by Ted Neill
“Kip!” Katlyn watched as the vaurg kicked the young man free of his ax head. Kip reeled, falling against the side of the bridge, his leathers opened revealing a terrible, bloody wound.
Tallia scrambled over the carcass of her horse, took hold of the handle of her sword and twisted it free of the vaurg’s knee. The toothy mouth opened in a wild cry of pain, the knee buckling. The vaurg caught Tallia with a backhanded swipe. She spun, dropping her sword, and collapsed on the ground dazed.
It was Katlyn’s turn—again—gone were the moments for a careful strike or calculated parry. The fight had degenerated into a desperate contest and she made any attack she could, swinging her sword with all her weight. Again, her blows were ineffective, bouncing off the plates of armor. She was a fly biting a bull and when the vaurg turned on her, she found herself bereft of strategy except to ready herself to run.
The vaurg dragged his injured leg forward. His whip was halved and Katlyn out of range of his ax swing. So he moved closer while she continued to back away. At least she could draw him from the others. Tallia was still down but Kip rose from behind the vaurg, cast himself onto to his back, and wrapped the length of whip around the monster’s neck. His knees against the hump on the creature’s spine, Kip pulled, his arm muscles swelling. The monster’s slit eyes bulged. Kip tightened the grip and pushed off from the vaurg’s shoulder, twisting over the edge of the bridge, bracing his shaking legs on the side so that he balanced over the surface of the water. His tendons corded, his teeth were bared, and eyes squeezed almost shut, but Kip persisted. The vaurg strained.
“His legs . . . trip his legs,” Kip said.
Katlyn searched the ground for the spear once more. It had landed a few feet away. This time she aimed for the vaurg’s clawed feet, stabbing the spear point down between two talons. It lifted its foot in a panicked reflex. It was just enough for it to lose grip and slide towards the edge of the bridge. Kip wound the remaining slack around his forearm, released his legs, and let himself fall.
Katlyn gasped as he disappeared over the side. The length of whip went taut, snapping back the vaurg’s neck, toppling him, and flipping him over the side, leaving a swath of dark blood behind. Katlyn rushed to the side and looked into the water. Aside from a foam of bubbles on the waving surface of the harbor, there was no sign of Kip or the vaurg.
She collapsed against the bridge, breathing hard, trembling, as she had after she had slain the Rakne. She surveyed the carnage immediately around her, becoming aware of the cries and the clash of arms in the plaza beyond the city gate. They had to move. She crawled over to Tallia.
“Is it dead?” she asked.
“Thanks to Kip,” Katlyn said.
Tallia pushed herself up, Katlyn helping. They gathered what weapons they could. Katlyn was relieved to see Tallia seemed to have her fill of combat and was making her way back to the mainland. But both of them stopped when they heard their names.
“Katlyn, Tallia!”
They turned to see Nathan running just under the portcullis, the wreckage of the shell still holding the iron gate open. His face was dark with soot, his clothes disheveled, as if he had been wrestling for his life.
“Nathan!”
“Come, help. Gunther is hurt.”
There was no denying his request. They both ran as fast as they could, towards the gate, towards the fighting.
“Are you all right?” he asked, looking at their bloodstained clothes.
“Yes. It’s other’s blood, mostly.”
“Where is Gunther?” Tallia asked.
“Just inside the gate. A vaurg stabbed him.”
Nathan led them over the bodies strewn about the smoking gate into the plaza on the far side. The battle had moved from the center of the plaza into the streets that led deeper into the city, the vaurgs having fallen back to their barricades. Katlyn saw Kalief and Lasolorn leading a contingent of fighters down an avenue after a retreating horde of vaurgs. A stone’s throw away Haille and Veolin rounded a corner on an alleyway and disappeared from sight. Val, Cody, Chloe, and Gail were in the center of the worst of the fighting, but to her relief, Katlyn counted more allies than enemies, more fallen vaurgs than fallen elves and humans.
“Katlyn, come!” Tallia called to her.
