by D Mickleson
The Chief stood before an empty fireplace, looking haggard and broken. Behind him, mounted above the stone hearth, a dusty sword of great length gleamed dully behind a glass pane. A long, venomous hiss escaped from somewhere inside him as he stared at that sword. No one seemed to notice.
“Listen, men!” said Alden, addressing the room, “It’s time for action. We fought our way in here and we intend to fight our way out! Whose with me?”
“We’ve been fightin’ boy,” grumbled the blacksmith Anyon from a back corner. “Fightin’ what seems like forever. Fightin’ and dyin’. Why do you think we’re all that’s left? Outta the whole village, just us here who can wield a blade. Pah!” He spat.
“And how many do they have? A couple of hundred at most? Well I say one of us is worth ten of them. Look, we can take ‘em if—”
“What are you on about, Ald?” asked Gorbald with a grim smile. “A couple of hundred? But I’m forgetting you weren’t here, never saw nothin’ under the light of day so I’ll excuse you. But the number’s more like a couple a thousand.” He paused, gazing at the wall, his hands trembling at his sides and his breath coming in quick, raspy gasps.
Abruptly he rounded on Alden. “Maybe more! Fates alone know what passes under those accursed trees. But it’s ten times at the least what came when I was a lad, when we had the mastery, when Trinian—Well anyway, whole damned forest must be emptied.” He leaned forward, resting his arms on the table as if he carried a heavy weight.
“Attack came yestermorn,” he muttered, staring at his hands. “Swept out of the woods with a shout like thunder. Then thunder really hit and the storm snuffed out their torches and we rallied and the wall held.” He shook his head slowly for a few moments. “Came back at sunset and the rains were gone. We were ready but their numbers were too great. Burned through the palisade in two places.” Suddenly he smashed his fist into the table. “And my Gorwain went down in the first wave. My son!” He held his head in his hands and sobbed.
While Alden stared at the Chief’s heaving shoulders, speaking no word, Triston edged around the table and moved stiffly toward the hearth.
“Two thousand,” groaned Alden after a few moments, gazing at his crimson blade with unblinking eyes as if it had failed him. “Two thousand! Where? We saw no more than—”
“On the southwest of course, near the forest. That’s what’s had the hairs on our necks up all night,” said Anyon. “That Meridian dung-stain never lets more than a few hundred through the walls at a time. He coulda wiped us clean out in the first attack, but he just bides his time.” He swore and spat. “Like he’s enjoying our suffering, stretchin’ it out, playing the cat with a family of trapped mice.”
Triston reached the hearth and stopped, facing Gorbald. The Chief straightened, wiping his bloodshot eyes on a dirty sleeve and looking down at him with a frown. “Chief Gorbald, prepare the men for battle. Be ready to follow my lead.”
“Yes! Triston! I knew it!” Alden slapped his sword on the table, the battle-light flaring up in his eyes.
But Gorbald only shook his head. “Follow your—bah! Mad, both of ya. I oughta send you down to the cellar with old Arloon. Keep all the loonies in one—WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?”
The glass case was bolted shut, but it shattered and fell to the ground as Triston reached. He grasped the obsidian hilt with one hand, though by its weight and design the grip was meant for two, and hoisted the sword of Willbrand from its ancient resting place. The blade hummed and flashed in his sweeping hand.
Suddenly he brought it down with all his force onto the oaken table, cleaving the wood asunder and striking the granite floor with a shower of sparks. Bloodprice ignited, flaring like a torch in a windstorm as Triston lifted its tip to point at Gorbald.
“Prepare the men for battle.”
At that moment an echoing boom shook the chamber and the Hold groaned with running tremors. Dust fell from cracks in the ceiling. Everyone had already jumped up, staring with awe at the blazing sword and the fury in Triston’s face. But now many glanced around in fear, wondering what new devilry their enemy would inflict upon them.
A young man Triston felt he ought to know burst into the room, sliding on the smooth stone and crashing into the back of Anyon’s chair in his haste. “Battering ram! Front door!” he shouted, his face wild with panic, even as the boom resounded a second time. Then his eyes fell on Triston and Bloodprice, and he fell in a dead faint.
