The Wizard and the Warlord (The Wardstone Trilogy Book Three) (55 page)

***

Inside the wall, almost a dozen hellcats had landed and taken to the streets. Innocent folk, farmers, seamstresses, and leathermen were thrashed by tooth and claw. Women and children were torn to shreds, and refugees trampled by their own townsfolk trying to get away.

But there was no place to go.

A series of streaking blasts sent a wagon full of chicken cages spinning over into a small, roped-in herd of sheep. The herd broke loose. A piece of the blazing wagon set a young girl’s hair on fire. She flailed and screamed in terror and pain. Her mother ran to help but both were mangled to bloody chunks by the more powerful kinetic blast of a Choska demon that was perched atop a chapel nearby.

A huge, smoldering hole was left in the street were the woman and girl had just been. A blackened leg, smaller than a man’s arm, with a shiny red shoe on its foot, twitched once, then again. People screamed and still tried to flee, only to find a pair of wyverns slinging acidic slobber over the crowd like rain.

A bat-like Choska glided down over the crowd and snatched a fat, shrieking farm wife.

A block over, an angry young plow boy swung a dirt rake into one of the wyverns. The tines caught in the beast’s black, scaly hide and the boy pulled it out of the air. A half-dozen men with hoes and shovels beat the thing to a pulp only to find their feet and lower legs sizzling and dissolving from the wyvern’s acid blood.

While the Choska sat on its perch busying itself by tearing apart the huge meal it had caught, a young mage attacked. The boy sent a thin little crackle of lightning at the Choska from the rooftop of a nearby inn. The bolt would have been insignificant had it not finished its jagged streak directly into one of the Choska’s ember eyes. The mangled farm wife fell from its jaws and landed half in, half out of an abandoned pot maker’s cart that still had a terrified horse harnessed to it. As the demon screeched a terrible, ear-splitting cry, the horse charged through the crowd, leaping and lurching over huddled people until the wagon finally hung on something.

From under the broken wagon an old man wailed. The horse fell as a pair of arrows pierced its vitals.

Half a mile away, a row of shops owned by tapestry weavers and tailors was fully ablaze. Around the fire, two imps, a wyvern, and a blood-lusting thing that looked half insect, half reptile were decimating the people, causing them to stampede like cattle, trampling their neighbors and kin into the bloody snow.

Closer to the city gate a terrible creature as big as a two-story tavern lashed and destroyed everything within reach of its many tentacles. Already a dozen people had been grabbed up and dashed against the rubble, then tossed away by the evil monster.

While all of this was happening, fat, lazy snowflakes drifted down out of the night sky.

Inside the city, even where hellspawn weren’t attacking, the conditions were miserable. It was freezing cold and blankets were scarce. No one dared brave a fire, not even to cook. To attract one of the dark-winged beasts was to attract death in quantity. Even atop the smaller thirty-foot high wall that surrounded the palace grounds, the soldiers and archers crowded there didn’t light the torches yet. They would have to soon enough. Already a pair of hellcats were ravaging through the reserve troops who were waiting in the forested park near Whitten Loch.

And above them all, searching for the place it would unleash its evil magic, was an angry, one-eyed Choska.

Along the rooftops of the eastern portion of Xwarda, a dark creature skittered to and fro. It was seen here, then there. It was pointed at and whispered about, but it didn’t stay still long enough to be identified. Whatever it was, it was terrifyingly fast and left behind long streamers of glittery dust that glistened in the moonlight.

***

King Mikahl found the Warlord. The Hell Master had cleared a large circle around himself with dragon’s fire and ordered his minions to leave the human king to him. The young Westlander had chopped off his lover’s head. Even the parts of the Dark Lord that had long forgotten Gerard knew that much. After all, it was the Dragon Queen who had tried so hard to help him break free of the Nethers before. This pesky little man and his sword were nothing but fodder to him. The Warlord wasn’t a mere demon, nor was he susceptible to being drawn into Pavreal’s blade, but it was the satisfaction of avenging her death that caused the Warlord to fight the High King alone.

The two of them exchanged blows with both steel and claw. They blasted powerful magics at each other and circled cautiously in ever defensive patterns. Both took wounds, but both found the shielding spells that thwarted the other’s magic. Neither of them had the advantage, and neither of them was backing down.

