Mask of Swords

by Jonathan Moeller

  Yet they were in the wrong. The Jutai only wanted to be ignored, left to live in peace upon their farms. Earnachar would not even grant them that, and he had invited the Skuldari into the Grim Marches. They would kill everyone in Greatheart Keep in the service of their new goddess and her Prophetess.

  Adalar found he had no qualms about killing such men.

  “It was a mistake,” said Sigaldra.

  “Hmm?” said Adalar, shaken out of his thoughts. He rebuked himself for letting his mind wander. Still, he had not slept for nearly two days, and his mind was starting to drift. He was going to need rest soon.

  “This attack upon our walls,” said Sigaldra. “They do not have enough men to take Greatheart Keep by storm.”

  “Perhaps they thought the soliphages and Rigoric would be enough to clear the ramparts,” said Vorgaric, leaning on his heavy hammer. The blacksmith had come through mostly unscathed, though he had some cuts on his arm and a slight limp where a sword had bounced off the chain mail guarding his hip.

  “It could be,” said Adalar, “that for all her power, the Prophetess is a fool.”

  They all looked at him.

  “How so?” said Sigaldra.

  “At least in matters of war,” said Adalar. “She has magical power and knowledge, that is clear. Yet that does not translate into the skill of a captain. Perhaps she thought that the soliphages and Rigoric would overcome us.”

  “Or she planned on opening the gates with a spell,” said Timothy, “and did not anticipate finding me here.”

  “Earnachar, though, is no fool,” said Talchar. “A scoundrel, surely, but the man can keep his men in good order during a battle. He would not throw away lives in a futile assault.”

  Sigaldra scoffed. “I doubt he cares about the Skuldari.”

  “He wouldn’t,” said Arnulf, “but the Prophetess might.”

  “I doubt she cares, either,” said Sigaldra, looking at the warriors waiting out of bowshot. “If they die, what of it? It’s all in the glorious name of her goddess.”

  “If the Prophetess is controlling Earnachar through her magic,” said Adalar, “he might not be thinking clearly. Or the Prophetess is forcing him to make mistakes he would not otherwise commit.”

  “They’re in a hurry,” said Wesson. He scratched at his moustache. “You’ve got enough food, so they can’t starve us out. If they wait too long outside the walls, someone else will strike.”

  “Aye,” said Arnulf. “Even if the hrould is dead, Lady Molly will come to avenge her father, and her wrath is just as fierce as his.” Adalar, who had met Molly Cravenlock once or twice, thought that an understatement. “The Guardian of the Tervingi yet lives, and I have not seen anything to make me think that the Prophetess’s magic is the equal of his own.”

  “It’s not,” said Timothy. “I can disrupt the Prophetess’s spells, but I cannot defeat her. The Guardian could overcome her in a battle of spells, I am certain.” He took a deep breath. “My lady, my lords, I think that is the reason behind the attack on the walls. The Prophetess cannot take the time to starve us out, for sooner or later a force capable of destroying her would arrive. She must take the village, seize Lady Liane, and depart before she faces serious opposition.”

  “Why take the village at all, then?” said Arnulf. “Why not simply kidnap Liane and have done with it?”

  “She tried,” said Sigaldra, realizing. “That was why Earnachar wanted to marry her.” She let out a bitter little laugh. “I fear our own vigilance has brought this upon us. Of all the folk of the Grim Marches, only the Jutai were on guard against valgasts, so she couldn’t have them tunnel into the village and take us by surprise. The valgasts and the soliphages can’t scale the wall, and I refused to have anything to do with Earnachar.”

  “So what the Prophetess could not gain by guile, she will try to take by force,” said Vorgaric. He spat over the wall.

  “There is another explanation,” said Timothy, his voice uneasy. “It is possible that the Skuldari attacks were a distraction.”

  “I feared that, as well,” said Sigaldra, “but I know not for what. Did the Prophetess and the soliphages work any magic during the attack?”

  “None that I could sense,” said Timothy. “Not even cloaking spells.”

  “Holdmistress!”

  Ulfarna hurried up the steps, her black skirt flowing beneath the leather armor she wore, her cane tapping against stones.

