Having seen that Radiel could bespell the boulders to penetrate the skull’s shielding, Lian and Snog quickly took cover behind the hand-shaped basalt outcrop and Lian cursed himself as he glanced over at the fallen men. He should have had them all take cover from the huge rocks he knew ogres could throw. And now I know the troll can do so as well, he thought grimly.
“Gem cast your most intimidating-looking offensive magic at them,” Lord Grey instructed, and she did so, curving the yellow flames around the lookout rock toward the approaching enemy, now merely thirty or thirty-five yards away. As soon as Radiel’s counterspell began, the necromancer rapidly sang one of his deadly spellsongs and a swarm of black beetles as thick as molasses flew heavily from behind Gem’s fire. From the immediate screams, it was clear that the spell-summoned monstrosities had struck home, and the higher-pitched shrieks of the goblin warriors were joined by pained bellows of the ogres.
Radiel realized her mistake and switched her attention to the skull’s spell, but the voracious beetles, strengthened and quickened by black magic, had killed a quartet of the remaining goblins before she could do so. The wounds to the others were minor; the beetles had attacked each target en masse or hardly at all. And to her annoyance, Lian and the goblin had turned around the stone, firing their bolts at one of the ogres—she didn’t know or care which—dropping it to the ground with a bolt in its chest and another in its eye.
The flames, not completely extinguished, flashed over the heads of even the ogres and the troll, for Gem possessed no means of targeting it properly.
Radiel sped up, now leading her force by fifteen yards and rising more than that into the air. She was aware the necromancer, who’d proven able to quickly cast powerful spells, one immediately upon another, could be waiting for her to do so, and she was prepared with countermagic and her personal wards. She needed to see where the spells were coming from and to discriminate which ones were the truly dangerous ones, for she still had need of her slaves.
She immediately spotted Lian and his goblin as they worked to reload their bows, and as she’d expected, whatever was in the backpack sent necromantic power at her full-force. She sang a counterspell to deflect it and winced as a lashthirin-tipped bolt flew at her, hurled by Gem’s quickly sung telekinetic spell, tearing through her incorporeal form and unimpeded by her personal ward. She’d been expecting to be fired upon by the Truesilver-armed crossbows at some point, anyhow, and didn’t allow it to disrupt her concentration. Gem, whose blade was enchanted specifically against Undead, would have been impossible to ignore this way, but the Truesilver bolts were not specifically made for stopping her kind, and she was far more powerful than the typical wraith.
The remaining goblins, ogres, and Tenkiller rushed around the outcrop on both sides, the troll sending two ogres left with half the goblins and keeping the remaining ogre with him and the rest of the goblins.
Gem let fly with another spell, igniting the lead ogre as the flame bolt hit it full in the face, and Lian drew her and the shortsword as the rest approached. Radiel didn’t counter that spell in any way, and the troll was glad the sword’s spirit hadn’t chosen him for the target, for the ogre had dropped instantly, not even able to scream.
The necromancer cast another spell, aiming for the troll and his force. This one was difficult to stop, given the angle, but Radiel managed, protecting them from the black misty cloud as they advanced. He immediately cast another, as did the sword, and Radiel ignored Gem’s spell to unweave Lord Grey’s. The sword-spirit’s spell flashed bright shards of steel into the approaching goblins with the troll, slowing them down, but the goblins on the other side had reached the swordsman and other goblin at last.
Lian and Snog engaged them, their skill obviously much higher than the southern goblins. They both blocked the initial blows from the goblins’ axes—the goblins were too afraid to throw at them given Radiel’s admonition to take Lian alive—and Lian slashed two deeply while Snog used Fang to disembowel a third straight through his boiled-leather armor.
It was a skilled defense, but Tenkiller was in reach of the prince now. As Gem sang another offensive spell, her flames spreading out over the closest goblins this time, driving them back, arms waving desperately as they caught fire, the troll swung the flat of his axe with careful aim and tremendous speed, catching the black-appearing sword across her flat and knocking her from her wielder’s grasp to fly across the beach. Some of the goblins with Tenkiller rolled in agony on the sand, trying to extinguish the flames, and a few of them managed to do so, but of the seven who’d accompanied him, only three were still mostly unhurt and merely five of the opposite group.
