Sevenfold Sword: Shadow

by Jonathan Moeller

  Tamara nodded, cleared her mind, took a deep breath, and summoned power for the spell. She felt growing fatigue creeping at the edges of her mind, threatening to break her concentration. It had been a while since she had used to much magical power over so short of a time, but she forced her will through the spell. Too many people were counting on them. Melex and her brothers, everyone she had ever met in the town.

  Sir Tamlin…

  Purple fire flashed around her fingers, and she sensed the presence of the others as their weight pressed against the floor. She closed her eyes and concentrated, but she felt no one else nearby.

  “It’s done,” she said. “I will hold the spell as we approach.”

  Ridmark nodded. “Thank you. Be ready, everyone. If we do encounter urvaalgs, let me take the lead. I have the best chance against them.”

  Tamara did not protest.

  The Shield Knight led the way forward, Third on his right and Kyralion on his left. Tamara and Magatai brought up the back, Magatai holding his bow ready. Tamara wondered what good that would do. He could hit the urvaalgs, but his bronze-tipped arrows would do nothing against them. Kyralion’s lightning-wreathed sword and burning bow could hurt the urvaalgs, but it wasn’t as if the gray elf could use both weapons at once.

  An idea came to Tamara.

  “Lord Kyralion,” said Tamara. “I have a question.”

  “Ask what you will,” said Kyralion.

  “Could Magatai use your bow?” said Tamara. Kyralion blinked his golden eyes at her. “I do not mean to cause offense, and if it is forbidden for a warrior of the gray elves to hand his blade to the use of another, I apologize for raising the topic. But we need magic to harm any urvaalgs, and Magatai has no weapons of magic…”

  “You speak wisdom, my lady,” said Kyralion. “Victory must be our purpose, and that would increase our chances of victory. Master Magatai?”

  “A good thought,” said Magatai, “but Magatai would not be able to use Lord Kyralion’s bow. It is not sized for the hand of a Takai warrior.”

  “What about my sword?” said Kyralion.

  Magatai blinked. “Yes, that would work. You have a fine blade. But you would lend Magatai your sword?”

  “I would,” said Kyralion.

  Magatai blinked again and offered a deep bow. Tamara was impressed that he managed to do that without breaking stride. “That is a great honor, sir, to receive your sword in trust. Magatai shall use it to slay many urvaalgs, and then return it to your hand.”

  “Very well,” said Kyralion, and he and Magatai traded swords. Magatai lifted Kyralion’s sword, the lightning snarling around the blade, and took a few slow practice swings with the weapon.

  “A good sword,” said Magatai.

  “If you’re going to trade weapons, then trade places,” said Ridmark. Magatai stepped forward without hesitation, Kyralion’s sword in hand, while Kyralion took the halfling’s place next to Tamara.

  “A good sword,” said Magatai again. “A pity all of Magatai’s weapons do not wrap themselves in lightning. He can think of many battles in the past when that would have been useful.”

  Ridmark started to say something, and then he held up his hand for silence.

  A low groaning sound came to Tamara’s ears.

  “What is that?” she whispered.

  “I don’t know,” said Ridmark.

  “It sounds like someone is in terrible pain,” said Tamara.

  “It does,” said Ridmark.

  They walked forward. After another hundred yards, the corridor opened into a vast stone hall, the largest that Tamara had yet seen.

  It was a strange and terrible sight.

  The central third of the floor was filled with a pool of still water, long and rectangular. It looked deep, and Tamara could not see the bottom of the pool from her vantage point. The mist roiled and seethed across the floor, and the light came from two clusters of crystals jutting from the ceiling, throwing an eerie white glow over everything. The web of golden veins covered the wall, pulsing and throbbing as the veins in the rest of the ruin had done.

  Unlike the rest of the ruin, these veins held mummified corpses.

  Tamara gazed at the dead in horror. Hundreds of mummified corpses were pinned to the wall, and they hung as if the veins of golden light held them in place. As she looked closer, she realized that the veins ran through their withered flesh, as if they had sucked away all the life and warmth from the corpses. The dead had the pointed ears and lean faces of gray elves and wore armor of strange golden metal.

  The moaning came from the wall on the other side of the pool.

