From inside the Temple, Allystaire heard the words echoed, rising into a chant that stirred him from his place upon the steps. The doors of the Temple burst open, and the folk who’d sheltered there poured out of it, weapons in hand. Giraud the mason, rock-hammer swinging, led the way. At his side, Henri and Norbert brandished unstrung bows like staves. Behind them came Renard, all his militiamen. In one voice, they roared the name the dwarf had put to him, and with them behind him and more on their heels, Allystaire charged into the pool of light cast by Torvul’s lantern.
The dwarf ran beside him, matching him step for step. In Torvul’s other hand, he held his crossbow, but had turned it around on his arm. Allystaire glimpsed the odd, smooth blue stone crossbow shift and change in Torvul’s hand, saw the curled end straighten into a spike. With another bellowed cry, this time in his own tongue, Torvul rushed forward and drove it through the head of a Wight that stood inert, and then crumbled into powder and broken metal.
Allystaire swung his hammer almost blindly, felt the cracks threaten to take it, dropped it to the ground and swung with his fists, his elbows, his knees. Without even thinking it, without checking to look, he knew that just beyond the lantern light gave Idgen Marte raced ahead of them, her borrowed cudgel a deadly blur in her hands.
He sought out the Wight that had brought down Torvul’s barrier. The glow that had suffused it was gone, but he smashed it to pieces nonetheless.
Before them, the Wights were overwhelmed, destroyed bit by bit, levered to the ground and crushed under boots, cudgels, and heavy rocks. Beyond them in the blue-black dark they could hear what was left of the Baron’s spearmen and horse pounding away in full retreat, officers cursing and urging the men, whether to stay or to fly faster, Allystaire couldn’t have said. He took a few steps down the path after them till he heard Idgen Marte’s voice in his head.
No, she hissed. This is still not done!
He drew to a stop, fists clenched, and yelled after them. “Come for me again, Lionel! Bring your sorcerers and put an end to your shame!”
He turned then, looking around for his hammer, saw Giraud smashing at what was left of one of the Wights, legless, as it tried to crawl away. The two dozen or so men that had charged out in the stonemason’s wake stood in the circle of Torvul’s lamp-light. He walked to join them, and the white light made a dazzling radiance against his untouched, unmarked, unbloodied armor.
The men, among them Chaddin and one of his knights, stared at him in open-mouthed wonder, till again, someone spoke the words the Wit had made a battle cry, then another voice joined in, and another, till the remaining defenders of Thornhurst chanted it as one word. A word that he knew, now, replaced the surname he had left behind.
“Still-BRIGHT, Still-BRIGHT, Still-BRIGHT.” Torvul’s voice, deep and resonant, chanted the loudest of them all.
He raised his hands, and they quieted instantly. “We are not done, men,” he said, his voice practically a ragged croak. “We are not yet clear. till dawn,” he said. “till dawn we must carry the light ourselves. We must hold for the return of Her sun.”
And with the men behind him and flushed with their temporary victory Allystaire Stillbright, the Arm of the Mother, made his way back towards Her Temple.
We may yet win, he thought, sharing the notion with Torvul and Idgen Marte.
And then he heard a powerful voice behind him yell into the unnatural darkness.
“Allystaire! You’ve called for me to face you. Now come and reap the fruit of your boasting!”
Allystaire, Idgen Marte, Torvul, and the village folk turned as one. Torvul lifted his lantern.
It was a feigned retreat, Allystaire thought, suddenly sickened. Meanwhile, he circled back.
In the light thrown by the dwarf’s lantern, Baron Lionel Delondeur stood in a suit of armor that seemed to drink in the light. Dark grey, dull, yet somehow sickeningly reflective. Where the light hit it, the surface suggested a dark red-brown was mixed in among the grey.
It was made of the same stuff as the Battle-Wights, Allystaire could see. The Baron wore no helm. His eyes were wide and bulging in a face that seemed to have lost a decade or more, and his white hair seemed blond once again. Planted in the turf next to him was an enormous sword, as long as he was tall, made of the same stuff as his armor, as wide across as Allystaire’s hands laid next to one another.
