The bestiarum, all brute strength and animal might.
The demon, malice incarnate and raging with fury at being so opposed.
Dwimervane, powerful and true, with the heart of a summer storm.
And Aurelian, shining with a light that belied his ravaged body and ill-tempered tongue.
But there was something else, something hidden.
With a sudden flush of dread Dusaule realised that the demon had a final card to play.
Taking a step forward he raised his shield and drew his sword. Then, with the frown deepening upon his brow Dusaule advanced, pushing his way through the thinning ranks of the soldiers. The battling titans were now dangerously close and the Queen’s knights formed a defensive line in front of her.
The rest of the battle seemed to fade away as Dusaule focussed all his attention on the demon, but try as he might he could not discern the nature of the attack that it was holding in check. Ahead of him Aurelian was struggling to hold the demon at bay. Dusaule saw him dodge a great claw swipe and blast off a quick fireball but then the demon struck him in the chest with a heavy blow that left him dazed and vulnerable. The demon drew back its fist and Aurelian would have died if Dwimervane had not lunged forward, clamping the demon’s arm in her jaws before it could deliver a fatal blow. However, the instinct to protect Aurelian left her exposed and the dragon gave a grunt of pain as the bestiarum thrust one of its curved horns into her belly.
Dwimervane was thrown onto her side and she let out a terrible roar as she felt the horn tear free. With blood gushing from her side she tried to rise, but the bestiarum attacked again, driving a horn deep into the dragon’s chest.
Dusaule’s mind screamed as he saw the beautiful blue dragon go down. And with this burst of emotion the demon was suddenly aware of his presence. Realising that it was now facing two Defiants, the demon started to pray. Dusaule pushed forward, but even as he broke through the last of the soldiers he realised he was too late.
Something was coming up from below.
*
Aurelian felt his ribs crack as the demon struck him in the chest. Through bleary eyes he saw Dwimervane grab the demon’s arm in her jaws only to be struck down by the bestiarum. He tried to come to her aid, but the demon blocked his way and he could only watch as the beast drove a sharp horn into Dwimervane’s chest.
‘NO!’ screamed Aurelian as he sensed the mortal wound.
Blazing with fury he struck the demon with a bolt of primal force that sent the towering creature to its knees then, ignoring the pain in his chest, he surged forward. The demon reached out to grab him, but Aurelian stepped in close and drove his sword into the base of the demon’s neck. Light flared around the battle mage’s blade and cracks spread through the demon’s dark magmatic skin. With a roar of agony the demon clamped his massive hands over Aurelian’s shoulders. Baëlfire spread down its arms as it tried to prise the human free, but Aurelian refused to be moved. He flooded his body with fortification and channelled all his remaining strength into the blade of his sword.
*
Dusaule was too late to prevent the fatal attack on Dwimervane, but even as the bestiarum drew back he struck it in the side. His sword was not suffused with power but something of his emotion must have leached into the blade because it cut deep into the beast’s left shoulder.
With an unholy roar the beast turned its violence on Dusaule, but the silent Crofter was transported. He blocked the beast’s ravening maw with his shield and drew two heavy cuts across its chest. The bestiarum staggered as muscle and sinew were severed. Using the strength of its back legs it powered forward, but Dusaule side-stepped the charge and struck the bestiarum full in the face with his sword. The creature’s lower jaw swung loose and Dusaule finished it with a thrust that pierced its heart.
The massive beast collapsed and Dusaule turned to see Aurelian engulfed in a writhing mass of Baëlfire. The demon was on its knees, its hands gripping the battle mage as the two combatants glared into each other’s eyes. Trying to resist the screaming conflagration Aurelian leaned against his sword, but his strength was beginning to fail and the flames of hell were taking hold in his hair and clothes.
Moving towards them Dusaule used all his strength to protect his friend from the flames. Aurelian had beaten the demon. It was dying. But now it looked like the one armed battle mage would die with it. The vortex of Baëlfire now engulfed them both and Dusaule felt the terrible heat of it upon his face. Aurelian’s power was all but spent and the only thing that prevented him from being consumed was the strength of Dusaule’s love.
