by R J Hanson
“Throw down your arms, and you’ll be taken without injury,” King’s Inquisitor Ranoct said as he stepped from the other side of the hedge maze. “Out of respect for your record and your service, you will not be harmed if you surrender.”
Dunewell and Maloch watched as Erin, who took only a moment to look back at them and toss them a sly wink, ran to Ranoct’s side. Several more warriors, and at least three paladins by Dunewell’s count, also stepped out with him. Crossbowmen leaned out from the corners of the vast manor and silhouetted themselves over the stone fence that surrounded the front yard.
In spite of the odds against them, Dunewell thought he and Maloch would have a decent chance; however, that would mean putting the lives of these good men in peril; that he could not tolerate.
“You don’t understand what’s happening here, Ran,” Dunewell said, pleading with his friend. “You couldn’t.”
“Let me guess,” Ranoct replied. “Young Stewardess Erin here is a demon, and you have an excellent reason for traveling with a drow. Not just any drow for that matter, but the Knight of Sorrows, himself.”
“How did you…”
“One of Medaci’s informants came across with the details not long ago,” Ranoct said, his elbow still resting on his sword. “As luck, or rather Fate, would have it one of the local priests also had a vision. Many witnesses know you attempted to court the young Stewardess before you murdered the Reeve here. Some suspected that, if you should return, you might try to coerce her to lend you aid and speak on your behalf with Lady Evalynne. I knew you once. I’m willing to accept your surrender only because of the man I once knew. I can’t say that I recognize the man before me now.”
“Informants prompted by Slythorne’s tongue, no doubt,” Maloch whispered to Dunewell.
“This is foolishness!” came from one of the Paladins of Fate standing just behind Inquisitor Ranoct. “Why do we waste time speaking when there’s a cursed drow in there before us?”
The paladin drew his short sword and moved to shove past Erin and Ranoct. Then Fate intervened.
The paladin’s shield, more importantly, the holy symbol on the paladin’s shield, brushed against Stewardess Erin's exposed shoulder as she feigned fear of Dunewell and huddled next to Ranoct. In a burst of motion, Erin’s skin began to sizzle, the demon within her cried out to Muersoruem the UnMaker, the paladin screamed and leapt away, and Ranoct pivoted on his toes and drew his longsword and companion hand-axe with reflexive speed.
The creature that had been Erin of House Theald lashed out with claws that sprouted from the flesh at the ends of its fingers. Ranoct parried the first swipe with his sword, but the second was too quick and slashed through plate armor, skin, and muscle with equal ease. Ranoct gasped but still managed a cut across with his axe traveling in just behind Erin’s attacking swing. The common steel of the axe struck the uncommon flesh of Erin’s side just below her right breast. The hardened surface of her skin easily turned the axe aside.
Some of the crossbowmen, apparently confused as to what had just transpired, loosed their bolts and quarrels at Dunewell and Maloch. Dunewell dove behind the coach while Maloch twisted and spun behind the cover of the coach house wall. Somewhere in the darkness, a sergeant had the wherewithal to yell the command, “reload!”
A quick glance showed Dunewell that the paladins flanking Ranoct had fallen away, and the Inquisitor parried frantically to keep the demon’s claws from finding the flesh of his neck and face. Dunewell, knowing he would have several heartbeats before the crossbows would be reloaded and ready for another volley, ran to Ranoct’s aid. As he dug his toes in to leap, he saw Maloch, swords in hand, roll out from the wall and charge toward Ranoct’s position as well.
Dunewell’s vault, a feat that stunned all who saw it, carried him across the vast yard of the estate to land at Ranoct’s side. He thrust his hammer forward to drive aside the demon’s claw bound for Ranoct’s scalp and then stabbed hard with his rider’s pike. The stiletto, aimed for the gap of the demon’s armpit, missed its mark and struck Erin in the shoulder instead. Boiling blood, cursed steam, and unworldly screams erupted from the foul creature as it thrashed to the side.
