Heretic Spellblade

by K D Robertson

  For now, he waited.

  The armies clashed, and Nathan let out a breath he knew he was holding.

  “Were you this tense during the siege?” Vera asked, a look of concern on her face.

  “No. I didn’t give the order to start the siege,” Nathan replied.

  “Oh.”

  Everybody else had spread out prior to the start of the battle. Sen hurled fireballs over the heads of the Imperial soldiers. Her figure was easily visible due to the constant arc of flames flying from her, and the glowing triangles around her greatsword. Magical barriers blocked some of her spells, but she shattered most of them. The Federation magic users lacked the power to match Sen.

  Fei sat astride an automaton horse next to Sen. Occasionally, the beastkin Champion issued an order, but she mostly watched. Her role was to command the assault and protect Sen if necessary.

  Elsewhere, Leopold kept Anna company. Although both Bastions considered it unlikely, Seraph might attempt to assassinate Anna when she attacked. Leopold had the strength to counter her and withstand Seraph’s superior power for long enough.

  Although not visible, Sunstorm lurked in the distance. She kept watch for Seraph. Her ability to teleport and hide made her invaluable as an early warning system.

  The battle dragged on. The beastkin pushed forward. Howls rose up from the front ranks, and the wolves shattered a company of heavily armored knights. Imperial soldiers—beastkin and human alike—swarmed into the opening and tore a hole in the Federation line. Reserves poured forth from the rear of the Federation army, but they had to fight past fleeing soldiers from the front line. Panic ensued.

  As the Federation struggled to prevent a full-blown rout, Nathan kicked his horse forward. Vera followed him, and both of them galloped toward the front line.

  Fei spotted him and snapped out new orders. The entire battle shifted in a moment. Companies of soldiers that had stayed out of the battle surged forward. The hole in the Federation line was pushed open farther. The Imperial soldiers applied more pressure to the Federation, who fought back fiercely.

  A gap opened up in the Imperial lines. Several beastkin ushered Nathan and Vera through the gap. Nathan noticed that all of them were horse beastkin, their long, fine tails swaying energetically behind them.

  “Carve a hole,” Nathan shouted as he and Vera approached the thick of the battle. He drew his sword.

  He blasted a hole in the Federation defenders with a fourth rank spell. Many of those he knocked down got back up, but most didn’t. Fire poured down on the rest. Vera’s staff blazed with an endless stream of flames. Nathan allowed her to take the lead and blew away any soldiers that got too close.

  Spears bounced off the steel frames of the automaton horses they rode. Nathan winced as one soldier successfully hit him in the calf, before blowing away the offender.

  Then the soldiers vanished. The horses leaped over a pile of rubble that had once been the outer wall of the tower. Row after row of tents flew past as Nathan and Vera rode toward the base of the tower without stopping. A handful of soldiers and camp followers stared at them. Some grabbed weapons and gave chase.

  The doors to the tower were shut. They glowed faintly. Locked with magic.

  Nathan leaped off his horse. Vera followed suit more sedately, demonstrating less experience in jumping off horses mid-battle. She strode up to the door and unlocked it. The stone double doors swung open without a sound.

  Looking behind them, Nathan realized that the Federation soldiers hadn’t given up. Rather than blow them away, he took the simpler route. He unsummoned the horses and followed Vera inside the tower. In the distance, he thought he heard the battle getting closer, as if soldiers were pushing forward to the tower at a rapid pace.

  The moment he stepped inside the tower, the doors slammed shut. Vera’s back faced him, and she gestured for him to follow him with her hand. She didn’t slow down. Her stride was purposeful as she walked across the bottom level of her tower. The tower remained well lit, presumably as the lights drew power from the cairn.

  A few corpses remained here, Nathan noticed. Not all of them were on the ground level, which is where Vera had fought off the intruders. But most were.

  According to Vera, the doors to her tower automatically locked upon closing. She compared them to a magical deadbolt. Anybody who wanted to open the doors needed a magical key to match the spell keeping them closed. If the Federation closed the doors, or let them be closed for any reason, then those still inside the tower would have been trapped. Some of the corpses probably belonged to people who starved to death.