  “What is it?” said Sigaldra.

  “You must see this at once,” said Ulfarna.

  ###

  Adalar scowled, lay down upon the floor, and put his ear to the flagstones of the cellar.

  At once he heard and felt the distant vibrations.

  “You hear it, too?” said Sigaldra.

  “Aye,” said Adalar. “Same as the other two.”

  He got to his feet and looked at the others. Sigaldra, Arnulf, Wesson, and Vorgaric had followed Ulfarna, leaving Talchar in command at the wall, with Timothy waiting to counter the Prophetess’s magic if necessary.

  “The valgasts are tunneling beneath the village,” said Arnulf.

  “It is worse than that,” said Vorgaric. “I fear that they are digging multiple tunnels at once. Three, maybe even four. If they all burst from the tunnels at once, we may not be able to contain them.”

  “Worse,” said Adalar, remembering the carnage at the wall. “If the Skuldari attack at the same moment the valgasts break through…”

  “Which they almost certainly will,” said Wesson.

  “We will have a hard time holding them,” said Adalar. “We might be forced to fall back to the keep itself.”

  “There isn’t enough room in the keep for everyone,” said Sigaldra. “It would be a slaughter.”

  They were silent for a moment. Adalar had thought he was going to die more than once while fighting the runedead – at Tumblestone, at Knightcastle, at the Northwater, countless times in Mastaria. He had never thought he would die in a village of the Jutai surrounded by the worshippers of an ancient spider goddess.

  Then Sigaldra straightened up.

  “We will hold out,” she said. “We have sent out riders. Help will be on the way, sooner or later. If it comes sooner, we shall hold. And if it comes too late…we shall at least make Earnachar and the Prophetess pay in blood for every foot of land they take.”

  “Well spoken,” said Adalar.

  Sigaldra looked at him without blinking for a moment, and then nodded. “Thank you. But words are empty. Let us be about our tasks, then.”

  They left the cellar and returned to the walls.

  Chapter 16: Wrath of the Demonsouled

  Romaria sniffed at the wind.

  “I smell them,” she said.

  “Smell what?” said Mazael. In all likelihood, she probably smelled him. Mazael had spent two days bathing in his own sweat and blood, to say nothing of spider ichor, and the clothes he had taken from the camp had not been terribly clean.

  “Mammoths,” said Romaria. “Nothing else in the world smells like mammoth musk and fur.” She wrinkled her nose. “It’s not a pleasant odor. I’m surprised that you can’t smell it.”

  “Not all of us have the senses of the Elderborn,” said Mazael.

  “Just as well.” She grinned. “You might have to smell yourself, then.” She lifted a hand and shaded her eyes. “And there they are.”

  The skythain had been one of Toric’s men, sent ahead to scout. Molly had followed Mazael’s instructions and headed west to Greatheart Keep with as much of a force she could muster. Since Molly was not a fool, that force had included skythains mounted upon griffins to act as scouts, and one of those scouts had told Mazael where to find his daughter and her army.

  He saw the distant brown shapes of Tervingi war mammoths. The massive elephantine beasts looked as if they were moving slowly, but that was only an illusion caused by their immense size. Even when walking, they covered a great deal of ground, and when charging, they were nearly unstoppab
le, as the Justiciar Order had discovered in its final moments. Near the mammoths moved ranks of horsemen, keeping well away from the great beasts. The black Cravenlock banner flew from their standards. Mazael guessed that there were nearly five hundred knights and mounted armsmen.

  “Molly came prepared,” said Mazael.

  Romaria shrugged. “She’s your daughter.”

  No sooner had the words left his mouth than a column of darkness swirled before them. The shadows cleared to reveal a lean, muscled young woman in her early twenties with gray eyes and long brown hair pulled back into a tail. She wore dark wool and black leather, loose and comfortable, and a sword rested on her right hip, a dragon’s tooth dagger upon her left. Her only concessions to rank were the high quality of her sword and the jeweled wedding ring upon her left hand.

  “Father,” she said.

  “Molly,” said Mazael.

  “You look,” said Molly, “rather the worse for wear.”

  “It’s been a busy few days,” said Mazael. “I was poisoned, kidnapped, and had to cut a giant spider out of my chest.”

