Soul of Swords (Book 7)

by Moeller, Jonathan

  Molly grinned and jumped back into the shadows. She reappeared twenty yards away, in the midst of a fight between a group of knights and a knot of runedead. Molly attacked, her sword and dagger a blur as she cut down one runedead, and then another. The undead turned to face her, and Molly flung herself back into the shadows as the knights charged.

  She moved up and down the battle line. Again and again she attacked clusters of runedead, disrupting their attack, and the knights and armsmen charged as she drew the attention of the runedead. With Kadarius dead, the runedead had lost their coordination, and attacked in waves of disconnected mobs rather than a single overwhelming front.

  Molly laughed as she fought, her Demonsouled blood burning within her, and hunted the runedead.

  ###

  Mazael put spurs to Gauntlet’s side, and the big destrier surged forward with a snort. The horse crashed into a runedead, and Mazael brought Lion down with all his strength. The burning blade split the undead creature’s skull, and the crimson fire of its sigil winked out. Around him his knights joined in the charge, striking down the runedead with every blow.

  The runedead did not try to flank them, did not try to maneuver. They simply charged, and Mazael’s men cut them down. He had feared that the runedead might attempt to encircle them. But Molly had killed Kadarius, and apparently Lucan or Caldarus had not delegated authority over this group of runedead to any of the other Justiciar knights. Mazael cut down runedead after runedead, the Demonsouled battle rage thrumming through his mind. Romaria fought next to him, wielding her bastard sword from horseback with the graceful skill of an Elderborn-trained fighter.

  They were winning.

  Then he saw the flare of fire atop the roof of a house.

  ###

  Riothamus felt the surge of magical power.

  He saw a hooded shape in a ragged black robe standing atop one of the village’s houses. Even as he watched, the robe smoldered, wisps of black smoke rising from the sleeves. The black cloth took flame, burning away to revealed a charred husk of a corpse wreathed in snarling flames.

  Another of the burning wizards, one of Caraster’s runedead disciples.

  Riothamus leveled his staff, but the burning wizard struck first. The creature thrust a clawed hand and a ball of shimmering flame leapt from its palm. It struck the battlefield with a flash and a roar, a dozen men and their horses going up in flames, both knights and beasts screaming in agony. The burning wizard flung another ball of flame, but Riothamus worked a spell of his own. A curtain of mist rose in the midst of the struggling runedead, hardening into a wall of glittering ice.

  The fireball slammed into it, and both the flames and the ice vanished in a plume of steam.

  Riothamus sent a blast of golden fire at the runedead wizard. The creature raised its blackened hands in a warding spell, and its snarling halo of flame absorbed Riothamus’s attack. For a moment Riothamus considered calling the lightning and blasting the house upon which the runedead stood, but dismissed the thought. The villagers might be hiding within the house.

  And the Guardian was sworn never to take human life.

  The creature flung a bolt of white-hot flame at him. Riothamus slammed his staff against the ground, and a shimmering sphere of golden light appeared around him. The bolt of fire struck the sphere and rebounded back towards the runedead wizard. The blast slammed into the undead, and disappeared back into its blazing aura.

  Again the creature began a spell, and Riothamus summoned more power for a ward.

  ###

  Mazael cut down another runedead, the creature’s head exploding beneath Lion’s blue fury. Most of the undead outside of the village’s wall had been cut down, but more poured through the ruined gate. How many more remained inside Lord’s Stump?

  Another flare of fiery light caught his eye, and he saw one of the burning wizards perched atop a house inside the wall. The undead wizard flung a blast of fire, and Riothamus deflected it with his staff.

  Riothamus’s skill exceeded the crude magic of Caraster’s former disciples, but the undead wizards could overmatch him for sheer strength. He could dispatch the creature, but he would need a distraction.

  Something, preferably, other than the deaths of Mazael’s men.

  A runedead lunged at Gauntlet, and the horse reared, lashing with steel-shod hooves. The undead stumbled, and Mazael whipped Lion around in a backhand and took off the runedead’s head.

  “Romaria!” he shouted.