She turned and followed after her friend, who was close on the heels of Nathan. Gunther was where Nathan had left him, leaning against a stairway that led up the side of the city wall. The bodies of burnt and disemboweled vaurgs that Nathan had slain with his power were scattered about in a circle of carnage.
“We were pushed in with the wave of fighters coming down the causeway,” Nathan said. “We tried to help by forging spells against the vaurgs. But we got outnumbered and isolated.”
“Lucky you prevailed,” Katlyn said as they came to Gunther. He looked up, but his face showed worry, not relief.
“Katlyn, Tallia, what are you doing here?
“Helping you,” Nathan replied. “Take his legs.”
Gunther cried out as Katlyn and Tallia each took a leg. He had been wounded by an arrow in his hip and could not walk. Nathan lifted him at the shoulders and they carried him—painfully slow—towards the gate. They only traveled a few steps before they had to set him down to rest.
“This is madness! You all should get to safety. Leave me.”
Gunther’s words went unheard as Tallia cried, “Nathan, watch out!”
Nathan turned as three green imps approached, wings snapping, claws tearing at the cobblestones of the plaza. Nathan dropped Gunther and sent up a wall of flame that caught the three vaurgs, turning them into fleeing fireballs.
“Come on,” Nathan said, taking up Gunther’s weight again, but they only made it a few more feet when the commotion across the plaza grabbed their attention.
The vaurgs had counterattacked. Elves and men were falling and fleeing before a shape that barreled through their numbers. A similar retreat was taking place on the opposite side of the plaza, the source the same: the Rakne. The dark elks plowed through the human and elven fighters alike, sending them flying with swipes from the antlers. Katlyn’s skin went cold from her temples to her toes as she recognized the blue-black leader of the vaurgs mounted on the back of one of the Rakne. She had last seen him on the edge of the river Gillithwaine in the farthest reaches of Sidon among the horde of vaurgs that had chased them to the edge of their territory. He was their hideous chief, their malevolent king. One of his arms was missing, torn from his body by the vines of the forest. With the arm that remained, he wielded a poleax. It was bright with the blood of those who had challenged him and had lost. Before her eyes he swung the ax and cast down a band of elves and men in his midst right before trampling them under the hooves of the elk.
“Oh no.”
Nathan felt Gunther tense in his arms as they watched Gail, Val, Cody, and Chloe move to confront the dark elk and his fearsome rider.
“We should help them,” Gunther said as his wife rushed into danger.
“We have other problems,” Tallia said. The second elk, this one riderless, was bearing down on them, his rack of antlers lowered, his nostrils flaring.
“Back to the stairs,” Nathan cried. They gathered up Gunther and beat a path for the stairs, dragging the wounded weather worker up behind them. Katlyn pushed aside the body of a dead vaurg and then a dead elf, sending them tumbling down the stairs. The elk took both in his antlers and flung them aside, then placed a hoof on the bottom stair.
It only reached the second step before Darid emerged from the chaos of the plaza and swung his sword at the elk’s neck. It pivoted, caught his blow on its antlers, and heaved him backwards. Then it reared and dropped its hooves at Darid’s head. He did not retreat. Instead he drove forward, slashed the elk’s belly, opening a long red gash. The strike cost him for the elk was close enough to catch the Karrithian on the point of an antler and send him spinning to the side. Darid tripped over the bodies littered on the ground but balanced himself on a knee just in t
ime to parry the oncoming thrust of the elk. He reached to his back, drew a second short sword from a scabbard there and locked both in the elk’s antlers, his face red with exertion.
“We have to help,” Nathan said. His own scabbard was empty. “Katlyn, give me your sword.”
Katlyn drew it and tossed it to him before she and Tallia pulled Gunther up another stair. Nathan descended. His powers were barely recovered but he forced a mild bolt of power into the elk’s flank, if nothing else, to draw its attention. It turned its head to watch Darid from one eye, Nathan from the other. Then it made a feint for Nathan. Nathan—foolishly—bit, dodging to the side. But the elk must not have considered him a real threat, for its true target was still Darid, who had also been fooled. He had stepped forward, left himself unprotected, only to be assailed by the elk, an antler point slipping beneath his shoulder plate and skewering his arm. Darid winced, his arm going limp and dropping one of his swords. He flung the other at the elk, but the angle was all wrong and it slipped harmlessly to the ground. Now the Rakne marched forward, building up into a gallop, and drove Darid into the city wall beneath the stairs. Katlyn and Tallia cried out. Darid, his hands uselessly clutching the antlers, tried to free himself. Nathan readied his sword and rushed in, aiming for the tendons in the elk’s hind legs. But the creature was wise to him—again—and shot out a leg, striking him square in the face.