Caught in a storm of hellfire Aurelian’s vision began to fade.
Dwimervane was dead and it was time for him to join her.
Even as Aurelian drifted towards oblivion Dusaule pushed into the flames to strike the demon from behind. His blade clove through the demon’s neck, and the Baëlfire suddenly flared as the demon arched its back in pain. With all his energy focussed on protecting Aurelian, Dusaule had nothing left to protect himself. Even as the demon died so the dark flames burned away his clothes and reduced his face to a bloody mask of glistening flesh. The muscles and tendons in his sword arm were laid bare as he stood there, twitching and trembling in unspeakable pain. But he would not complain.
Finally, here was a penance to match the pain he felt inside. Swaying in agony Dusaule was waiting for death to claim him when the earth behind him bucked and broke apart. The demon’s dying prayer was suddenly answered as another massive bestiarum burst out of the ground.
In a haze of agony Dusaule saw the beast explode from the earth. Like a monstrous hound, with cinder black skin and a thick mane of wiry hair, the beast looked round for something to kill. And its glowing eyes settled on the Queen.
Soldiers scattered before it and the only ones to hold their ground were the ten knights of the Queen’s honour guard. Two charged forward but the beast killed them both as it drove directly for the Queen. The others fought to hold it back but the beast was too strong and with a dreadful revelation Dusaule realised he could not allow himself to die just yet.
Stumbling forward he started towards the Queen but his burned legs would not move quickly enough. The world seemed to tilt and his sword slipped from his fire-scourged hand. Dusaule knew he was not going to get there in time. The beast tore through the knights as if they were children on village ponies and then it reached for the Queen.
Dusaule watched as Souverain reared up, driving his steel shod hooves into the bestiarum’s face but the beast barely seemed to notice the blows. It felled the warhorse with a slash to the chest and caught the Queen’s sword arm in its crushing jaws.
Dusaule accepted the pain in his body. He accepted the pain in his heart. He had killed something of grace and beauty and he did not deserve to live. On the night of that murder he had sworn never again to use his powers for violence and even now he would not have used them to save his own soul. But he would use them to save his Queen.
Reaching deep inside he tried to find the withered spark of fire that he hoped still burned within him. For a moment he thought it might have gone, snuffed out at last by the crushing weight of guilt. But then, in the vast emptiness of his soul he found it.
He called to it.
And it answered him.
*
The Queen watched in horror as the beast exploded out of the earth. Soldiers scattered and even her knights were smashed aside as the bestiarum tore its way towards her. There would be no wall of invisible force to stop such a monster now. She had seen both Aurelian and Dusaule disappear in the final blast of the demon’s fire.
The last of her knights were rent aside and Souverain reared up as the beast leapt towards her. The stallion’s brave attack had little effect and the horse screamed as the beast’s talons slashed deep into his chest. Even as the Souverain fell the Queen tried to attack but the beast’s jaws closed over her sword arm, crushing the armour of Antonio Missaglias as it tore her from the saddle. She hit the ground
hard with the beast looming over her, its teeth still locked on her arm then it shook its massive head and tore the arm away from her body.
The Queen’s body shook with a great convulsion as her arm was bitten off, leaving only a short stump of broken bone and ragged flesh. Black shapes swam before her eyes and the world seemed to echo strangely as the blood gushed from her body. Not satisfied with an arm, the beast clawed at her body, tearing the armour from her right leg and snapping the horse-head belt from around her waist. Hot saliva dripped from the beast’s jaws as its teeth reached for her face but then it disappeared in a flash of blinding light.
*
So strong was Dusaule’s burst of power that it blasted the bestiarum away from the Queen. The massive beast spun round, its ribs laid bare by a great smoking hole in its side. It turned its baleful gaze on this new attacker and charged towards him.
