Just when the two guards directly in front Ariana tripped backward under the onslaught of a half-dozen enemy soldiers heedlessly clawing their way in a mindless killing frenzy toward the princess, the entire enemy force froze then stumbled, swaying and crying out in a horrible, otherworldy screeching. Wizards on both sides went rigid, flinging their arms out in shock before slumping to the ground, insensible. Guards and soldiers of Tarador took a wary step backward, momentarily stunned into disbelieving inaction, until Grand General Magrane roared to break the sudden eerie silence of the battlefield. “Kill them!” He ordered, sweeping his own sword in a cutting motion across the throats of two orcs in front of him.
After the initial sickening slaughter while they stood immobile and defenseless, the surviving forces of Acedor shook off the trance that had taken hold of them. The enemy did not fight back, did not even defend themselves. With few exceptions, men and orcs had flung aside their weapons and ran in terror, not even trying to conduct an organized retreat. In the insanity of their fright, some of them ran into lines of the Royal Army, to be cut down. The screams of those unfortunates only added to the mindless despair of the enemy, spurring some to flail about and crash headlong into trees or to leap into the river to drown, weighted down by their boots and chainmail.
As the enemy fled, Ariana’s guard regrouped, forming a tight circle around the princess, not yet taking time to aid their own wounded. Not until there wasn’t a living enemy within a quarter mile of Ariana did General Magrane pull himself onto a horse and gallop over to his Regent. Saluting her with a bloody sword, Magrane called out in a loud voice, exultant in victory. “Your Highness, I believe we have won the day!”
Her fingers trembling, Ariana firmly refastened the strap of the dagger she had intended to kill herself with, a chill creeping up her neck when she thought how close she has come to plunging that blade into the fine silk jacket she wore over her chainmail. “The day has been won, General, but I think we here do not own the glory of this victory!”
The broad smile on Magrane’s face fell into a frown before he quickly recovered. He had not expected to live that morning, and no amount of inescapable logic could tarnish what his soldiers had accomplished on the battlefield. Enough of those wearing the colors of Tarador lay dead or wounded, and they deserved to celebrate their hard-won triumph, no matter how they might have been aided by mysterious events elsewhere in the world.
Before her general could speak, Ariana understood the people who were sworn to follow her needed to be acknowledged. Holding up her own sword, her eye catching the dried blood crusted on it, she saluted Magrane. “There is glory enough to go around today, General Magrane. I salute your soldiers and those of our allies, please convey my deepest gratitude for their courageous stand against our ancient enemy!”
Magrane nodded and spurred his horse to organize a pursuit of the enemy to assure they did not regroup and attack again. Even with the frightful heaps of enemy bodies littering the battlefield, he knew the numbers were substantially against him, if the enemy recovered their senses and resumed their attack.
Ariana did not bother to wipe the dried blood off her sword, instead guiding it carefully into the scabbard with fingers that were still trembling slightly. Her trembling was from exertion and the after-effect of combat and not fear, she told herself, knowing that was not entirely true and not caring. She had survived, while many had not. Ariana gently pushed aside guards around her to kneel by an injured man, when something shining and bright caught her eye on the grim battlefield; it was the blonde hair of Olivia Dupres, waving gently in the breeze.
The wizards! Ariana stood up with a shock and ran toward the young wizard who had risen to one knee, looking around her with unfocused eyes. “Madame Dupres!” Ariana called out gently, taking hold of the young woman’s shoulders and helping her to her feet. “Are you unwell?”
“We all, we all received a shock,” Olivia explained, not understanding what had happened to her. “Someone used a tremendous amount of magical power.”
“Was it Lord Salva?” Ariana asked hopefully.
“No,” Olivia shook her head, blinking to make her eyes work properly again. “Not a tremendous amount of power, an impossible amount of power. I,” she paused to catch her breath. “I did not know such power existed. Highness, I believe the demon is dead.”
Ariana clasped her hands in front of her, not daring to hope. “Banished back to the underworld?”