The impact was sharp and tremendous. Stars swam before Nathan’s eyes and a ringing buzzed in his ears. He knew he was stumbling, as if drunk, to the side, but he could not feel his legs. He didn’t even know if he was still holding his sword. All he could focus on was not falling, even though that was all his body wanted to do. In his pain and dizziness he somehow managed to stagger away—away from the elk and away from the stairs. He was facing the battle now, observing it in a detached manner. His thoughts loose and unconnected, he imagined he saw Haille and Veolin leading a line of prisoners to safety. He noted a surge of fighters, the roaring vaurgs, and a face . . . a face that he knew. Among the figures—and there were many now in the plaza—he saw a face that he recognized. It was one he had not seen in years but he knew him when he saw him. The face from many years ago on the island of his home when he had been taken away from him parents, the face of his master, the face of the Magus.
Then he fell forward and knew no more.
Nathan spun backwards from the blow from the elk’s hind leg, staggered for a few steps and then collapsed face down in the plaza. Katlyn called out to him but he did not move even as the battle shifted and a stream of people emerged led by Veolin and Haille—men, women, children, fleeing the catacombs where they had been trapped. Now liberated by Haille and Veolin, they ran for the gate.
But the vaurgs were after them, taking down stragglers. Veolin and Haille led a contingent of fighters against them, defending the escapees as best they could, but it left no one to help Darid.
Except us.
Tallia, hot-blooded as she was—realized this first. She scampered down the stairs, picked up a hand ax from a dead vaurg and struck at the elk’s flank. The weapon bit into its flesh but the elk did not release Darid. Instead it further slammed him against the wall, further impaling him.
Tallia reached for the hand ax where it was lodged in the elk’s mounded muscle, but it was stuck fast. With a shake of its head, the elk dropped Darid to the ground then swung for Tallia. Being small worked to her advantage. She rolled beneath the elk’s swing and stopped just under its belly. But she was weaponless and helpless.
Katlyn’s own sheath was empty, her sword lying next to Nathan. She patted her belt, looking for a knife, anything, when her hand touched something smooth, not metal, not bone.
The antler from the Rakne they had slain at the lake.
She drew it out, called to Tallia, and tossed it down to her. It spun in the air, glittering not unlike Adamantus’ own crown of antlers. The flash of light caught the dark elk’s eye, which rolled to the corner of its socket, tracing the path downward from the stairs as it tumbled through the air to Tallia’s outstretched hand. By some miracle she caught it and in the same motion she swept it upwards in an arc, burying it deep into the elk’s chest.
She struck true and must have found the heart for she was quickly drenched in a shower of blood, baptized as if in some barbaric ritual. She thrust farther, her teeth white in a mask of red. Katlyn could see all the force of righteous vengeance for her people, her friends, and family in Tallia’s wild eyes, eyes that closed, sensual with relief, as the elk’s own eyes went wide, its mouth gaped open, and it side stepped, trembling.
Then Chloe was there and sank a lance into the creature’s side with a scream. She was followed by Val, Gail, Cody, and others. But the wounds they inflicted were only hastening the inevitable. Tallia had struck the fatal blow. The elk fell over, dead at their feet.
Something had shifted. The vaurgs were no longer attacking but fleeing, their resurgence broken. The blue-black leader in his gold armor was retreating. Katlyn tried to account for all her friends. Chloe was already climbing the stairs to Gunther’s side. Val and Cody were tending to Darid, who had come to and was leaning on his elbow. Gail, once assured that her master was safe, stood up, her face an inscrutable mix of relief and dissatisfaction. She looked across the plaza at the fleeing shape of the last Rakne with its vaurg rider.