Men came running from all areas of the Hold, only to stop and stare like the boy, though no one else collapsed. Gorbald stepped over to face Triston, looking him up and down. He drew a mace from his belt. No one spoke, all eyes on the Chief and Triston as a third blast sounded from the door below.
“I saw your father . . . that day. His sword sparked, even flared once or twice. And I’d take my oath some wretches were charred black as they fell. But never did Trinian wield such a flame as this!” he said, gaping at the blade in wonder. “Dark sorcery.” He looked fearful. “What you can do against so many, I can’t guess, but . . . I’ll follow you.” Gorbald turned to the ragged company and lifted his mace. “Men, to arms! Come what may, we won’t die like rats in a trap! To arms!”
A shout went up from the weary men, overwhelmed immediately by the fourth strike of the ram. By the sound of crunching timber, there would not be many more. “And someone try to wake up young Owain. He’s old enough to wield a sword,” Gorbald added, giving Triston a watery smile. “Well, Slendrake, this is your show. What’s your plan?”
“We cut our way down to the road and escape east,” said Alden at once. “It’s our only hope.”
“You do what you want, Ald,” said Triston. “But I’m going for Sarconius. I’m fighting to save Wyrmskull.”
“Aye. We aren’t leaving the women and children, dolt,” said Anyon, eyeing Alden darkly and drawing his own sword.
Alden took a deep breath. “Dragon balls.”
Lord Sarconius leaned over the wooden rail and relieved himself with some satisfaction. He hadn’t pissed freely in days, not since his first attempt at the Relic had ended in humiliation and retreat. It felt good. With a quick shake he finished his business and stepped back to the other side of the gatetower. Dawn was breaking, casting its clear light onto the ruinous scene even as the fiery glow smoldered and died. From this vantage he would see the exact moment when the fool emerged. The exact moment when Arsis Sarconius, First Lord of the Imperial Records, and for some time, traitor to the throne, achieved the greatest feat of his life.
Yes, it felt very good. Except—
“When will you let us end this hgork, this joke and finish them?”
He ventured a sidelong glance at the barbarian chieftainess and, not for the first time, stifled a shudder. Her huge, bird’s-nest hair looked and stank like a bird had actually died inside it. Snot ran freely from her dirty nostrils to her chapped upper lip—chapped because she licked it constantly.
Sarconius smiled. “Your Excellency will remember that this matter is complicated by the presence of a Relic of Power. To rush in now with all our reserve may well prove disastrous.”
The barbarian snorted, eyeing him with contempt. “You are varshtooken,” she declared in a thick, phlegmy accent. “What word in your tongue? Hmmm. Boob-boy, I say. You promised Farthians ahaghlack against the unfaithful ones, against the sea-men, the land thieves. We thirst for flesh, for blood, for our god Mahagog the Great who fell by their hand long ago. Our wrath never sleeps—”
“Yes, never,” answered Sarconius hotly. “But I notice the emperor’s generosity has done much to stir it of late. And if you wish to receive the rest you will keep silent and do as you’re told.” Suddenly he started, gripping the railing to steady himself as a rolling boom rumbled from the village square. “There, the rammers have already begun,” he added with another sidelong glance.
She was smirking. She had noticed. Perhaps when all was over in Leviathan he would have time to wipe that smile off her
face. Perhaps he would take her face off entirely—the second boom sounded and he put off such pleasant thoughts for the present. More booms. Any moment now . . . the iron-tipped trunk could not be resisted for long, however solid their native oak . . . He must emerge, the bearer. He must defend his people.
“Aaaahhhh,” sighed the Meridian lord, a loving caress in his voice.
“Aiieeee!” squawked the woman. “He is back, the thahagog, the devil’s messenger. Just as before! We must send in the others!”