“No, Your Highness. It is dead. Someone killed it, burned it from the inside with magical fire, and it is a creature of fire. What we, we wizards felt, was this power being used, and the demon crying out as it died. It was,” she leaned against the princess as a wave of dizziness swept over her. “A terrible shock to all of us wizards.” That reminded her of something. “Madame Chu! Where is she?” Breaking away from the princess, Olivia ran over to where the wizard from Ching-Do lay sprawled on the ground. The woman was alive but breathing shallowly, and Olivia felt the life force within her had retreated to protect itself from the shock.
“What is wrong with Madame Chu?” Ariana asked Olivia, wringing her hands in anguish.
“She is far more powerful than me,” Olivia speculated. “She would have felt the shock more strongly. She lives, I can bring her back to us, but my skills in healing are less than masterful. Let me-”
“Olivia!” Ariana grabbed the other girl’s shoulder, pointing to the west where six enemy wizards were on their feet. Four were milling about stumbling, appearing dazed and blinded, but two were supporting each other and looking toward Ariana menacingly. One of the two reached skyward and a fireball began to form in its hand. “Madame Dupres!” The princess implored the young wizard for help.
“Oh, we do not have time for this nonsense!” Olivia spat in disgust. Standing up, she quickly conjured a truly large fireball and launched it at the cluster of enemy wizards, hitting three of them and splashing the three others with burning magical essence. The six died quickly as their bodies were consumed, burned through to their dark souls.
“That,” Ariana took a step back from the young wizard. “That was a rather large fireball, Madame Dupres.”
Olivia shrugged irritably, not wishing to spare the time to explain magic to a princess. “The demon is no longer suppressing our use of power, Highness. Please, I must aid Wing, that is, Madame Chu as best I can.” Looking to where her fireball had set the dry grass flame and snuffed the life out of six foul practitioners of dark magic, she added with grim satisfaction, “I do not think wizards of the enemy will be bothering us this morning.”
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
Bjorn came back to awareness slowly, falling back into a dreamless stupor several times before he opened his eyes to see black grit raining down and he coughed on black flakes of soot. The air smelled strongly of sulphur, it stung his eyes and the fine grit was clogging his eyelashes, he tried to sit up and pain exploded all over his body, nearly making him faint. Slowly, carefully, he rolled onto his left side, propping himself up on one elbow and wiping his eyes. Blinking helped only so much, his eyes teared up to flush the grinding grit out, and he could see he was in a wide, shallow crater. Of the castle, there was no sign other than piles of blackened sand fused like glass scattered as far as he could see. There were no men or orcs, their weapons were mostly gone also, with only axeheads, the blades of pikes and a few swords and knives half buried in the still-falling soot. Even the hills that had rolled down into the valley were flattened sand dunes under the surrounding mountains of bare rock.
The demon! The demon was gone also, nothing remained that Bjorn could see with his blurry vision. A hacking cough behind him made him jerk his head and a sharp pain made him stop. Moving gingerly, he inched around to see Koren, his face and hands red with sunburn, laying on his back and coughing weakly. Bjorn had to fill his lungs twice to speak a single word, it hurt even to breathe. “Koren.”
“Dee,” the hacking cough resumed, then, “demon?”
�
��Gone. Everything else with it.” Bjorn developed a rhythm for speaking; two words and two shallow breaths, followed by two words.
“Good,” Koren let his head flop back down which was a mistake, as the impact sent a shower of soot to swirling around him, and he choked on it. He was so weak he could barely lift a hand, his toes could wiggle but no amount of effort would make his painful legs budge from where they rested.
“Wha-” Bjorn mistakenly inhaled sooty dust, and when he coughed, there were specks of blood on the ground in front of him. “What did you do?”
“The demon,” Koren paused for breath, his seared lungs unable to fill. Gasping for air between every second word, he continued slowly. “The demon wanted my power, it wanted the power to tear open the barrier between worlds, to unleash an army of demons upon us. It wanted that power. I gave the demon what it wanted. More than it wanted.”