  One of the gray elves pinned in the web of veins was still alive, twitching feebly.

  Tamara felt something tug at her spell of earth magic.

  “Lord Ridmark,” she hissed. “I can feel creatures pressing against the floor here.”

  “Urvaalgs?” murmured Ridmark.

  “Aye,” said Tamara. “At least a half-dozen. And there’s something else…”

  Third stiffened and pointed with one of her swords. “There.”

  A dark shape stood on the other side of the pool, gazing at the moaning gray elf.

  It was a woman, Tamara realized. She wore close-fitting armor of dark metal, and a leathery black cloak hung from her shoulders.

  No. Not a cloak.

  Wings.

  The woman turned and leaped into the air, a few flaps of her great black wings depositing her on the other side of the pool, the talons of her gauntlets rasping as her fingers opened and closed over and over again.

  ###

  Ridmark braced himself as the urdhracos landed on their side of the pool, her void-filled eyes regarding them.

  A storm of memories flickered through his mind. He had fought urdhracosi before, and he knew what to expect. The urdhracos looked like a woman wearing black armor, great black wings rising behind her, her face stark and pale, her eyes like pits into the void. Her ears rose in elven points, and her hair was a metallic shade of silver, almost as if it had been made from mercury. Her expression was eerily calm, the serenity of a madwoman about to kill someone.

  Another stray memory flickered through his mind. Third had looked like that on the day he had met her, when she had still been an urdhracos.

  But he could not let that memory blind him. The urdhracosi were the most powerful creatures of the dark elves, cunning and deadly and capable of wielding powerful dark magic. And this urdhracos was almost certainly under the command of Mhazhama and the Maledictus of Shadows.

  To say nothing of the urvaalgs prowling unseen through the chamber.

  “Well, well, well,” murmured the urdhracos in the orcish tongue, her face gaunt and calm beneath her silver hair. “This is different, is it not? I thought watching that ancient elf die would be the only amusement found in this place. Instead, here you are.”

  “The Maledicti sent you to kill us, didn’t they?” said Ridmark.

  The urdhracos sighed. “It’s all the Maledicti ever do, you know. Wheels within wheels within wheels within still more damned wheels.” She sounded almost exasperated. “I’ve killed so many people for them, and my victims never get to find out why. A pity they won’t live to see the rise of the New God.” She gestured with an armored, claw-tipped hand at the dead gray elves pinned to the walls by the web of golden light. “Or the Kratomachar, as those fools called it.”

  “Tell me about the New God,” said Ridmark. The urdhracosi were powerful and dangerous, but their grasp on sanity never was quite firm. If this urdhracos had been bound by the Maledicti, and if the Maledicti had discussed their secrets in front of the creature…

  “No,” said the urdhracos. “Why bother? I’ll kill you all, and you’ll never know. Or you’ll kill me, and you’ll find out the hard way when the New God rises.”

  “Then who are you?” said Ridmark. He glanced at Third, but she stared at the urdhracos, her face a mask. “Do you have a name?”

  “I did, but I do not
remember it,” said the urdhracos. She let out a reedy, croaking giggle. “My masters call me the Scythe. The Scythe of the Maledicti, for I harvest their foes.” She slashed the claws of her right hand through the air, mimicking a farmer harvesting grain. “Poetic, isn’t it? Or is it pompous? I can never remember. Both are meaningless in the final instant of life.”

  “The urvaalgs,” whispered Tamara. “They’re circling around the pool from the left and the right. I think she’s stalling until her urvaalgs can attack.”

  Ridmark nodded, and the Scythe’s eyes shifted to Tamara.

  “You I remember, though,” said the Scythe.

  “What?” said Tamara. “You know me?”

  “I do. Or I did.” The Scythe shrugged, her wings twitching behind her armored shoulders. “Which is strange. They had me kill you twice before. Mmm. Yes, I remember. Once, I cut your throat. Another time, you ran from me, and my hounds chased you down and tore you apart. I thought that strange because I don’t usually have to kill people twice. Oh, well.” She shrugged again. “Maybe the third time will stick.”

  “Then who am I?” said Tamara. “Why did the Maledicti send you to kill my other selves?”