Armor and a sword made of men, Allystaire thought. Made of the very bodies of men.
“Pausing now, I see,” the Baron boomed, striding forward and lifting his enormous sword casually in one hand, cutting at the air. “Afraid to face me now that I’m on equal footing, eh?”
Behind him stood a ring of spearmen, fewer than the two score there ought to have been. But enough, given how exposed Allystaire’s remaining men were.
“What have you done, Lionel? What have you become?”
“What I needed to become,” he bellowed. “What you drove me to. You with your demon’s bargain, the strength of ten or more. You with your Gifts and your talk of a Goddess and the presumption to lecture me on how to rule my own people. You did this.”
“My people does not mean the same as my furniture, or my sword, or even my horse, Lionel. It never did. But you are beyond understanding that now.”
Allystaire drew his own sword and held it out with both hands, pointed it at the Baron as he addressed the spearmen behind him. “Do you see it? Do you see that he is wearing your comrades, your brothers of battle? You are nothing to him. You are things.”
“ENOUGH.” Delondeur charged forward, swinging his sword in a wild, two-handed arc that Allystaire easily shifted away from. The blade drove a long furrow into the ground; the grass that it touched sizzled. “Those men served me in life, and now they serve me in death.”
Allystaire circled warily, his sword held out, watching Delondeur’s blade carefully. “How many of them died too soon, Lionel? How many were killed to bring on this unnatural night? How many died to give you that sword to fight me with?”
“It is their honor to die for me. It is their duty to die for me.” Another wild overhand cut.
This time, Allystaire met it with his own blade. The shock that traveled up his arms when the swords met took him aback, almost drove him to a knee. Lionel leaned into the cut, trying to force Allystaire back.
“It has to be their choice!” Allystaire bellowed. He couldn’t take his eyes off the Baron to address the Delondeur spearmen, but he yelled his words for them anyway. “How many of you want to die on a sorcerer’s table? How many of you want your bodies twisted into this?”
He found a surge of strength to push the Baron back, and pressed him with a mid-level swing, swept tight. Lionel knocked it aside with obvious contempt.
“They do not choose to serve me,” the Baron yelled. “They are born to it. They are born to be a sword in my hand, a shield between me and my enemies. They ought to come happily to their end if it means serving me, no matter how.”
The Baron followed his words with a series of fast cuts. Faster, Allystaire was sure, than Lionel Delondeur had ever swung a sword on his youngest and strongest days. He found himself giving ground. The men behind him, Torvul and Idgen Marte among them, scattered, most making for the Temple stairs. More of the folk, including some of the Delondeur prisoners, had spilled out of the Temple to watch the duel unfolding before them.
I cannot match his pace or tire him out, Allystaire thought as he danced away from another blow. He swung, more for the sake of feeling like he fought back, trying a high line that Delondeur ducked under with the agility of a much younger man. Lionel reversed his sword and jabbed the hilt, a rough thing with a huge dark stone in the pommel, straight into Allystaire’s chest.
He sprawled to the ground, but not for long. To lie there was to die, so Allystaire rolled to his left and pushed himself quickly back to his feet. He was upright in time to see Delondeu
r pulling his sword free from another grey and smoking wound in the earth.
He was, Allystaire noted, a bit slow pulling the blade clear.
“How many did you give to them for this strength, Lionel? How many for this unnatural youth?”
“Just one,” Lionel roared, rushing towards Allystaire and swinging low. Allystaire got his blade in the way, slowed down the cut, but didn’t stop it, couldn’t stop it. Instead of taking him in the thigh it bit into his calf.
Allystaire stumbled away, half dragging the leg behind him. It would hurt, later. He had no time for it now. He spared a glance at Lionel’s face. It was the face of a madman, all sense and understanding fled from it. The eyes were wide and bulging, the mouth set in a rictus grin.
“What was his name?” Allystaire shouted, shuffling back, putting distance between himself and the Baron.
Delondeur paused, his sword raised. “What?”
“His name. The man that was killed to grant you this strength. What was his name?”