Mikahl was frustrated beyond rational thinking. Nothing he seemed to do more than nicked the powerful thing Hyden’s brother had become. He was dodging and defending himself fairly well, but he knew that if the Warlord let his minions into the fight, it was over. The only reason he was still alive was because this malformed monster was determined to kill him itself.

Mikahl fought the Warlord most of the night and accomplished nothing more than keeping it out of Xwarda. He wondered if it wasn’t the other way around. Was this thing with Skyler eyes toying with him to keep him from defending the city?

Like spectators at the Summer’s Day brawl, a few dozen greater demons lingered, watching their master fight the human king. Mikahl was determined to kill this powerful, dark beast that was somehow able to avoid the bite of his blade, but he was wary of the others. If they started at him, he would try to break away and regroup. Until then, he would fight on, thinking that if he could just get Ironspike through his foe’s plated hide it would be over in an instant. Deep inside, he knew that if he didn’t, it was over for the world of men.

The idea came to him that Ironspike’s power had never been enough to conquer all this evil, but the thought of his unborn child and wife being torn apart by the thing before him wouldn’t let him succumb.

Without faltering, Mikahl ground his jaw and fought on.

***

Phen led the elves through the same tunnel that Vaegon and Dugak, once used to rejuvenate Ironspike while King Mikahl lay dying. That’s how Phen knew about it. Once he’d heard the tale, he pestered everyone until he was shown the location, but that was before all of this madness, even before he and Hyden sailed after the silver skull. To Phen’s surprise, when he climbed up the ladder at the end of the tunnel and lifted a floor section that opened into an old wine cellar, Dugak and a pair of young castle-born dwarves were huddled there. A candle stood in a teacup and lit the room enough to see that they’d tapped a small keg and were getting drunk.

“Ah, Phen,” Dugak said in a slurring stupor, as if the boy popped his head up out of the castle floor every day. “Good to see you, lad.”

Phen grinned for an instant, but the memory of Oarly’s death shattered his mood. “I’ve got company,” he said.

“Good lad,” Dugak slurred. “The queen will be glad to hear it. There is already a handful of demons outside in the park. They’re trying to get into the castle now.”

Phen shook his head, climbed out, and then helped Dostin and Gaveon shove the two great wolfs gracelessly up through the square hole. The Queen Mother came next, and Dugak stumbled to his feet so that he could bow with reverence. Even a drunken castellan knew royalty by sight, and Dugak was most capable at his job. “I’ll go announce you to Queen Willa,” Dugak said as more elves streamed into the room.

“Just open the door,” Telgra snapped. “We need room. There are more than two hundred elven warriors with me, and we’re already out of space.”

Dugak shook his head to clear it; luckily the other two elves were already exiting the cellar. The corridor beyond was torchlit, and a long rectangle of light shined on the group. Dugak backed out into the hall and bowed again. “What should I tell Queen Willa?” he asked, glancing first at Telgra, then at Phen.

Phen shrugged.

“Tell her I'm sending my blades and my bows to greet the evil things at her doorstep,” Telgra said. “Please have someone show the archers to a rooftop or a set of windows that will allow them the opportunity to loose on the enemy.”

“Come on,” Phen said. “Archers, follow me. Dugak, have someone show the swordsmen to the gate, and then present Queen Mother Telgra and this monk to Queen Willa.”

Phen didn’t wait for a reply. He began herding the elves carrying bows out into the hall. Arf gave him a quizzical look and whined. “Go with Yip and the swordsmen,” Phen told the wolf.

Arf barked his agreement and wagged his tail briefly. Their eyes met and the feeling that they might never see each other again passed between them.

Phen wasn’t sure which of them was going to die, and he didn’t have time to ponder it. If the castle’s protective walls were already breached, then it would probably be both of them. He intended to get the archers situated then round up both Queen Willa and Telgra back here where they had a way to escape, if it came to it. As an afterthought, he ordered several of the elves to go back and guard the opening that led to the tunnel. Then he led the others to a stairway and started climbing up. Since they were four floors below ground level, an elevated position for the archers was at least half a dozen flights above them.

