The Name Of The Sword (Book 4) (35 page)

Her legs still felt a little weak, so she reached out and put a hand on a crenel to steady herself. Magwa pointed up to the sky and said, “Look.”

Rhianne craned her neck to look in the direction the bitch-queen pointed, saw what looked to be a murder of crows high in the sky, but instinct told her otherwise. AnneRhianne, an ancient Benesh’ere princess, had haunted Rhianne’s dreams, and she knew these half-birds for what they were. Back then she had thought her dreams were just dreams, but she had since learned otherwise, and it seemed that every day she would learn that lesson again.

Standing next to her Valso said, “Hmmm, I hadn’t anticipated the Thane, or the Legions. Clever of him. So we’ll lose a few more jackals and armsmen than expected, but they’ll never take these walls, will they, Carsaris?”

The skeletal wizard held up an arrow, his eyes clouded with fear. “We have the means . . . to deal with the Thane, sire.”

The jackal warriors around them began yipping and howling like mistreated dogs. Far behind Morgin’s army a massive pack of enormous dogs larger than horses emerged from the woodland, loping forward to join the invading army.

“No,” Magwa shouted. “Not the Dane.” She swung toward Valso. “You didn’t tell us we would have to fight the Dane pack.”

Valso dismissed her complaints with a wave of his hand. “They can’t reach you at the top of these walls, can they? All they can do is stand below and howl while you rain arrows down upon them. Defend the wall at all costs, and we’ll crush them here.”

••••

Riding on TarnThane’s back was anything but pleasant. As Morgin and the legions of angels approached the walls of Durin from high above, he found the view magnificent, but the griffins didn’t tolerate saddles. The bony ridge of TarnThane’s spine made sitting up straight an unpleasant feat, so he clung to his bow, hugged the griffin’s neck, and prayed he wouldn’t fall.

With every angel carrying a bow and arrows, they should have had the advantage of height. They could stay high enough to remain out of range of arrows from below, and rain arrows down on their enemy from above. But as the leading edge of the assault approached the wall, arrows shot up from below with impossible speed, and griffins tumbled out of the sky to their deaths.

Morgin spotted a small clutch of people on the parapets just above the main gates: Valso, Rhianne, Magwa, Carsaris and several Kulls. It angered him that Valso would expose Rhianne so, but then he noticed that Valso deflected all the arrows that came their way with some sort of magical shield.

TarnThane stayed high and banked to one side, circling the wall just above the gates. Morgin saw one of Valso’s wizards standing on the wall next to a bowman. The bowman handed him an arrow, the wizard did something to it, handed it back to the bowman, and when the bowman released the arrow it shot upward like a bold of lightning.

Morgin pulled an arrow from his quiver, nocked it, and asked the steel arrowhead to strike true. He drew the bowstring back, aimed and released the arrow. It streaked through the air, pierced the wizard’s heart and he tumbled off the parapet, leaving the bowman with nothing but simple, mundane arrows.

As Morgin looked for another wizard-bowman pair, TarnThane flapped his massive wings and rose higher. “Remember your purpose here,” he called back to Morgin.

“You’re right,” Morgin said, realizing he’d lost sight of his primary goal. He wasn’t riding on a griffin’s back to kill enemy wizards. “Get me closer.”

As TarnThane lowered his head and dove, Morgin’s stomach climbed up into his throat. He gulped, recalling that the ancient Benesh’ere warrior Morddon had considered all of the griffins
crazy half-birds
. TarnThane pulled out of the dive and sliced through the air just above the wall, low enough to cause several bowmen there to duck. Behind the gates Morgin saw a wide, cobbled square bordered by the gates on one side and buildings on the other three. The square was empty of all but soldiers marching through it. They looked up as he and TarnThane streaked overhead. He sensed a steel-tipped arrow cutting through the air toward them, told the steel to deflect and it did.

“I got what I need,” he said to TarnThane.

The griffin banked steeply and turned back toward the army of the Lesser Clans.

35
Shadows of the City

As the battle above the wall raged on, TarnThane settled to the ground in the midst of Morgin’s army. Morgin climbed off the griffin’s back, glad to be back on solid ground.