Lian hadn’t even felt Tenkiller’s blow, and his hand tingled from the impact in a way that made him glad the troll had swung left-to-right instead of the other way, for the force might have broken his hand if Gem had been ripped to the right against his grip.
The ogres and goblins were on him now, and Tenkiller’s backswing connected with Snog as he dodged a goblin’s blow. The troll’s strike wasn’t as well-aimed as he would have liked, but that didn’t make it ineffective, and the goblin screamed as the huge axe severed his left hand behind the wrist. The defensive wards actually flared visibly as they tried to prevent it, but Tenkiller was too strong, and his axe was enchanted, as well. His scream was cut short as the ogre beside Tenkiller struck him a devastating blow with his hammer. Snog’s protective warding simply wasn’t sufficient to stop such blows, and although it reduced the force somewhat, most of it came through, knocking him hard against the outcrop and dropping him to the sand, dead or dying.
“Snog!” Lian screamed as he fought the other ogre off-hand with his shortsword, firing his loaded bolt with his right into the arm of one of the goblins and dropping the bow to the sand. The goblins surrounded him but seemed willing to let the ogre take the risk of killing him. He didn’t really know why he was still alive at this point; he’d expected to be the primary target of the creatures’ best and deadliest blows.
Gem was already humming the song that let her fly back to Lian, and the green glow from her pommel’s emerald shone through the illusion that covered her appearance as she rushed toward the prince.
The troll said something in a tongue she didn’t know and slammed his axe into her again, batting her away from Lian. She was disoriented for a moment—the troll was even stronger than Teg or the gryphon Gilaeshar!—but she righted herself and flew frantically back toward the prince who was also her son. Like Lian, she didn’t really understand why the ogres, goblins, and troll didn’t just overwhelm Lian with sheer numbers and strength and kill him, but she’d take any chance they had at this point.
Get that pack off his back and hurl it away, Tenkiller, the wraith’s voice came into his mind and his alone, for she didn’t want to warn the necromancer or Lian. She immediately sang another counterspell, barely deflecting the force of Lord Grey’s spell. She now knew that given enough time the necromancer inside Lian’s pack would wear down her reserves because she was already feeling the effects of the conjuring she’d done up to that point, and the blackrobe didn’t appear to have limits, curse him!
Knocking Gem back once again, the troll dropped his axe (hoping the sword wasn’t going to skewer him before he could defend himself again) and reached in quickly to grab Lian, his thick armor turning the shortsword’s blade as the quick, expert swordsman tried to stop him. Tenkiller squeezed the young human around the chest, causing him to grunt in pain, with his left hand. The troll turned Lian roughly to the right, gripped the pack in his other hand firmly, and yanked it free of the human’s back in a single brutal motion, snapping its straps easily. Still holding the human in one hand, he spun and hurled the pack onto the water’s edge, down the beach by fifty or sixty yards to the east. It wasn’t as far as he could have hurled a boulder, but then again, the pack wasn’t exactly aerodynamic.
The human was yelling something at him in a language he didn’t know and trying to force the point of
the shortsword into the thick gauntlet’s joint with Tenkiller’s wrist. He didn’t have time to spare for that and braced himself for the pain of it, should the human succeed. He searched for and found the sword, now tearing back at him like a plummeting hawk, and his other hand reached for the axe.
It wouldn’t be in time, as the enchanted blade streaked back at the troll, but then Radiel sang another song, now freed at least for a moment from having to defend against the necromancer’s magic, and Gem’s progress slowed, though it didn’t stop. The troll growled in rage as the extremely sharp longsword’s blade cut through the armor of his left arm, but though it hurt she didn’t manage to sever any of the long muscles or tendons and he kept his crushing grip on the human.