“There is still one left to finish,” she said and was gone. As Gail raced across the pools of blood spread on the cobblestones, Katlyn noticed Veolin peel off from where she fought beside her brothers to follow Gail. Haille was nowhere to be seen but she assumed he was with the other fleeing Carasanians making for the safety of the mainland by the causeway. With Gunther now in Chloe’s care, Katlyn slid down the steps on her backside, landed with a thud, and ran over to where she had seen Nathan fall.
But he was gone.
Chapter 23
The Magus
Veolin drove a dagger into the eye of one of the vaurgs guarding the underground prison cells, then took his head off at the neck with her sword. Haille pushed to keep up with her pace and her fury, engaging the other guard and exchanging a few rapid strokes before slipping Elk Heart past the vaurg’s defenses and stabbing him through the heart.
Both guards dead, the others fleeing, Veolin and Haille pulled open the doors to the catacombs that ran beneath the streets of the city. The other elves that had accompanied them on the rescue caught up with them and helped to pull the doors open. The blast of cool air that wafted out was stale and smelled of the hundreds of people kept in captivity below the city. They were pale, thin, their eyes sunken in their sockets, but they were blessedly alive. Haille counted women, children, and men among them. He took the scimitars and hand axes from the dead vaurgs and handed them to the first two men to emerge.
“We’ll need every fighting man we can get.”
The men nodded and fell in with the other fighters who were shepherding the released Carasanians to the plaza and the causeway to the safety of the mainland. Among the prisoners Haille recognized Antans he knew, if not by name, by face: people from the court, even a few of his teachers from the academy. When he saw Madam Havisham, his teacher, who had given him his punishment for tripping Katlyn, he called to her. Her face registered such surprise, her hands coming together over her heart before she embraced Haille like a lost son.
“Prince Haille, you are alive and come to our rescue.”
“With help of friends. There are Antans here?”
“Yes, many. They fled Antas when the city fell. The council came here.”
“Where are they?”
“Deeper in the catacombs. I’m sure they are helping up the old and the wounded.”
“Take me to them.”
She did, calling out to the fleeing people, “Make way for Prince Haille Hillbourne, our liberator and savior.”
The flow of escapees parted slightly for them to pass but closed again as grateful citizens pressed forward to touch Haille, clasp his hand, o
r touch his passing shoulders. It was not the response he was used to as Talamar’s Bane, but he thought back to what Val had said about a prince representing hope.
Maybe he spoke true.
The catacombs were used as storage, shelter from storms, and in parts, a prison. The deeper chambers had been used for the sick, injured, and old. Members of the council, nobles, teachers, field workers, and servants all mixed together, helping the stragglers out. Haille found Mykvell Mayrs, one of the council members supervising the lifting of a few wounded men on stretchers. He had been a rotund man but in captivity he had leaned down, his skin hanging in folds on his face to make him seem older than he was.
“Prince Haille,” he cried out. “You are the one to release us?”
“One of many. Hopefully we will liberate the city but first we must get you all to safety. Where are the other council members?”
“Lady Migdoll, Roland Hollyheed, and Joseph Mesphin are here. Lady Radley was closer to the front and I guess already above ground. Lady Breathcotte is dead. So is Heath Reighly.”
“Yana?”
“Yana Yansalyl has been held apart from us,” a familiar voice said from behind him. Haille turned to face his sword instructor Ivan. He could not keep himself from embracing his old mentor and friend.
“Ivan, you made it to Carasans too?”
“Only to be imprisoned with the rest. My chances might have been better had I fled east.”
“The vaurgs made a rampage there as well.”
“At least I could have fought against them more.”
“There will be opportunity for that if you want. There are vaurgs a plenty still above.”
“Let me find a sword.”
Yana was not yet found, but Haille felt hope within him. They had breached the city walls, driven the vaurgs back, and now rescued the citizens trapped as hostages. The tide was turning and with more fighters like Ivan Greenwolfe joining the resistance, Haille’s heart swelled with the same optimism that he saw in the faces of the freed prisoners.