Sarconius watched in ecstasy, ignoring the barbarian’s wailing and fixing his eyes hungrily on the young man with the flaming sword. He’d burst from their little keep with style, Sarconius had to admit, causing the ram to turn on the rammers, rolling here and there and crushing the Farthian fodder like ants. But the sturdy trunk was heavy even for a dragon. Soon it fell and grew still. Sarconius smiled, knowing the dragon’s legendary wrath must quickly overwhelm this little warrior. The boy would collapse all the sooner the more extravagant his use of the Relic’s power.
But for the moment Willbrand’s ancient longsword raged on, slashing through the stunned assailants like a scythe through wheat. The Wildmen screamed and unleashed a storm of poisoned darts, but at the bearer’s uplifted hand, they flashed with flame and scattered like ash in the wind.
This boy possessed a firmer command of the Relic than Sarconius had expected.
Perhaps this surprise was Sarconius’ own fault. Had not his master warned him of this particular Relic’s potency, of the possible threat posed by its possessor?
Sarconius’ smile widened and his esteem for his master grew. He thanked him silently for the command to keep the lion’s share of his strength in reserve, a command which had once seemed so pointless, so overly cautious. He shook his head at his own folly, that he had dared to second guess that great mind.
“Ai! We are slaughtered like lame sons. I send in others now and we crush this devil! We take sword and then Farthians rule crypt hill of Mahagog.”
Sarconius turned just in time to see the chieftainess begin to descend the ladder leading from the watchtower. With a quick step he seized the bird’s nest and pulled hard, jerking her head upwards to face him.
“You send in your army now and the Relic-bearer will cut it to pieces.”
“He releases head. Now.”
Sarconius looked into her eyes and saw his death there. So she harbored the same thoughts toward him that he cherished for her. She would have to die sooner in that case, before Leviathan. He released her, but bent lower until his face nearly touched hers.
“We wait, and I promise you he will fall under the burden of the very power he now wields. Trust me in this, and I will double your gold”—here he straightened up impressively—“and I swear to honor you before Emperor Dominus himself, the greatest giver of gifts on earth.”
She stared with obvious distrust on her face, but after a moment climbed back up, grumbling in that bestial tongue he despised. Satisfied, he turned back to watch, confident she would make no move until after she’d received the rest of her gold, gold he would use instead to bribe some rival in the Farthian ranks to overthrow and destroy her.
No more distractions. The moment surely approached, the boy must be nearly spent. He was already doubled over with exhaustion, leaning on the sword and taking heaving breaths while his band of defenders clustered behind him. Sarconius cursed the axemen for letting him catch his breath. They were meant to press him, to wear him out beyond recovery.
But they were decimated, scarcely outnumbering the defenders three-to-one. The Wildmen were clumped in a tight phalanx behind their largest warrior, a great, bearish brute who lifted his double-headed axe and roared. The Farthians behind him cheered, heartening even Sarconius. He breathed a little easier, knowing that the throng meant to charge as one and snuff out fire-boy. Good. Maybe he wouldn’t even need the reserve force after all.
Then the boy straightened, and Sarconius noticed it, a dragonbone pendant glowing at his breast. A thrill ran through him. His hands gripped the railing, long, white fingers digging into the soft wood. At long last, this must be it. His prize! So the sword was not the Relic after all.
His master had called Magog’s Fury a weapon, though he could give no further description. Now Sarconius understood. The Relic was just a shard of dragonbone, nothing more. How simple. How wonderful. And what power! To his trained eye, even from this distance the Relic throbbed with potency. There was more, much more magic here than he’d expected. Far too much for a novice. How much longer could this boy hold out?
The bearer lifted his sword arm toward the charging Farthians, and Sarconius felt his blood run cold. The thrill left him. No. Surely not. He’d refused to believe it before, thought something must have knocked his men down. Everything had happened so fast when this boy and another had charged the keep half an hour earlier.
Suddenly the brutish Wildman in the lead stiffened, turned, and brought his axe down with an audible thud on the head of his nearest comrade. Before the others could react, he struck again, jerking the opposite blade straight from the downed man’s skull into the neck of another, slicing it nearly in half.