***

The sun was just starting to rise in the east when an explosion shook the entire battlefield. A huddle of devils, led by a long, serpent-like creature with a dozen legs on each side of its body, had concentrated their magic and blasted a whole section of the wall inward. Now, the wingless horde swarmed over the rubble to join the rest of the Dark Lord’s legions on the already blood-soaked city cobbles. Outside the walls, barely a quarter of the men and dwarves who started the battle still lived, and most of them were exhausted and injured. They didn’t stop fighting, and they found the fortitude to attempt to fill the gap in the wall while breed giant dragon gunners and spell-weary mages did their best to protect them from above.

The gatesmen in the northern and eastern sections of the city threw the gates open so that the people trapped inside could flee. Only those who exited at the forest gate made it very far. Most of the eastern part of the city had been turned into a massive spider web overnight. Dozens of man-sized, bulbous-bodied arachnids scurried along the web lines that spanned from building to building. The streets and alleyways were closed off by wild, kaleidoscopic patterns. The people who got caught up in the sticky mess were quickly stung and wrapped in webbing. When the sun topped the hills to the east, a few hundred cocooned corpses dangled from the higher strands like laundry.

Phen saw it all from atop the main palace building’s pebbly roof. Directly below him, battle raged around the freezing waters of the huge fountain pond called Whitten Loch.

Beyond the palace’s protective wall, nearly a full quarter of the city was also covered in shimmering webs. Elsewhere, people huddled, chattering and terrified, in ragged groups. It was so cold that wispy clouds formed by their breath rose from them and gave them away. A dozen huge fires raged across the city and twice as many were now only smoldering piles. Entire blocks lay in ruins, and bodies littered the crimson slush-covered streets.

Hundreds upon hundreds of demon kind could be seen oozing through the distant breach in the outer wall. They flowed toward the castle as if they were a spill of molasses. Hundreds more dark, evil things circled overhead like carrion birds waiting for something to die. And below Phen, now under a steady rain of elven arrows, more men, dwarves, and elves fought with the creatures that had come down inside the barrier.

Shouts from the defenders below told him that the castle itself had been busted open. Phen looked up to see that the palace walls beyond the fountain pond were being overrun as well.

***

King Mikahl heard a sound over the din; a mighty sound. The Warlord seemed to recognize it, and so did the greater devils and demons encircling their battle. All of them went tense and seemed more alert. Mikahl pressed harder at the Warlord and managed to get a powerful fist of kinetic magic past the Hell Master’s guard. The Warlord went staggering back a few steps and nearly buckled a wing as it tried to catch its balance. Then the Warlord let out a roar of pain and anger and suddenly Mikahl was the one being pressed.

Raking foreclaws, fiery breath, and then a blast of red-hot sizzling power sent Mikahl and his bright horse reeling up and backward. Ironspike’s shields took the brunt of the damage, but Mikahl was left off-kilter and forced to flail about to keep himself mounted.

With a snapping whip crack, the tip of the Dark Lord’s tail pierced through Ironspike’s shielding. It shattered the protective field as if it were the thinnest layer of glass. Then a quick, cartwheeling spin had the Warlord’s hind claws raking across Mikahl’s face.

The High King twisted away in time to save his eyes, but his forehead was gashed wide, and blood poured over his vision in a crimson sheet. It was all he could do to stay on the bright horse while the magical pegasus fought to right itself.

The sound he’d heard came again. It was a roar, a gut-shaking roar, full of contempt. The sound caused an involuntary shudder of fear to pass through Mikahl. The Warlord paused, too. Then he answered with a flame-spewing roar of his own. The Master of Hell’s call was a full-out challenge. Mikahl started to attack in that instant, but a shadow completely engulfed the overhead light and made him pause. In that same heartbeat, the Warlord unleashed a hissing blast of freezing cold magical power. Mikahl, with Ironspike held in his hand at the ready, and the bright horse pulsing between his legs, froze instantly solid and began tumbling toward the ground.

After using his dragon’s fire and his kinetic blast over and over again against the human king, the Warlord decided to do something different. When he heard the depth of the roar that drowned everything out, he decided to end this skirmish right here. Sending out a pulse of freezing energy, the Warlord’s magic froze Mikahl and left him dropping like a stone. The roar meant that there were dragons about, and the Dark Lord didn’t hesitate. It would be foolish to restrain the greater demons any longer.