Just as Maloch was building speed in his charge, the fallen champion leapt from the yard to the second balcony of the manor in a single bound. Maloch skidded to a stop in the snow and gravel, giving no thought to the inquisitor, paladins, or the crossbowmen. All eyes watched, mesmerized, as the creature leapt again to the rooftop and then again to bound to the outer estate wall. No more than half a heartbeat behind, Dunewell pursued.
Maloch sheathed the shrou-sheld from his right hand, pulled his hourglass pendant from his shirt, and called a quick prayer to Father Time. His prayer was answered when he noted the slowing flight of Dunewell from rooftop to wall. Maloch turned and ran after the demon while the rest of the world decelerated around him. He heard Ranoct shouting orders to the paladins and other soldiers he’d marshaled, but Maloch had no time for such trivial concerns. It had been nearly three thousand years since he’d been on the opposite side of the likes of the demon he chased. He was not going to allow this chance to slip his grasp.
Dunewell was gaining on his prey, but not fast enough. She would cover a great distance and possibly put a number of civilians in jeopardy if he could not stop her soon. He had one distinct advantage; he knew this city. The buildings gained in grandeur and height as one moved from the edges of the city toward the center. Erin was moving in a straight-line west by southwest. Dunewell veered northward toward the taller buildings.
While Erin was slowing to pick where she would jump to next, Dunewell knew the exact route he was taking. As Dunewell vaulted from balcony to steeple to rooftop, the demon was running along rooftops, stopping at each edge, and then leaping to another building. Dunewell was gaining on the creature, but they would soon be running out of high structures to bolster their speed; they were reaching the southwest corner of Moras. Dunewell closed and saw Maloch running after Erin at a remarkable pace. Then Dunewell saw the walls of Nobles’ Rest; he saw the trap, but too late.
Maloch ran on. Aided by powers vested in him by Father Time, Maloch sprinted along the city streets of Moras with incredible speed. He wasn’t able to leap from roof to roof like Erin or Dunewell, but he ran with enchanted haste. As he ran, he gripped his hourglass symbol with his right hand, whispering another prayer. As this prayer flowed from his lips, a holy aura began to surround the Paladin of Time and the weapons he carried.
He felt his own vanity rear its ugly head, but there was little he could do to stop such a sin. He had not whispered this prayer in millennia, and it had been even longer since he had been graced with this much of Time’s power. Now, to feel it flowing throughout his nerves and muscles, Maloch felt invulnerable.
Maloch saw the demon leap over an iron fence mounted to marble posts and half-walls, and he was closing on it fast. He stuck his right hand out as he jumped, caught the top of the railing and vaulted the tall iron fence. His shrou-sheld flew from its scabbard on his side to his right hand as he landed. Maloch looked up and saw the demon standing only a few yards away in the rows of stones ahead of him. Rows of headstones. He watched as Slythorne stepped from behind a mausoleum, a smile quirked at the edge of his mouth.
“Come to your master, serve my command,” Slythorne shouted as he stretched his hands forth and then upward toward the night sky. “Kuyon Hammesh Teh!”
Maloch saw, felt, the stirrings of corpses all around him. He heard the grinding of stone upon stone as tombs, hundreds of tombs, began to slide open. The wretched smell of graves being turned out violated his nose and mouth.
Maloch thrust his sword into the ground, grabbed the hourglass symbol that hung around his neck, and began another prayer. He worked his lips and tongue feverishly through the complex pronunciations needed for the prayer, and, while he did so, the dead marched forth.
As he reached the final phrase of the prayer, the diseased nails of a fleshless hand cl
awed at his exposed neck. The sharp pain from the nails dissipated quickly, and the rot carried in them burned away as the holy aura that encompassed him served its roll in his protection. A protection that would endure a few of the risen, but not the hundreds.
“Vesliosh!” Maloch shouted the last word of the prayer as he reached for the pommel of his sword.
A blast of celestial blue fire surged out in all directions from the Paladin of Time in waves that struck down dozens of the awakened dead. The blast continued out for several yards until it washed upon the feet of the master vampire. There the power of the spell winked out with a heartbreaking whimper.