  He caught her eyes and she nodded. She jumped from her horse, and as she did, her body flowed and changed, swelling into the muscled form of the great black wolf. Without her sword and Lion’s fire, she could not destroy the runedead.

  But with her speed and strength, she hardly needed to destroy them.

  The great black wolf vanished into the press of the runedead.

  ###

  Romaria darted through the gate, slid past a trio of runedead that reached for her with cold hands, and found herself inside Lord’s Stump.

  It looked similar to dozens of other villages she had seen scattered across the Grim Marches. Houses built of fieldstone lined the street, supporting thatched roofs, and a fortified manor house and a domed stone church overlooked the central square. More runedead clogged the street, the crimson glow of their sigils painting the stone walls with harsh light.

  But Romaria saw the runedead wizard atop a nearby house, the thatch smoldering around it as it cast spells Riothamus.

  She raced into an alley between the houses and saw a rain barrel standing against a wall. Romaria shoved herself against the barrel and knocked it over. The water within smelled vile, but it soaked her black fur. She sprang forward, landed on a window sill, and then jumped onto the rooftop.

  The runedead wizard stood before her, flames blazing around its clawed fingers. Romaria slammed into the creature’s legs. The runedead stumbled with an angry hiss, the spell vanishing. The terrible heat washed over her, but her drenched fur protected her.

  She jumped away, and the runedead began casting a spell.

  “Perish!” shrieked the creature. “When the new order arises, all lords and their pets shall…”

  White mist swirled between them hardened into a half-dozen enormous icicles. The razor-edged shards slammed into the runedead, quenched its flames, and ripped the creature to smoking shreds of blackened bone.

  Romaria turned as Mazael forced his way through the gate, Lion an inferno of blue flame in his fist.

  ###

  The battle ended soon after the fall of the runedead wizard.

  Mazael pulled off his helmet and raked a hand through his sweaty hair. The destroyed runedead carpeted the plain outside of the village’s wall, the corpses crumbling into dust. His men moved through the fields, tending to the wounded and finding the dead. He had lost men in this fight, more than he would have liked.

  But less than he had expected.

  Still, this had been an easy battle.

  Caldarus and his runedead would prove a far more formidable foe.

  “It was good you came when you did, my lord,” said the village’s bailiff, a squat, bearded man named Edmund. “They accused us of all sorts of vile crimes, and murdered three of the elders before you arrived.” He spat on the corpse of a nearby Justiciar knight. “As if the folk of Lord’s Stump would kiss the serpent!”

  Mazael nodded. “Get your people out of the village and head for Castle Cravenlock. Lady Rachel Roland is overseeing the castle in my absence, and she will find a place for your people. Once the invaders are destroyed, you can return to your homes in safety.”

  Assuming Caldarus did not sweep them away.

  “Aye, my lord,” said Edmund, and went to gather his surviving people.

  Mazael found Riothamus standing over the corpse of Kadarius, gazing at the dead man. Molly waited at his side, hands resting on the hilts of her weapons, and Mazael saw Romaria walking to join them.

  “You did well,” said Mazael, looking at Molly. �
�When you killed him, the runedead lost their coordination.”

  Molly shrugged. “Men like him never think to look over their shoulders. I have grown tired of killing, father…but I do not think I will regret his death overly much.”

  “Nor will I,” said Mazael.

  “He had one of those black daggers,” said Riothamus, voice quiet.

  The weapon lay near the dead Justiciar’s left hand, the blade flickering with a sigil of pale green fire.

  “Ugly thing,” said Molly, bending down to reach for it.

  “Don’t!” said Riothamus and Romaria in unison.

  Molly froze, blinked, and straightened up. “Touching the thing might be a very poor idea?”

  “Likely,” said Riothamus, still staring at the weapon. “Don’t let one of those touch your skin.”

  “What do you see?” said Molly.

  Riothamus took a deep breath. “It’s like…a web. A spider’s web. The dagger is only the end of one thread. The blade is linked to something. The dagger will drain the life force of a victim and bestow it upon the wielder, aye. But most of the power would follow that thread and go elsewhere.”

  “Elsewhere?” said Mazael.