  Accompanying the corpses were the remains of Vera’s summons. Plates of armor and weapons, mostly. Vera had more summons within the tower, supposedly. Nathan couldn’t see where they might be hidden.

  He caught up to Vera and made it to the stairwell before her. Turning while he waited for her, he noticed that she had stopped.

  Vera stood close to the center of the room. She didn’t speak or react to Nathan’s questioning gaze.

  This tower contained a cairn. A pile of rocks imbued with magic that allowed sorcerers to easily channel large volumes of magic from the leylines. Nathan suspected that the cairn was underneath them although he didn’t see any way in the tower to go underground.

  He met Vera’s gaze. She stared back at him impassively. No magic came to life in her hands, but that didn’t mean much. Nathan couldn’t hear anybody outside, or anybody inside for that matter. This tower contained only the two of them.

  “So, are you going to join me at the top of the tower or try to kill me here?” Nathan asked.

  Chapter 38

  “At least, I’m assuming that’s what you’re deciding on now,” Nathan added. “I can’t tell. I’m pretty convinced that you’ve been helping the Federation, but you’ve done a pretty terrible job of it.”

  “You don’t look surprised,” Vera replied after a long pause.

  “Like I said, I’m pretty convinced that you haven’t really been on my side,” Nathan said.

  “Define ‘your side,’ Nathan,” Vera said.

  An excellent question, in Nathan’s mind.

  “The side that doesn’t want an army of demons pouring into the countryside?” Nathan tried. “That stunt by the Federation could have wiped out the entire county. Or even more. A demonic invasion away from a binding stone is notoriously difficult to stop, and attracts unwanted attention.”

  Vera frowned at him. “Who considers it notorious? And attention from who? You’ve mentioned more of your secret ‘Bastion knowledge’ than Leopold has ever let slip. Most of the books I’ve been able to get my hands on say nothing about many of the things you’ve mentioned. I asked an old friend of mine about those Messengers you brought up months ago, and he hadn’t heard of them.”

  Of course he hadn’t. The idea of demonic generals capable of crushing Bastions like ants was too terrifying for the public to know about. Nathan doubted even the Emperor knew much about them.

  “There’s an uninhabited peninsula to the east of the Federation that has been overrun by demons. Don’t you find it strange that nobody talks much about it?” Nathan said.

  Vera remained silent, but grimaced.

  “That’s the side I’m on, Vera. The one that doesn’t want the world turned into an uninhabitable wasteland,” Nathan continued. “Hence why I became worried when you didn’t seem to be on the same side.”

  “I helped you stabilize the leylines,” Vera protested. “I even fought the Federation when they attacked. How did you even know to suspect me?”

  “Initially, I was uncertain. But I grew suspicious of you because of how unwilling you were to take action to stop the bandits,” Nathan explained. “The Federation had funded them in the past, the leylines were being disrupted, and now the bandits were attacking a town. But you didn’t lift a finger to help an old friend. Anna described you as embittered toward the Empire.”

  “Are you sure you weren’t merely paranoid?” Vera
said drily.

  “I prefer to think that I plan for contingencies,” Nathan replied. He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “One of those included the possibility that either you or Anna were working with the Federation.”

  “Anna?” Vera scoffed. “You suspected Anna?”

  “Briefly.” Nathan shrugged. “She had reason to be upset with the Empire. And there was nothing to suggest that she was incompetent—the opposite, in fact. She cares too much about her family, her pride, and her position in the Empire to betray it, however. To say nothing of what would happen to her brother if she betrayed the Empire. He’s still fighting against Trafaumh up north, after all.”

  “You seem convinced from the start that somebody was working with the Federation,” Vera said after a pause.

  “Because that’s how the Federation operates. It expands by creating new provinces and offering power to people who are bitter that they have been overlooked. Torneus is very, very good at finding people who will do things that they otherwise wouldn’t, because they have been refused things that they feel they deserve.”

