At the bottom of the steps was another door. As he reached for the handle he cried out in alarm. The door swung out, cracking him across the shoulder. He collapsed to the ground, muttering and promising death. Instead, a feminine hand reached down to help him up.
“I had to kill seven,” Veliana said, pulling him to his feet. “What took you so long?”
“They chained me to a wall,” Deathmask said. “You?”
“Holding cell with two other women. Nice gals.”
The two rushed back up the steps, stepped over the dead bodies, and approached the double-doors to the jail. Against the wall, the remaining two prisoners closed their eyes and bit their tongues to hold in their sobs.
“Guards?” Veliana whispered, gesturing to the doors.
Deathmask nodded.
On the count of three, Veliana slammed them open. The two guards posted with their backs to them could only yelp in surprise before she slammed a club across their faces, shattering cartilage and splattering blood across the floor. Frowning at the club, Veliana dropped it and took the shortswords from the unconscious guards. She twirled them in her hands and whispered a word of magic. A soft purple glow surrounded the blades, strengthening them.
“We’ll be near the soldiers’ quarters,” Deathmask said. “Where do you figure this Melorak will be?”
“The throne room,” Veliana said, glancing up and down the hallway they had entered.
“I figured he would be with his priests,” Deathmask said as he followed her.
“No,” Veliana said, stopping at another intersection. They had been to the castle only a couple of times before, but that was enough for Veliana to have memorized the bulk of the corridors and winding passageways. So far, no sign of guards, and in that they were lucky, for Dunk had led most of them on a wild goose chase through walls and out into the streets of Mordeina.
Dead of night, three hours before dawn, and as they had hoped most of the castle was asleep. Veliana had been adamant: if there was any time to strike, it was at night.
“It doesn’t matter how powerful he is,” Veliana had argued during the creation of their plan. “All men are the same when they sleep.”
The castle was incredibly well guarded on the outside, but within, other than the dozen at the entrance to the jail, it was unnaturally empty. Before, there might have been servants and nobles and all the miscellaneous characters of courtly life. Instead, there was silence. Melorak had executed everyone with the slightest hint of nobility. As for the servants, the cooks, the ladies-in-waiting, well…
Deathmask did his best to ignore the rotting corpses hanging from hooks hammered into the wall. For some reason they didn’t smell, and he felt his fingers tingle with the proximity of magic. Not right, he thought. Not right at all.
“So we’re here,” Deathmask said, gesturing to the expansive and empty throne room. “Why are we here again?”
“Quiet,” Veliana said, glaring at him with her lone eye. She pointed to a door at the far right of the throne. “In there,” she said. “That will lead to several rooms for servants, and then the king’s quarters.”
Deathmask chuckled at the word ‘king.’ So far Melorak had been adamant no one call him a king, to the point of issuing an edict threatening pain of death to those who dared say it. He was a priest, a prophet, but not a king. It made no sense at all to Deathmask, but it did reinforce to him that whoever this man was, he couldn’t possibly be sane.
“There will be a secret passageway out of the room,” Veliana said. “So we have to strike fast to prevent him from fleeing.”
“I don’t think fleeing is something this guy does,” Deathmask said. Still, he did his best to open the door quietly. In the days of old, several guards would have stood at attention through all hours of the day to ensure the safety of king and queen’s possessions, so that no would-be assassin poisoned clothes or slipped snakes into the bed sheets. Now, though, it appeared Melorak feared nothing. No guards, not for him. Just the streets, and the exterior of the castle.
They crept down the hallway, silent as ghosts. They passed by two small doors, most likely servants’ quarters, and then small windows opened up along the wall, revealing glimpses of the bedroom. Paintings lined the walls, and long curtains trailed from the ceiling before looping back upward. In the center was the gilded bed, and through the thin curtains both assassins could clearly see a sleeping form.
See, he sleeps, Deathmask said through quick motions of his fingers in an intricate language thieves had developed over a hundred years.
Silent, Veliana signaled back. No pause. You right. Me left.
