across the ground toward the Sanctuary army. The bodies it threw landed in front of Cyrus, and each of them was covered in the black tar-like substance that the specters gave off. Is that what I had in me? he wondered.

  Cyrus moved forward to meet the specter, dodging the first attacks. A tentacle of shadow swung at him, followed by another and another. He dodged the first two and the third hit him on the breastplate, staggering him. He swung his sword, cutting through the specter's appendage to no effect; it reformed as soon as the sword passed through it.

  “Without a mystical blade, you can't hit it,” Aisling's calm voice whispered in his ear. He jumped in surprise and felt her push him to the side as another volley of the specter's limbs flew at him and missed thanks to her efforts. Her breath was warm against his neck as she pressed against him.

  “I know that!” he snapped. “I'm not trying to or I'd have ordered the whole army against it.” He lunged back to his feet and dodged another swipe from the specter. The next attack connected, drawing blood from a superficial cut to the side of his neck. “I'm trying to distract it,” he shot back at her. Another strike connected, this time a blunt instrument, and knocked him off balance.

  “Marvelous job,” Aisling's dry voice found him as his head was spinning. “It is focusing on splattering you on the cobblestones.”

  “So nice to be paid attention to,” Cyrus muttered, ducking another attack.

  “You talking about from me or it?” Aisling said from a few feet away.

  “Get back! I'm trying to draw its attacks; I don't need you getting killed.” A stabbing blow glanced off his shoulder. Fire lit the scene as Nyad and the other spell casters hammered at the shadowed fiend, flames of blue, red, yellow and orange lighting up the battle. Screeches filled the air and small shadows flaked off the specter's mass.

  “Don't worry about me,” Aisling said with a grin that spread from ear to ear. Before his eyes, she began to fade from his view, slipping into the shadows.

  “Wait!” he cried, a vision of Andren filling his head. She paused for a moment, shrouded in the shadows, flickering in the light of spells. Her smile froze and her eyes widened.

  Cyrus felt the specter land three hits in rapid succession, pummeling him. Something snaked around his waist and yanked him upside down into the air. He swung the short sword in the direction he was pulled, but made no contact with anything. A sense of disorientation took over as he was pulled into the air. He could see flashes of his guildmates, a hundred feet below. He had a sudden memory of the feeling when Ashan'agar spiraled to the ground. A lurching twisted his stomach and for a beat he wondered if the specter would drop him.

  A blur raced past, a feeling of lightness crept through him and an explosion of flame a few feet away drew a final scream from the specter. He braced himself for the inevitable fall, but it did not come. His feet floated below him as he began to drift to the ground. A flash of red blurred through the darkness in front of him, and he felt the caress of a small mending spell.

  “Saved my ass again, Niamh,” he breathed.

  “Pretty sure I saved the whole entirety of you.”

  “Yeah, but I'm all ass, all over, so...”

  She giggled and they floated to the ground to find Malpravus, expression passive as the invasion force's healers labored to resurrect Goliath's first army. “My boy,” the necromancer began as Cyrus descended, “you do have quite the flair for theatrics, don't you?”

  “I don't know what you mean.”

  “Getting captured by the specter like that?” Malpravus had a grin filled with smooth, even teeth, all of which gleamed a pearly white. “Pulled hundreds of feet into the air? I was certain I'd be adding you to my army, but you survived, once more, and quite admirably.” The smile dimmed a bit. “Of course, I am pleased to see you make it back to us in one piece.”

  Cyrus suppressed a shudder at the thought of being in the control of the dark elf. “Not half as pleased as I am.” He turned to face the Sanctuary army, forming up in the gap between the ragged first army of Goliath and the second, which had distanced itself during the fighting.

  Wizards kept the flames in the air, lighting the scene as the Alliance force recovered. Cyrus looked around, scouring face after face, until his hopes sank and the familiar feeling rose once more in his stomach – a feeling he would forever associate with a night of agony spent in the caves of the goblin city of Enterra, waiting for a friend who would never return.

  Chapter 9

  When the invasion force was reassembled, Cyrus found Malpravus standing next to him, fingers steepled. “Dear boy, why don't you take the lead for a bit? Give my fighters a chance to recover from the beating they took and a chance for us to reorganize and help Carrack's army... regain their courage?”

  The way he said it sent a chilled knife to Cyrus's guts. He could feel the looks of the officers of Sanctuary behind him in the loose circle where they had been talking. “We'll be happy to lead the way.”

  “Excellent, excellent.” Cyrus's eyes were drawn to the ornate rings decorating each of Malpravus's long fingers. One seemed to cover half his hand, a circle of metal with a red ruby the size of a walnut mounted in the center. It made his already slender fingers seem almost bony by comparison.

  Niamh restrained herself until the Goliath Guildmaster was out of earshot. “What are you thinking?!” Her face flared an angry red to match her hair. “If Vara were here she'd tell you what a fool you are for playing into whatever devious plan Malpravus has in mind.”

  “Let's not be hasty,” Curatio ste
pped in. “I'm sure Cyrus has good reason.”

  “Yes, I'm sure it's something reasonable.” J'anda's hands folded in front of him. “Like, 'I don't feel I've been possessed by a wicked sorcerer enough today.'”

  “I agreed because by being up front, we're leading this expedition,” Cyrus said. “Malpravus can't issue orders to us from the back of the action, not when I'm in the thick of it. And we're about to come up against something nasty. I'd rather have us facing it than them.”

  A moment of silence passed over the circle of officers, broken by J'anda. “Say again?” The enchanter's eyes were wide with disbelief, mouth forming a perfect o. “You would rather us face the deadly peril waiting ahead than throw three or four Goliath armies at it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Explain the bizarre troll logic behind that!” Niamh exclaimed, shock written across her face. She ignored Vaste's scowl. “You'd rather throw our lives away than theirs? What if this creature causes permanent deaths? You'd rather have that visited on us than them?”

  “No.” Cy shook his head. “But I think we're walking into a tricky battle, something that is going to require more finesse than Goliath is capable of.” Cy's eyes narrowed. “I think Malpravus knows that, and he's drained – he doesn't have another battle like the last in him.”

  Niamh's look of shock turned to confusion. “So we're not facing peril ahead?”

  “Oh, no,” Cyrus said, voice nonchalant. “We are. But we're the best hope the Alliance has of overcoming it; Goliath has no military discipline in place. If they run into something nasty, they will break. They're the barely-trained rabble that Vara was afraid we'd end up with – they've got a lot of people, most of them are even more experienced than ours, but they don't fight as a unit – no one can trust the person next to them.”