“Ah,” Bjorn nodded, beginning to understand. “You couldn’t control your power, but you knew how to get it.”
“Yes,” Koren shuddered at the memory. “I commanded the spirits to drain their world of power, through me into the demon. The power of the spirits is limitless but they gave me all they could and it kept coming, I was scared that much power would destroy us also, destroy this world.”
“You stopped it in time?”
“No,” Koren shook his head, tried to laugh and coughed until his lungs ached. “After the demon was destroyed, I lost awareness, and the spirits took the opportunity to break free from my will. It was luck that we’re alive. Can you see around us? I’m afraid how much of our world I’ve consumed with fire.”
Bjorn staggered to his knees, took in a brief view to the east where white clouds still towered in the sky above black hills, then his strength gave out and he fell into the choking blackened dust. “The world is still here. Far away, but still here.”
“Good.”
They lay in silence, breathing as deeply as their soot-choked lungs could manage. Bjorn rolled onto his side, looking at Koren accusingly. He pointed with a quaking finger to the boy who was no longer a boy. “That was your plan all along, you scoundrel! You made me think you were wrong, that you had failed.”
“I had to,” Koren explained. “The demon, and its wizards, could not read my mind, I felt that orc wizard try to invade my thoughts and I pushed it away. But the demon could read your mind, and I needed to get close to the demon so I could destroy it. If the demon knew I could kill it, it would never allow me near, it would kill me. You needed to believe I had failed, that I could not feel my power, that I was no threat to the demon. The demon read your mind and believed it was safe to bring me within its guard, that I was powerless. I’m sorry that I lied to you, but the deception was necessary.”
“Huh,” Bjorn slumped, not sure to be insulted or proud.
Koren laughed, an action that made him hurt all over.
“What’s so funny?”
“The deception was necessary,” Koren snorted. “Paedris I’m sure said the same thing when he concealed the truth from me. So many deceptions, and all of them necessary.”
“Lord Salva was right in the end, apparently. Wait. One thing I don’t understand. I know now why you were afraid when that wizard held a knife to your throat; if he killed you then, your plan would be ruined. But later, you begged me to kill you!”
“Yes, because I knew you wouldn’t.”
“You are wrong,” Bjorn shook his head slowly. “I made up my mind to kill you. I tried to throw that knife! You are alive only because an orc hit me and knocked off my aim.”
“No. I should have said I knew you couldn’t kill me. The same way I know an arrow will hit its target, I knew your knife would miss me.”
“You knew an orc would spoil my aim at the last second?” Bjorn sputtered, incredulous.
“I didn’t know. The spirits knew your knife would never touch me.”
Bjorn’s mind reeled in pure amazement. “Lord Bladewell,” he bowed with his head as it hurt too much to move anything else. “It is a strange world you live it.”
“I don’t know anything about it,” Koren admitted. “The only thing I know how to do is pull power from the spirit world. That I knew I could do, pull so much power the demon could not control it and would be consumed by fire.”
“How did we not die?”
“I willed us to be protected, so the spirits did.” Koren coughed and spit up black dust. “I should have been more specific,” he laughed, which made him cough again.
Bjorn laughed also, making his lungs ache and sore belly muscles spasm in pain. “Oh, it hurts to laugh. What now?”
“Now?” Koren was too dead tired to think of the future. “We, I don’t know. My plan stopped with killing the demon. I didn’t expect to destroy the castle and all its servants also. I suppose we, walk out of here?”
Bjorn lifted his head again, a bit higher this time. “Koren, all I can see to the horizon is blackened nothing. I remember hills to the east, close to the castle, now that area is almost flat. The castle, the moats, the walls, all of it, is gone. This will be a long walk.”
“Oh,” Koren was so weary deep in his bones, he found it difficult to care. “We can start in the morning, then.”
Bjorn closed one eye and peered at the sun, obscured by the mist of soot and grit hanging in the air. “It is morning. Do you think it’s the same morning?”