And now he had his axe back in hand, so he could begin parrying the weapon’s blows himself. She was fast—Radiel’s interfering spell had lasted but for the moment Tenkiller had needed—but he was stronger and well trained; he didn’t have forever, he knew, because it was obvious he couldn’t easily hurt her, and she could certainly bleed him down. She was also singing spellsongs, trying to force him to drop his prisoner, but she dared not use anything too damaging because he kept using the human as a shield. Occasionally, one of her songs or attacks drove one of the goblins back—the ogres were hanging back in superstitious dread of the magic blade—and left to her own devices, she would whittle the wraith’s force away, starting with Tenkiller.
Another huge swarm of black insects came hurtling up the beach from where Lord Grey lay in the pack, and Radiel countered it before it could reach any of them. Gem wondered what the necromancer would have done had the creatures reached Lian but then realized she was letting herself be distracted.
Move up the beach away from the other caster, Radiel ordered, Run, you fools!
Tenkiller had been about to suggest this, knowing they needed to get away from the necromancer entirely before Radiel could help him deal with the spirit-haunted sword that was attacking him. He winced as Gem cut through the last joint of his smallfinger on the axe haft, nearly severing the forearm-thick digit, but he tightened his grip with the rest of his hand and continued to fight. At this point, losing part of a finger was a small price to pay.
By now, Lian had managed to work the blade into the joint between the vambrace and gauntlet, and though his first efforts hadn’t done more than pain the troll, he didn’t want to drop his prize now. That was exactly the sort of failure that would enrage Radiel instantly, Tenkiller knew, and the wraith would probably activate the curse the moment he dropped the human. Still defending himself from the sword’s attacks, Tenkiller shook the human in his grip hard several times, until the motion made him drop the shortsword, just as Lian had shifted its angle to try to cut into the wrist bones.
Radiel kept careful pace with the troll, defending them both from the necromancer’s continued, but no longer as quick or effective, attacks. She got us out of range of his worst spells, the troll thought, impressed with her cunning despite his general ill opinion of the child-turned-Undead horror. And soon, we’ll be out of his range completely, and I can see if I can get free of this bitch. He realized that he wished he’d known her in life because they’d have made an incomparable team if she wasn’t this Undead abomination. Wishes are for fools, he castigated himself.
Gem, ignoring the skull’s ever-increasing distance, continued desperately pressing her attack, and she managed to cut the troll in several places through his armor, but not anywhere vital. She suspected that she was only making that kind of progress against his strength and well-trained skill because he was limited to one arm on the axe haft. Her earlier successes with some of her offensive spells were not repeated, for the wraith that had been Adrienne’s daughter—and therefore partially Gem’s own—began countering each of them in turn; they were too far from the skull for him to threaten her significantly any longer.
The wraith gestured at one of the ogres and said something, and though Gem and Lian (still stunned from being shaken) could see her lips move, they didn’t hear her words. The sword and prince both knew it was nothing good. From its huge bag, the ogre produced a large flat stone, like a circular section of a tree stump but carved from stone. It had a four inch wide slot carved in its surface from side to side along the flat. Once the ogre had it out, Radiel sang a new song, not at Lian or Gem, or even the skull south of them, but at this circular rock, and too late, Gem recognized the shape of the slot.
“GEM!” Lian screamed, the black spots already in front of his eyes from being shaken so hard expanding, as the troll was now squeezing the air out of him. Gem clanged into the slot, blade flat to it, drawn by some magical magnetism that appeared to only affect her. Immediately, the ogre shifted his grip on the stone and grabbed onto her hilt, wrestling the stone and sword to hold it in place. Clearly, Gem could still fly and the ogre was struggling to hold her, but the mass of the stone and the strength of the ogre was enough to keep her from ripping the stone (and herself) out of his grip.
The wraith gestured at the other remaining ogre, and he produced a similar stone. At Radiel’s instruction, he clasped its opposite face, which had no groove, onto the first stone. Gem’s attempt to cast a spell against the first ogre was quickly disrupted by the wraith. Radiel sang again, a cruel look on her face that Lian feared more than anything he’d faced up to now, for that cruelty was directed at his beloved Gem. A flare of magical power visibly emanated from the two stones and then the joint between them became invisible, and Gem could feel the stone in the groove (which was larger than her blade) filling in around her. The first ogre let go of her hilt and she tugged as hard as she could on the rock but couldn’t pull herself out of the stone, nor could she tear herself loose.
