Sevenfold Sword: Shadow

by Jonathan Moeller

  “Ridmark Arban!” thundered Mhalek. “I told you that I am a god!” He laughed, his voice high and wild with the madness that had consumed him in the final days of his life. “I slew your wife, and you slew me, and now I have returned from death to slay you! Who else but a god could do that?”

  “It is a manifested dream,” said Antenora. “Pulled from your memories. It will be far more powerful than the ones you fought in the outer…”

  Mhalek leaped off the edge of the altar and soared into the air, and Ridmark dodged. The orcish shaman landed with enough force that his black blades sank into the white stone of the floor. Ridmark swept Oathshield at his old enemy’s head, but Mhalek twisted, his black swords whirling up in a cross-parry.

  Mhazhama started another spell, while the Scythe swooped for Ridmark, her sword drawn back to stab. The Maledictus of Shadows hovered behind Mhazhama, his arms extended, mist pouring from his sleeves. No doubt all his attention went to maintaining the spell that had called forth the deadly phantasm of Mhalek from Ridmark’s memories.

  The power of the Shield Knight surged through him, and Ridmark needed every bit of it as he fought for his life.

  Chapter 19: Face The Past

  Distant thunder rumbled down the spiraling stairs and came to Third’s ears.

  “Lightning,” she said. “Ridmark is fighting the Maledictus of Air.”

  And the Maledictus of Shadows and the Scythe. No doubt he had been forced to use the full power of the Shield Knight at once. Third had to hurry. Ridmark could only hold that power for a short time, and likely he would need it just to hold his own against the two Maledicti. If Third and the others had not killed or freed Lord Amruthyr by the time that the power ran out, Ridmark would die.

  And Third and the others would follow in short order, and the people in Kalimnos would starve to death, trapped in their dreams.

  “Hurry,” said Tamara, her voice tight with urgency.

  Third and the others needed no prompting. They rushed down the stairs as fast as they could, the mist swirling around their boots. Third took the lead, swords ready in her hands, senses straining as she tried to find any foes.

  But nothing else moved in the spiral stairs, and she heard nothing but the slap of their boots against the stone and the distant rumble of thunder.

  At last, the stairs ended, and they stepped into a throne room.

  It could be nothing else.

  It was a pillared hall like the other ones they had seen, but grander, with reliefs on the columns and the walls, reliefs that showed the gray elves triumphing over their enemies. At the far end of the hall rose a dais which supported a throne of white stone, its back and arms carved with ornamental designs. Behind the throne was a single door of golden metal, its surface shining with glyphs of brilliant light.

  All the golden veins covering the wall led to that door.

  “That’s it,” said Tamara. “That must be the door to the Chamber of Meditation.”

  “You are correct,” said Kyralion. “This must have been Lord Amruthyr’s throne room, where he would have sat and issued his judgments. His private chamber for meditation and study would be behind that door.”

  “Then let’s hurry,” said Tamara, stepping forward. “We…”

  “Wait,” said Third, looking over the floor. She couldn’t see any sign of mechanical or magical traps. “Quickly, cast the spell to sense magical forces. We dare not blunder into any traps.”

  Tamara nodded and worked the spell. “There…there is powerful magic everywhere, but especially behind that door. And…more powerful magic, behind the walls. But I can’t identify it.”

  “But no traps on the floor?” said Third.

  Tamara shook her head.

  “Very well,” said Third. “Head for the door. Keep your eyes open.”

  She started across the throne room, heading for the dais, and the others followed her.

  They had made it about halfway across the throne room when the floor shivered, and six hidden panels in the walls slid open.

  Harsh white light spilled from the door-sized panels.

  ###

  Mhalek’s swords moved in a blur of dark metal and bloody fire, hammering again and again at Ridmark.

  “I am a god!” screamed Mhalek. “I am the blood god incarnate! Andomhaim is mine! Even death itself could not hold me!” He let out a screaming laugh, his eyes bulging in his face. “I have returned, and I shall slay you!”