Maloch reached his right hand for one sword while he cut a sweeping arc around him with his left. The swing of his second shrou-sheld drove back the few undead creatures that were able to weather his spell of repulsion. The drow paladin then spun the tips of both shrou-shelds up before him and began an oft practiced routine as one blade cut across its companion thrust forward, both aglow in holy light. He took only a moment to examine the sea of undead creatures that shambled into the lane separating him from Slythorne. He watched as crypts in the distance slowly erupted with skeletons wearing armor and wielding the weapons their hands knew in life. These were no mere undead, mindless in their quest for living flesh. These were Captains of the Abyss, intelligent, skilled, and deadly, and only the most adept in the arts of necromancy could summon or hope to control them. The mighty Paladin of Time felt despair prick his heart.
Dunewell summoned the powers at his command and vaulted toward the graveyard. He landed dozens of yards inside the fence, several yards behind the front lines of undead. He called upon the powers of the champion within him, and blue holy fire burned all about his body and his weapons. Great wings of blue flame burst forth from his shoulders, and his eyes shone with the same dominating blue hue.
The forces of un-life burned away around him like the leaves of fall before a great fire. The bodies, animated by dark powers, burst apart and were consumed in Bolvii’s sacred blue flames. Dunewell swung his hammer and thrust his rider’s pike with the brutal efficiency of a skilled warrior as he cut his way through the waves of risen corpses.
As his hammer swiped the head from another undead’s shoulders, the lane before the Lord of Order cleared. Four Captains of the Abyss stood awaiting him. Two wielded the mighty Shrou-Hayns of old, another a great axe, and the last a longsword paired with a shield of absolute black; all wore well-crafted plate armor and stood a full foot taller than Dunewell.
The four stepped forward, and two stepped around Dunewell to his back and his flank. Dunewell’s multi-spectrum view of his surroundings revealed the dark aura that drifted around these beings and their weapons like the black smoke that poured from a fresh-lit coal oil lamp. Dunewell also noticed how they gripped their weapons and positioned their feet. They were not only powerfully enchanted, by the look of it they were skilled in combat as well.
The great axe swiped toward his head in a fat arc. As Dunewell side-stepped and punched up with his hammer to knock the heavy weapon wide, he saw the thrust of the longsword coming in opposite. Dunewell followed his hammer toward the huge skeletal fiend, driving the pommel up to strike it in the chest. None of the creatures expected such a bold move by any man, confident in their superior strength and their adroit handling of the cursed weapons they bore.
The thrusting longsword fell short of its mark, while Dunewell drove the pommel of his hammer from the chest of master undead up into the bones of its face. The head burst in sacred blue flame as Dunewell’s blessed war hammer continued its thrust past the creature’s shoulders. Dunewell followed, stepping on the undead’s chest, hopping, and spinning in the air to face the other three that closed in from behind him.
Dunewell watched as the two with the Shrou-Hayns pulled the large swords up into a fighting stance that Dunewell had only heard about a few times, and had never seen. They grabbed the pommels of their greatswords in a reverse grip and wrapped the fingers of their off hands around the blade, almost two-thirds along the length of it. This was the ancient style of the Raven Wing.
As Dunewell was assessing the dangers surrounding him, he heard Maloch call out for aid. Dunewell drew upon Whitburn’s powers once again, turned, and leapt high into the air, flying over dozens of undead. His landing was crash that blasted many of the clawing hands and biting teeth back several yards.
Maloch, taking advantage of the brief reprieve, dropped to one knee, sucked in a deep breath, and whispered another prayer to Father Time. The combination of holy power from the Lord of Order and the Paladin of Time reverberated out from the duo, causing many of the risen dead to collapse and many more to burst apart. However, in that moment of triumph, they saw their doom. Dozen, perhaps hundreds more of the creatures shuffled in while the remaining Captains of the Abyss took up three points of the compass around them and the fallen champion the fourth.
It became clear to the Lord of Order and the Paladin of Time that the four were somehow controlling, maneuvering, the horde of undead before them. Both Dunewell and Maloch had faced their end many times. Both had faced insurmountable odds in their violent lives. Both were now committed to killing as many of the enemy as possible before death took them.
“Her?” Dunewell asked as he nodded toward the demon-possessed Erin.
“As good a start as any, I suppose,” Maloch said between heavy breaths.