  Vera stared at him. “You know Torneus?”

  “I know how he operates rather well,” Nathan said. Elaborating this much was dangerous, he realized. But not talking about the manipulative old bastard hanging over Vera’s head was far more dangerous.

  “And you thought Torneus was interested in me?” Vera asked.

  “Maybe. I didn’t know for sure until very recently. Until then, I only had your suspicious behavior,” Nathan admitted.

  Her refusal to stop the bandits. Her aggression toward him when he first arrived. Her dismissive attitude toward the idea of the Federation attacking the Empire, even though they had been funding the bandits for years.

  “But I helped you,” Vera protested.

  “I’ll admit I’m not sure about your motives for doing that,” he said, scratching the back of his neck. “But you outed yourself in the battle at the cairn when you chased after Sunstorm. You should have died when you fought her. There’s no way that you could have survived a one-on-one fight with her. I assumed that you passed on a message when you chased her.”

  “… Shit,” Vera muttered. “I knew it would look bad in retrospect, but I didn’t think you already suspected me by then.”

  “Really? I all but accused you of potentially working with them when I pointed out that a Federation Champion was skulking around your tower,” he pointed out.

  Vera blinked. She opened her mouth to reply, then closed it.

  Moments later, she covered her face with her palm and stared up at the very top of her tower. Nathan thought she was going to scream in frustration. He glanced around, checking for any signs of an ambush.

  Nothing had changed. No summons had emerged from the shadows, and he neither saw nor felt anybody arrive. He couldn’t feel Seraph’s power outside, either.

  “So you knew it was me from the start,” Vera said when she recomposed herself.

  “Like I said, I suspected somebody. You confirmed my suspicions through your actions,” he said. “You wanted to become a Bastion. The Empire refused you. You became angry. Leopold frustrated you because he stopped helping you and continued to keep his secrets, and eventually Anna gave up on you. Then Torneus offered you the binding stone in exchange for betraying the Empire. All you had to do was undermine the defense of Gharrick Pass and constantly mislead Anna.”

  Vera grimaced and looked away. She didn’t refute his story. Maybe he had missed a few details, but he seemed to have gotten it largely right.

  “What I don’t understand is why you helped me stop the Federation?” Nathan asked.

  “… Because they didn’t tell me everything,” Vera muttered. “I’m not lying when I say that you’ve told me more about Bastions than anybody else I’ve ever met. Everybody—Sunstorm, Torneus, Seraph, Leopold—they all know so much more but kept me in the dark. Then you told me what the Federation plan really was.”

  “Demons,” Nathan said.

  “Yes,” Vera said. She looked him in the eyes. “That’s why I initially helped you. And what I told Sunstorm. I refused to help the Federation with a plan that relied on a demonic invasion of the county.”

  Something clicked in Nathan’s mind. The gap between the Vera in front of him, who was so angry and bitter at the Empire, and the heroic Vera from his timeline.

  They were the same person. There was no gap.

  Instead, the heroic Vera saw the consequences of her betrayal firsthand. She saw demonic portals open in her homeland, demons tear apart Gharrick County and destroy Trantia, and possibly even the death of one of her oldest friends.

  History never recorded the fact that she helped the Federation destroy the Empire. The Federation never admitted that they were involved in any way beyond attacking the Empire, as intentionally starting a demonic invasion was heresy of the highest order.

  What history recorded was a Vera that saw the chaos she had wrought and chose to die fighting against the people who had caused it, rather than silently take the reward the Federation offered her.

  Nathan wondered how much of what he thought he knew from his timeline was wrong, or at least slanted. Leopold was a vastly different man to how he had imagined him to be.

  “Once I returned to my tower, that wasn’t the end of it,” Vera continued, bringing Nathan back to the current timeline. “Seraph wanted me to help with the assault on your castle. She explained that you would be in the middle of dealing with a demonic invasion. I realized that she had planned for the possibility that you would stabilize the leylines.”