“Did you find it?” Jerst asked.

“Aye,” Morgin said. “An alley between two buildings, about a hundred paces from the gates. And no one is paying it the least bit of attention. But I found something better too.”

France handed him a short, sharpened tree branch. “Draw it out for us, lad.”

The clan leaders and many of their lieutenants gathered around. Morgin squatted down and carefully drew in the dirt what he recalled of the square, the buildings, and the byways just behind the gates of the city. As he drew he said, “There are several entries into the city, but we’re going to concentrate on the main gates. On both sides of the gates, about 20 paces from them, there’s a shadowed archway in the wall at ground level. Above each is another shadowed archway on the parapets. I’m guessing that they’re connected by stairs, but it doesn’t matter because I can use the shadows in all of those archways, and the shadows in the alley.”

Jerst had claimed the right to lead the assault on the gates and open them, and Morgin felt it right to oblige him. There could be nothing more frightening for the defenders than to suddenly have towering Benesh’ere warriors appear among them, wielding swords and war axes.

Sitting on TarnThane’s back on the flight back, Morgin had thought this through carefully. He’d been looking for one shadow, hadn’t considered that he might find several he could use. He finished by saying, “I’m going to send the first two twelves out through the archways on top of the wall. Tell them to cause as much havoc as possible.”

He looked specifically at Jerst. “But Valso is holding my wife captive up there, so be careful. And if you can, rescue her.”

The warmaster nodded, and Morgin continued. “The next 24 I’ll send out of the alley. Tell them to head up the street toward the center of the city. Like the first 24 their job is to draw attention away from the gates. The last two twelves I’ll send out through the archways at ground level near the gates. Their job is to open the gates. Then I’m going to repeat, sending each group reinforcements until the gates open.”

He looked up at the faces leaning over him, all looking down at the crude sketch he’d scratched in the dirt. He looked pointedly at BlakeDown, Brandon, Wylow and PaulStaff. “Stay out of bowshot, but when the gates start to open, charge with mounted troops in the lead, foot soldiers following. We have to take those gates without losing our army beneath the walls.”

As the leaders dispersed to brief their armsmen, France gripped Morgin’s arm and said quietly, “The real battle here today, it isn’t for the city, is it?”

Morgin paused and looked his friend in the face. It brought joy to his heart to see the glint in the swordsman’s eyes again. “No, my friend,” he said. “We’re taking the city only so I can get to Valso. The real battle will be Rhianne and me against that thing he’s allowed onto the Mortal Plane.”

France nodded and grinned. “Well then, lad, you and me, all the way.”

Morgin owed France the truth. “But we can’t win that battle, because I haven’t found my true name.”

France looked over Morgin’s shoulder at the clan leaders. “The old witch says your true name is AethonSword.”

Morgin shrugged. “And in that, she’s wrong. Trust me, friend. Find a place to hide when this is done, because I don’t think it’s going to end well.”

••••

Morgin stood at the edge of the charred ground and faced the gates of Durin in the distance. On his immediate right the hellhound pack sat on their haunches, silent and intent, their eyes focused on the gates of Durin. A hundred paces farther to the right the army of the Lesser Clans had assembled, while the Benesh’ere had formed up a hundred paces to his left. In front of him stood a little over two hundred Benesh’ere, organized into squads of 24 warriors each, all on foot without their mounts.

Morgin had told Jerst, “Regardless of how this ends, the responsibility of the Benesh’ere is to make sure no Kulls survive this day.”

The warmaster had simply smiled and nodded.

Jerst had lined up the first squad of whitefaces in front of Morgin in two rows of 12, Jerst and Blesset each leading a twelve, all facing Morgin. The rest of the squads were lined up in similar fashion behind them. Earlier, Morgin had cast a few shadows a dozen paces apart then practiced this maneuver with Jerst and several of his warriors. They needed to move warriors through Morgin’s shadows at a pace much faster than a walk. Behind the whitefaces the battle above the wall continued without letup.

Morgin nodded and Jerst drew his sword. The Benesh’ere behind him and the armies to the sides did the same, drawing swords, hefting war axes, readying pikes. The hellhound pack merely rose up off their haunches, but remained silent, still focused on the gates of the city.

