Conflict (18 page)

Once again she missed, and a frightful pain ran up her right arm and spread through her side. What on earth was going on? She was missing all the attacks with infinite clumsiness. Her opponent was not even bothering to defend himself. Infuriated, she tried again, but her thrust at his face fell short of its target. The intense pain returned, and she almost dropped her sword.
The bastard has turned me into pure clumsiness! Every failure hurts me, and it’s getting worse. I’m killing myself!

She stepped back to examine her arm; the pain was so intense that she could barely hold her sword. Another miss and she would be at the mercy of her enemy. She glanced quickly towards Hartz, who was struggling with all his will and yet was unable to stand up and get close to his enemy. Komir was still lying on the ground, helpless, and the Sorcerer who had him in his spell was approaching him, sword in hand. Kayti had to help him. What could she do? What?

Her opponent rebuked her in a voice whose accent revealed his foreign origin.

“So the great soldier of Irinel is unable to withstand a simple opponent? So many years of training in the Brotherhood, and all in order to die like this? Show us your worth, bitch of the Custodial Brotherhood!” he spat in her direction.

Fury overcame Kayti. That milksop would pay dearly for his insolence. He would pay with his life for those insults. In a surge of fury she lunged at her opponent and launched a lethal stroke at his neck. He moved away easily and hit her cheekbone, hard. The pain stunned her. As she fell to the ground Kayti realized her mistake. Her fury had blinded her. She fell on her arm with a stab of pain, it forced her to drop her sword. She had missed again, and the spell had increased the pain. Her right arm was now useless and the pain had spread unbearably throughout her side. Her enemy was moving towards her, sword in hand, ready to finish her off.

Komir closed his hand over the Ilenian medallion which had helped him before in desperate situations. This was another one of them, and it could not be more critical. Only the help of the medallion could give them the chance to save themselves from those Dominators. Komir knew it, and he understood that he must use it. He searched for his inner energy, the sky-blue power he so feared and hated, that energy which turned him into an aberration of nature, but which at that moment was the only thing that would save him from death.

His opponent concentrated his attention on him once more and the pain multiplied, spreading throughout his body as if thousands of red-hot nails were being driven deep into his flesh.

He was going to die horribly, and so were his friends.

The pain and anxiety he felt turned into unexpected allies. They awoke the blue energy Komir was searching for. He closed his eyes and concentrated, trying to momentarily ignore the pain in his mind, and he was able to feel the medallion drawing from his energy, beginning to glow an intense, almost translucent, white. Arcane symbols in gold, bursting out from the symbiosis between his energy and the medallion, began to shape strange words in his mind. A spell of power was put together by the Ilenian medallion, a spell totally unknown to Komir. With an immense effort, in mortal pain, he reached out his hand towards his torturer.

Thunder erupted in the courtyard with a deafening boom. Next, a spectacular bolt of lightning appeared suddenly over their heads and zigzagged down onto his assailant, striking him with devastating power. The foreign Sorcerer fell in a cloud of smoke. Komir smelt burning flesh. He could not believe what had just happened! With astonished eyes he looked down at the jewel in the center of the medallion, which shone with a sharp white glow.

The searing pain stopped suddenly and vanished from his body. Komir understood that when the Sorcerer died, the spell had died with him.

The other two attackers turned to the Norriel.

“Impossible! How did you do that?” said the enemy Sorcerer with the silver breast-plate. There was amazement in his voice, which sounded foreign. “You’re no Mage. How could you have cast a spell like that? It’s impossible! Only a Mage of great power and many years of study could command such a powerful spell. What’s going on here? Who are you?”

Komir ignored the comments and prepared to attack.

“Norriel vermin! You’ll pay with your life for this!” said the other Sorcerer, and raised his sword towards him.

A new flash of the maleficent purple light told Komir that a new spell had been cast at him. This time he could make out huge, sharp jaws coming at him and entering his stomach. At once the pain returned to his battered body. It was different, concentrated in his belly, as if wild dogs were gnawing his insides. He doubled over, unable to bear more punishment. He tried to use the medallion, but his body would not respond.