The silent Crofter watched it come, his mind burning with the force of his own power. With frightening speed, the bestiarum leapt towards him, lips drawn back over jagged teeth.
Twenty yards...
Ten...
And then Dusaule killed it.
Raising his hand he struck it in the chest with a beam of fearsome light. The beast seemed to hang in the air as the fire illuminated its body from within, its bones showing dark through the shredded membrane of its skin. The remains of the creature ground to a halt at Dusaule’s feet, now little more than a mound of charred bone and smoking flesh.
Dusaule gave it not another thought. All his mind was focussed on the Queen and the life that was running out of her. On tortured legs he started forward, desperate to reach her before she was lost to darkness. But the blood was flowing too quickly, pulsing from her body with every fatal beat of her heart.
The silent Crofter struggled on, but his body had exhausted the last of its strength. Stumbling over the uneven ground he fell forward, his raw face pressed against the earth, his breath coming and going with a pained wheezing rasp. His body could go no further and so he reached out with the force of his mind, using all his power to keep the Queen on this side of the eternal veil.
*
The Queen could feel the life seeping out of her. It was as if she hovered over a great sea of darkness and she felt an overwhelming urge to sleep. She had heard sailors talk of the drowning sleep of death and she was certain that if she gave in now she would slip beneath the surface of the dark waters never to return. She felt her heart beginning to slow and her mind was suddenly filled with panic.
‘No!’ she pleaded in the dream-world of her mind. ‘I can’t leave. I can’t...’
But it was not the fear of dying that caused her so much distress. It was the fear of the emissary’s grief. How could he face the enemy if he knew that she was lost? It would destroy him, just as it would destroy her if she were ever to lose him.
‘Please,’ she sobbed but the power calling her to sleep was too great.
She tried to picture the Chevalier’s face, tried to remember the last moment they had shared on the high terrace of the palace. But the image was receding. She could no longer feel the touch of his fingers, the brush of his lips or the harsh stubble of his jaw against her cheek. He was fading and even the grey steel of his eyes seemed to blur with the looming sea of death.
‘I’m sorry, my love,’ breathed the Queen. ‘I’m sorry.’
As if from a great distance she could hear the sound of battle still raging around her but the sound was giving way to silence. For a moment she thought she heard the braying sound of Acheronian war trumpets but that was surely an illusion, a cruel trick of her failing mind.
Tears of regret ran down her face.
Then her heart beat once.
Twice.
And...
94
A Token of Love and Loss
The arrival of the Acheronian army marked the end of the Possessed and as the last of the fighting died away so an eerie silence settled over the valley. News of the Queen’s demise had now reached Sophia and a single bell began to toll, slow and mournful, from some tall tower in the city. The dark storm clouds still hovered to the east and the light began to fade as day gave way to night.
Down on the battlefield a tent had now been erected over the great souls that had fallen. In one compartment lay Aurelian and Dusaule, both alive but with their fates uncertain. In the other compartment lay Dwimervane, her scarred body curled with her wings folded as if in sleep. And beside the dragon, on a makeshift bier, lay the Queen, her slender body covered with a simple sheet of pure white linen. In each compartment were two knights standing guard over the unconscious, the dying, and the dead. The two knights in the Queen’s compartment looked straight ahead as Colonel Laville entered with King Tyramimus.
Moving to one side of the Queen’s bier Colonel Laville lifted the top edge of the sheet and drew it back so that King Tyramimus could look upon her face.
The great King felt a gut wrenching spasm at the sight of the chalk-white mask. It was almost twenty years since he had last laid eyes on the Queen, but he could still see the features of the fiery little princess in the face of the beautiful woman before him. His heart burned with grief and tears of shame rolled down his cheeks before disappearing into the black mass of his beard. With great tenderness he laid his hand against the cool skin of the Queen’s face.