“I don’t know. My senses were in the spirit world, where there is no time. It’s hard to explain. A whole night could not have passed, could it? That seems awfully long-”
“Koren!” Bjorn interrupted. While the boy had been speaking, Bjorn had caught something odd with the corner of an eye, now he stared at it, transfixed. It was a faintly glowing spark, like a firefly, dancing in the air, flitting lazily this way and that, gradually coming closer to Koren. Bjorn had first noticed the spark as a bright spot in the layer of grit covering the ground, and he had thought at first it was sunlight glinting off the metal of a discarded sword. He pointed with an unsteady hand, his finger trembling. “What is that?”
“What?” Koren turned his head in halting increments, feeling something grinding in his neck. “What are you talk about? No!” His head snapped around so he was looking directly at the object. A stabbing pain shot down his neck and he barely felt it. “The demon!”
“Wha-” With strength he didn’t know he had, Bjorn scrambled backward away from the object, pushing with his hands in the loose grit, dragging his wobbly legs. “You killed it!”
“I thought I did! Something, some part of it, must have survived. Demons are powerful, Paedris warned me about that,” Koren’s lips trembled in panic.
“Can you kill that thing now?” Bjorn watched the evil spark fly about aimlessly, except it was not quite aimless. Slowly, it was drawing closer to the young wizard.
“No. I don’t have any power, I can’t do anything,” Koren half sobbed. He was worked so hard and risked so much, been willing to and expecte to die in order to banish the demon from his world, and now saw he had failed. “The spirits won’t answer me!”
“We need to get away,” Bjorn clenched his teeth and pushed himself to one knee, every muscle in his body sending signals of agony. “Get out of this crater, away from here.”
Koren tried to move his legs. He could feel them, and they trembled when he tried to roll over, but they could not move on their own. His arms were like lead, of his left arm he could only lift the wrist. With his right arm, he grunted with effort to lift that hand, palm outward in a warding gesture, but his hand only flopped uselessly onto his chest. “I can’t move. I can’t!”
“It’s getting closer to you. What happens if it touches you?”
“I think it will take over my body and consume me, like it did to Mertis. I will become a new Draylock, and the demon will grow in power,” Koren’s arms and legs still lacked the strength to move.
“It can take over a person?”
“Yes, that is what happened to Mertis! He st
upidly used dark magic and allowed the demon access to our world,” Koren was amazed how calmly he was speaking. “Mertis thought he could contain and use the demon’s power, but it consumed him instead.” No amount of willpower and effort could get his legs to move, he was trapped, and the dancing spark was drifting ever closer, moving more purposefully as perhaps it sensed Koren’s presence.
“No, that is not going to happen,” Bjorn got onto both knees, slumping forward from the strain until he was crawling on hands and knees. “Here!” He shouted hoarsely. “Come here! Take me!” He waved a hand toward the spark, trying to catch it.
“Bjorn, no!” Koren coughed weakly, his head lolling to the side. The spirits had abandoned him completely, he could not feel any connection to their timeless world.
“Come here, come here!” Bjorn thumped his chest to get the spark’s attention as it flitted dangerously close to Koren. The tiny glimmer of light drifted up, over Koren, then began to settle down, lazily moving side to side along with flecks of soot in the air.
“Bjorn, no! It will just take you instead. No!”
“You come here, now you damned-” With a last, desperate swipe of his hand, Bjorn reached for the spark, and felt it burn hotly into his palm. The shock flung him backward, skidding across the loose grit on his backside. He came to rest rigidly on his back, seemingly dead, his body unmoving.
Then the body moved.
Koren watched in horror as what used to be Bjorn Jihnsson rose stiffly from the waist, and its head swiveled toward Koren. Already, the man’s eyes glowed with hellish internal fire. The ghoul stood jerkily, as if unfamiliar with its new host body. Unspeaking, it began walking toward Koren, shuffling one foot then the other, barely lifting the feet and dragging long furrows in the dark grit that coated the floor of the crater. The undead lips curled in an awful smile-
Deceptions (Ascendant Book 3) Page 40