A horrible scream made Komir look up. His attacker was howling in pain, with a dagger in his foot. Kayti was still on the ground, but her left hand was holding the dagger and twisting the sharp metal in the wound with a grimace of effort. The Sorcerer gathered himself together and raised his sword to kill the brave redhead who would not give up.

Hartz, gathering strength from his desperation, dragged himself step by step towards Kayti, shouting impotently: “Leave her alone! Get away from her!”

But the Norriel was too slow. He would not be able to stop the fateful blow.

A new spell from the leader flattened Hartz against the ground. Helpless tears ran down his cheeks.

The Sorcerer’s curved sword came down in an arc towards Kayti’s neck.

Hartz closed his eyes so as not to see her inevitable death.

Suddenly a slight figure flew over Kayti and with the momentum of that unorthodox leap brought down the enemy.

Komir watched in awe as Lindaro rolled on the ground and lay there winded.

When the lead Sorcerer saw his comrade in trouble he cast a spell on the priest.

At once Lindaro fell into an unbearable lethargy, and his eyes began to close. He shook his head in an attempt to come to his senses, but his mind was helpless under the influence of that treacherous spell. He fell asleep on the ground, unaware of everything around him.

Komir grabbed the medallion in his left hand and his throwing dagger in his right. Ignoring the terrible pain which was gnawing at his stomach, although somewhat less intensely now thanks to the courageous priest’s interruption, he managed to get to his knees. He waited for his enemy to get back to his feet. Then he threw the dagger with calculated precision, driving it through the Sorcerer’s neck, taking him by surprise. While the Sorcerer writhed, choking on his own blood, Komir felt the pain beginning to leave his body. The effect of the spell was fading. With a final spasm, the Sorcerer died and Komir was free again.

The leader of the foreigners bellowed in a strange language.

Kayti stood up and took back her sword, free at last from the spell.

The leader took a step towards the redhead. “So you’re the one sent by the Custodial Brotherhood. You managed to hide it from me. You played your cards well, you’re smart. First you escaped the attack on the fortress of your order in the Lost Mountains. You fled in the middle of the night. Very astute of your order’s superiors, and a major setback for me. I still don’t know how they managed to fool me.”

“I have nothing to say to you, you pig,” Kayti said. “Don’t you dare soil the name of the Custodial Brotherhood with your viper’s words!”

The masked man laughed and went on:

“And then you managed to survive the ambush we prepared for you, thanks to the help of these two highland savages. I thought I’d finished you off in that clearing, but it was just a decoy I killed, wasn’t it? That was a serious error on my part. I underestimated your ability, your instinct to survive. Unfortunately for you it was all for nothing. You’re going to die here today, and all the efforts and maneuvers of your order will have been of no avail. In the end my mission will be crowned with success.”

“Save your threats, Guzmik,” she yelled, unable to control her anger. “You’ll be the one that dies here today. You’ll pay for the death of my Brothers!”

“So you know my name… There are few who have that privilege. I see your Brotherhood is well informed. A pity that all your people’s efforts are going to be useless.”

“Don’t you dare mention my Brothers again, you foreign snake!” she threatened.

Guzmik walked across to where Lindaro was sleeping peacefully under the effect of the spell, unaware of what was happening.

“Do your new comrades know the real reason why I’m chasing you? Have you told them what your real mission is? The sacred mission you’ve sworn to carry out for the Custodial Brotherhood, the mission for which I must kill you and for which they will also die?” He took one step forward, defiantly. “You haven’t? Of course not. They’ll die in this cold courtyard without knowing the reason, without understanding what lies behind their fate, knowing you haven’t told them the whole truth…”

“Silence, you misbegotten scum!” Kayti shouted.

“So much fury! What a shame to have to cut your young life short,” Guzmik replied with bitter irony.