  “To whatever is at the center of the web,” said Riothamus.

  “It’s…hungry,” said Romaria. “My Sight is not as keen as Riothamus’s. But the dagger is hungry. The Glamdaigyr.” She blinked, looking away from the weapon as if it pained her. “I never saw the Glamdaigyr with the Sight, Mazael…but this dagger reminds me of the Glamdaigyr.”

  “Could it be linked to the Glamdaigyr somehow?” said Mazael. “The Glamdaigyr drained the life energies of its victims.”

  “Perhaps,” said Riothamus.

  Molly snorted. “Or maybe Lucan just copied the thing and gave the daggers to the Justiciars to keep them in line. That excess life energy likely flows back to him.”

  Mazael nodded. Most likely Lucan was using the daggers to harvest stolen life to empower a spell. But why? Did he intend to batter his way into Cythraul Urdvul using raw force?

  And what did the Old Demon have in mind?

  Riothamus knelt, ripped a strip from Kadarius’s cloak, and wrapped up the black dagger. “I will take this with me and examine it. Perhaps we can glean some secrets.”

  Mazael hoped so. He did not have a clear idea of Lucan’s intentions, and certainly not the Old Demon’s. He knew his father desired to transform himself into a god. But how would he enter Cythraul Urdvul?

  And why did he need Lucan to do it?

  They left Lord’s Stump a few hours later, riding hard to the southeast to rejoin the army.

  Chapter 15 - Besieged

  Hugh led the assembled army of Greycoast south.

  Once Greycoast could muster nearly thirty-five thousand men beneath the Prince’s banner. The Great Rising and the Aegonar invasion had taken their toll, and only twenty-five thousand followed Hugh when he took Barellion from Malaric. Many of the lords had returned home to tend to their lands, and had not returned in time to join Hugh.

  So Hugh marched south with only eighteen thousand men to face ninety thousand runedead and the gathered host of Knightreach.

  Not all of his lords thought that a wise decision.

  “I must again say that this is folly,” said Lord Karlam Ganelon. The man had not stopped carping since they had ridden through the Gate of Knights. “We have left Barellion completely undefended…”

  “We have not,” said Lord Bryce Spearshore, his irritation barely concealed. “The city’s militia remains, and they are veterans of the fighting against the runedead. And if the Aegonar put Barellion to siege while we are gone, the city will not fall in a day. We will have more than enough time to return and catch the Aegonar against the walls.”

  “Assuming the runedead do not butcher us all,” said Karlam.

  “Anything can happen in war,” said Hugh, his hands tightening against his horse’s reins.

  But Karlam had a point. Hugh did not see how his men could defeat ninety thousand runedead and fifteen thousand living men. Nor could he imagine how Lord Malden controlled so many runedead. Mazael had said that Skalatan wanted Knightcastle. Perhaps Lord Malden had some sort of magical relic that allowed him to command so many runedead, a relic that Skalatan coveted.

  His one hope was that Malden had come north to deal with Skalatan instead of Barellion. If so, the runedead and the Aegonar could fight it out while Hugh watched.

  But from the reports that had come north, the stories of Malden’s household knights butchering innocent villagers, Hugh doubted that Malden would overlook Barellion.

  He looked at the southward road, his hands curling into fists. In truth, he saw no path to victory. Perhaps the Aegonar would fall upon the runedead and destroy them, and then lay siege to Barellion. Or, more likely, the runedead would destroy Hugh’s army, seize Barellion, and then turn north to face Skalatan and the Aegonar.

  But Hugh could not sit back and do nothing. The people of Greycoast needed a defender, and who would defend them if not their Prince? Yet of the three armies now in Greycoast, Hugh’s was the weakest. He could only hope to hang back until the Aegonar and the runedead came to battle, and then fall upon the victor.

  A slim hope.

  He could not give up. He could not fail Adelaide.

  “We need a better plan,” said Karlam, “rather than this desperate gamble…”

  Hugh turned in the saddle and glared at the Lord of Castle Rutagne. “Have you a better plan, my lord? Have you? Then for the love of all the gods, share it immediately."