With a grandiose gesture, Radiel said, now allowing her voice to be heard by all, I will finish what my queen started, you stupid sword! You have failed to protect him! The sneer on her face was terrible as she gave orders to the ogre to hold the rock down on one of the big basalt stones, while the other hefted his sledgehammer and eagerly approached.
“No!” Lian gasped, seeing the ogre’s intent immediately but helpless to do anything about it. The troll squeezed harder, and with both hands, and he could feel ribs creaking, but not quite cracking, under the constant pressure. The giant shook him again and again to keep him from trying anything else to get free.
The ogre, a malevolent but mindless grin on its face, smashed down on Gem’s protruding hilt and six inches of blade with his weapon. Stone splintered as the blow fell, shards flying from the stone “stump,” and the Truesilver-alloyed steel held. The shards flew into the unprotected face of the ogre holding the stone down, cutting it cruelly, and the blow also made the stone jump, forcing the protruding part of Gem’s blade into the meat of its leg. It yelled out in pain, pulling away from the stone, but at Radiel’s snapped command, quickly moved back in, putting knee on the stone opposite the hilt, taking a position that would keep her and the stone from moving. He also kept his face turned away from the stone this time.
“Lian!” Gem called out. “Lian! I love you, my son!” The resonance ringing in her steel was dampened by the stone she was trapped in, but the wraith had planned her position in the stone trap well; a dangerous length of blade stuck out from the rock along with her crossguard and hilt.
Lian was reaching out toward her as Tenkiller carried him away, but feebly, as the troll’s tight and merciless grip continued to rob him of his breath. He was trying to call out to her, and she knew he was attempting to return her affections, or perhaps to bargain with Radiel. Struggling uselessly against the giant’s strength, Lian’s struggles ceased as consciousness left him at last.
That’s a mercy, dear gods, thought Gem as she tried to cast another spell to break herself free, but Radiel was ready with a horrible smile of pure evil and a countersong for anything she tried. He won’t see it happen. The sword spirit knew that while she was far stronger than the crude sledgehammers the ogres were using, she couldn’t withs
tand this kind of force for long, and once the blade or tang snapped the spells that contained her mind and spirit would snap along with it. She didn’t feel pain as living creatures did, but she was aware nonetheless of the state of her structure, and she knew it was only a matter of time.
“Please, Radiel,” the sword begged as yet another blow landed upon her. This one snapped the stone head off of the hammer, but there were plenty of spare hammers. “Please!”
There is no mercy to be had here, sword, Radiel said contemptuously. You will be destroyed, and Lian… she said, her voice trailing off as a moment of confusion crossed her face. At the next blow from the ogre’s new hammer, Radiel snapped an angry look at the ogre as the hammer landed square on the stone circle instead of Gem. Though the ogre flinched instinctively from his ghostly mistress, she said nothing.
“What about Lian?” the sword demanded, mentally wincing as the ogre’s next blow—properly aimed this time—very slightly bent her blade. It didn’t hurt, as she didn’t really feel pain as such, but she was aware that her steel would fail eventually. She didn’t need the physical pain to have the sensation of hurt, for Lian was the wraith’s prisoner now. Gem didn’t want to know what Radiel had planned, but she’d bear it, because not knowing would somehow be worse.
Lian will pay for his crimes, the wraith answered, her smile widening in a somehow predatory way. Again, the ogre swung the great stone weight down on the sword, and the lashthirin rang with the impact, giving just a little more.
Gem knew it was pointless to try to convince Radiel that it was Rishak and Jisa who’d committed the terrible crime against her family, but she tried anyhow. “No matter what you think, Lian wasn’t the one that hurt you, Radiel!” she exclaimed. “It was Rishak!”
Lying bitch! the wraith snarled back. I know what Lian’s done! Though the wraith realized that she didn’t, not really, she wasn’t about to admit that to Gem.
By Blood Hunted: Kingsblood Chronicles Part Two (The Kingsblood Chronicles Book 2) Page 48