At the end of the hall was the door into the bedroom. Deathmask grabbed the latch with his left hand and cast a spell with his other. When he lifted the latch, it made not a sound. He touched the hinges and again cast the spell. The door swung open without the slightest creak. In perfect unison the two stepped into the room. Their footfalls were softer and quieter than a gentle snowfall. Their clothes did not rustle. No light glinted off their possessions. A shadow of death, the both of them.
And it didn’t matter.
Halfway to the bed, they stopped as the ceiling erupted in a cacophony of wails and shrieks. Veliana’s eyes glanced up. Her hands shook, and her heart skipped. Hidden by the many curtains and hanging by thick nails and hooks were twenty corpses, every one animated by Melorak’s dark magic. Their eyelids were peeled and gone. The corpses saw the assassins’ entrance, and did exactly as they had been commanded to do: scream.
“Damn it,” Veliana shouted, her strong legs propelling her forward. Deathmask trailed after, a spell on his lips. They still had a chance, if they could catch Melorak in the confusion. Deathmask’s spell burst the curtains around the bed into flame, and through their dissipating ash Veliana leapt, her shortswords thrusting downward.
But for Melorak, there was no difference between dream and wake, for in both he dwelt in the darkness of Karak’s embrace. A cocoon of shadows swirled from underneath the bed, entombing his body. Veliana’s swords sparked at contact with it, and then the metal shattered. She screamed, the shards shooting back in all directions. Blood ran down her face and arms.
“Get out!” Deathmask shouted. He flung a bolt of magic, and in the brief flash of its travel a thin purple tail trailed after it like a comet. It splashed against the shadow barrier like water on stone. As Veliana retreated, clutching her face, the two felt icy shudders travel up and down their spines, for amid the din of undead shrieks they heard joyful laughter.
Melorak emerged from the cocoon with a smile on his face.
“The Ghost and his Blade,” he said, his smile growing. “How I’ve ached to meet you.”
His face was plain, his hair neat and trimmed. His teeth glimmered white compared to his dark skin and deep brown hair. If his face was plain, his eyes, however, were not. One shone a deep red, as if it were a window into the fiery abyss. The other was a milky white, victim to Mordeina’s dying queen in a last act of vengeance against the man who had destroyed her kingdom.
“We’ve met,” Deathmask said. His whole body straightened. “Bye now.”
He clapped. Power rushed forth, and before Melorak could react, a wall of fire cut the room in half, separating him from the assassins. Hand in hand, they fled.
“Find them, my children!” Melorak shouted, and his voice carried throughout the entire castle on magical wings. He waved his hands, whispering a prayer to Karak. The fire died. Still smiling, Melorak threw on his black priestly robes. He would make an example of the two assassins, and he intended it to be very long, and very public. He needed to be ready, for he had no doubt that they would be captured within the hour.
They had reached the throne room by the time Melorak’s command rolled through the castle. At first they feared guards, but when they turned a corner, a hand reached out, fingers entangling Veliana’s hair. She did not scream, only twist and kick. Her kick did nothing but sink into the rotten flesh of the corpse attached to
the walls. It screamed and moaned, still reaching.
“Go back to death you mongrel,” Deathmask said, shoving his fingers into the thing’s eyes. His magic poured in, releasing it from its spell. Flesh peeled, and innards plopped to the floor in a soupy mess. Veliana broke two of its fingers off getting the rest of her hair free, then threw the pieces of bone to the floor. On the other side of the hallway, another corpse waved its arms uselessly and shouted again and again in a mindless roar.
“The guards—” Veliana said. She didn’t need to finish, for Deathmask clearly understood as well. They fled down the hall, and with each turn, each step, their passage was tracked by the myriad of corpses shouting out their location. Calls of alarm from actual living guards soon joined their tail.