  Karlam blinked, opened his mouth, closed it again. “I…was merely suggesting…”

  “I welcome suggestions,” said Hugh. “Useful suggestions. If you want to weary my ears with complaints, then find a different audience.”

  “At the very least,” said Karlam, “you ought to remain in Barellion. You are the Prince of Barellion and the liege lord of Greycoast, and you have no heir.” He gestured at the army marching behind them. “If you are slain, Greycoast will be divided between a dozen warring lords…and the Aegonar and the runedead will devour us one by one. My lord Prince, I urge you to return at once to Barellion, and leave the war in the hands of more experienced men.”

  Hugh snorted. “Fine counsel, my lord. A Prince who cowers behind castle walls while his men and lords march to war is no Prince at all. If we are defeated, I will die as a Prince and as a man, not as a craven hiding in the cellars of his castle.”

  “Well spoken, my lord Prince,” said Bryce. “Your father would be proud.”

  Karlam fell into sullen silence after that, much to Hugh’s relief. Gods, but he was sick of that man. For a spiteful moment he considered sending Lord Karlam with the scouts. Perhaps the runedead would do him a favor and kill the truculent Lord of Castle Rutagne…

  Hugh rebuked himself. Karlam was an obnoxious fool, but he was still Hugh’s vassal, and therefore entitled to the Prince’s protection.

  Assuming Hugh found a way to protect his people and lands from the foes that threatened to consume them.

  Well, if he failed, he was still their Prince…and if they fell, he would die with them.

  He rode on, wrapped in that grim thought.

  ###

  Two days later, the host of Greycoast reached the valley of the Mistwater.

  “You see them?” said Montigard, squinting. “All those crimson lights?”

  Maurus frowned. “The runedead we have previously faced all had green sigils upon their foreheads. Perhaps it is a side effect of whatever device or spell Lord Malden used to control them.”

  Hugh nodded. “Could you break the spell?”

  Maurus shook his head. “Regrettably, my lord, no.”

  Hugh said nothing and gazed across the valley.

  The Mistwater was a small river that flowed from the low mountains of Knightreach, wending north until it reached the River of Lords some distance west of Castle Bridge. Here the river passed through a shallow, bro
ad valley four miles across. Hugh’s army stood on the northwestern lip of the valley, their banners flying in the breeze.

  On the southeastern edge of the valley waited the runedead host.

  Hugh had fought undead before, and his father had sent him hunting bands of runedead near Castle Stormsea after the Great Rising. Yet Hugh had never seen so many of the damned things in once place. Nor had he seen them move with such eerie precision. The runedead he had faced before had attacked in ragged mobs, acting with either mindless fury or under the insanity of whatever awakened runedead controlled them.

  He had never seen an army of runedead before.

  A man with a runedead army could likely conquer the world.

  “We cannot possibly prevail against such numbers,” said Karlam, his voice urgent. “The runedead are dangerous enough in small numbers. When arrayed in a host like this, with a proper battle formation…my lord, we will be overrun easily.”

  “I agree,” Hugh found himself forced to answer. He had hoped that the runedead would break into smaller bands to ravage the countryside, allowing him to defeat them one by one. Instead, it seemed as if both Lord Malden’s host and the runedead horde were marching straight north.

  Coming straight for Barellion.

  “I am forced to agree with Lord Karlam,” said Bryce. “We ought to retreat for Barellion at once, and hold the city until we can obtain aid from the other liege lords.”

  “Yes,” said Hugh. “But first, we’ll talk.”

  “Talk?” said Karlam. “What is there to possibly talk about?”

  “I am inclined to agree with Lord Karlam, as much as it pains me to admit it,” said Bryce. “Lord Malden has invaded your lands with fire and sword and undead. He has come to destroy us. What is there to be gained by talk?”

  “Time,” said Hugh, “and knowledge. Why has Malden invaded Greycoast? And how the devil does he control those runedead?” Mazael had said that knowledge of one’s foe was deadlier than any sword. “And perhaps we can win some sort of delay. The longer we stall, the greater the chance of aid arriving from the other liege lords.” And with a greater delay, maybe he could lure the runedead into a battle with the Aegonar.