Morgin closed his eyes and concentrated his power. He thought of the shadows in the two archways at the top of the parapets, then he pictured a shadow behind him taller than any whiteface and six paces wide. He opened his eyes, glanced over his shoulder and saw the darkness hovering there. He stepped back so he stood half in and half out of that shadow, extended his arms and held his palms out to either side just within the shadow.

Morgin nodded, and Jerst and Blesset broke into a run, an easy jog that the warriors behind them duplicated. Jerst passed into the shadow on his right, Blesset on his left, both of them lightly slapping his palms as they went past. Morgin sent each out through one of the archways at the top of Durin’s parapets. As the warriors behind them jogged past him they slapped his palms just as they entered the shadow behind him, and he sent them to follow Jerst and Blesset.

••••

When the first arrow shot her way, Rhianne cringed, knowing she would now die, but at the last instant it jerked to one side. All about them griffins carrying angels swooped and dove, loosing arrows at jackals and armsmen. An arrow struck one of the black half-birds diving toward them, it folded its wings, and angel and griffin slammed into the battlements with such force they dislodged a crenel. Angel and griffin tumbled to the ground below and lay still.

Valso had conjured some sort of dome-like shield about her, him and a dozen Kulls. Outside it Magwa shouted orders at her commanders, while Carsaris directed a cadre of wizards magicking arrows. Griffins and angels fell from the sky, crashed to the earth and were quickly swarmed by Decouix armsmen. Rhianne had no training in war and battle tactics, but even she could see the griffin-mounted angels would not be sufficient to take the wall.

Valso grabbed her arm and pulled her toward him. He shouted to be heard above the noise about them. “You know this battle means nothing.”

She didn’t answer him, for she always learned something when she let him boast.

“The only thing that counts is that your husband is coming to me, and he’s bringing that sword.”

Still, she held her silence.

“My master forced the whoreson to forge that blade, tormented him for centuries, so it is my master’s self-forged blade. It would not hold such malevolent power otherwise.”

Valso’s reasoning was twisted, but perhaps true. Now was not the time to tell him there was no power in the steel Morgin carried, that the malevolent power had been housed in Morgin’s soul.

Rhianne suddenly heard steel blades clashing just outside Valso’s protective ring of Kulls, a sound she should not have heard at the top of the wall. Standing on tip-toes, she saw the white face and black hair of a Benesh’ere warrior, swinging his sword at a Kull, more of them pouring out the archway she’d emerged from earlier.

“Blast!” Valso said. “Damn his shadows.”

She sensed that thing enter his soul. She recoiled from him, but still holding onto her arm he pulled her close, and she felt him draw an enormous flow of power. Reality slipped away, the sky shifted from blue to a wan, orange, and the air about her grew hot and humid. A monster stood over her wearing the head of a goat with blood-red eyes. He shoved her aside hard enough that she fell to her hands and knees on ground that was now dry dirt. Valso and his master had dragged her and his Kulls deep into the netherworld.

The monster spoke in that voice she’d heard come from Valso’s lips recently. “He can have the wall. We’ll finish this in the heart of my power.”

Reality slipped back into place and they returned to Valso’s workroom high in the castle, his Kulls in a ring about them. Valso no longer wore the head of a goat. He pointed at Rhianne. “Get her back to her apartments, and guard her closely.”

As two of the Kulls grabbed Rhianne, lifted her to her feet and hustled her to the door, she heard him issuing orders. “Have everyone light torches, and carry them through the halls. If you see a shadow, get rid of it with the light of the torch, and cast a shadow elsewhere. I want every shadow in the castle constantly shifting and changing.”

••••

After Morgin sent the last of Jerst and Blesset’s twelves to the top of the wall, he nodded at the next squad. As they jogged toward him he shifted his focus to the shadow in the alley, sent the second twelves through there. The next squads he sent out through the archways at the base of the wall. Then he repeated the sequence, two twelves to the top of the parapets, two through the alley, two more through the archways at the base of the wall.