Deathmask followed Veliana with perfect trust. He slammed his fists to the ground at the first patrol they found, unleashing his fury into the stone. The floor cracked, and then spikes tore from ground to ceiling blocking them off. Veliana didn’t say a word at their sudden change in direction, only sprinting the other way, bobbing and weaving as necessary to avoid the undead arms and legs. They passed a flight of stairs, and almost as if it were an after-thought, the woman turned back and sprinted up them, Deathmask quickly after.
“Height is our friend now,” she said.
They travelled upward, into what appeared to be a tall defensive tower. They passed a few unused bunks for soldiers, along with many windows facing the steps leading up to the castle. Veliana peered through them, pondering.
“Time is not our friend,” Deathmask said.
“No use going further up,” Veliana said. “I hoped to avoid those damn undead, but there are no connecting bridges, no ladders, and no pathways. This is a dead end.”
“Then down we go,” Deathmask said.
As if in answer, they heard guards shouting, followed by the clanking of armor rushing up steps. Veliana kissed her palms with trembling lips. Purple fire engulfed them, making her deadly hands that much deadlier. Deathmask shook his head, realizing her aim.
“No last stands,” he said. “Not for us, not ever. We kill, or we flee. There is no in-between.”
“Then let’s kill,” she said. “For where else do we flee?”
“Come,” he said, grabbing her hand without harm. “We climb higher.”
Up the stairs they went. The rooms grew narrower, the furnishings more and more sparse. At last they were at the top, and Veliana held her breath at the view. There were windows on all sides, and barely enough room for the two of them to stand. She could see for miles in all directions. It felt like the entire tower shifted and swayed with the wind, and she clutched Deathmask for a moment as her fear got the best of her. At his smirk, though, she let go.
“Here is a much better place to kill,” he said.
They stood on either side of the stairs. The first guard to emerge from below died before his head was level with the floor. The second died before he knew the first was dead. The third died when the bodies of the first two exploded in shrapnel of bone and metal. The fourth waited for more guards.
Deathmask rushed from window to window while Veliana hovered over the stairs, her clenched fists eager to deal more death.
“Veliana!” he shouted. “How scared of heights are you?”
“More than of dying,” she shouted back. A cluster of undead had climbed up the stairs, and she repeatedly punched and kicked to topple them back.
“Is that your preference of those two options?”
Veliana glared at him.
“What have you got in mind, fool?”
Deathmask laughed, and without giving her any warning, he grabbed her hand and leapt out the window. So deep was her trust, so ingrained her discipline to follow her guild leader, she did not even hesitate. Out the window she jumped, still hand in hand with the laughing Deathmask.
Dark paladins were the next to arrive, and with flabbergasted looks they glanced around and wondered where the two could have possibly gone.
When they landed, and Deathmask let her go, Veliana promptly turned around and slapped him.
“Don’t you ever do that again,” she said.
Deathmask grinned. A large pair of bat-like wings stretched from his back to either side of the houses they were hidden between.
“You don’t like heights?” he asked.
“I’ve never seen you use that spell before,” she said, nodding to the wings.
“I never have,” he said, knowing what she was doing but going along anyway. “Normally the spell creates a pair of arms with claws to help with climbing. I made a tiny change and hoped for the best. And, as you see, we’re still alive.”
She slapped him again.
“Never risk my life on such a wild guess again,” she said.
“It was my life too, you know,” he said, stalking after. But she would hear none of it.
6
Mira stood before the dead bush, watching it as it burned. Her hands slowly danced, her fingertips glowing with magic. With every twitch the fire shrank or grew, as if it were nothing more than a manifestation of the girl’s smoldering emotions. Sadness crossed her face, and the fire shrunk, dwindled, becoming nothing but a faint hint of heat and light burning dull in the dim light of the stars.
“You all right?” a voice asked. Mira glanced back to see Lathaar approaching, his arms crossed as if he were cold.
“I’m fine,” Mira said, looking away. She closed her eyes, and with every step closer the paladin came, the fire grew deeper.
“You’ve been quiet lately,” Lathaar said, standing beside her. His arm wrapped around her waist. With a sigh, she closed her eyes and leaned against him.