“Darrus Cartin,” Delondeur spat. “Some knightling. No one. His strength serves me better than it ever would have served him.”
Allystaire heard the murmuring, the shocked sounds, both from the Delondeur line and along the steps of the Temple. He couldn’t spare a glance because once again, Lionel was rushing at him, his sword a blur. He was able to catch Delondeur’s edge with his flat, spreading his hand upward along his own blade, but he felt the steel shiver.
They pressed against each other, strength against strength. Sword arms were flattened against armored chests. The Gift of a Goddess strove against the blood magic of the sorcerers.
Allystaire felt his toes beginning to dig into the grass; he was losing traction from the wounded leg. He was losing, period.
“Go on, Coldbourne,” Lionel whispered. “Sink to the ground, give in. Give me your head and I will grant merciful deaths to your pathetic following.”
“I will give you nothing,” Allystaire spat, his arms trembling from the exertion. He spun away, tried a back-hand that clanged harmlessly off of Delondeur’s armor, but seemed to enrage the madman all the more.
Lionel’s blade swept down in another two-handed cut. Allystaire’s sword rose to meet it, caught it, turned aside, and broke off a foot from the hilt. The paladin staggered backwards with the force of the blow.
He held the broken jagged piece out in front of him, considered it a moment, then hurled it straight at Delondeur’s face.
Had it been an axe, a knife, something weighted for the throw, it might have worked, taken an eye, or sunk in so deep as to end the fight.
Instead, flying awkwardly, it nicked Lionel’s cheek and drew a thick line of blood beneath his eye, but no more.
Lionel smiled, raising his sword in a mock salute. “Are you ready to die, Coldbourne?”
“My name,” Allystaire grated out, “is Allystaire Stillbright.” He felt the Goddess’s song thrum in his limbs, aching for a release.
Trip. Then move to your right. Torvul’s voice sounded in his head. Allystaire didn’t know where the dwarf was, but he didn’t stop to ask.
Lionel charged, his sword raised above his head, preparing a two-handed cut that would split Allystaire down the middle.
He took the dwarf’s advice and threw himself to the ground, then rolled to his right.
Lionel was moving too fast to adjust, and his arms were already swinging. The sword sizzled into the earth once more, sinking the first foot of its length into the ground.
And it stuck. Lionel tugged at it with both hands, but the sword didn’t move.
Now. Now! Torvul’s thoughts raged. Allystaire sprang to his feet and launched himself at the Baron in a flying tackle, pushing off from his good leg.
The clash of their armor was ear-splitting, like two giants made of metal thrown against one another. Allystaire felt Lionel’s hands tear free from the sword, and for a moment, the shock of his attack combined with the strength of the Goddess’s Gift kept his enemy’s arms pinned to his side.
Allystaire was wearing a helm. Lionel was not. So when Allystaire slammed his head into the Baron’s face, he felt his own nose crunch beneath his nose-guard, and half of Delondeur’s face cave in.
The fight was not gone out of Lionel yet, though. Allystaire scrambled to his knees overtop of the Baron. Their hands fought for purchase and position, but Allystaire’s were more purposeful. Lionel thrashed madly, wildly, with the pain of the blow he’d taken.
Allystaire smiled grimly as he realized that his left hand had brushed Lionel’s throat. Still the Baron’s arms crashed against him. The blows were painful. Ribs cracked. But what was pain?
Pain was merely a cost. He would pay it. When it came to killing the man Lionel Delondeur had become, the paladin would pay it and smile.
This, Allystaire knew, was part of the difference between them.
“I am willing to be hurt for them, Lionel,” he roared. One of the Baron’s hands wrapped around his wrist, but Allystaire focused, even as his bones grated. “I am willing to suffer for them.” An errant fist brushed his jaw but he ignored it, finally seating the heel of his left hand high on Delondeur’s chest, crumpling some of the grim armor beneath it and gaining the leverage he needed. Allystaire drew back his right hand and smashed his curled fist into Delondeur’s face, shattering the baron’s jaw. Lionel’s arms fell weakly to the ground.