His hands grew sore at being slapped by so many Benesh’ere palms, while he kept his eyes focused on the gates of Durin. They began to open, though they moved slowly and ponderously, and he still had four squads left. Everyone must have been as focused as him on those gates, for several voices in the armies to both sides called for the charge, and the combined might of the hellhounds, the Benesh’ere and the four Lesser Clans surged forward.

Several of the whitefaces in front of Morgin hesitated and looked over their shoulders, but Morgin shouted, “Keep going.” They turned back to him, and squad by squad he sent them through to the shadows behind the gates. The last of the Benesh’ere slapped his palms and disappeared into his shadows.

Silence now surrounded Morgin as he stood there alone, three hundred paces from the wall, all the noise and violence now in the far distance.

He didn’t like it that Nicki and AnnaRail would ride to battle, but they were powerful witches, and were needed to support the armsmen. They would kill foes, and heal friends.

Mortiss neighed,
Shall we join them?

Morgin looked to his right where France stood, holding the reins of Mortiss and his own horse. “You and me, lad.”

••••

Mounted on their horses, Morgin and France paused side-by-side just inside the shadow of the alley a hundred paces behind the gates. The ground between them and the gates was strewn with dead: Decouix armsmen, jackal warriors, Kulls, Benesh’ere, griffins, with the livery of an angel draped across each massive griffin carcass. Morgin spotted Jerst high up on the parapets as he cut down one of the wizards magicking arrows for the bowmen. Near him Blesset traded blows with a jackal warrior, her off hand clutching at her side where her tunic was soaked with blood.

Morgin reinforced the shadows in the alley, scanned the wall and quickly identified several of Valso’s sorcerers. But most importantly he spotted Carsaris. He dismounted, strung his bow, nocked an arrow, aimed at the skeletal wizard and drew the string back. “Strike true,” he said, concentrating on the steel arrowhead. He released the arrow, watched it arc high above the square and descend slowly toward the wall. It punched into Carsaris’ back just as a bowman handed him an arrow to magic. The wizard staggered, clutching at the shaft protruding from his back, faltering backward step-by-step. Then he tumbled from the wall and smacked into the cobbles of the square. In quick succession Morgin killed four more wizards. Morgin hadn’t killed all of Valso’s sorcerers on the wall, but without Carsaris’ leadership, and with fewer magicked arrows holding them back, the angels and griffins took their toll of the defenders.

Down at the gates a squad led by Harriok and Jack the Only were hard pressed by jackals and Decouix armsmen. A few of them pushed on the gates, opening them much too slowly, while the rest fought at their backs, defending them with sword and axe and pike. The gates were not completely open when Harriok screamed at the top of his lungs, “Now.” At his command all the whitefaces in his squad jumped to both sides of the gateway as if laying down in defeat. Still standing in the middle of the partially open gates, the Decouix defenders hesitated, and in that instant the hellhounds hit them.

WolfDane came through first, lifted one of the defenders in his jaws, gave him a shake, snapped his spine and tossed him aside. In only a few heartbeats the hellhounds cleared the gates and loped into the open square behind it, followed by Harriok and his squad. The jackal warriors took one look at the Dane pack, turned and ran yowling with fear, leaving only Decouix armsmen and a few Kulls to fight on.

France said, “It worked nicely, lad.”

Morgin had given orders that the hellhound pack would be first through the gates. Long ago they had helped Morddon, the ancient Benesh’ere warrior, and through his eyes Morgin had seen the panic that flooded through the jackal horde when they faced the Dane. The hellhounds cleared the square, then spread out into the streets around it. Behind them came the Benesh’ere who swarmed up onto the wall, and quickly cleared it of defenders.

Morgin climbed into the saddle, and he and France spurred their horses into the square. They met WolfDane first. The hellhound was so much larger than a horse that even mounted on Mortiss, Morgin’s eyes were on a level with the Dane King’s.

Morgin said, “Your Majesty, we thank you for your aid.”

“Your Majesty,” WolfDane said in the deep, growling voice of a hellhound. “We thank you for the opportunity to hunt the bitch-queen’s hordes.”

Morgin said, “Then hunt well.”

WolfDane loped off to join his pack hunting down jackals in the streets.