  He had been like that in the final moments of his life, Ridmark remembered, mad and powerful and bent on revenge. Ridmark had struck him down, but Mhalek had taken his vengeance. He had cast a spell of dark magic, linking his blood to that of Aelia. When Ridmark had killed him, the spell had transferred the mortal wound to Aelia as well, and she had died in his arms.

  One last vicious, spiteful trick from a man whose madness and pride had killed thousands.

  “He thinks he’s really Mhalek,” said Antenora as Ridmark fought. “The spell is so powerful that the phantasm believes that it is the real Mhalek.”

  Ridmark did not answer. Even with the power of the Shield Knight, he dared not take his attention from Mhalek for a single instant. This might only be the phantasm of his long-dead enemy, a nightmare brought into the waking world, but it nonetheless fought with all the skill and savage power that the living Mhalek had once wielded.

  And to make matters worse, the Scythe circled overhead, swooping to attack whenever she saw an opening, and Mhazhama remained hovering over the altar, flinging lightning bolts and lances of dark magic. Ridmark’s magical armor deflected the spells, but Mhazhama’s lightning bolts struck hard enough to knock him back a step or two, and he knew that Mhalek’s black swords could cleave through even the armor of the Shield Knight.

  Ridmark retreated, parrying and dodging around Mhalek’s furious strikes. Another blast of lightning struck him in the side, and Ridmark stumbled. Mhalek sprang after him at once, and even with the augmented speed the armor gave him, Ridmark barely got Oathshield up in time to deflect the black swords.

  Unless he did something to break the stalemate, either Mhalek was going to wear him down and kill him, or Mhazhama would break through his defenses.

  Another lightning bolt screamed towards him, and this time Ridmark made no effort to dodge. The blast struck him in the chest and threw him to the floor, and Mhalek roared in triumph and jumped after him, swords rising high for the kill. But Ridmark had anticipated Mhalek’s reaction, and he rolled and came to one knee with a clang of armor, whipping Oathshield around in a horizontal slash. The soulblade crunched through the black armor and into Mhalek’s knee, and the orcish shaman bellowed in pain.

  Ridmark surged to his feet and swung again with all his strength, and Mhalek’s head rolled off his shoulders in a fountain of green blood, the armored body falling with a clang to the floor. The Scythe swooped at him, slashing with her dark elven sword and Ridmark parried and stabbed at her legs. She snarled and hurtled back into the air, wings flapping.

  Ridmark turned towards the altar at the bottom of the temple, planning to charge and take Mhazhama and the Maledictus of Shadows before they could stop him.

  But Mhalek’s body and severed head dissolved into gray mist, and the mist flew down the tiers and reformed into a sphere before the Maledictus of Shadows. He gestured, and the sphere of mist hardened and sharpened into a solid form once more.

  For the second time, a jolt of recognition blazed through Ridmark’s mind as he looked at the face of a long-dead enemy.

  The man was a knight of Andomhaim, wearing polished steel plate armor beneath a blue surcoat adorned with the sigil of a black dragon’s head. He held a steel sword ready in his right hand, and his blond hair and mustache had been trimmed and styled. His black eyes were flat and dead, and a cold smile spread across his face as he saw Ridmark.

  “You!” said Sir Paul Tallmane, once a servant of the usurper Tarrabus Carhaine and a cultist of the dark power of Incariel. “How I have waited
for this moment, dog!” He surged forward with terrible speed, shadows trailing from his blade. “Now I shall avenge your trickery at the Iron Tower!”

  His shadow-wreathed sword clanged against Oathshield’s blade, and Ridmark fought for his life.

  ###

  Tamara whirled, calling earth magic to herself, and the hidden panels in the walls slid the rest of the way open.

  Six men in the golden armor of the gray elves stepped out of concealed compartments, swords in hand.

  No. Not men. Not gray elves. Not anything.

  The elven helms had a Y-shaped slit to allow its bearer to see and breathe, and through those slits, Tamara saw nothing at all. No head, no skull, nothing. She did see a glow coming from inside the helmet, but nothing else.

  The empty suits of golden armor strode towards them and lifted their swords.

  “Guardian spirits!” said Magatai, lifting Kyralion’s lightning-wreathed sword.