  “I neither know or care,” said the Scythe. “All life ends in death. All questions end in the grave. All…”

  Her eyes fell on Third, and she trailed off.

  For the first time, a spasm of emotion went over that calm face. The Scythe’s void-filled eyes widened, and she staggered back a step, her armored hands coming up as if to ward off a blow. Third remained motionless, but her mouth tightened.

  “Who are you?” said the Scythe.

  “You do not know who I am,” said Third, “but you know what I am.”

  “No,” breathed the Scythe. “No, it is not possible.”

  “I used to be as you are now,” said Third. “But I was freed. I repented of my past, asked God for aid, and I no longer heard the song of the dark elves in my blood. Instead, I heard my own song…”

  “No,” croaked the Scythe, her eyes still wide.

  “I was freed,” said Third. “I know what it was like to be you. I was you. I know what it is to have the song dominate your will, to know nothing but killing and killing for century after century. I was freed, and you can be free as well. I will…”

  The Scythe threw back her head and shrieked.

  She lunged towards Third, moving in a black blur, talons reaching for Third’s throat. To the left and the right of them, the air rippled, and six urvaalgs appeared, three approaching from the left, and three more coming from the right. The urvaalgs looked like the twisted hybrids of apes and wolves, greasy black fur hanging limply from the stringy muscles of their lean bodies. They could run on all fours and fight while standing on their hind legs, and deadly black claws jutted from their paws. Fangs filled their muzzles, and the urvaalgs’ eyes burned like dying coals.

  Ridmark’s initial impulse was to help Third against the Scythe, but Third was holding her own against the urdhracos, her blue swords flashing and clanging against the Scythe’s talons. But Tamara, Kyralion, and Magatai would not be able to stand against six urvaalgs on their own.

  “Kyralion, next to Tamara!” said Ridmark, taking Oathshield’s hilt in both hands. “Magatai, keep the urvaalgs away from them.”

  Magatai and Kyralion rushed to stand next to Tamara, and the urvaalgs charged to meet them. Kyralion raised his bow and started loosing arrows, sending blazing shafts at the urvaalgs. His first arrow thudded into an urvaalg’s side, and the creature let out a growl. His second shot was better, and it punched through an urvaalg’s eye. The creature reared up with a metallic shriek and then collapsed to the floor, black slime leaking from its mortal wounds. Tamara cast a spell, and a column of white mist swirled around an urvaalg. The acidic mist chewed into its flesh, and the urvaalg loosed a furious scream, shuddering with pain.

  The remaining four urvaalgs all attacked at once.

  Ridmark struck, drawing on Oathshield for speed and power. One of the urvaalgs lunged at him, its jaws opening wide, and Ridmark’s swing bisected the urvaalg’s head. The creature fell dead to the floor, and Ridmark ripped Oathshield free. Next to him, Magatai attacked the urvaalgs charging from the right, slashing Kyralion’s lightning-wreathed sword. He used the weapon to flick the urvaalgs with the tip long enough for the creatures to receive a painful shock. Before they could recover, he chopped with the blade, dealing deeper wounds. Kyralion loosed arrow after arrow from point-blank range, his hands a blur.

  The urvaalg that Tamara had burned with her mist lunged at her, and Ridmark intercepted the creature.

  Or he tried to, anyway. He misjudged the power of its attack, and the urvaalg changed direction and slammed into him, its front paws rasping against the armor on his chest. Its jaws yawned for his face, and Ridmark snapped up his right forearm. The urvaalg’s jaws closed around his arm with crushing force, but Antenora’s bracer of blue steel held against its fangs. Ridmark lashed at its side with Oathshield, but he could not get enough force behind the blow to inflict much damage. The urvaalg growled and wrenched its head back and forth with enough force that Ridmark’s shoulder blazed with pain.

  Tamara yelled and swung her staff, its length glowing with purple light. She struck the urvaalg’s head, and the blow landed with enough force to bend the urvaalg’s neck at a right angle with a hideous snap of bone. Ridmark scrambled out from beneath the urvaalg and brought Oathshield hammering down, ignoring the pain in his shoulder. The blade split the creature’s skull, and Ridmark twisted just in time to meet the attack of another urvaalg. He slashed Oathshield, taking off the creature’s front right paw. The urvaalg overbalanced with a shriek, and Ridmark’s next thrust found its heart.