The two started toward the fallen champion, working their weapons in an exquisite concert of complimentary strikes, parries, and thrusts. Each time Dunewell struck out high with his hammer, it was followed with a low cut by one of Maloch’s fine blades. Each time Maloch parried aside a biting maw, it was followed by a thrust from Dunewell’s rider’s pike. The undead fell before them as wheat before the sickle. Each worked hard to keep the raking claws and biting teeth from their flesh while trying to maintain their drive toward the demon. Both heard chanting and looked up to see Slythorne in the air above them.
“Kellun ka belleo!” the master vampire shouted the last words of his incantation.
The undead about them swelled and twisted in response to the dark spell. Serrated horns grew from their foreheads, shoulders, and elbows while their legs took on additional joints and lengthened another yard.
Now Dunewell and Maloch worked feverishly to parry the many attacks slicing in at them from all angles. Dunewell tried a few thrusts with his rider’s pike but found the horns that had sprouted from the heads of these creatures more than adequate to parry his short blade. Maloch attempted to slash and thrust at those closing in on them but found his blades caught in a hellish forest. A nest of horns that had grown from the elbows and shoulders of the beasts. These enhanced abominations no longer cowered from their holy auras, nor were they even slowed by them.
As the frenzy of cursed claws, teeth, and serrated horns lashed about them, Dunewell and Maloch each suffered dozens of nicks, gouges, and slashes. The volume of the sharp ringing of steel against hardened bone continued to rise. Blood streams from wounds on every square inch of skin not covered by plate armor and their breathing was now coming in rasps as even their enchanted speed was not enough to keep pace with the many attackers.
Dunewell caught a glimpse beyond the fray of a templar, one that he knew. A templar he once threatened to arrest for beating a man in the street for the crime of stealing Churchwood. Dunewell thought the man’s name was Fladeen. The templar’s facial expression was hard to read as he sneered and dropped his upheld arm in a gesture of command. A command to loose.
“Back, back to the churches!” Paladin Illiech yelled as he staggered back from the sight of Stewardess Erin’s flesh singed by the symbol of Merc, the ever-burning flame, upon his shield.
Men in service to the churches of Fate, Merc, and of Silvor faltered as many of them stepped back from their posts and exchanged looks of uncertainty. Many swords and axes dipped; many crossbows lowered as the men looked about in confusion.
“Hold!” In
quisitor Ranoct, known to many as Siege-Breaker and others as Dragon-Slayer, yelled. “Hold, curse you!”
“Merc, by means of our Supreme Pontiff, calls for the head of the pretender, Dunewell, and the cursed drow only,” Illiech retorted. “This… this creature, whatever it may be, is not the mission we of the church were sent here to execute. This monster is a matter for the inquisitors and watchmen.”
There were Templar Captains and Sergeants among the ranks from the churches, and many of them from the church of Fate; however, the most senior Paladin among them was Illiech. Although Fate outranked all other churches except for Time, Paladins always held a higher position than Templars of any rank. Paladins were able to cast spells with their prayers, whereas Templars were not, thus, Paladins were considered closer to their gods than Templars and recognized as having command in any situation where Priests were absent. Priest and Clerics, their spells being even more powerful than those of Paladins, were considered to be even closer to the gods. Thus, they were often considered as the direct conduit for the will of their chosen deity. However, it was rare that a Priest or Cleric was found in the field.
“That creature is a demon,” Ranoct said at the very edge of his self-control. “If that isn’t the business of the church, I don’t know what is. Sergeant!”
“Yes, Inquisitor,” Sergeant Lisban of the Moras contingent of watchmen responded promptly.
“Take note of every man here,” Ranoct continued. “Take down the names of each templar, paladin, and officer. Any that do not follow, and follow immediately, will be tried for cowardice once this demon is put down, and this business is sorted out.”
“Yes, Inquisitor.”
“Now, move out!” Ranoct commanded.
Ranoct began at a jog in the direction the demon, and Dunewell and Maloch, had been headed last. Given their incredible speed, Ranoct had no hope of catching them unless they were somehow delayed. However, that would not slow the determined inquisitor.