  The heir to Castle Cravenlock frowned. “If you’re not going to tell me the truth…”

  “He is,” said Romaria. “I was there for part of it.”

  “Gods,” said Molly. “You mentioned the spiders in your note. Riothamus can see them, by the way, with his version of the Sight. We found a few more of Earnachar’s thains skulking around Castle Cravenlock. Riothamus forced the spiders out of them. A few of them were grateful and told us everything they knew.” She scowled. “A few of them were furious. They worshipped this spider-bitch goddess of their own free will, and they had taken the spiders to better hear her voice or some such rubbish.”

  “That part may not be nonsense,” said Mazael. “I don’t remember it all clearly, but I think I heard the voice of Marazadra while that spider was in my chest. Or I thought I did, at any rate.”

  Molly frowned. “Did she say anything useful?”

  “She wanted me to join her,” said Mazael.

  Molly burst out laughing. “After hearing that speech from Grandfather, I doubt some dusty old spider had much to offer.”

  “No,” said Mazael. Molly was perhaps the only other person who understood just how dangerous the Old Demon had been, understood how hard it was to resist the call of Demonsouled blood. “Different when it’s not family, I suppose. But…she talked about the Old Demon, said he had bound her. That she was free, now that he was dead.”

  Molly glanced at the column of horsemen and mammoths. “We had best rejoin the others. I think you’re going to want to talk to Riothamus.”

  They started walking.

  “He knows something about Marazadra and the spiders?” said Mazael.

  “He does,” said Molly. “Part of the lore of the Guardians that he learned from Aegidia. Some of it is memories from his staff. Apparently the Tervingi dealt with the soliphages during their history.” She shook her head, the tail of her hair swishing against her shoulders. “Funny. The Tervingi came here to get away from the Malrags, and instead they found all the other monsters from the middle lands, the valgasts and the soliphages and the gods know what else. I hope no dragons turn up.”

  “Unless the dragon has a taste for valgasts, I agree with you,” said Mazael.

  They reached the horsemen, the ground vibrating a bit as the mammoths continued their steady stride. Wooden platforms rested atop the mammoths’ backs, bound in place by an intricate net of ropes and leather bands. Tervingi archers waited atop the platforms, ready to rain death upon any foes. Though given how easily the mammoths trampled through enemy ranks, the archers hardly seemed necessary. Mazael greeted his knights and armsmen as he passed them.

  A tall, rangy Tervingi man rode at the head of the column, clad in chain mail, dusty trousers, and worn boots. He had thick black hair and blue eyes, stark against the hard planes of his face. In his right hand he carried a long staff of bronze-colored wood, its length carved with arcane sigils.

  “Husband,” said Molly. “I found them.”

  Riothamus, the Guardian of the Tervingi, smiled back. “So I see.” He swung down from the saddle with a sigh of relief. Mazael was impressed that he had spent that much time on horseback. Earnachar’s horsethains might have taken to riding, but the rest of the Tervingi still preferred their own feet. The Jutai, too, for that matter.

  “Guardian,” said Mazael.

  “Lord Mazael, Lady Romaria,” said Riothamus. “I am glad you are safe. My Sight saw that you were in peril, but there was nothing I could do to aid you.”

  “So I gathered what men we could find and headed west with all speed,” said Molly. “Just as your note said. If there was going to be fighting, I wouldn’t want to miss it.” Molly rarely did what Mazael told her to do. She had his Demonsouled blood, though, which meant she had his same lust for battle, his same yearning for blood and death.

  Another thing they understood better than anyone.

  “You did well,” said Mazael. “We need to make for Greatheart Keep with all speed. I expect Earnachar and the Prophetess have the place under siege by now.”

  “Prophetess?” said Molly. “Some valgasts tried to raid Sword Town, and we drove them off. Their wizards…”

  “Vrokuls,” said Riothamus.

  “Whatever,” said Molly. “I can’t pronounce that. Their wizards kept babbling about a Prophetess.”

  “I saw her with the Sight,” said Riothamus. “A woman wrapped in shadows as she spins her webs, a woman who has deceived both others and herself.”