‘Forgive me,’ he breathed, shamed by the courage and leadership this woman had shown. Then the king leaned in close and his voice dropped to a fierce and vengeful whisper. ‘Rest in peace, my Queen, and be assured that the Great Bull has finally heard your voice. I promise you that Clemoncé will not fall, not while one Acheronian warrior remains alive. It is time to raise our arm, and clench our fist, and let the hammer fall.’
The king’s tears were hot and bitter as he placed a kiss on Queen Catherine’s brow.
‘How did it happen?’ he asked as he straightened up and removed his hand.
‘A bestiarum,’ said Colonel Laville. ‘Even as the demon was slain.’ His own voice was hoarse with grief. With trembling hands he replaced the linen sheet as Tyramimus moved to the side of the tent where the Queen’s armour and sword had been laid out on a table.
Tyramimus ran his fingers over the bloody and battered armour, finally coming to rest on the black sword belt with its silver buckle in the shape of a horse’s head. The leather strands were torn and snapped but the king lifted it with great care as a new sadness dawned in his mind. He had heard of the tokens of mourning that the Queen wore to stall the advances of Prince Ludovico, tokens given to her by the man they called the Chevalier. Tyramimus had always thought it a gesture of naive sentimentality, but the Chevalier’s name was known even in Acheron and the king could not bear the thought of such a man hearing of the Queen’s death through the chattering gossip of the army.
Still holding the belt he turned as Anaximander entered the compartment. The battle mage had been doing what he could to help Aurelian and Dusaule.
‘Were you able to help them?’ asked Tyramimus.
‘Master Cruz has endured much but his mind is strong. He will wake in time,’ said Anaximander, his voice thick with his Acheronian accent. ‘As for Master Dusaule... I do not know how he is still alive.’
Tyramimus gave a grim nod. He too had been shocked by the horrible extent of Dusaule’s burns.
‘Could he not be made more comfortable in the city?’ he asked.
‘Perhaps,’ said Colonel Laville. ‘But any attempt to move him seems to cause him great distress,’
‘Something binds him to this world,’ said Anaximander. ‘But whatever it is, he will not suffer for long.’
Even as he spoke there came a choking sound from the other compartment. The three men moved through and Anaximander went immediately to Dusaule’s side as the dying man was gripped by a series of convulsions.
‘Even now he fights for something,’ said the battle mage as he tried to use his powers to ease Dusaule’s suffering. But slowly the life went out of th
e Silent Crofter’s body and with a last spasm he slumped back onto the blood soaked bed. A final breath issued from his blistered lips and he was gone.
‘Thank the stars,’ said Colonel Laville, his tone heavy with both sadness and relief. ‘For many years he endured life as one of the Disavowed. Now, at least, he is at peace.’
Anaximander frowned as he stood up from Dusaule. So this battle mage had been forced to kill the dragon that answered his summoning. Anaximander could not imagine the strength it would require to live with such an act. This explained some of the torment he had sensed in Dusaule’s mind.
With nothing left for them to do the three men made their way out of the tent. Tyramimus was still holding the black horse head belt and he bent his head to look at it as they stood in the cool night air.
‘The Chevalier deserves to know,’ he said.
‘The news will break him,’ said Colonel Laville.
‘Even so, he has a right.’
Despite his reservations, Colonel Laville gave a slow nod of agreement and Tyramimus turned to Anaximander.
‘Take this,’ he said, folding the broken belt into the battle mage’s hands. ‘Find the man they call the Chevalier and tell him the people of Acheron share in his grief.’
‘Where will I find him?’
‘Last we heard he was in the city of Hoffen,’ said Colonel Laville.
Anaximander gave a nod and tucked the belt into a leather pouch at his waist.
‘With your leave, my King,’ he said and with a bow he turned to his dragon who was standing in the dark close by.
King Tyramimus and Colonel Laville watched as the battle mage swung up onto the dragon’s back and turned the mighty creature to the northeast. The dragon took three quickening strides and leapt into the air and within seconds it had disappeared into the night, carrying a token of love and loss that was sure to break the emissary’s heart.
Battle Mage Page 82