  “And then?” Nathan asked.

  “Then Leopold turned up and acted like his secretive, condescending self. He seemed more interesting in testing you than stopping the Federation. I was convinced that I was right to support Seraph.” Vera gave Nathan a humorless smile. “Except something about you changed him. You were a step ahead of Seraph. You knew about the ‘cascade’ as you called it. Despite your bullshit explanation about how you didn’t understand what was going on, everybody knew that you had been busy planning for a demonic invasion since the moment you captured Sen.”

  Vera laughed. “Goddess, you even stalled the invasion for weeks. Sunstorm kept asking me if I had heard anything from you, as she became convinced that you had been invaded and Theus had forgotten to tell Seraph.”

  “You’re beating around the bush,” Nathan said.

  “True.” Vera sighed and run a hand through her gorgeous red locks. “I got cold feet.”

  “Obviously.”

  She glared at him, and he raised his hands defensively.

  “I got cold feet because I realized you didn’t deserve this,” Vera explained. “Anna didn’t either. She had been screwed by the Empire as badly as I had been, but kept going. At first I hated you. You had become a Bastion where I failed. You had what I wanted. But…”

  Nathan waited.

  “But you lost everything to become a Bastion,” she said. “Your family, your home, your title. All gone. And here you are, a Bastion so excellent that even Leopold is impressed. Maybe there was a reason I failed to get into the academy. Maybe there wasn’t. But I at least know it’s wrong to hold it against you. I couldn’t help but imagine if our roles were switched. You’re even a sorcerer, and your thirst for knowledge about Bastions must be as great as mine, given how much you’ve learned so fast.”

  Vera raised her arms into the air in a shrug, palms open, and gave him a helpless look. For the first time, Nathan saw her not as a powerful sorceress, but simply as somebody who was struggling to find their path in life.

  Paths. Nathan saw a lot of diverging paths for people these days. For a man who disliked contemplating his own future, he found himself guiding or shaping the futures of far too many people.

  This time that future might end very quickly depending on his decision.

  “And do you have cold feet now?” Nathan asked. His voice echoed within the tower.

  �
��The plan was for me to signal Seraph once I got to the top of the tower. She would attack, which would distract your Champions and Leopold. Anna’s army will clump up in the center of the battlefield as they try to capitalize on the ‘opening’ they’ve made in the Federation ranks,” Vera explained. “Easy prey for my spells, especially empowered with my cairn.”

  “You’re dodging the question,” Nathan said. “Besides, how did you plan to deal with me? Or any other Champion that went with you? Until you reconnect with your cairn, you’re far weaker than a monogem Champion or Bastion.”

  Vera smirked and wiggled her fingers in the air. Her many rings glimmered in the light. Nathan’s eyes ran across the many other pieces of jewelry and adornments on Vera’s outfit. He had written them off as aesthetic choices.

  It suddenly occurred to them that might have been a mistake.

  “What’s one of the most obvious tactics to use when facing a sorcerer in control of a cairn?” Vera said.

  “Prevent them from using the cairn in the first place,” Nathan answered. He stared at her jewelry. His fingers twitched, but he kept his cool. He left his sword in its sheath and didn’t touch its hilt.

  “Mm-hmm,” Vera hummed. “You had Fei beat Sen black-and-blue in the forest. But in my tower, an enemy is more likely to use some grander spell to cut me off. So I have my own tricks to remain connected to my cairn. I didn’t lie to you that I’m not connected to it.”

  “Your jewelry. It channels magic,” Nathan said dully.

  “That’s right. Each of my rings and chains is tethered to the cairn. Even if my connection is severed, their connections remain. So long as I’m inside my tower, I can always draw on my cairn,” Vera said triumphantly.

  She had an edge that Nathan hadn’t anticipated. With the backing of her cairn, Vera held the raw power of a monogem Champion. Unlike Sen, who lacked the speed and expertise to cast spells while under attack by Fei, Vera was an accomplished sorceress. The Imperial Sorcerer’s Lodge recognized her.