Sarconius gaped in astonishment, his smile contorted horribly. How could this be? Confirming his worst fears, first one, then another, then two more Wildmen turned on their comrades with deadly axe-sweeps, severed limbs flying.
A moan of terror went up from the company. As one they turned and fled toward the gate, toward Sarconius, every man rushing to save his own life while five of their fellows swiped at their fleeing backs. And the Mindlord—as this boy clearly was—pursued, his ragtag band cheering as they ran behind.
Sarconius took the ladder at a run, somehow avoiding a fall. Once down, he charged through the gate and down the west side of the hill for the safety of the main force, his reserve of Wildmen, fifteen hundred strong. Would it be enough?
Mind control. Multiple mind control. The boy was already practicing the domination of other wills. How long had he been wielding the Relic? Such skill took decades of practice. Many sorcerers never mastered it. Sarconius himself had only recently forced an old slave to jump to her death from his North Tower, and he’d been trained by the master himself.
Of course, he had no captured dragon spirit to work with, only the weak soul of a mountain faun. But still, the threat was obvious. If the boy could dominate a living mind, he may soon find out, may already know, the true potential of a Relic of Power.
Sarconius shuddered as he ran, passing through the first ranks of his hired army at an aching sprint, not daring to stop until he found his own escort of twenty Meridian knights.
“Bring me the prisoners,” he barked when he at last reached his guard under the eaves of the wood, bending low and grasping his cramping sides. “Every man has his soft spot. Where’s that bloody wench? Find out who’s in charge if she didn’t make it out. The prisoners. Go!”
Triston stood in the shadow of the palisade looking down at the Farthian encampment. Behind the Wildmen, a host of treetops marched west, their swaying crowns gilded by the dawn with transparent gold. The west wind blew, driving away the charnel stench and bringing the dewy scent of morning. He sucked at the wholesome breeze, feeling, of all things, peaceful.
It was a fine day to die.
In front of the army, at the base of Magog’s Rise, two tiny figures were being led, whip-bound at the neck, to separate woodpiles. Both piles were overshadowed by tall, ominous beams standing erect at their center. Triston knew the prisoners even at this distance. Bildad and Winchie. The innkeeper was struggling pointlessly, but his wife stepped proudly as if leading a procession. Her dress was torn and her midsection stained with blood.
Triston addressed the knight without looking at him. “I accept your lord’s terms with one condition.”
“The Lord Sarconius offers no concessions. This is not a negotiation but a capitulation.”
Triston turned to face the steel-clad messenger. “The v
illagers of Wyrmskull will be given two hours to flee east unmolested by the Wildmen. When they are safely away I will surrender myself and the Relic peacefully.”
The herald gazed at Triston for a few moments, his face grave, his eyes touched by pity. He answered quietly so that his two-man guard standing ill-at-ease ten feet behind him, their eyes locked nervously on Triston, heard nothing. “I believe my lord will accept that condition. All he wants is you and what you carry. Speaking of which,” and he now spoke with full force, “you are to surrender both your sword and the Relic to the lord’s herald, myself, before you approach his person.”
“Brave one, he is,” scoffed Alden at Triston’s back.
A hint of a smile touched the corner of the man’s mouth.
“Can he control the Wildmen?” Triston asked.
“They will take this hill. It’s sacred to them. But they won’t venture far beyond their wood.”
“And the prisoners?”
“To be released at the moment of your surrender. Is that all?”
At a nod from Triston, he bowed curtly. “You have two hours,” he said, then turned swiftly down the hill, his men following closely with many an anxious glance behind them.
Triston collapsed on the nearest boulder the moment they were out of sight. By the time the last fleeing axeman was destroyed, he’d felt himself at the very threshold of death. Instinctively, he’d yanked the leather band off and thrown the dragonbone to the ground. Relief from the gripping heat came at once, but the weariness was slow to pass. Now he kept the Relic in his pocket, finding that so long as no part of Magog’s Fury touched his skin, he was free of its power. Free, but powerless himself.
Alden sat down beside him. “I hate this.”
Triston looked at him. “Take this for me, would you?” He handed Alden his father’s map.