  “That’s her,” said Mazael. “We met and had a little talk.”

  He gestured, and they moved forward, out of earshot of the knights and the Tervingi thains. Once they were far enough away, Mazael told Molly and Riothamus everything that had happened – the valgasts, the spiders, the Skuldari, Sigaldra and Liane, the Prophetess and Earnachar’s treachery.

  “You have been busy,” said Molly. She tapped her fingers against the hilt of her dragon’s tooth dagger. “I never liked Earnachar. Shall I kill him for you, Father?”

  “Earnachar is either a dupe or a pawn,” said Riothamus. “He is not the real enemy. The Prophetess is our real foe…the Prophetess, and her goddess Marazadra.”

  “You know of her?” said Mazael.

  “She had many names,” said Riothamus, and the sigils of his staff glimmered with golden fire for an instant beneath his fingers. “Marazadra was what the valgasts called her, and apparently the Skuldari used that name too. Others named her the Weaver of Shadows, the Spinner of Souls, the Maiden of Blood, and a dozen other titles, all equally grisly.”

  “Then the Tervingi encountered her before?” said Mazael.

  “No,” said Riothamus. “She is older than the Tervingi. Tervingar led our people to freedom a millennia ago when the Imperium of the Dark Elderborn collapsed in the middle lands. She had already been bound for two thousand years by then.” He tapped his staff. “But the office and the staff of the Guardian is older than the Tervingi, too. The Guardians of old housed their most important memories in the staff, so that future Guardians could benefit from their experiences.”

  “And the Guardians encountered Marazadra,” said Mazael.

  “We never did,” said Riothamus. He closed his eyes and walked in silence for a moment. “The Old Demon, the Urdmoloch, bound her long before that. After the High Elderborn were destroyed, there were many dark powers that competed for mastery of this world. Marazadra and her children, the soliphages, were one of them. They warred against the San-keth and the Dark Elderborn and the others. The Old Demon must have seen them as a threat to his plans.”

  “It makes sense,” said Molly. “Grandfather wanted to devour all the Demonsouled himself. He certainly wasn’t about to share with this spider goddess. Like a fat child refusing to share a pie with his brothers.”

  Romaria laughed. “I had not thought of it that way.”

  “The Old Demon could not take direct
action against Marazadra, not unless she attacked him first,” said Riothamus.

  “That never slowed him down much,” said Mazael.

  Riothamus nodded. “The lore of the Guardians says that the Urdmoloch hated direct confrontation and preferred to manipulate affairs from the shadows using catspaws and proxies. The San-keth thought that way, too, but the Urdmoloch was better at it. He allied with the San-keth archpriests of the west against Marazadra, while simultaneously allying with Marazadra against the San-keth archpriests.”

  “He convinced them to destroy each other,” said Mazael.

  “The Urdmoloch promised both that he would provide aid in the final battle,” said Riothamus. “Instead he prepared a trap. Marazadra defeated the San-keth archpriests, but her physical form was destroyed and her spirit imprisoned. The Old Demon bound the soliphages, keeping them away from the realms of the west, where he sired and destroyed most of his Demonsouled progeny.”

  “Like a breeding pen,” said Mazael. He wondered how much of the realm’s history had been shaped by the Old Demon, wondered how many kings and lords and wizards had been manipulated to feed the dark power in Cythraul Urdvul.

  “Gods,” said Molly. “The devil, the snake, and the spider.”

  “What?” said Mazael, and Riothamus nodded.

  “It’s a song of the Tervingi loresingers,” said Molly. “The snakes and the spiders go to war, and they both ask a devil for help. The devil agrees to help them both, but instead tricks and destroys them. I thought it was just a fable.”

  “It is,” said Riothamus, “but a fable based upon truth.”

  “What about the Skuldari?” said Mazael. “Do you know anything about them?”

  “I fear not,” said Riothamus. “None of the Guardians ever encountered them. Marazadra was the goddess of the soliphages, but she had many human worshippers, and the soliphages themselves had human slaves, both as servants and as livestock.” He shrugged. “I expect the Skuldari are the descendants of these slaves, though they have forgotten much of their history. Just as the Tervingi forgot that the office of the Guardian is older than our nation.”