  “You have faced these things before?” said Third, voice calm as ever.

  “The wizards of my kindred make them,” said Kyralion.

  “How did you defeat them in Cathair Avamyr the last time?” said Tamara.

  “The ones Magatai faced in Cathair Avamyr had a blue crystal upon their chests,” said Magatai. “When Magatai removed the blue crystal from their cuirasses, they fell over.”

  “But these ones don’t have any crystals on their armor!” said Tamara as the creatures advanced.

  “Magatai is aware of the problem!”

  The suits of armor charged, drawing their golden swords back to strike. Third leaped forward and dueled two of them, her blades weaving a net of steel around her. Magatai and Kyralion charged at the others, Magatai bellowing at the top of his lungs.

  One of the creatures rushed for Tamara.

  She couldn’t make the earth fold and ripple down here since that might bring down the ceiling and kill them all. Instead, she charged her staff with the power of earth magic and swung the weapon as the armored creature approached.

  Her staff smacked right into the center of its cuirass, and the creature exploded.

  There was indeed nothing inside the suit of armor. Golden plates bounced and clanged against the floor, and Tamara caught a glimpse of white light within the armor. She started to turn to aid the others, but the armor kept moving as the plates rattled against the floor. The armored figure reassembled itself, sword still in hand. It paused for just an instant as the various plates adjusted their position, and then the living armor charged Tamara again.

  She raised her staff to meet its attack.

  ###

  “You thought death could defeat me?” screamed Paul Tallmane, hammering at Ridmark with all his strength. Every hit of that shadow-wreathed sword slowed Ridmark a little, sucking away some of the power in the armor of the Shield Knight. “I have returned for you! And if you hadn’t already failed to save that bitch Morigna, I would have killed her as you watched!” He laughed, as mad as Mhalek had been. “But once I finish you, I’ll kill Calliande, slowly, painfully, and…”

  “You always talked too damned much,” said Ridmark, and he went on the attack.

  Now it was Paul’s turn to retreat. Ridmark drove at him, slashing at his head and chest again and again. Every time Paul’s shadow-bleeding sword rose to meet his blows, but Ridmark let his position shift, turning so his back faced the Maledicti upon the altar.

  As he expected, Mhazhama seized the opening, and one of her lightning blasts slammed into Ridmark’s back. The armor deflected the bolt, and Ridmark let the momentum carry him forward. He surged forward, into Paul’s guard, and his left hand released Oathshield’s hilt and punched. His armored fist hammered into Paul’s unprotected face, and the knight’s head snapped back with a spray of blood. Paul staggered and almost lost his balance, and Ridmark whipped Oathshield down.

  Paul’s sword fell to the floor, his right hand still grasping the hilt.

  Paul Tallmane fell to his knees and screamed, his eyes wide with horror, just as they had been when Ridmark had defeated him for the first time nearly ten years ago at the Iron Tower.

  Oathshield found Paul’s heart as Ridmark stabbed down, and Paul exploded into mist. The mist hurtled back across the temple to whirl before the Maledictus of Shadows once more. Ridmark turned, hoping to charge and kill or at least distract the Maledictus of Shadows before the sorcerer summoned up yet another foe from Ridmark’s past.

  He took one step forward, and the Scythe lunged at him, slashing her blue sword at his head. Ridmark had to stop and parry, and the sword clanged off Oathshield. He tried to land a blow on the Scythe, but the urdhracos was too fast, her leathery wings carrying her back into the air.

  And in that instant, the sphere of mist had hardened into yet another enemy from Ridmark’s past.

  It was a towering orcish man, over seven feet tall, clad in only trousers and boots. Sigils of bloody fire burned upon his massive chest and thick arms, and his face had been marked with the crimson skull tattoo of the Mhorites of Kothluusk. In his right fist, he held a double-bladed battle axe, the shaft longer than Ridmark was tall, the enormous black blades glowing with sigils of blood sorcery.