  He whirled to the right and saw Magatai keeping the urvaalgs at bay with Kyralion’s lightning-wreathed sword, his movements a blurring dance as he attacked the urvaalgs again and again, stunning them with the sword’s lightning. Kyralion pumped arrow after arrow into them, but that did little more than slow the creatures. Behind them, Third continued her furious duel with the Scythe, her blue swords clanging against the urdhracos' armored talons.

  Ridmark charged past Magatai and swung Oathshield at a stunned urvaalg. The creature tried to get out of the way, but the lightning from the sword had left its muscles jerky, and Ridmark killed it. A second urvaalg lunged at Magatai, and the halfling danced back, flicking the tip of his sword across the urvaalg’s ribs. Again, the lightning leaped from the sword to stun the urvaalg, and Ridmark finished it off with a chop to the neck.

  The final urvaalg lunged at Tamara, but she was ready for the creature. She thrust her glowing staff, and the tip struck the urvaalg behind the neck. The creature rebounded as if it had thrown itself against a stone wall, and Ridmark killed it with a quick stab. He wrenched Oathshield free from the carcass, the white fire burning away the black slime of the urvaalg’s blood, and turned towards the furious duel between Third and the Scythe.

  The Scythe had seen enough.

  The urdhracos leaped backward, wings billowing, and took to the air. The Scythe flew over the pool and vanished through an archway. Third took a step forward, the blue fire starting to shine in her eyes and veins as she drew upon her power.

  “Wait,” said Ridmark. “Don’t follow her. She’ll draw us into an ambush. Or another one of those damned trap rooms.”

  Third froze, and then nodded, the blue fire fading away. “Yes, you are right.”

  Ridmark let out a long breath and looked over the fallen urvaalgs, making sure that they really had been slain. Urvaalgs could recover from nearly anything, save magic or the blow of a soulblade. Fortunately, all six of the urvaalgs were dead.

  “Anyone hurt?” said Ridmark, wiping some of the sweat from his forehead.

  “Only winded,” said Magatai. “Those devils are spirited fighters! Fortunately, Magatai laughs at hardship and exhaustion.”

  “Good,” said Ridmark. The urvaalg’s fangs hadn’t broken his sk
in, but his right arm and shoulder ached damnably. There was also a sharp ache on the left side of his chest, and he wondered if the urvaalg’s paw had hit him hard enough to crack a rib. His fingers tightened on Oathshield’s hilt, and he used the sword’s magic to heal. It wasn’t nearly as effective as the healing spell of a Magistrius, and even less effective when used on himself, but it was better than nothing.

  A low groan rolled through the chamber again.

  Ridmark had forgotten about the gray elf pinned to the wall.

  ###

  Third lowered her swords, trying to catch her breath.

  The fight with the Scythe had been difficult. The urdhracos had been quick and deadly, and it had taken all of Third’s skill to stay alive.

  And she had seen herself in the silver-haired urdhracos. Third knew the same madness that had been on the Scythe’s face, knew the pain of the song filling her mind and blood.

  Third had known the same torment for nearly a millennia until she had met Ridmark.

  Then the gray elf groaned again, and Third pushed aside the memories.

  Ridmark walked around the pool, heading for the gray elf, and Third and the others followed him.

  The moaning gray elf hung suspended a few feet off the floor, held in place by dozens of those translucent veins of golden light. As Third looked at the groaning elf, she had the overwhelming impression that the veins weren’t just holding him up. Rather, they seemed to be draining him somehow, sucking away his life and will. Certainly, he looked on the verge of death. His face was little more than a skull covered in skin, and his golden eyes glittered with pain. Like the dead gray elves pinned to the wall, he was wearing a cuirass made of overlapping plates of golden metal, and a sword hung sheathed at his belt.

  “You…you are humans,” rasped the gray elf in the orcish tongue. “Sometimes…sometimes they venture into Cathair Selenias. Few of them ever make it this far before the nightmares claim them.”

  “Yes,” said Ridmark.