“You take strength from them, Lionel,” the paladin bellowed. “Mine is given for them.”
His right fist crashed again into the Baron’s face. Lionel’s armored form stilled. Again. His skull crumbled beneath the blow.
The Arm of the Mother stood up on his one good leg, staring at the ruined face of the dead Baron Delondeur beneath him. “It did not have to be this way. You were a better man than this, once.” Allystaire looked to the line of Delondeur spearmen then, who eyed him uncertainly. Perhaps one in three hefted their weapons.
From behind him, two voices cried out, each assuming an air of command. “HOLD, men of Delondeur! By order of your Baron,” said one, “Baroness,” the other. Allystaire turned to see Chaddin and Landen, the latter’s hands bound in front of her, both rushing down the stairs.
Then the world suddenly exploded in a rush of sickly yellow light.
Chapter 40
The Sorcerers, the Islandman,
and the Will
Iriphet and Gethmasanar had collaborated on the Rite of Blooming Blood, so they both felt it, instantly, when the Baron Delondeur was destroyed.
Iriphet let loose a loud yell of rage, as unseemly and unexpected a display of emotion as Gethmasanar had ever seen one of the Knowing make.
“GO. Go yourself and deal with this. We have seen nothing of the boy in days. Kill them all. Use as much power as you must. GO.”
Gethmasanar drew power into himself, held up his hand, and vanished in a streak of yellow light.
* * *
Allystaire rolled from his back to his chest and pushed himself unsteadily to his feet. His ears rang, and his vision blurred. Around him, lancets of a hideous yellow flew from the air, striking randomly, killing fully half a dozen of the Delondeur spearmen before the rest, and Chaddin and Landen with them, could fling themselves to the ground.
One of the bolts sunk into Allystaire’s left arm and burned a clean hole through his armor. It was like being stabbed with a hot poker straight through the meat of his arm.
Before he could recover his wits, or his hearing, he saw the bodies of Battle-Wights rising from the ground, twisting themselves back into vaguely man-like shapes. They hobbled and scuttled and crawled awkwardly, and they seemed weak—but there were so many.
And they all came straight for him.
He raised his fists, limping towards them. He felt three shapes go sprinting past him, heard their yelling as a distant roar.
Renard. Hen
ri. Norbert.
The latter two were tossed aside by the Wights, thrown to the ground. Renard swung his spear clean through the first one, swept the spine out of it. He levered it through a second and was bearing that one to the ground when he screamed.
Allystaire could hear the scream only distantly, but he knew the expression on the man’s face. He didn’t want to look, but of their own volition his eyes slid down, from Renard’s face to his chest.
A bladed Battle-Wight hand was punched straight through him, the blade gleaming wetly where it emerged from his breastbone. Then a second. Then the crowd of the beasts surrounded him and Allystaire’s hearing settled and the world realigned itself.
He charged forward and knocked them aside, but he knew he had been too late, had heard the sickening sounds of blades being punched into flesh.
And then the Wights were on him, a dozen of them, more, ignoring every target but him.
Allystaire struggled against the overbearing weight of them. With three of them holding down each of his arms, his legs, and more than he could tell piling upon his shoulders, all the strength that flowed through them didn’t matter. He focused on the robed form with the glowing yellow eyes that approached.
“So, Coldbourne,” the figure began, and Allystaire knew gloating when he heard it. “Or is it Stillbright? So precious, the names you people bestow upon yourselves. You’ve been yelling for me for two nights now, boasting of how you did not fear me, calling me coward.”
The sorcerer made a motion with his hand, and Allystaire roared with sudden pain as one of the Wights slid a thin finger-blade beneath his vambrace and plunged the blade casually through his forearm.
The sorcerer laughed, and with a twist of his ankle, Allystaire managed to get one foot under himself. He gathered himself, lunged forward.
Driven both by the dwindling song, his pain, his cold fury, it was almost enough. He got his knee off the ground and moved perhaps half a pace forward, dragging the mass of Wights with him. Behind him he heard gasps, cries, a startled but hopeful yell.
Stillbright Page 59