“Something’s happened,” she said. “I’m not sure what it means.”
“Something?” he asked. “That’s a little vague. What’s bothering you?”
Mira gently pushed him away, then lifted her arms to the sky. A soft sigh escaped her lips.
“My mirror,” she said. “What happened to my mirror?”
The fire roared to life, higher and higher. It shot into the sky, a pillar of flame stretching to the heavens. Lathaar gaped at the sight, and without realizing it he stepped back as if afraid of the girl controlling the tremendous power. Then, with agonizing slowness, the fire lessened.
“Do you see?” Mira asked, her eyes closed and her head tilted back. The light washed over her in the gloomy night. “This is everything. My power used to ache within me, begging to be released. Now, the elements almost laugh at me, granting me their use for only a little while. My mirror…What happened to my mirror? Has Celestia abandoned us both? Am I to be punished for her actions? Or maybe this is my fault. I should be dead, Lathaar, dead and gone and with all of Dezrel better for it.”
Lathaar’s heart pained at hearing her words. He stepped closer and wrapped his arms around her shoulders, ashamed for having feared her presence, if only for a little while.
“You are as powerful as you are beautiful,” he told her. “Never say such a thing. I need you here with me. I need to remember why this world is so precious, so valuable. Why we fight.”
She turned from the fire and buried her face in his chest. His armor was cold. This angered her for some reason.
“Will you want me to fight with you tomorrow?” she asked.
Lathaar nodded.
“At my side. We know the demons overran Kinamn when they chased us west. How many still guard it, we don’t know. If we’re to have any hope of rest, we need to retake the castle. Within should be some supplies, and more so, we won’t have to worry about them harrying us as we flee west.”
“If we flee west,” Mira said. “Many wish to stop and fight. Our numbers will grow no larger.”
“That’s not true,” Lathaar insisted. “We have but a fraction of Mordan’s troops, and our contact with Ker is limited. Antonil is their king, and both will muster forces so great in number even Thulos will fear our might.”
Mira laughed.
&
nbsp; “He’ll fear nothing,” she said, kissing his chin. “Not us. Not our power. We’re playing his game, and as long as it is by his rules, we will lose.”
The two fell silent. The bush burned away to ash, its heat vanishing, its light gone.
“Let’s go to bed,” he told her. “Tomorrow will be a bloody day.”
“You go,” she said. “I’ll be with you soon. I wish a moment alone.”
He kissed her forehead, then gave in to her request. Once he was gone, she looked to the stars, a prayer to Celestia on her lips.
“Tell me what is right,” she whispered. “Tell me I have done no wrong. Tell me you love me, mother. Please. That’s all I ask.”
She went to Lathaar, having heard only silence.
Harruq stood beside Antonil, the two surveying the city in the distance from their spot atop a gentle hill.
“So you want me, Tarlak and the others to go crashing in, kill a bunch of demons, and basically distract them while the angels open the gates?” he asked.
“That’s the plan, yeah,” Antonil said. “Ahaesarus seemed to think it was workable.”
“Uh huh.” Harruq scratched his chin. “Care to answer me a question? Whose banner is that flying above the towers?”
Antonil squinted, his vision nowhere as excellent as the half-orc’s.
“I can’t tell. What’s it look like?”
Harruq frowned.
“Let me see…looks like a giant axe with a bloody handle.”
“That’s the White’s family banner,” said Antonil. “They’ve been flying that one for years.”
“So not the demons.” Harruq pointed. “So why is it up there above the city?”
This time it was Antonil’s turn to frown.
“You know, that’s a very good question.”
Behind them stretched the remains of Mordan’s army, preparing weapons and gathering into formations under Sergan’s sharp commands. The angels circled above, also preparing. Only one angel, Ahaesarus judging by his size, remained earthbound, talking with Tarlak at the outskirts of the human camps. Antonil put his fingers in his mouth and whistled until the wizard finally looked over.
The Half-Orcs: Books 1-5 Page 132