Kayti launched her attack, impelled by her hate and rage. Guzmik raised his sword and Komir saw the flash of the new spell he was casting. An illusory rope coiled around Kayti’s neck. She dropped her sword and fell to her knees with her hands at her throat.

“I… can’t breathe…no air…” she managed to stammer.

“That’s right, little one. Death by asphyxiation is a truly horrible thing. But don’t worry, it’ll soon be over. I’m going to enjoy killing you all slowly, one by one. You’re going to pay dearly for the death of my two faithful disciples and for all the trouble you’ve caused. Don’t try to speak, you can’t. Enjoy your last agonizing moments. Oh, but how rude of me! Let me provide you with a vision that will accompany you for all eternity.”

The powerful Sorcerer rose over Lindaro. Without a sound he looked at Kayti, gave the trace of a bow and drove his curved sword into the helpless man’n stomach.

“Nooooo!” Komir shouted. There was pure despair in his voice.

“You damned assassin! I’ll kill you!” yelled Hartz with all the might of his lungs.

The Sorcerer looked at them and laughed, sure of his victory.

Instinctively Komir closed his hand over the medallion. Guided by visceral anger, he searched his inner energy to annihilate that despicable being. He found it. And prepared to use it as he had done before. Strange symbols began to take shape in his mind. He did not know their meaning or what would happen next, but he was hoping it would be deadly.
You’ll see now, you swine! You’ll pay with your life for this!
Komir thought as he saw his medallion beginning to cast a spell for him.

There was a sudden painful explosion in his mind.

The symbols disappeared, shattered into a thousand pieces. Komir stepped back, aching and confused. His mind seemed to have collapsed for some reason, and the spell had failed. This mental collapse left Komir with a terrible headache, unable to use the magic of the medallion. He looked at Guzmik with bloodshot eyes.

Guzmik laughed with pure evil.

“You didn’t expect me to stop your spell, did you?” he said sarcastically, pointing at his curved sword. “You’re slow and clumsy, little Mage apprentice. You have no knowledge of the Art, no training. Interrupting your attempts at conjuring is child’s play for someone with my power. All the same, that object I see around your neck is more valuable than any riches a simpleton like you could imagine. Now I see how you were able to kill my acolyte. It’s the medallion, I can feel its enormous, profoundly ancient magic… It gives you the ability to use the immense power within it, without the need for years of training and studying to command it. Who knows what spells are held inside it, and what their power might be? It’s something unique and exceptional…It has to be mine. Its value is incalculable. Give me the medallion!”

Komir shook his head with a stubbornness born of the hatred he felt. Tears of impotence welled in his eyes as he stared at Lindaro, under whose body, where it lay on the cold floor of the courtyard, a circle of red blood was forming. Komir felt shattered, his tortured body stretched beyond human limits. But he was not going to give the medallion to that murderous sorcerer.

He would die before that.

Guzmik came towards him.

Komir could feel the torture of Kayti’s death by asphyxiation, and Hartz’s agony with an illusory weight on his back flattening him against the ground.

Guzmik cast a spell as he advanced. Komir’s arms turned into heavy slabs he could no longer hold up beside him. Komir knew it was an illusion, that the spell was making his mind believe his arms were enormously heavy, that they were encased in rock. It was not real! But he could not lift them, it was impossible.

Guzmik approached him and tore off the medallion with a jerk. Triumphant laughter echoed across the courtyard. He placed the ceremonial sword on Komir’s neck and prepared to cut off his head.

With all the strength remaining to him Komir tried to raise his arms, but in vain. He was finished.
This is the end, I’m going to die. We’re all going to die here!
he thought, while desperation took hold of his soul. He raised his eyes to look at his big friend who with a gigantic effort was trying to struggle to his knees, sword in hand.
I’m sorry about this ending, my friend. Truly sorry. You should never have come with me. I’ve brought you to your ruin. To your death. I’m sorry, I really am, Hartz. Forgive me.
Komir closed his eyes and waited for the fatal blow.