  “Come, dog!” roared Mournacht of Kothluusk, whom Ridmark had killed on the slopes of the Black Mountain all those years ago. “Come and die! Great Mhor has called me back from death to…”

  Ridmark sprinted towards the altar, hoping to close the distance and strike one of the Maledicti before the phantasm of Mournacht could react.

  But the Warlord of Kothluusk leaped from the altar and charged with a furious bellow, the bloody glyphs in his black axe blazing brighter.

  ###

  Third drew on her power and traveled, moving from the pair of armored forms she dueled and reappearing behind the one challenging Magatai. The halfling was putting up a good fight, and the lightning from his borrowed sword slowed the animated suits of armor. Yet the creatures, whatever they were, did not slow or tire.

  Third attacked, driving both her swords into the creature’s back. The animated armor stumbled from the impact, and Magatai jumped to the side, knocking it to the floor with a clang. The halfling got clear of the armor’s reach, but at once the creature began rising from the floor.

  “We can’t keep fighting them!” said Tamara, her staff glowing purple in her grasp, her face tight with strain as she maintained the spell. “They just keep getting up again and again.”

  “Then we must knock them down again!” said Magatai, retreating as he held the bronze sword ready. Already the suit of armor pursued him.

  Tamara didn’t answer, but yelled and swung her staff. Once more the enspelled weapon caught a suit of armor on the chest, and again the impact of her staff made the armor explode. Plates of golden metal bounced away, and the helmet rolled past.

  And as it did, Third glimpsed a pale white glow within the helmet.

  She dropped one of her swords and seized the helmet as it went past. Already the armor was reassembling itself, and Third felt the invisible tug on the helmet as it tried to fly across the hall to join the rest of the armor. Yet inside the helmet, affixed to the interior, she saw a small lump of white crystal that gave off a pale glow.

  A minor soulstone, and presumably the source of the magical power that animated the armor.

  Third reached into the helmet and wrenched away the soulstone.

  The effect was immediate. The half-assembled suit of armor collapsed back to the floor, and this time it did not rise again.

  “The helmets!” shouted Third, throwing aside the helmet and snatching up her second sword. “The soulstones are inside the helmets! Knock them down and get the soulstones from inside the helmets!”

  After that, the battle was over quickly.

  Tamara used her staff to smash apart the armor, and Third, Magatai, and Kyralion ripped free the soulstones before the suits of armor could reassemble themselves. In short order, all the suits of animated armor lay in scattered pieces across the flo
or, half-concealed within the mist.

  “Magatai feels cheated,” announced the halfling. “The guardian spirits within Cathair Avamyr offer boons when defeated.”

  “Come,” said Third, hurrying toward the golden door behind the throne. “Tamara, quickly. Are there are wards on the door?”

  The young woman cast the spell to detect magic as she jogged after Third. “There are not.”

  “Good,” said Third as she reached the door. She sheathed her left-hand sword and grasped the door’s handle. The metal felt warm and smooth beneath her fingers, and she pushed.

  The door swung open on silent hinges, and golden light spilled into the throne hall.

  The steady drumbeat of a heartbeat filled Third’s ears, accompanied by a low groan of pain.

  ###

  Mournacht rushed at Ridmark, and it was all he could do to stay alive.

  The orcish warlord was just as strong and fast as Ridmark, even with the augmenting power of the Shield Knight’s armor. Worse, that strength meant he stabbed and hacked with his huge weapon as if it were no more than a slender branch.

  Mournacht’s next swing drove that massive black axe into Ridmark’s stomach. The blue armor of the Shield Knight held against the black blade of the axe, but the sheer power of the impact knocked Ridmark to the ground, and if he hadn’t gotten out of the way in time, Mournacht’s next blow would have split him in half.

  Or Mhazhama would have killed him with one of her lightning bolts.

  Or the Scythe would have landed a blow and gutted him.

  Ridmark retreated, moving as fast as his strength and the power of the armor would allow. Trying to block that axe would be suicidal. The force of Mournacht’s blows would rip Oathshield from Ridmark’s hands. Or Mournacht would punch right through Ridmark’s parries. He had no choice but to dodge and duck, trying to stay ahead of that enormous weapon.